“The Winter Exhibit”, opening at the Dolphin Gallery, Gualala in December, will celebrate the holidays by featuring the works of six different artists. In addition, the gallery’s new location has gifts, jewelry, wood, paintings, prints, photography, textiles and more. The Dolphin Gallery is in Cypress Village, Gualala’s Uptown Gallery District. Open Thursday through Monday, 11:00am to 4:00pm.

“The Winter Exhibit” includes the works of Patricia Callegari, Colette Coad, Mark Guthrie, Paula Haymond, Dana Petersen and Chuck Petersen. These artists will add another dimension to the Dolphin, with watercolors, wood sculpture, waterfowl carvings and holiday ornaments. This variety of art forms will bring even more color and texture tot he exhibit as we enter the holiday season

Colette Coad’s love is glass. After a very busy and fulfilling career in management consulting, she traveled extensively in North America and Europe while raising a family with her husband. After she moved to the coast and was retired for a while, she rediscovered glass. “It is not only my medium, it is a source of great joy and sometimes great frustration.  I started eight years ago with a class on glass fusing.  I fell in love.  I bought a kiln and some glass (enough to fill a stand holding eight pieces).  I now have two kilns, five stands and two crates of glass.  Yes, I do love glass.”

Paula Haymond grew up in Indiana and earned an impressive list of academic accomplishments:  An undergradute degree, a Master’s in psychology and psychometric assessment and a Doctor of Education degree in counseling. Her career included time as an administrator at a Houston children’s hospital, and later in private practice, specializing in vocational rehabilitation and neuropsychological testing.  In 2010, Haymond began working full time as a wood turner/ sculptor, fulfilling a lifelong love of crafting and woodworking. She has continued to be acknowledged for her innovative and unique style of wood sculpture. In late 2017, she and her partner of 35 years moved to the northern coast of California.

Patricia Callegari has been entertaining herself with art since childhood. Originally self-taught, and painting in her spare time for more than a decade, she returned to college to formally study studio art, art history and gallery management, graduating from the College of Marin and Sonoma State. From 1990-1995 she worked as an art consultant for a Los Angeles-area gallery. She returned to the Bay Area in 1996, opening a gallery in Sausalito, and ultimately expanding to St. Helena and Healdsburg. Retiring from the galleries in 2015, she now devotes her energies to studio work, operating a part time online art store, and working in a lovely little studio in Sebastopol. Her small works are her passion, having developed several quirky, playful lines made from art glass, clay and folk art on wood. “I treat my ornaments and other small 3D works as miniature colorful sculptures.”

Chuck Petersen’s hobby has been carving waterfowl and shorebirds off and on for over twenty-five years. For Petersen, an appreciation for wildlife art and the beauty of an individual feather was all it took to motivate him to pursue this art form.  Guidance from a number of notable wildlife artists (including Jim Sprankle, Vern Jones and Del Herbert) all contributed to his winning many blue ribbons at exhibitions from San Diego to Sacramento. Petersen will quickly tell you that “to take a block of wood, draw a pattern, carve and paint a bird is not only a great hobby, it is also good therapy.”

San Francisco based artist Dana Arden Petersen was born in Monterey, California and grew up in Contra Costa County with summers spent in Gualala and Lake Tahoe’s North Shore.  Her fondest childhood memories are of exploring the streams, creeks, abandoned barns and heritage apricot orchards that proliferated the hills near her home.  She has always liked to draw, and earned a BA in the Practice of Art from UC Berkeley. Upon graduating she moved to San Francisco to work in the business end of the art world.

In 2008 Dana Petersen decided to pursue her passion for painting full-time. Her watercolors have been selected for many juried shows and clearly emanate joy and peace, and reveal admiration for the natural world.  She explores native flora and fauna on her morning walks near Glen Canyon, where encounters with coyotes, hummingbirds and red-tailed hawks are commonplace.

Artist Mark Guthrie’s work will be included in the exhibit. His beautiful and colorful ornaments will enhance any holiday display, and many of them are suitable for displaying year round. Visitors will find themes ranging from birds to stars to snowflakes, a smiling moon and our beautiful blue planet.

There will be extended hours for the exhibit’s opening, Saturday, December 5 from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.  The Dolphin Gallery and Gift Shop is at 39114 Ocean Drive, Cypress Village, in Gualala’s Uptown Art District. Regular hours are Thursday through Monday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Information is at 707.884.3896 and at GualalaArts.org/Dolphin-Gallery.