about THE exhibit:
Celebration of Sapphire: Mail Art from Around the World celebrates the boundless creativity found around the world via mail art, a movement that values exchange, creative freedom, and correspondents worldwide.
about The Curators:
PENNY WEAVER'S earliest memories of postcards were of the ones her grandparents sent to her from Surf City summer vacations in the 1970s and 80s. The beautiful photographs of the pier, sunsets, and the ocean sparked her imagination and her own desire to travel. She still has many of them to this day. These days, she loves the hunt of a good stationery store, postcards with graphic and outsider art, and eclectic cartoons. She always exits through the [museum] gift shop, seeking postcards to cherish and remember the art she loves as well as new discoveries.
Penny is an award-winning mixed media and book artist who teaches mixed media art techniques in Fayetteville and beyond through her company art paper love. She is also the co-owner of Your Creative Connection which curates creative art making events for women, including yearly Seaside Sessions retreats in Surf City, NC
MICHELLE DAVIS PETELINZ remembers finding that her mom had placed pre-addressed postcards in her trunk at summer camp, ensuring that she could write home about all of her 8-year-old adventures. Later, she collected art postcards to decorate her first job office walls and sent many a gorgeous photo postcard home from her travels (when sometimes she’d return even before the postcard reached its destination!).
Michelle is a mixed media artist, art consultant, and art instructor, and has taught students ranging from 18 months to 90 years old. She creates art through her company, Kindred Spirit Studios, exhibiting and selling both online and via juried art festivals and exhibitions. Michelle is also the co-owner of Your Creative Connection which curates creative art making events for women, including yearly Seaside Sessions retreats in Surf City.
plan your visit
Photographed by Arts Council Staff
About Your Creative Connection:
Our idea was simple: to encourage and nurture the magic which occurs when creative, imaginative, and supportive women come together to make art in a beautiful setting. Each year since our first Seaside Sessions retreat in 2020, our Creative Explorers spend 4 days and 3 nights in a beautiful oceanfront home on the North Carolina coast. They enjoy guided instruction in mixed media magic by day and wide-open studio time by night, surrounded by like-minded, creative, and curious women as ideas flow like the tides. Each woman comes away refreshed and eager to put new skills learned to use, with lasting friendships and cherished creative connections made.
To learn more about Your Creative Connection, visit: http://yourcreativeconnectioninc.com.