In the Gallery: June

In the Gallery
CAROL GRIFFITH was born in Celina, Ohio and moved to Dayton when she was three. She graduated from Oakwood High School and went on to the University of Dayton. For eighteen months after graduation she worked at National Cash Register Company and realized it was not for her, for Art was to be her Life!

She married, had two sons and was a stay-at-home mom until her sons grew older and Carol realized she was a good enough artist to support herself, which she did for twenty five years. As a practicing artist she sculpted children in clay and made exact doll images in porcelain. Most of the dolls were commission pieces.

Her work is on permanent display in Sidney and Melbourne, Australia museums, where she traveled extensively, displaying and selling her work and making authentic repairs and restorations to antique dolls for New York Antique Dealers. She created unique and unusual porcelain Christmas ornaments that are now collector’s items.

When Carol met and married Steve, his business required a move to Indiana. She packed up her kilns and porcelain and settled on the sandy shores of Morse Lake in Cicero, Indiana. Soon after the move, Steve told Carol she didn’t have to work anymore. So, after fifteen years, the kilns and porcelain have not been unpacked.

The Renaissance woman and her art began to emerge. She enrolled in Photography classes, then Watercolor lessons at The Indianapolis Art Center and studied with Leah Traugot and Joanne Cardwell. She joined the Watercolor Society of Indiana and The Hamilton County Artists Association and began taking workshops with nationally known artists. She entered competitions, sometimes being rejected and sometimes winning prizes. One of her proudest moments was winning the Best of Show award for a photograph of her granddaughter, Zoey. It was the first time in the history of this competition that a photograph had ever won Best of Show! At the same show in the same year, she also won third place in Watercolor. Both of these works are on display in this show.

Indianapolis born, LYNNE HAMRICK found a small Craft Shop in Mooresville, Indiana that offered craft classes and fell head-over-heels in love with their egg art classes. She took several and soon began designing her own eggs and shortly thereafter began teaching classes herself. She enjoys both designing and teaching others to design. In the last 35 years she has made over one thousand eggs which she shares with others and gives as gifts.

She uses eggs of all sizes from quail to ostrich, but prefers goose eggs because of their hard, smooth shell. Lynne now buys already blown eggs from Texas since they are no longer available in this area. The egg, for Lynne, is a symbol of new life and she finds great joy in creating something new and beautiful from them.