Member Spotlight: Elena Billings
Elena Billings is the GPMS Ceramics Lab Coordinator. She teaches almost all of our ceramics classes and the community loves them! Elena started ceramics in middle school and continued into college at GCCC where she had an Arts scholarship. She worked in their ceramics lab mixing glazes and firing the kilns. Elena loves to hand build her art and has made many pieces over the years, most of which have been given away as gifts.
While helping GPMS is a lot of work, we all know that volunteers have plenty of other things they do too. Elena is no exception. She works at the Holcomb Police Dept, she camps with her family (cats included!), she likes to crochet, knit, sew, 3D print, and laser cut. Elena also helps with Steps Dance School as stage crew. Her daughter has been a dancer there for years and during last year’s Nutcracker, Elena and her husband were performers, too!
Spark in the Park
On June 27th, Garden City Arts hosted Art in the Park. GPMS participated with two members as vendors and by hosting Spark in the Park, a mini-maker fair. Shout out also to Red Dog Children’s Museum who was present and did lots of their creating at GPMS!
Lexie Ortega with Popskullture Art sold original artwork, prints, stickers, and more. Nicole Dick with Flux & Foil sold stained glass art and fused glass jewelry.
During the mini-maker fair (the fourth one we’ve held) we had several demonstrations. Kiefer brought a 3D printer to make a community art puzzle. Adelyn and Lydia made kandi bracelets and weavings. Chris tried his hand at soldering key sculptures. Sherrailynn did watercolor painting and had bookmarks for others to paint. Shannon made pendulum pancakes. Kyle did some inkle loom weaving. Patty showed off her Chomp saw and cardboard creations. We also had multiple members help with GPMS information.
Thanks to Katy with Garden City Arts for the space and to ALL our members for your help and support!
News and Updates
- WISE Vendor Pop-up – To celebrate our second year of WISE and to demonstrate all the participants have done, GPMS will host it’s first pop-up event! On August 1st from 10am to 3pm, we will have a pop-up market on the front lawns of the makerspace. WISE participants will have a booth as well as other makers from GPMS and the area. If you are interested, or know someone who would be, please contact Lexie Ortega, or another GPMS board members, to get more information.
- July Class Offerings – This July GPMS has a wide variety of class topics to offer and ten different teachers offering them! We’ll have events in pottery and stained glass as usual, but also macrame, an astronomy viewing event, how to play Warhammer, and more! Check out our calendar. If you have an idea for an event, please let Nicole Dick or another GPMS board member know.
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