Feywood
The Magical Art of Beth and Zeeb
Beth Rosemarie
My artwork draws its life from nature, from flowing organic lines, from the grace and expression of the human form. The joy of "making" is compelling, and creativity, blossoming into manifestation, is one of the still center points of my life.
Always strongly interested in drawing, painting and sculpture in my youth, I went on to major in art and received my BA from Fort Lewis College in 1983. In the next few years I painted quite a bit non-professionally, concentrating on luminous lighting and subtle blending of colors.
I began to work with clay in 1987 working through the local potter's co-op and independent study at Indiana University. My first professional showing was at the Women's Music Festival at Indiana University in 1989 and, with a heady response to my work, I began to apply to shows, and make my living as an artist, hand sculpting each piece of artwork, often combining them with wheel thrown functional forms.
My interest soon centered on feminist and nature inspired spirituality, as interpreted by the human form, and my most successful venues emphasized those qualities. As my knowledge and skill progressed, my little people took on a fluidity and grace, and, similar to a "gesture drawing", body language became intuitively expressive in my work. During this time period my business was named "Matria" and honoring the divine feminine still prominent in my work.
I met my husband Zeeb in 1993, and we soon realized we wanted to combine our art and our lives, our interest and experience with clay dovetailing and complimenting each other magically. I continued to focus completely on sculpture, while his interest in throwing, glazing, and firing brought a new beauty and grace to the functional forms, his deliciously blended airbrush glazes brought color to the work, and helped inspire the elegantly flowing wings that sprouted on my little creations, as much as the flower and tree, leaf and celestial themes also inspired by nature.
This new direction seemed especially well suited to the Renaissance Faires, and, with the fanciful, sparkling environments we created, we traveled the country, selling our artwork, becoming known as "the Fayrie Garden".
I've continued to individually sculpt each figure, and the range of my work has grown over time. While continuing to create small clay sculpture, at the turn of the millennium, I began experimenting with a wood/clay combination mixed media sculpture, and began including them in our continuing shows and entering them separately in gallery shows. These pieces tend to be larger, emotionally complex, and work with mythological and psychological themes in a more abstractly humanistic form, deriving their themes from the forms suggested in the wood.
As I've developed my personal technique and Zeeb and I have been working together on sculptural furniture, we have taken on the business name Feywood. We feel this better encompasses the entirety of our work together.