The Artist Within, LLC

Learn from local artists who will help you to expand your horizons and open new possibilities in jewelry design.

Individual instruction is available throughout the year to keep your creative juices flowing and teach you new techniques in the ever-evolving art of jewelry-making.

The Artist Within provides an inviting environment that is the perfect setting for sharing your ideas and work and creating a community of artists you can’t find anywhere else.

Call (970) 731-2252 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (970) 731-2252      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (970) 731-2252      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or e-mail info@theartistwithin.biz to set up your instruction time.

You can also find Carol Schneider on Facebook. Become her friend and learn more about the products and services at The Artist Within.

Delores Highsmith

Senior Metal Art Clay Instructor and Vice President of the Pagosa Springs Arts Council, Delores Highsmith has more than 20 years of experience working with various metals.

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A recent move from Richardson, Texas, brings Jewelry and Glass Focal Bead Artist, Delores Highsmith to the Pagosa Springs area. Born in Georgia, she graduated with a BFA degree from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art.

After Graduation, she moved with her husband to Boulder, Colorado, spending 15 years working in the oil industry and raising two children. Delores founded HiDesign, Inc. and spent 10 years producing technical slides, maps, illustrations, and presentations for the oil industry.

A corporate move with her husband Tom placed them in a suburb of Dallas for another 19 years where she was a member and a Metal Clay Instructor at the Craft Guild of Dallas. She received most of her training in glass techniques from nationally known teachers through the Craft Guild of Dallas. During the years in Texas she was employed for 10 years as a Senior QA Manager and software designer for the product Macromedia FreeHand, a software drawing, graphics and printing program. Delores served on the board of The Suzuki Institute of Dallas, a children’s music school.

Delores has been making glass focal beads for other jewelry artists for over 10 years, shipping her beads to excited customers all over the world. She teaches private lessons in beadmaking and glass fusing at her home studio.

She is a trained traditional metalsmith working in silver, copper, bronze, and enameled metals. She teaches advanced chain maille ring weaving; and with the introduction of the exciting new medium, precious metal clay, she teaches all levels of metal clay techniques. “My Mission is on two levels. One is to create beautiful and imaginative things as an artist and the other is to teach others how to create using metal and glass. I want my students to discover their own potential and teach them how to bring the images in their heads into a lasting impression of unique beauty,” Delores says. She received advanced instruction, becoming a Senior Art Clay Silver Instructor with Art Clay World. She teaches classes in silver, copper, and bronze clays opening the door for excited beginning students, who choose not to train for years in traditional metal fabrication, to easily make beautiful silver, gold, copper, and bronze jewelry. Currently she is one of only three instructors in Colorado certified to teach Art Clay Silver techniques and to certify other instructors in these techniques. She brings her excitement about the new medium and talents to Pagosa Springs and is currently offering an introduction to silver metal clay though the PSAC summer workshop program.

Delores Highsmith
dhighsmith@centurytel.net
Gallery of work: http://deloresh.wordpress.com/
Retail site: http://www.etsy.com/shop/artglassbeads

Carol Schneider

Owner of The Artist Within and President of the Pagosa Springs Arts Council, Carol Schneider is primarily a self taught artist.

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For Carol Schneider, inspiration for her jewelry is everywhere she looks.  “Working with unusual materials in my jewelry has unleashed my creativity and challenged my design skills,” says Schneider. In her most recent work, Schneider has used miniature Acoma pottery, turned wood medallions (made by local artist Will Dunbar), ammonite fossils, and Anasazi pottery shards.  The pottery shards were used in a series of jewelry pieces titled Honoring the Ancients. Two of these necklaces were accepted into the Four Corners Commission Juried Exhibit in Durango. Schneider created the Honoring the Ancients series to commemorate the artistry of Anasazi potters. Each piece she created is truly one of a kind. The pottery shards in this series, which are over 1,000 years old, were given to her as a gift from private land in Arizona. “In honor of these ancient artists, I am incorporating their work into mine to continue the life and enjoyment of these tiny pieces of art,” Schneider stated.

Schneider’s beaded jewelry incorporates a variety of techniques, including her favored peyote stitch beading. Her work also reflects her love of the West. In “Sedona,” another piece that was accepted into the juried exhibit in Durango, Schneider demonstrates her bead embroidery skills and fuses the colors of the West with a subject matter typically seen throughout the deserts of the West.

It’s no wonder Schneider’s work has been so influenced by the West and Native American culture. Schneider is originally from Arvada, Colorado, and fondly remembers her many travels throughout the West as a child. Her career in education led her to spending 13 years living and working on three Native American reservations: the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota, and most recently the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, where she was a school superintendent at Rock Point Community School. In August 2009, Schneider moved back to her home state to live and pursue a career in art.

She opened The Artist Within on May 29, 2010.