Deborah Rael-Buckley

Her narrative style shows many influences fueled by research in gothic stained glass, the architecture of Antoni Gaudi and Simon Rodia, Renaissance painting, and the art and architecture of ancient Mexico. She engages viewers by placing them within the construct of her own memories and making them participants in the story being told.

Deborah Rael-Buckley was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1953. She finished her BA in the history of art and architecture with honors at the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1996. After a move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she began taking art studio courses and discovered a profound interest in ceramics. She completed her MFA in ceramic sculpture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2000, receiving awards and fellowships along the way.

Shelley Muzylowski Allen

With a fine art degree in painting, Allen never considered glass until a co-worker remarked that her paintings would translate well to the translucent and moldable medium.

This inspired her to apply to the Pilchuck School of glass, where it quickly became evident that her co-worker was right. Her glass sculptures and paintings are adorned with rusted metals and hair, focusing on the strength as well as the stillness of animals.

Muzylowski Allen’s goal is to work flawlessly between the two mediums, mixing both painting and glass often in the same piece of artwork.

Tammy Garcia

Anyone who sees one of Tammy's works is struck by her ability to stretch the boundaries of the clay to contain her vision. A potter's art is generally limited by the size and shape of the vessel he or she designs. In Tammy's case, it is as if the clay itself attempts to expand to better convey her dramatic design work. Part of that sense stems from the amazing proportions of Tammy's pots. She thrills at self-imposed challenge, and this often leads her to create pottery of almost unheard-of size. The other part, however, comes from a true symbiosis between Tammy and her medium. Pottery has been an outlet of creative personal expression for two millennia; Tammy was brought up in a family steeped in the tradition, and is both respectful of, and thankful to, the powers that allow her to share her exquisite talents. In exchange, it seems she has been rewarded with clay and ash that yearn to hold the voluptuous shapes she molds and display her intensely animated designs.

Glam Trash

Those words were heard often as people wound their way through the rusty car parts, wires, scrap machine metals, recycled cloth pieces, seeds, used tea bags, nails, bottle caps, cereal boxes, fake flowers, old loteria cards and more found objects that made up the art in Artes Descartes (Art from Discards) 8th annual show at Stables Gallery Sunday (Sept. 7). See Megan Avina’s slideshow featuring photographs from the fashion show here.

There seems that nothing can’t become art. The show is proof positive that junk in a trunk or garbage on the street can go from an eyesore to an eyescore.