Friday, June 22, 2012

Gerda Collins



The CraftStar: Community Collection


Featured Artist:  Gerda Collins



Gerda Collins:  I am a native Californian, and still live in the San Francisco peninsula area not too far from my childhood home.  Since I can remember I have been making things with my hands. I come from a long line of handcrafters and artists. 

The process of creating a painting is what thrills me the most. I am very intensely focused when I paint. Usually I paint alone or with one other cherished friend. When a painting is finished I am almost sad, because that specific, unique journey is over; never to be duplicated.  My work has a softer hue to it, and that is on purpose. I seek a gentler way and a kinder spirit to reach out to the world.

All of creation inspires me, especially the plants, flowers, trees. I grew up helping my mom in her garden and those 'roots' have served me well in my painting journeys. I have always been a crafter, even as a child, this is just my latest adventure.

Not being a 'professionally trained' artist (save for a couple classes) I have had to overcome the idea that I was not a 'real' artist. Thanks to the encouragement I have found among my artist friends I can now say, "I am an artist".  It is because of this experience that I am so adamant about being part of this new community, “The CraftStar”.  I want to encourage and support artists of all types. 




The CraftStar:  Please choose 3 favorite pieces of YOURS:

This painting of the Golden Gate Bridge is from a picture my son took as an elementary school student (he is grown and married and has a child of his own now!) It's a very unique angle. Taken from under the bridge, at Fort Point.  This is one of a series of three painting I have done of San Francisco landmarks... the other two, Lombard St, and The Palace of Fine Arts will be listed soon!  (card set will also be available).  I painted these for my son, as a reminder of his favorite places now that he has moved away:





The Holy Scriptures are very important to me. Occasionally a painting will remind me of a favorite verse.  (also available with out the verse):




I just recently began to paint ACEO/ATC.  I really enjoy the challenge of the small size and I like to be able to offer originals:




As a member of The CraftStar community, we’d love to see some of your favorites:









The CraftStar Community Collection

Community has always been and will remain a major focus of The CraftStar.  We’ll soon be introducing more features on the website where we’ll be expanding this community connection.

One of the ways of developing and encouraging this sense of community, is sharing your listings on our Facebook page, The Featured Artist of the Day, etc.  We're going to expand on this and introduce The CraftStar Community Collection.  We want to know more about YOU, your work and what items you’re loving on The CraftStar. 

We'll do a feature on you, which we'll post to our CraftStar blog, Facebook, and Tumblr. As social media is such a great way to promote your business, we'll also place it to Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Rebel Mouse, Wanelo and Twitter.

If you’re interested in participating, we would need: a short bio of you / your business, a head shot of yourself or perhaps a good quality picture of a favorite item you sell, the background story of 3 of your favorite listings of yours and put together a Collection of your favorite items you’ve seen on The CraftStar.  (CraftStar Collections:  http://thecraftstar.com/collections.html)

If you’d like to be part of The CraftStar Community Collection, please email kim@thecraftstar.com  

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Be Still and Know that I am God is one of my favorite scriptures and it pops in my mind a lot. I have fave'd that painting since the first time I saw it. Very nice:)