UPDATE Tuesday, Decemer 2, 2014: This article has been updated to reflect a change of time for the Gentlemen’s Night Out event on December 8.

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Avancé Esthétiques Day Spa will host an exhibition showcasing the work of “three fabulous females,” says Rosemary Rau, curator of “Holiday Arts Show.”

Featuring jewelry by Justine Aspinwall, traditional watercolors by DeAnn L. Prosia, and mosaic glass art by Heidrun Morgan, the exhibition will be on view at the Sand Hill Plaza location November 23 until December 31. An opening reception is planned for Sunday, November 23, from 2 to 4 pm.

The opening will include an informal jewelry and fashion show, Ms Rau said November 7.

“We will have three generations of models, and lovely refreshments,” she said. Seated alongside spa owner Melanie Allen and two of the three participating artists last Friday afternoon, Ms Rau was well into planning the location of all of the works for the show and the grand opening celebration just a couple weeks away.

Justine Aspinwall is a former art teacher, having retired from Ridgefield High School. She was introduced to the art of jewelry and jewelry making about 20 years ago when she asked a friend — another former teacher — about her hobby.

“I asked her to show me what she does, and that was all it took,” said Ms Aspinwall, who has since studied with Cynthia Rutlidge in California and has taken workshops at The Bead And Button Show, an annual event in Milwaukee, Wisc., hosted by Bead & Button magazine.

She sees jewelry making as “miniature sculpture,” she said, and as such has created pieces that run from “pretty basic to more elaborate.”

Ms Aspinwall began with stringing stones and beads, but has moved into the more intricate bead weaving. She works primarily with Swarovski crystals, but also incorporates natural stones into many pieces. Looking through a small collection of her work on Friday, Ms Aspinwall picked up one necklace and pointed out peridot, amethyst, pink tourmaline, and garnet. Another necklace features pearls.

She works on her own, but also meets up with friends once each month for Bead & Feed events, where jewelers share ideas and work on projects. Her work is featured in Connecticut and Massachusetts stores, and she is a member of the Ridgefield-based artists co-op Ally Bally Bee.

A resident of Bethel, Ms Aspinwall enjoys being able to design her own pieces, she said, as well as the fact that “this doesn’t take up a lot of room,” she said, indicating her finished pieces as well as some of her tools.

Self-Taught Artist

Heidrun Morgan, a native of Germany who was unable to attend Friday’s gathering, is a self-taught mosaic artist whose works are in collections in the United States and Germany, including many friends. Ms Heidrun’s love of art, according to her biography, has resulted in her taking numerous art classes over the past 35 years as well as experimentation with different mediums and styles.

The resulting mosaic glassworks are incredibly detailed, often very colorful, and always unique. 

The Newtown resident uses both the “direct” method for creating mosaics with depth (gluing items to a surface and then grouting the entire piece) as well as an “indirect” method to create a flat surface for her stepping stones and tabletops (creating a mosaic upside down and then reinforcing it with cement or adhering it to a surface).

She fell in love with mosaics while visiting Vienna a few years ago, and continues to bring European flair to her work.

“During my travels in Europe, I purchase novelty tiles and other items to make my mosaics unique,” the artist told The Bee in October 2011 as she was preparing to participate in an exhibition at Blue Horse Arts Studio in Watertown.

She began teaching stained glass workshops at Blue Horse in 2012, and was also represented in another of the gallery’s shows that spring. She and painter and mixed media artist Ginger Hanrahan, also of Newtown, were among those accepted into “Plight of the Pollinators,” a juried show with works from around the world.

Ms Morgan often incorporates found pieces into her art.

She has her own kiln in her art studio, which allows her to create fused glasswork at home and teach the art to others. Ms Morgan also creates stained glass window panels and other decorative pieces and suncatchers. She uses the copper foil method, made popular by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the early 20th Century.

“Working with glass,” she said in an artist’s statement, “is the perfect addiction of sorts because each piece is unique and giving life to my ideas completes me.”

Etcher-Turned-Painter

Painter DeAnn L. Prosia joined Ms Rau, along with jeweler Justine Aspinwall and Avancé Esthétiques owner Melanie Allen, for a meeting at the day spa on November 7. Traditionally a printmaker, the Newtown resident took a three-year hiatus from detailed illustration work and came up with her new favorite technique: watercolors with pencil.

“The thing I love most is to draw,” Ms Prosia said. “I wanted something colorful, but looser, something that doesn’t take as much time as etching. I’ve been doing this for approximately seven years now.”

She had been doing black and white etchings — exhibiting and winning awards locally and as far away as Germany for her work — when a turning point in her life changed her output. When her husband, an employee of Boehringer-Ingelheim, was transferred to Mainz, Germany, in 2006, Ms Prosia “left etching behind,” she told The Newtown Bee in 2010. The opportunity of temporarily living overseas gave her the go-ahead to try something new.

On a trip to Nice, France, she saw the artwork of Raoul Dufy, the French Fauvist painter who was celebrated for a colorful, decorative style he developed. Ms Prosia plunged into the world of watercolors.

The portability of the medium, she wrote in her artist’s statement, allowed her to paint on site while learning about the medium.

“It completely turned me around,” Ms Prosia said four years ago. Her work today continues to combine bright colors of watercolor with defined lines done in colored pencil, a carryover of her life as an etching artist. It is these paintings that will be presented during “Holiday Arts Show,” and which continue to bring Ms Prosia happiness.

Ms Prosia was published in the 2012 publication Splash 13 — Alternative Approaches (North Light Books), the same year she was part of a two-artist show at Koenig FrameWorks in her hometown called “Atmospheres.” She was also published in Watercolor Artist Magazine: Etch-A-Sketch, and is a member of American Watercolor Society.

She now divides her time between etching and watercolor, and shows her work at various galleries, art festivals, and exhibitions around the world.

“I absolutely enjoy doing this,” she said last week, looking with a smile at the two pieces she had with her. “You don’t do artwork unless you enjoy it.”

Avancé Esthétiques Day Spa is in the northern section of Sand Hill Plaza, 228 South Main Street in Newtown. “Holiday Arts Show” can be visited any time the spa is open: Tuesdays and Thursdays, noon to 9 pm; Wednesdays, 10 am to 6 pm; Friday, 9 am to 6 pm; and Saturday, 9 am to 5 pm. The spa can be reached by calling 203-270-8911.

In addition to the opening reception on November 23, a special Gentleman’s Night Out will he held on Monday, December 8. From 5:30 to 7:30 pm, men are invited to view the exhibition, enjoy refreshments, and pick up gift ideas with the help of a personal shopper.