06 Sep Slate Gray September: Fine Art Jeweler Designer Tana Acton Featured, 9/13 – 9/15!
Telluride’s Slate Gray Gallery enters the fall season with a series of shows at the venue.
“Panoramas,” features the work of local Brett Schreckengost, September 5 – 29. His fine art photography amounts to a love letter to the San Juans.
September also includes trunk shows with two fine art jewelers First up. Tana Acton, September 13- September 15. Nanci Modica follows, September 26 – September 30.
Beth McLaughlin & Tana Acton.
As an artist and entrepreneur, Tana Acton started her career showing her work at craft fairs at the tender age of 16. She then progressed in her creative endeavors to graphic artist, dance, choreography, painting, and eventually fashion design for some of New York’s leading knitwear and house-ware companies.
As a designer/choreographer, Tana’s perspective is unique: she combines air, movement, and light to create pieces that are at once delicate, yet solid. Her jewelry line is contemporary, lightweight, affordable, and can be worn casually or dressed up.
We talked about her life and work in the following email interview:
TIO: Please talk about the influence of your artist parents on your young life. Did they encourage you to follow in their footsteps or was the will to create in your DNA and just had to come out?
TA: When one grows up in a house where something is always being made from some kind of material or another it’s hard to not be drawn into doing the same as it mostly seemed like play. In addition, there was much encouragement, as well as what was coursing through the veins as a youngster. It just seemed to be how it was, and how could it have been otherwise? There was lots of drive in all members of the family to learn and achieve. Little did I know I was so incredibly blessed.
TIO: Reviewing your bio, it is abundantly clear you are highly trained in a variety of mediums, from goldsmithing to graphic design and modern dance. Please talk about your education outside your home that ultimately fine-tuned the creative being you were genetically destined to become.
TA: I definitely dipped my toe into a lot of creative puddles… as a self-starter, focusing much on painting, design, metals and, much later, on fashion design at Parsons, there seemed to be an amalgamation of so many mediums possible in the fashion world and the lessons of that world prepared me to launch on my own.
TIO: What is the nexus of those disparate disciplines, if any?
TA: I love the word nexus! Yes, all of these experiments, experiences and efforts did lead to wearable art using a textile technique that brought together design, hand work, movement, art, adornment, human interaction, fun, etc. etc.
TIO: You use textile techniques when fashioning your jewelry pieces. Please talk more about your process and favorite raw materials.
TA: When weaving one must have a framework, which turns out to be a big piece of the design to come: The frame dictates the form and the one continuous wire allows the piece to fill in, but leave space. Space which can invite moving or caged elements. So the entire length of the wire runs through the hands as the frame is turned over again and again. (I will be working on pieces in the gallery to demonstrate.) Very few tools are involved once the weaving has begun. Wire is not considered a raw material as it has to be highly processed to become wire. Therefore my work has metal hardness combined with thread, softness and malleability. The challenge is to take such a simple thing and turn it into good wearable design. The stones, pearls and other elements I embellish my pieces with can push design ideas, though the plain pieces often have some of the best aesthetics I ever attain.
TIO: When and how did your affiliation with Slate Gray come about?
TA: I had been involved with the Telluride Gallery for many years, and was thrilled when the Slate Gray folks decided to keep me in the fold when they took over the reigns. So glad it all seems to be working out!!
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