December 12, 2024 • Posted by Design Bay Area
The holiday season is in full swing, now is a great time to treat yourself while supporting local artists, or choose a special gift for that special person who deserves a little sparkle.
Gallery Lulo, owned by Healdsburg residents: Danish native Anne-Kathrine Schjerbeck and artist Karen Gilbert, Lulo is a gallery of contemporary work, with artists who explore form, material and technique in progressive, original ways. Gallery Lulo shows work in the mediums of jewelry, fine art, design, and sculpture from regional, national, and international artists.
We are based in Healdsburg, California, a small, country town with deep cultural roots in the land and nature. The area attracts an eclectic mix of cultural innovators, farmers, and entrepreneurs, as well as travelers from around the world who come to experience the best in wine and cuisine. Gallery Lulo is a reflection of this place, its values and our own vision of art and culture.
We’ve chosen a few pieces by local SF Bay Area artist below. Enjoy!
Niki Ulehla
Niki Ulehla is a San Francisco based artist, jewelry designer, puppet maker and performer. She moved to California in 1997 to study painting at Stanford University. Her work is all hand-made in her San Francisco studio.
As a jewelry designer, her work is strongly tied to her work as a puppet maker. She first learned to make marionettes in the Czech Republic where her father is from, when she was 20. Immediately after returning to California, she studied jewelry making at the Revere Academy in San Francisco. Since that time, she has worked in both of these areas. Each one lends ideas and forms to the other. Many of the techniques and materials used in making her jewelry come from techniques or discoveries in the puppet-making process. Wood, paint, gold leaf, fabric and plastic are paired with traditional materials of gold, silver and gemstones.
She splits her time between working on jewelry and working on puppets and puppet shows. I have been performing in the San Francisco bay area since 2005. I continue to work on a version of Dante’s Inferno, which I began during a residency at Recology in San Francisco. Recently, I have begun to explore the overlap between puppets and jewelry more deeply through smaller scale performance.
Karen Gilbert
Karen studied at the University of San Francisco, California College of the Arts, and Pilchuck Glass School. In addition to making jewelry, she co-owns a glass design and manufacturing company, SkLO, and a gallery, Lulo. Her varied interests can be seen in her work, which she makes with silver and gold as well as glass and beads.
I see my work from two sides. One is the exploration of materials; the other is the content of my ideas. the functional forms in nature and science, put together, are those we find familiar. I see these most primal forms as roadmaps for everything we think and feel. The smallest can be a visual representation of the larger complexity. What is underneath the surface is what I choose to explore. I try to question ideas about where comfort and beauty are found. The objects I make are my expressions of a new narrative.
Nikki Couppee
Nikki Couppee is a jewelry artist and metalsmith originally from Florida living in Oakland, California.
Kate Eickelberg
Kate Eickelberg makes her limited edition fine jewelry in Oakland, California, drawing on inspiration from the natural beauty of the Bay Area and the city grit of her hometown of Brooklyn, NY.
She earned a BFA in sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2007 and has been playing with fire ever since, growing her skills in modern apprenticeships with other jewelers until she was ready to start her own studio. Kate is particularly interested in exploring the idea of preciousness; the things we’ve collectively agreed have value and those that are special just to a few of us. She carefully chooses all of her materials, diamonds and steel alike, with the same attention to detail that can be seen in her work.
The hunt for inspiring materials is fun, but Kate’s favorite part of bringing the beauty of the organic and industrial together is the thoughtful engineering. Each piece is carefully crafted with the wearer in mind.
Morgania Moore
Morgania Moore is an artist who grew up in Sonoma and still lives on a wild plot of land, alongside her husband and young son, just outside of Healdsburg. We have carried Morgania`s jewelry for many years and love her edgy, personal and unique aesthetic approach and unusual use of materials. They relate deeply to the land we are surrounded by. The past years, floods and fires have taken away homes of their neighbors and Morgania and family have come eerily close to seeing their family home destroyed. We talk to her, while three months into the Shelter in Place, about the origins of her creative work in jewelry and art as well as winemaking business with husband Brooke – Bannister Wine.
Julia Turner
Beautifully crafted, modern, expressive. Each piece of Julia Turner jewelry is handmade in our studio in San Francisco, California.
Nikki Couppee
Nikki Couppee is a jewelry artist and metalsmith originally from Florida living in Oakland, California.
Petra Class
Class founded her jewelry design studio in San Francisco in 1991. The studio has grown into an atelier with a small team of women. Class also has studios in Portland, Oregon and New York City. Class’s work is inspired by European applied art and California’s organic and nature-inspired attitude. Her pieces are characterized by rhythmic arrangements, repetition, unexpected contrasts, and a focus on wearability.
Karen Gilbert
Karen studied at the University of San Francisco, California College of the Arts, and Pilchuck Glass School. In addition to making jewelry, she co-owns a glass design and manufacturing company, SkLO, and a gallery, Lulo. Her varied interests can be seen in her work, which she makes with silver and gold as well as glass and beads.
I see my work from two sides. One is the exploration of materials; the other is the content of my ideas. the functional forms in nature and science, put together, are those we find familiar. I see these most primal forms as roadmaps for everything we think and feel. The smallest can be a visual representation of the larger complexity. What is underneath the surface is what I choose to explore. I try to question ideas about where comfort and beauty are found. The objects I make are my expressions of a new narrative.
