Originally from the East Coast, Kelly Defayette has been showing in the Bay Area for the past 20 years. Abstract and brightly colored, her geometric wood panels veer from tessellated formations to irregular polygons in differing depths. A high gloss epoxy resin gives each piece the feel of a wall sculpture and the finish of an object.

Kelsey lives and works in San Diego. She received her MFA in 2018. She says of her work, process, and inspirations: "My multi-media abstract paintings are blueprints: a visual reference for the structure of the human experience. This structure is divided into three rooms: the body, sensory experience, and thoughts and feelings. I create the blueprint for these rooms using the principles of embodiment, awareness, and the tension of yin and yang. My process uses the pacing of impulsive movements and slow, meditative marks to portray the power and fragility of the body. The senses are an exploration of the specific meanings and stories our bodies tell. I paint in silence to heighten the other senses and increase sensitivity to the mystery and breadth of the human experience. In a way, my art is an act of sensory sharing between the artist, observer, and blueprint of what it means to be human in the world today. The painting process teaches me how to live more effectively outside the studio, respecting the senses, inspiring focus, and honoring the rhythm and beauty of life. "

"The Other Side of Light"

August 5th - October 7th 2023

Opening Reception Saturday August 5th 5-7pm

A series of larger scale paintings inspired by light.

"Slow down, and receive the gifts. That’s what I’ve learned recently. By immersing myself in the present moment, I’ve discovered a world of beauty that just wants to be enjoyed. Working outside, I find delight in the shadows and the new meditative marks of embroidery. It’s a metaphor for rest and presence—a reminder to appreciate the subtle wonders around us. In this journey, may we discover the artistry of nature, the soothing solace of shadows, and the meditative joy of slowing down long enough to receive the gifts surrounding us. Let us find respite in these moments, for it is here that we truly come alive."

Kelsey lives and works in San Diego. She received her MFA in 2018. She says of her work, process, and inspirations: "My multi-media abstract paintings are blueprints: a visual reference for the structure of the human experience. This structure is divided into three rooms: the body, sensory experience, and thoughts and feelings. I create the blueprint for these rooms using the principles of embodiment, awareness, and the tension of yin and yang. My process uses the pacing of impulsive movements and slow, meditative marks to portray the power and fragility of the body. The senses are an exploration of the specific meanings and stories our bodies tell. I paint in silence to heighten the other senses and increase sensitivity to the mystery and breadth of the human experience. In a way, my art is an act of sensory sharing between the artist, observer, and blueprint of what it means to be human in the world today. The painting process teaches me how to live more effectively outside the studio, respecting the senses, inspiring focus, and honoring the rhythm and beauty of life. "

Kelsey Simmen

Kelsey is a jewelry artist who fabricates her work by hand in Northern California. After earning her degree, she worked under several notable women in the jewelry field, accumulating a diverse toolbox to start a jewelry studio.

Her work features sugar as the main theme. She creates
textures in her pieces by growing, manipulating, and building with its crystals, from tiny sanding sugar to large rock candy. Kelsey`s intention is to create beautiful pieces that are distinct and thoughtful. The ultimate inspiration behind using sugar is her experience with type 1 diabetes, which has been a part of her life for over 25 years. While living with diabetes can be challenging, it brings her joy to share her experiences with people and create connections through jewelry.

Laura Lienhard founded her jewelry studio after a successful twenty-year career in textile design, turning a highly trained eye from the patterns of the loom toward explorations in metal. Investigations into the interplay of pattern and structure define her work.Elements in her jewelry are derived from nature's forms and textures as well as its surprises. Spontaneity and instinct lead to unique, often kinetic connections of hand fabricated elements that harken back to her textile roots.
Crafted in a varying palette of 18K gold, silver, shibuichi and keum-boo Laura's jewelry represents the transformation of nature's raw beauty into personal expressions of elegance.
Laura has a BFA in Textile Desian and an MFA in Industrial Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has attended intensive metal workshops at Haystack Mountain school of Crafts in Maine, Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and Alchimia Jewellery School in Florence Italy. Recently she has been studying independently with a master jeweler and artist in the hills of Fiesole above Florence.
Laura works from her studio in Sausalito, CA.

Born in Scotland, installation artist Lee Borthwick has been creating custom-made and site-specific natural artworks for residential, commercial, and exterior spaces since 2009. She regularly works with a range of retailers both in the UK and USA, as well as restaurants, interior designers, arts organizations, and private clients worldwide. Lee’s work combines her love of wild landscapes with organic materials and hand-construction techniques to create works that provide a tactile, reflective, and poetic experience for the viewer. These wall pieces were created from ash and hazel branches from forest management projects in Nymans National Trust Woodland. Lee has a MA in constructed textiles from the Royal College of Art, and lives and works in East London.

A studio potter residing in Portland, Oregon, Lilith works primarily in porcelain. Her work, created by hand on the potter's wheel, reveals a deep interest in the subtle qualities of the material: translucency, fluidity, density, and the velvety softness of an unglazed polished surface. Minimal in both form and surface, her work calls attention to subtle nuances of line or shadow, with a delight in the quiet imperfections that characterize the handmade.

Linda Hsiao is a freelance industrial designer specializing in eyewear and accessories, her many passions including gardening, cooking, ceramics and woodcarving have grown into a line of whimsical and precious objects made for the home. Inspired by the natural materials of wood and ceramic each piece is made by hand.
Lind lives in LA, Ca and works under the name of the company she co founded with her partner Knotwork LA.

