Skaneateles ARTisans, 11 Fennell St., Skaneateles, NY, will feature in June the work of DeeAnn and Robert vonHunke. Opening reception Friday, June 4, 6-9pm.

DeeAnn and Robert vonHunke have been collaborating in the studio for decades, first as potters and more recently in jewelry design. DeeAnn and Robert make annual trips to Arizona and California to acquire rough semi precious stones from around the world, which the artists apply lapidary methods to laboriously make polished gems for DeeAnn’s jewelry designs and creations. DeeAnn combines her hand crafted silver metal clays and bezel mounts to create contemporary wearable art. Robert also works in acrylic painting and digital photography, creating a record of his observations and interpretations of time and place in landscapes and close-ups from Skaneateles to China.

With Live music and refreshments. The gallery offers off-street parking and accepts major credit cards. Exhibit runs through the month of June.
Contact person:
Teresa Vitale
315-689-5037
email:  tvitale1@twcny.rr.com

DeeAnn vonHunke
I have been a creative  designer/craftsperson for over thirty years. I started out working in porcelain, sculpting and wheel throwing large graceful translucent forms. PMC silver eased the transition from pottery to jewelry. My work in silver and gemstone is divided between one of a kind personally inspired pieces, and work that is a custom created collaboration with a client/collector.

I personally and thoughtfully creatively craft nearly every aspect of each jewelry piece; often right from selecting the rough mined stone to doing the lapidary work prior to my visualizing the design and working the silver for the finished piece.

I use a variety of semi-precious materials collected from around the world and brought together using multi-step processes, forming thoughts and feelings; discovery and craft; story and art. I hope you find the same sense of discovery and fulfillment with my work that the art and craft has provided me.

Robert vonHunke
I work from life. I studied painting and drawing at the University of Michigan where I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. I also pursued interests in printmaking, ceramics, photography, and computer graphics. After receiving a Master of Science and Doctor of Education degrees from Syracuse University and teaching for 34 years I am recalibrating back to the studio where I work in acrylics and digital photography. My creativity is self-disciplined, guided largely by personal visual statements expressed permanently through the use of a variety of media in paint and print. My art provides a vehicle to summarize and document an experience, a visual journal. For example, the series of paintings I did as a response to lengthy travel in nearly all 50 States but especially to the beaches of North Carolina, the rocks and sky of Sedona, Arizona, the canals of Venice, Italy, and Suzhou, China. Diversions include trains and the prairies of North Dakota. My art poses a way for me to share an aspect of a story through what I saw and felt, and lived. In a sense they are autobiographical – a portrait without the person. I work from life.

When not painting or shooting images I work with my wife in her studio where she is a jewelry designer. There I cut cabochons – taking raw rough semi-precious gem stones and cutting and polishing them prior to their becoming wearable art forms.