I remember first meeting Coralette Damme a couple years ago at a St. Petersburg art festival.  I couldn’t resist her creative and very unique Halloween inspired pieces.  Damme, better known in the art community as The Crafty Hag, showcases everything from stained glass to funky little magnets with skulls and pumpkin faces drawn on them.  Damme considers her work to be “quirky,” possibly even slightly surreal.  The artist uses heavy outlining and strong color choices, as opposed to colors which tend to be more “realistic” or natural.  Damme’s work is inspired mostly from nature and its many elements such as animals, birds and fish, but also weather and plants.  In addition, she uses ancient symbols, patterns from other cultures and primitive art to convey artistic concepts.

In a small spare bedroom in Damme’s house is where the artist spends most of her time creating.  ”The room isn’t much to look at. Floors are in horrible condition and it is floor to ceiling with finished work, work in progress and various tools and materials… but I love it.  I spend many hours with my radio in my studio working.”

Damme seems to be a jack-of-all-traits when it comes to art.  ”In college, I could never settle on one single type of art to focus on-ceramics, painting, printmaking… I loved them all.”  After college, Damme learned to work with stained glass and had great success with it, thus building a reputation as a fine glass artist.  She worked in the copper foil method of stained glass, which means that once she had her design laid out and the glass cut just right, she would wrap each piece in copper foil, then solder it together.  According to Damme, the process was quite tedious and a lot of work.  The artist also painted images on the glass pieces.  ”I started to realize that I just liked the painting and drawing parts and it was harder and harder to force myself to finish a piece.  That is when I knew I needed to change things up.  I now will work sun up to sun down on prints, if given the opportunity to do so.  You know you’re on the right track when it doesn’t feel like work, but you’ll skip meals to do it.”  Now, Damme is back to printmaking as her favorite medium, with painting coming in as a close second.  Although she has given up her stained glass making for the most part now, Damme said she will not completely retire from it.  However, it may be a while before she goes back to glass artistry.  With printmaking, Damme makes both linocut and monoprints.  A linocut is a form of relief or block print.  It is similar in concept to a wood block print, but instead of carving the image from wood, you use a linoleum block.  ”It gives a different feel than wood; no grain shows up in the print,” explains the artist.  A monoprint, according to Damme, is a one-of-a-kind image, as opposed to the typical edition of prints pulled, which are all the same.  ”It can be a painting on a flat surface like plexiglass, and then printing it, which is a common method.  I have done monoprints where I ink up found objects like leaves, and print them directly on to paper.  Since I can’t reproduce identical images to make an edition, they are considered monoprints.”  Damme continues on to say how much she loves printmaking and is even a member of an online printmakers team called Printsy.  You can visit Printsy’s page at http://printsy.blogspot.com/.  Damme’s most popular art pieces are her Halloween inspired work, which she sells year round, and anything she paints with cats on it.

Damme says she remembers drawing at a very young age, but claims she never took art in high school.  However, she continued to draw outside of school in her spare time.  Originally a journalism and language major in college, Damme recalls the moment when she made a life changing career choice.  ”Halfway through those [journalism/language] courses, I took a required art education class, then a drawing class and was hooked.”  Damme later graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, stating she chose her passion rather than a more “solid career path.”  The artist, who is currently based in St. Petersburg, was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska.  After college, she moved to Minneapolis/St. Paul and eventually found the “Sunshine State.”

The very talented Damme belongs to various art related groups, one being the Florida Etsy Street Team or FEST.  When Damme was asked if she has a mentor, she answered that she does not but rather, serves as a mentor for others.  FEST, a group of Florida based art vendors is found on Etsy.com, a site for handmade goods.  FEST allows Damme to help fellow artists who are just starting out with festivals and markets, by giving them advice and sharing tips.  You can find out more about this team through www.etsyfest.com or by visiting Damme’s shop at Etsy, which is found at craftyhag.etsy.com.

Damme is also the founder of The Craft Heroes, a venture the artist started with the help of a fellow Etsy vendor and friend named Shannon Schafer, aka Boogiebead (www.boogiebead.etsy.com).  ”Shannon and I decided we wanted to organize our own type of funky arts and crafts festivals, so we formed the St. Pete Craft Heroes (www.craftheroes.com).  When we hold events, we try to coordinate with a local non-profit or charity.  For example, last year we held “Craft Emergency” as a benefit for the local chapter of the Red Cross.  Vendors pay a registration fee which is split between promotional materials and advertising, while the remainder is given as a donation to the charity group.”

So, where does Damme see herself in years to come?  ”I want to make art, better art.  Sounds simple but that point on the horizon is always shifting.  I may never be the artist I want to be or feel I have the potential to be, but I will always keep pursuing it.  I think a lot of artists dream of making a living from their work.  It’s not easy to do.  Whether or not I can achieve that, I don’t know.  It’s a slippery slope and I don’t want to end up making art to sell as opposed to making art for fun.  I’ve been in the art to sell boat and it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

You may wonder, how did Damme ever come up with the unusual name for her craft business?  ”You can read into it whatever way you want-a defense mechanism, truth in advertising, good marketing strategy (people notice and remember it!), but the truth is it comes from joking around with some of my closest girl friends.  I first moved to Florida to pursue my passion for scuba diving and they would call me a “dive hag,” and so when I needed a business name I felt like The Crafty Hag was the perfect choice,” states Damme.  The artist says she uses it as a gauge for people coming into her booth.  ”If they have a sense of humor and laugh at my name, they are far more likely to be interested in my work and purchase something.  People who don’t get it usually just keep walking.  It’s proven to be a pretty accurate indicator.”

The Crafty Hag’s work can be found at her Etsy shop, and during market season usually on Saturdays.  ”My home away from home (market wise) has been the “Art in the Park” event held each Saturday in Williams Park, downtown St. Pete, ” says Damme. The artist also expressed that she has received some interest recently from two out of state art galleries, and hopes to show her work with them in the near future.  Damme participates in many local art shows including the “I Love St. Pete” show, recently held at ARTpool, a community based studio/gallery/event site for aspiring Tampa Bay artists.  For a small fee, artists can rent wall space to show off their work.  Damme also has done “Open Wall Night,” which is sponsored by the Tampa Bay Creative Network held at The Studio@620.  In addition, you can find out about the artist’s upcoming events and shows through her Facebook page or by visiting her website at www.craftyhag.com/events.

Additional Information for Coralette Damme, The Crafty Hag can be found at:

www.myspace.com/craftyhag

http://twitter.com/craftyhag

www.craftyhag.com

Photograph of Damme taken by Velva Lee Heraty