Artful Things Niceville always has a cornucopia of colors on its walls – around the desks and even in the framing gallery. The gallery boasts more than 60 local participating artisans, offering a great selection of gifts especially for Mother’s Day

I had the opportunity to chat with two of the gallery artists, Charlotte Arnold, and Teresa Halverson. 

Alongside stunning landscapes of faraway beaches, and those closer to Niceville sit an array of beautiful, commissioned portraits of Arnold’s, ready for pickup.

Charlotte creates with a brushstroke refined in passion and expressed with oils, she renders forms in charcoal and red chalk. But her passion for art began in watercolor. “I started out in watercolor, but it’s a difficult medium,” Arnold said. “I started as a child, and I take it with me when I travel. We travel a lot to the islands, and it just lends itself to quick little studies that become larger paintings.”

About 20 years ago – she began her artistic journey through oils – and found a medium that helped her express her subject’s very human emotions. From the flyaway auburn hairs that grace one of her more recent portraits to the serene lavenders of a dress in a painting of a dear friend who now lives across the ocean, her colors bring the moment in a portrait to light.

She starts her methodology to bring a painting to life with many photographs. “I get to know that person, especially if it’s a child,” Arnold said, “I sit them in a chair and get their personality out. That’s the enjoyable part of the process.”

In the middle of the gallery, silver shines, stones twinkle, and pearls that add an inviting warmth is Teresa Halverson’s jewelry.

Twenty years ago, on a “wild hair”,  Halverson started crafting her own jewelry after taking a class. More classes and more jewelry later, she now sells fine pieces at Artful Things Niceville. Her favorite part of the process is unseen. She blends her materials together and creates stories where there are just objects. Each piece is her own. “I won’t make anything or sell anything that I wouldn’t make for myself or my family,” Halverson said, “If I don’t like it, I redo it.” Her heart jumps when she gets to create, “It’s an amazing feeling, to create something you enjoy and someone else loves enough to pay for.”

With Mother’s Day right around the corner, both ladies, and many other artists in the gallery are ready to take orders, but time is short. Visit the gallery Tuesday thru Saturday to find that special something. Pottery, jewelry, fine art, books and professional art supplies are waiting for you. 

As owner/manager Share Norville says, “see YOU at the gallery!”

 www.ArtfulThingsNiceville.com

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