A few weeks ago, we had a celebration here in Poppyland: our winter show. Every season, we bring two or more artists to Poppy on a Friday night, add in a case of champagne and some tasty snacks and produce our winter show. It’s a chance for our customers to meet new artists whose work we haven’t yet featured and to meet artists whose work they already admire.
This winter, we featured the jewelry artist Sydney Lynch and the painter Chris Vance, and we had a delightful time visiting with both of them. Just ask my BF, who found himself having an impromptu — and wonderful — drink with Sydney and her husband Craig before we girls, who were neatening up the store, joined everyone for a late-night supper at our favorite night-spot in Columbia bleu.
Chris Vance is from Des Moines, IA, one of our favorite Midwestern towns, and his paintings are really exciting. Chris works in either an abstract, almost mod, mode, or a cartoonish figurative mode. Here’s a sampling of the work:
I just love his men and women. I feel like this all the time!
I can’t wait to have one of Chris’s people in my study, a someone to look to on those days when I feel like slumping myself. Chris himself, though, is no slouch. A real sweetheart — look at that face! —
he drove into Columbia to hang his own work for us (it looks best in groupings and we would never pass up the opportunity to see how he’d group it himself)
but had to drive back late (yes, he left around 2 am) that night to make a soccer game for his son. Barb was very worried! She made Chris call when he got in to Des Moines early Saturday morning. Thank goodness that Sydney and Craig spent the night in town.
Sydney Lynch
is a jewelry artist from Lincoln, NE, and frankly, I want to be her when I grow up. Her work has a fantastic organic feel about it, and yet it’s also somehow both feminine and industrial. What a feat! I’d better give you a picture to show what I mean. Here’s one of her necklaces. It’s an oxidized sterling with a bead of rock-quartz and a pearl and isn’t it special?
And here is my favorite piece of Sydney’s work: a pair of gold earrings that I long for and even, yes, dream about.
I’m also loving what I think of as Sydney’s branch work: seasonally-appropriate gorgeous pins and earrings and necklaces like this
and this.
I know you’ll find their work is perfect to lift your spirits as the days get longer and more brisk and we all go into our late fall slump. It did mine. You can see more of both Sydney and Chris on our website, and by clicking on the links.
XO, Sar
