Featured Artisan:
Merideth Young
Creative people are known for what they create. A person who produces stories is a writer. Someone who crafts necklaces, bracelets, and earrings with gems, metals, and beads is a jeweler. One who uses oils, pastels and acrylics to create wall art is an artist.
In the case of Merideth Young, there’s no one word. In addition to being a savvy business woman who owns and manages Black Rock Gallery, Merideth creates a tremendous variety of items on sale within the shop.
She incorporates precious metals and beautiful gemstones into her necklaces, bracelets and earrings and she fashions one-of-a-kind jewelry from sterling silver. Her exquisite wood-turned pens are sought after gift items.
Merideth's Fine Art
Merideth sketches and paints with water colors, pastels, and acrylics, and her lovely inspired-by-nature designs adorn objects from note cards to wall hangings to furniture and murals in area homes. Her eye for what makes a good picture extends to photography and, in fact, some of the product pictures on this website were taken by her.
With all the variety, Merideth says of herself, “I have zero creativity,” giving credit to others whose works inspire her to try something new, and even to nature itself where she finds inspiration in such simple things as an oak leaf, a dragonfly, or a hummingbird. But her fertile mind does not copy others. Instead, she finds new ways to combine old arts and crafts, and she has even developed her own method of creating smaller framed version of her murals.
Merideth’s Background
A native of southern New Hampshire, Merideth remembers that even as a small child, she loved to make things and to pick up pencils and pens and draw, and she found herself continually experimenting with various arts and crafts. While she was attending the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine, she and her mother signed up for a jewelry class. “The tools and materials were fascinating,” says Merideth. “It made me decide to be a metalsmith. That’s how I am – when something piques my interest, I want to learn how to do it.”
Merideth’s newfound interest led to a BFA degree in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design. At Marshall University in Charleston, West Virginia, she earned her Master of Arts degree in Teaching. An employer in West Virginia who asked if she would try her hand at painting the store walls was responsible for enabling her to discover yet another venue for her talents. She expanded that interest during some years spent in Colorado, where she delighted home and business owners with her paintings on their walls and furniture. She employs techniques known as faux finish or “trompe-l’oeil,” literally translated to “trick of the eye” for its 3D effect.
Merideth returned to Charlottesville, Virginia, and opened Black Rock Gallery in Wintergreen Resort’s Mountain Inn in February of 2004. She and her fiancé, Porter Fogelman, returned to the west in August of 2008 to be married in the high mountains of the Colorado Rockies. Porter’s beautifully crafted woodworkings are also featured in her Black Rock Gallery shop. The home in Heards, Virginia, that they converted from a former country store, was featured in HGTV’s show “Rezoned” in 2007.
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--Merideth was interviewed by Helen Deane Dozier of Deane's Creative Arts.
