The Jewelry Show and LiaBratten Photography

Three jewelers:

Walt Rush, Rhoda Teplow & Lee Zabin

Also, photography by Geraldine LiaBraaten

Reception with food & drink Feb 10, 1 – 3 pm.

For over 50 years Walt Rush has been creating and designing jewelry with some very unique techniques. A lover of the outdoors and the beauty of the ocean, his jewelry has a more fluid and organic look. To achieve these designs he casts in water, straw along with hand fabrication and wax carving which gives his creations a feeling of the rolling surf, crashing waves, driftwood and other item in nature. Walt works mostly in silver and gold and incorporates both precious and semi-precious stones into his designs.

Rhoda Teplow was first introduced to African trade beads while assigned to a village in Togo, West Africa during her work with the Peace Corps after her graduation from UC Berkeley, and even today they continually inspire her beautiful creations. Teplow’s body of work includes her own handmade porcelain beads, brass from the Ashanti tribe, recycled glass beads from the Krobo tribe in Ghana, hand carved jade beads from the middle fork of the Eel River, Tibetan/Nepalese jewelry, colorful handmade beads from a tribe in Bali and other beads she has collected in her travels around the world.

Lee Zabin uses abalone, clam, mussel, olivella, dentalia and other assorted shells to create her jewelry in the Native American tradition. Some of her other creative pieces incorporate pine nuts which she harvests locally along with her shells. A local to the area, Lee lives in Albion.

For Geraldine LiaBraaten, it’s all about color: turquoise graffiti, red cards, yellow wheelchair pavement, pink glass.

“I’ve been behind a camera for over fifty years and over time, my style has evolved from large panoramas to closer semi-abstracts, all with an element of surprise. I want the viewer to have as much fund seeing the image as I had creating it,” she says.

Geraldine is new to the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, joining in January 2024.