Carol Houk: 

I’ve been working with glass as an art medium for just over 20 years. Like many glass artists, I started with traditional stained glass, using both copper foil and lead came techniques to join pieces of colorful glass together to make my designs.  Much of my traditional stained glass pieces have been commissioned and installed in homes or businesses.  Designs for these have ranged from geometric patterns to Tuscan scenery.  Smaller stained glass works include colorful mandalas, terrariums, and dreamcatchers, which can be seen on display at Gallery Calapooia.
About 6 years ago, I started working with kiln formed glass and a whole new world of possibilities opened up.  I can be a crafter, painter, or sculptor, working in 2 dimensions or 3.  I can even make 2 dimensions look 3-dimensional through layering and the magnifying properties of curved glass. 
During the past year of pandemic quarantine, I started exploring the potential of molten, flowing glass:  heating a plate of multi-colored glass to the softening point (~1280º F) and watching it slowly drop through an open hole to create a deep vase, or seeing how melting cubes of layered colored glass will flow into an empty space to create a unique solid pattern. 
This past Christmas I was given a vitrigraph kiln, which allows me to create thin strings or “stringers” and ribbons, or thicker 1/4” diameter canes of glass, all of which can be used as design elements in subsequent work or for trees and bushes in my glass frit paintings.  (Frit is crushed glass, which is screen-filtered into powder, fine, medium, and course grits and used in a variety of ways in fused glass artwork.) Lately, I’ve been working out how to place glass in a clay pot to make murrine or millefiori. Pulling molten glass out of the bottom of the vitrigraph kiln can take a couple of hours , but the end results are usually work the effort.
In July, I’ll be taking an online class entitled “A Painterly Portrait in Glass” with famed glass artist and painter, Tim Carey.  In this class we’ll be using transparent colored glass, glass frit, and glass enamel paint to create unique portraitures.  Working at Judson Studio in LA, along with glass artist, Narcissus Quagliata, and Bullseye Glass in Portland, Tim designed and created the “Resurrection Window” which is installed in Leawood, KS.  Measuring 94ft X 37ft, it is the largest stained glass window in the world.

More of my work can be seen online at www.bellevistaglassworks.com and on FaceBook at Belle Vista Glassworks.

Bill Origer: “The Night Sky”

I have been fascinated by the stars since I was a child in Nebraska. I learned the constellations when I was in grade school. The skies were dark, and the summer stars seemed close enough to touch. When I was 10, my parents let me stay up long past my bedtime to see the first Russian satellite, Sputnik. When I began photography in college, astrophotography was out to he question. The film and cameras were not sensitive to low light.
Digital photography now makes it possible to combine both interests.  I still want realism – showing the scene as is was at the time. The challenge is to capture the sky and the landscape using available light in a single image. I do not add anything to the photo in the computer. I do not blend images (separate shots of sky & foreground assembled in the computer.) This requires attentions to many details: the the position of the astronomic object in  relation to the landscape, clarity and darkness of the sky, the phase & location of the moon, intensity of twilight afterglow, the presence & intensity of streetlights, building lights, and the glow from nearby cities. And it helps to be a night owl who can nap during the day. Thank you to my teacher and mentor, Grant Kaye, a brilliant young photographer in Truckee, California. 

Art on the GO

Gift Registry and Gift Certificates

Remember that Gallery Calapooia has gift certificates if you don’t know exactly what to get for your friends or loved ones. We also have a gift registry for those of you who really know what you want from the gallery and would like to be able to stop dropping hints! When your significant other says to you, What do you want for Christmas, Hanukah, or….?; You can say you put it in the gift registry at Gallery Calapooia. In addition, we have a great selection of artist made cards and we can wrap your gift for you so you can relax and enjoy any celebration.

Artist Membership

Gallery Calapooia is currently looking for new artists to be a part of the gallery. All applications are juried by committee (see links below):

Artist Application form for membership in Gallery Calapooia
Membership and application information

Visit our Events Calendar to keep up with classes and events that will be
occurring at the gallery.