A new year brings a fresh, new look to The Finer Arts Gallery in Cave Creek, which just completed its six-month rotation of art in its 4,000-square-foot gallery.
As with every new year, many of the gallery’s 50 artists refreshed their work with a look to the future and updated displays including colors for 2024. The new artists who joined in January add a different look to the eclectic collection.
Wood sculptor Ray Richardson is a new artist to The Finer Arts Gallery. His colorful wooden bird sculptures will be on exhibit during the Jan. 19 Art Affaire. (Ray Richardson/Submitted)
To celebrate, the gallery is hosting Art Affaire from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 19, at the gallery inside the historic Treehouse building, 6137 E. Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek.
The gallery is welcoming two artists, whose work will be featured this month.
Ray Richardson, wood sculptor
Ray Richardson grew up in New England, where he loved spending time outdoors. Birds caught his attention from an early age, and his grandmother fueled this interest through nature books and magazines. She also introduced him to comic books, where he was captivated by the idea of using lines, shapes and colors to tell stories.
Today, Richardson creates colorful bird sculptures from wood. An Anthem resident, his journey as an artist has been shaped by time in the U.S. Navy, studies in art school and woodworking school, a career as a carpenter and cabinetmaker, and time in prototyping and manufacturing in the Southwest. He endeavors to capture the humor, whimsy and wonder that he experiences in the world, and to express it in a way that is creative but relatable.
“I observe birds in the course of my day, and they hijack my imagination,” Richardson said. “I am carried away on flashes of bright plumage engaged in aerial acrobatics. The tiny pilots barrel-roll into my senses. They make journeys: some which cover the long miles over the Earth; others traversing the distance between my brain, heart, and my hands; distances between realities.”
Dean Grissom, woodturner
Dean Grissom was born in Tucson and spent most of his adult life in the western states. He has collected Native American baskets, arrowheads, grinding stones and pottery most of his life.
His career in agribusiness gave him many opportunities to interact with various tribes. It is those people, their culture, their history, their art and even their struggles that move his heart and influence his art.
Woodturner Dean Grissom is a new artist to The Finer Arts Gallery. His wooden baskets are inspired by his passion for Native American art and culture. (Dean Grissom/Submitted)
In 2016, he retired and moved back to Arizona, where he is an award-winning artist who uses only wood, wood burning and india ink to create pieces of fine art that appear to be Native baskets, bowls and vessels.
In 2020, he became interested in basket illusion, an attempt to pay homage to Indigenous peoples by using wood and ink to recreate what they made from grass, bark, pine needles, twigs, reeds and other things found in their local area.
Dean Grissom is a new artist at The Finer Arts Gallery. He uses wood and ink to create wooden baskets that reflect his passion for Indigenous art and culture. (Dean Grissom/Submitted)
“Even with the machinery and tools we have access to today, it is often still difficult to reproduce what they did with their hands. Native American people and their culture, history and their struggles are the things that move my heart and influence my art,” Grissom said.
Visitors to The Finer Arts Gallery will find diverse paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media, photography, glass, wood, fiber, ceramics, jewelry and other original work.
