Joan Roberts
Joan creates both exquisite silk accessories and distinctive jewelry, each piece reflecting her love of natural beauty and one-of-a-kind design. Her hand-dyed silk scarves and cowls showcase a mastery of color and movement, while her metal clay jewelry—crafted from silver, gold, and bronze—embodies an organic aesthetic inspired by the world around her. Driven by a passion for discovery, Joan continually explores new materials and techniques to ensure every piece she creates is truly unique.
A graduate of San Jose State University with a major in art, Joan taught art to middle school students and in adult education programs for eighteen years before becoming a school administrator. Her career allowed her to promote arts education for students within her care through teacher training and support.
Joan came to Sedona from the Monterey Bay area of California’s central coast as a new retiree and has been a part of the Sedona Arts Center as a volunteer since 2003 and is a former board member of the Board of Directors. She provides individualized instruction in her studio throughout the year. Simply contact her to schedule your own private class.
Materials:
Fine Silver: Precious Metal Clay (PMC) combines microscopic particles of silver with water and a nontoxic, organic binder to create a material that can be worked as a clay. When objects are dried and fired in a kiln, the binder burns away and the silver particles fuse into solid metal of .999 pure silver. It is referred to as FINE SILVER.
Keum Boo: a process originating in Korea, used to apply thin sheets of 23.5K Gold to Fine Silver using heat and pressure.
22K Gold: applied in a slip form, dried, hand fired with a torch and polished.
Kristine Mills
Kris Mills received her B.A. in Fine Art from the University of California Davis and her M.F.A from the University of New Mexico. She has won numerous awards including the “Invitational Du Voyager Symposium Snow Sculpture Competition” (Winnipeg, Canada) “Fuzzy Logic” in Southern Exposure (San Francisco, CA), “Seen and Unseen” (Portales NM), The Friends of Art Award (Albuquerque NM), and The People’s Choice Award for “The Roads to Chaos” exhibit. (Albuquerque NM). She has also received numerous scholarships, fellowships, and residencies, including recognition from the Ansel Adams Center for Photography (San Francisco, CA), the Pasadena Art Center (Los Angeles, CA), and a Kohler Residency (Ashland, WI). A guest lecturer, she has presented at the School of Architecture in Fargo, ND, the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR, Sierra College in Rockland, California, New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, and at the Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin. Her solo and group exhibitions have appeared all over the country and Europe, in galleries and museums from the Harwood Art Center, (AC)2, the John Sommers Gallery, the UCD Arts and Craft Center Gallery, San Isidro Church, Magnifico Space, Donkey Gallery, 516 Arts, Sheri Crider Arts, The Red Door, the Industrial Steel Gallery/Cell Space, La Galerie 36, L’Espace Pereisc, Musee de L’Elysee, Musee de la Photographiy, NextMonet.com, Café Roma Gallery, Johnson Gallery, The Kimo, Southern Exposure, Niagara Arts Center, Artcite, The Matrix Gallery, Route 66 Gallery, East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse and the University of Alabama Gallery of Photography. She has also exhibited on walls, in windows, and even in a motel (“Dirty Weekend”) in Albuquerque. She is an adjunct lecturer at both the Central New Mexico Community College and the University of New Mexico, where she also runs the jewelry area of the sculpture department. Simultaneously, she worked for 26 years for the renowned artist Joel-Peter Witkin, building and painting sets, backdrops, and props for his photographs, which exhibit internationally.
