Tom Holmes
“I am drawn to working in the six elements of stone, metal, wood, light, ice and water,” says sculptor, Tom Holmes. “It gives me the ability to work intuitively. All possibilities can exist briefly before I impose parameters with regard to my emotional and intellectual contexts.” The undercurrents of natural decay, unity, duality, symmetry, space, time and dimension are at the heart of Holmes’ creative energy. “I work seasonally. Different seasons suggest different types and elements of my work. I love the crisp colds of zero or below for icing in the winter. The summer brings outdoor work and construction, waterfalls and stone work. Spring and fall are transition times that tie the year together with welding, sand blasting and finishing. My work is my life and I thrive on long days. There is only the transcendence of the everyday. Cooking, friends, love becomes the sublime witness of doing. Process for me is the essence of my art.”

Phyllis Kulmatiski, Looking for Bees, fired clay, 50 x 18 x 18", $2,600

Phyllis Kulmatiski
Phyllis Kulmatiski is aware of the fact that her childhood, steeped as it was in the Polish cultural traditions of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was a major influence on the artist that she is today: “I am sure bumping into statues of saints and martyrs at every turn influences my work today in obvious ways.” Her current, mostly life-sized sculptures – utilizing an earthy palette on engobes, underglazes and sky blue, dirt brown, snow white and pine needle green paint – are her attempt to tell the stories of people who brave hardship, suffer indignities, and somehow maintain their spirit. “I want the life-size scale of the figures to confront the viewer in a very personal way,” she says. “I haven’t endured what these people endured but I hope to show empathy with them by presenting their causes as artfully as I can.” Phyllis Kulmatiski lives in Scotia, New York, where she has been teaching art at Scotia Glenville High School for more than twenty years.