Valerie Ostenak
Phoenix, AZ
My art is about inviting the richness of Possibility to others' lives . . . Transformation. Movement. Flow.
Message
About
Ostenak’s professional art career has spanned 25+ years primarily as a metalsmith working in steel and silver creating sculptures: decorative, functional, and wearable as art jewelry. She has worked with private clients, interior designers, and architects designing and creating art for them to wear, and to live with. Her creative focus is now painting.
Consecutively her professional design career of 30 years centered on publication design and production, as well as illustration, in the aerospace, textbook, magazine, and newspaper industries.
On a more personal note . . . Valerie loves motorcycles, gorgeous cars, sci-fi, and chooses her hotels based on the perfect swimming pool.
EVENTS/AWARDS
• Selected for the 2022 Flag Project at Rockefeller Center by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate Museum in NYC
• Invited by British automaker Rolls-Royce to co-brand and exhibit my sculptural art jewelry at their North American Rolls-Royce Owners Club Annual Meet in Lake Tahoe CA; featured in exclusive luxury-content book distributed only to RR owners internationally
• Purchase Award, Arizona Citizens for the Arts: painting presented as an award for a category winner of the 38th Annual Governor’s Art Awards
• Saul Bell Design Award, Finalist: Alternative Metals/Materials category, sculptural art jewelry
• Emerging Designer Award: chosen as one of six from an international field by Centurion Jewelry Show, an invitation-only show for luxury jewelers and retailers
• Grand Prize Winner Halstead Jewelry Design & Business Development Grant
• National Geographic: featured for Artist Appreciation Month (Twice in two years)
• National Geographic: Interviewed for their education website
• Invited by the National Jewelry Institute to Designer Showcase during Paris Fashion Week, France
• LA Style Fashion Week, presented jewelry collections on the runways
• Phoenix Fashion Week, presented jewelry collections on the fashion runways (2 years)
• Invited speaker at The Art Institute of Phoenix in the Fashion Accessories courses
• Demonstrator/lecturer on blacksmithing and copper forging:Guild of Metalsmiths, MN
• Demonstrator & lecturer on non-ferrous forging: ASU, Tempe AZ
• Demonstrator/lecturer on blacksmithing: ASU, Tempe AZ
• Demonstrator/lecturer on metalsmithing:Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff AZ
• Jewelry Trunk Show, Big Brothers Big Sisters Annual Gala, Dallas TX
• Designed/built/installed a hand-forged decorative steel railing at the Grand Canyon Mather Point Amphitheater (a three-person team)
Statement
STATEMENT OF WORK:
Transformation. Movement. Flow . . . and the energy within. The energy that exists in the visible, and the invisible as thought: its effect on us, and how we affect it down to the quantum level. The pieces I create speak to hope, change, enlightenment, transforming and becoming better, weathering the storms and learning to swim within the chaos.
As a multidisciplinary artist my creative focus is ever-expanding. The ideas and feelings I am driven to express currently are more suited to the atmospheric possibilities of paint than the immediate tactility of metal. Expressing the ephemeral in a more visual way reflects the emotions that flow through my hands to the canvas. I can get the brushes and paint to mirror unseen thought as opposed to the metal showing literal movement. I respond to the nebulous, the intuitive as it flows through me. Painting allows me to escape the physical.
INSPIRATION
I am visually inspired by the rich colors of oceans, forests, and flowers . . . by the perfect curve in the shape of a wave, the winding tendrils of vines and how they connect to everything around them. I am intrigued by Space visually and metaphorically. Images from the Hubble telescope utilizing UV and IR filters show us billions of galaxies and richly colored nebulae. Though separated by incomprehensible distances, they are the light within the darkness. These create the balance in my life.
For an exhibition record and list of publications, please see the CV.