Meet The Maker

The Market on Oak celebrates the artists and entrepreneurs in our community and throughout Western North Carolina.  Once you get to know our artists, we know you will want to have their products in your home and to give as gifts. Each artist puts their own individual stamp on their creations whether it is a hand blown ornament, a pottery mug or a handcrafted soap.  You will know that each of our products has been touched by the artist before it reached your home.

 

Meet The Maker: Rob Levin

Robert Levin was born and raised in Baltimore and currently lives and works near Burnsville, NC. He was formerly the Resident Glass Artist at Penland School of Crafts, and has taught in many exotic places such as Ireland, New Zealand, Rochester, Cleveland and Penland. He has exhibited widely in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and the former Soviet Union. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the Contemporary Glass Museum in Madrid, the Mint Museum, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC, and the Ebeltoft Glasmuseum in Denmark. He has received a Southern Arts Federation/NEA Visual Arts Fellowship, two North Carolina Arts Council Fellowships, and a NCAC Project Grant.

Rob's beautiful handblown ornaments are featured in The Market on Oak.

 

Meet The Maker: Jon Ellenbogen and Rebecca Plummer

Jon Ellenbogen and Rebecca Plummer make stoneware pottery intended for daily use in the home. From dinnerware to centerpieces to bathroom and wetbar sinks, their attractive, durable, handmade objects add a unique personal touch to any decor.

Their Christmas ornaments and decorated eggs are a departure from their traditional stoneware. Because they are handmade, no two are alike, and all are very lightweight for hanging on a tree. For many families these ornaments have become cherished family heirlooms that will be passed on for generations.

Rebecca and Jon have been working together as Barking Spider Pottery for over thirty years. Their passive solar studio and home is built above the Toe River in the mountains of Western North Carolina.They have twin twenty-one-year-old sons Alexander and Christopher.

 

Meet The Maker: Avery Farms

Meet The Maker: Linda Forbes

I often tell people that I am still “growing up”, but I was born and spent my childhood in upstate New York near the shore of Lake Ontario. I first visited these beautiful mountains twenty years ago, and I experienced immediately that this was HOME.

It has taken me since then, twenty years, to get here. I have a little house near the church in Pine Grove and sometimes join in their choir. One of my two sisters lives in the community of Linville Falls.

I usually have at least one knitting project with me at all times, because knitting is portable! I started knitting baby caps about five years ago and have made all sorts of styles and designs. It seems perfect to make hats with the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree logo and to pair them with matching snowy-white baby blankets.

Linda Forbes began knitting as a child under the guidance of her grandmother, mother and aunts. Since that time, she has dabbled in other crafts but has continued to knit throughout the years.

Linda enjoys spending time with family and being an aunt and a great-aunt to six little ones under the age of eight.

 

Meet The Maker: Marquitta Holtsclaw

 

I have been involved with various crafts for thirty years, working in many different mediums. However, when I started decoupage and began to realize the potential for extreme variations in one medium, I knew I had found a distinctive creative expression. Thankfully, I am self-taught. You see, I am a rules follower. If I had known the rules to decoupage before I started, I doubt I would have had the audacity to combine so many different elements in my designs. If I know the rules, I follow them; if not, well… I can create anything I want without limitations. People’s first response to my work is, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” That’s exactly what I like to hear. The Lord has blessed me with imagination and creativity, and I’m only now beginning to realize and use it.

My desire is to produce the highest quality of work possible, and I am continually researching new techniques and products to achieve this goal. I want my work to have unique beauty as well as functionality. Customers may use my plates for serving desserts, appetizers or light foods, but they are not dishwasher-safe. They are hand wash only. Whether my plates are used, or just looked at, the delight is mine.

Marquitta Holtsclaw lives in Spruce Pine, North Carolina with her husband Keith and son Sam. Marquitta has been creating decoupage plates for years as gifts for friends and family. She says she owes her newfound role as a licensed artist to the encouragement of a friend at the Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce.

 

Meet The Maker: JJ Brown and Simona Rosasco (Fyreglas Studio)

JJ, a retired fire chief from Miami, Florida, moved to North Carolina in 2001 and built his glass studio. Simona, after meeting JJ in 2006, retired from her career in health care in Pensacola, Florida and relocated to the mountains. They both consider themselves to be blessed to live in these mountains surrounded by so many wonderful artisans.

JJ and Simona live in Bakersville, North Carolina where they own and operate Fyreglas Studio. JJ is primarily self-taught having taken various workshops around the country. Simona has a BFA from University of South Florida. Together, they create one of a kind works in glass art, both functional and decorative.

Their glass Christmas tree ornaments are handmade, so no two are alike. Their fused glass plates are of the traditional log cabin quilt pattern and can be utilized in a number of ways, such as a votive or for Santa’s cookies.

 

Meet The Maker: Janie Devos

Janie DeVos, a native of Coral Gables, Florida, began her career in the advertising industry.  After more than a decade in that field, she focused her time and attention on her love of writing.  DeVos began her freelance writing company, Rainy Day Creations, in 2000, and began composing verses for several greeting card companies.  Then, How High Can You Fly?, DeVos’ first hardcover picture book published through River Road Press, made its debut in 2001.  In 2003, Ms. DeVos’ second hardcover picture book, The Path Winds Home, was released. 

In 2015, DeVos’ first adult novel found a home with prestigious Kensington Publishing.  Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees was released in the fall of 2016, and its sequel, The Art of Breathing, will be released in February, 2017.  Recently, Kensington signed DeVos to a three-book series about old Florida, beginning in the 1870’s.  The first book in the Glory Land series is set to be released in December, 2017, with the second and third books planned for publication in 2018.

Readers of Beneath A Thousand Apple Trees will find many familiar local places and characters as she gained much inspiration from the local apple orchard and the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains.

Janie lives in Mitchell County in a log cabin with her husband and beloved Bassets.