Growing up in a small town near Woodstock, New York, "Jes" loved to draw and paint. Her mother, a talented painter and set designer, was her first teacher and studied art at the University of Massachusetts. Her mentor was the late Richard Yarde, who was a teacher and painter known for large-scale watercolors.
Appleby is making a niche in the small scale. "I already do relatively small scale, detailed work, so I thought it would be neat to make tiny original paintings and mount them under glass beads and into jewelry settings," she said.
She uses all archival materials so the artwork will stay protected for years.
Appleby will be selling some of her work at the upcoming annual vintage and costume jewelry sale to benefit CHD's Cancer House of Hope in West Springfield. The sale will be on March 19 at CHD's Children and Families Building, 246 Park St., West Springfield.
"I have many coworkers and friends who have received services from or had family members receive services from the Cancer House of Hope," said Appleby, a software developer in the Application and Data Services Department, which provides analysis, reporting and systems support to all of CHD's programs and maintain CHD's databases and database servers.
Cancer House of Hope works to enhance the lives of people with cancer and those who care about them by providing emotional, educational, social and spiritual support.
A Holyoke resident, Appleby said she "fell into IT" from doing design and website work: "I really enjoy the technical challenges of the field. I think programming is actually a great job for creative people since you get to build and design new things every day."
Recently, she has been doing mostly pen-and-ink illustrations and watercolor paintings.
"I love animals so I did a series of small illustrations of 'under-appreciated' animals – skunks, squirrels, pigeons, rats. I put new ones on my cork board at work and co-workers kept suggesting that I put them up for sale;" thus the idea for her Etsy shop.
Located online at etsy.com/shop/WatsonHollow, the site opened in December and is named for the street on which the artist grew up. "It has a vaguely Beatrix Potter vibe, so it's perfect for an animal-themed store," she said.
Appleby graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts. She also has taken art classes at the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, New York, and at Snow Farm in Williamsburg.
"I've always felt most comfortable with a pen or pencil," she said. "I love working in the small scale."
She began making jewelry last fall. "I actually only intended to make something for myself to wear but then I had so much fun with it that I decided to make more for others," she said.
Working on her wearable art in her home studio, it is important to her that her work is from original watercolor paintings and not prints. "It makes them more special and one of a kind," she said. "It's challenging to work on such a small scale, which makes it fun and exciting. I also love funky jewelry so I try to make the kinds of pieces I would like to wear."
Animal necklaces are some of her popular items; she just finished another custom one of an elephant as a memorial gift.
She has a custom listing in her Etsy shop, and she has done a number of special pieces for friends and friends of friends; she also takes suggestions on new animals to draw.
At the Cancer House of Hope sale, Appleby will sell original art necklaces made with tiny miniature paintings in both wood and silver settings and some page-sized pen and ink illustrations.
The necklaces sell from $40 to $55; the original illustrations are priced between $60 and $100.
Resource: http://www.masslive.com
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