Former graphic designer Maral Rapp’s focus on detail and craft, commitment to personal style, and deep love for vintage objects all come together to create this singular, metal mesh jewelry. Forever drawn to the flashy, fluid metal of Mid Century and Art Deco mesh purses,
Maral was inspired to give the iconic handbags new life in a more wearable, contemporary style.

Working from her Oakland, California studio, she presents swatches of the reclaimed mesh as small jewels, as artifact, rich with history yet decidedly modern. Detailed with precious metals, the resulting works offer this storied material in a fresh, accessible, and ultimately more personal way — delivering slinky, flashing jewelry that glows in the lowest of light.

Maxine Sutton describes her work as a meeting point, between early creative experiences with textiles in her childhood, as well as her formal art education in Fine Art / Painting. Textile exists as both form and content in her work. After a first degree in Fine Art Painting, Maxine later reconnected with her affinity for cloth, and studied for an MA in Constructed Textiles at the Royal College of Art.

Recent work can be characterized by the combination of screen printing with embroidery, appliqué and other needlework processes. Sutton works with found, recycled and organic fabrics, and also makes works on paper, often experimenting with taking imprints of ink saturated forms from the cloth during the screen printing process.
Drawing is the foundation of Sutton`s formal art training and so whether with pencil, brush, thread or scissors, drawing continues as a framework. An obsession with colour, moving in and out of shape, also underpins her process

Through a layered process, often working with scraps and leftovers, her work explores the uncertainty, disarray, and fragmentation of our existence, together with a compulsion to reconstitute and reclaim.

Maxine Sutton is a graduate of the Royal College of Art (2005) and Ravensbourne College of Art (1985). Maxine has worked as a commercial artist and designer in graphics and textiles, before pursuing a full-time career in fine art. She lives and works in Margate, on the South East coast of England.

Date TBD 2024

Originally from Vancouver, Michele Quan moved to New York in 1984 to study graphic design and photography at Parsons School of Design. She worked in metal for twelve years before embarking on her current medium of clay. “The pieces become a canvas for my love of drawing, painting, text, and color. My hope is that my work serves both as objects of contemplation and as a source of encouragement, inspiring reverence.”

Michele works out of her studio in Brooklyn, and lives in New York City.

New Zealand-based conceptual artist Mickey Smith has throughout her career been working in public libraries all over the world, documenting bound periodicals as her subject matter. The finished images are powerful and striking and capture the randomness of naturally occurring compositions, through bold use of color and scale. The subject matter of books as an aesthetic form, demands as much attention for the moment caught in a continuous and repetitive row, as the insistence of the titled subject imprinted on the cover. An instant between silence and listening.

Mickey has exhibited throughout the United States, in China, Russia and New Zealand. Her works are held in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Sheldon Museum of Art and Weisman Art Museum. She has received awards from the McKnight Foundation, CEC ArtsLink, Americans for the Arts and Creative New Zealand. Mickey holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photography from Minnesota State University Moorhead (1994) and a Diploma in Jewellery Design from Hungry Creek Art & Craft School in New Zealand (2019).

SEPTEMBER 3 - OCTOBER 3

After receiving her BFA in jewelry and metalwork at the Massachusetts College of Art, Hannah Keefe went on to study jewelry design in Mexico and the Netherlands, before making her way to Los Angeles where she now lives and works. Under the heat of the soldering torch, the vintage brass and copper chains change color dramatically and give the work its distinctive antique quality. The experimental nature of the process yields results that are impossible to anticipate, and guarantees that each piece is one of a kind. September 3rd through 30th. Shop the collection online: shop.gallerylulo.com

Paul’s developing artistic interests were directed along practical lines as he grew up in Iowa. He received a BA in art from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and an MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. The clay vessels of Eshelman Pottery order and dignify human life. Clarity is given to simple forms by contrasting glazed and unglazed surfaces. Pure clean glazes render elegant presentation of food and drink. The clay body is a red stoneware; the glazes are all lead free. Since 1988 Paul and Laurel Eshelan have been living and making pottery in Elizabeth, a small farming community in northwestern Illinois. They have three children who all worked on the pottery during their years at home

Recheng Tsang creates site-specific installations and smaller sculptures. The work consists of up to several hundred, sometimes thousands of thin porcelain pieces. Each piece is rolled, pinched, pulled, torn, otherwise manipulated by hand, then composed within a pre-defined grid. She explores the intrinsic qualities of porcelain, malleable and impressionistic, to create work that is tactile and sensual. Recheng received her B.A. from University of California in Berkeley, and her M.A. from University of Washington in Seattle. She previously was the co-director of the Oakland Art Gallery, and is a lecturer in the Ceramics Department at the California College of the Arts. She lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Rubeena Ratcliffe creates bold yet calming paintings whose imagery is made up of shapes, colors, and textures. Inspired by everything she sees and hears, especially color, she describes the impetus of her works as originating from the "screenshots of her mind." In her artistic practice, Ratcliffe's sketches and writing notes often give rise to her distinctive pieces. Rubeena was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada, and educated as an Architect in Canada, Holland, and the United States.

A collection of artists working in different mediums and materials, represented by Gallery Lulo, who we believe could work beautifully in the context of Sea Ranch and the surrounding land. Each of these artists work within a framework of depicting their natural surroundings through abstractions and reflections. Each of these could be customized to tell a story of the nature surrounding Sea Ranch.