Christina Woods
A favourite sunshine pastime for the
residents of Windsor-Essex is attending art
shows, visiting galleries, and meeting artists.
Windsor resident Greg de Hetre wears
many hats – Rotary member, Literary Arts
Windsor Board Member, SHO Art, Spirit and
Performance principle and his day job –
jewellery artist. He’s the proprietor of R. W.
Studios. Greg designs and manufactures
jewelry in top quality gold and silver and
participates in twenty-two juried art shows a
year, typically travelling with 600–700 pieces.
His booth set-up time alone is three hours.
He’s developed a following with customers
who come to the same show every year to
admire his latest creations. But as with any
new business, there were a few bumps in the
road in the beginning.
“Well, there was the time I ended up at
the wrong show,” he says. “I sold one pair of
earrings all weekend.”
Those days are long past for R. W.
Studios. Greg’s gorgeous work is available
locally at Nancy Johns Gallery. His website is
www.ringweaversstudios.com.
Greg
welcomes customers inquiries via email, his
Facebook page and is interested in custom
orders.
Julie Bell is a collage glass artist and is
known to many in Windsor as a Rotary
member, SHO associate, for organ izing LUV
Local, Jury Committee Member for Art in the
Park and as the coordinator for Art in the
Manor. She uses a decoupage technique and
a variety of materials to create one-of-a-kind
glass tiles, bowls, trays, wall pieces and
jewellery. Her work is represented by nine
galleries in Ontario and one in British
Columbia. While shows are a thing of the past
for her now, Julie enjoys bringing new pieces
to the galleries and standing in the space just
like a customer.
“One of the galleries sends me a story
every time they sell one of my pieces,” she
says. “They tell me about the customer, why
they bought the piece, who they bought if for,
etc. As an artist I find hearing that very
rewarding and inspiring.”
Julie’s beautiful work is also available for
purchase at Nancy Johns’ gallery. She’s also
on Facebook.
If you have ever seen a dapper gentlemen
standing next to a bicycle hunched over a
sketch book, it was probably Owen Swain. It
was a love of cycling and drawing that
spawned Tour de Sketch – a monthly group
cycling endeavour with stops for sketching
the sights and scenes of Windsor. It was so
successful that Owen now concentrates full
time on just sketching. He carries a series of
Windsor prints, three lines of greeting cards,
and his first book of sketches (#tourdesketch
Windsor) was published last year by Mirror
World Publishing. The book is available for
purchase at Biblioasis, Juniper Books, Urban
Art Market, From The Heart, Story Teller
Books and the Clear Water Animal Hospital.
Owen participates in LUV Local, Art in the
Park and the Downtown Windsor Farmers’
Market. One of Owen’s most popular sketches
right now is the Walker Power Building. He
sketched it prior to the current makeover.
“People tell me they buy the print
because of the memory – the building just
doesn’t look like that anymore.”
Visit Owen’s website after July 1:
artist.owen.swain.com.
How do you support local artists?
Tweet us @TheHubWE #artmatters
June 2017 - The HUB 9