Building A New Block

Collectors of her creations never know exactly where they’ll find Denise Lanuti - or exactly what they’ll find when they do.

During the summer, Lanuti was a featured artist in the museum shop at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - and her latest endeavor was born there. Long a lampwork bead artisan, she is now making vessels from fused dichroic glass.

“It was just a glass dish I had made for fun by fusing the glass I use in bead making,” Lanuti says with some surprise. “Someone wanted to buy it - and then Crystal Bridges went nuts for it. Now I’m spending a lot of time doing it.”

Next weekend, Lanuti will turn up somewhere new, showing her lampwork beads, electroformed pendants and the fused-glass vessels at the Block Street Holiday Art Sale at Mount Sequoyah. The event still features many of the same artists who have been constants over the past 12 years, but the new space at Parker Hall made room for some new exhibitors.

“I always wanted to be part of this show,” says Lanuti excitedly. “It always seemed like the best of the best. It’s intimate, but there’s some of the greatest art in Northwest Arkansas there.”

The show started when photographer Don House “got lonely,” says Debra Dubois, a textile artist and one of the organizers.

“He invited a few friends over, and that turned into this tradition of the Block Street art sale.”

Of course, the sale isn’t on Block Avenue this year. After many shows at the GoodFolkHouse, Mike Shirkey’s sale of the property forced a change.

“I couldn’t stand not knowing where we’d be,” Dubois says, “so I went on a huge campaign all over town.We got to see Parker Hall on a Saturday in February. When we pulled up and saw the big front porch, I thought it would work. So we decided in February where our new home would be.”

The hall also has a big kitchen, necessary since food is an integral part of the family feel of the event.

While 12 artists was crowded at the Block Avenue house, 14 will fit fine at Parker Hall, Dubois adds.

“The cast has changed a little bit this year,” she explains. Cindy Arsaga will not be showing, but “William Mayes Flanagan is back with his paintings, Greg Mitchell is back with his furniture, and we have Denise and photographer Sabine Schmidt as guest artists.

“This show just keeps evolving every year.”

Dubois, a weaver, says she keeps evolving, too. She set out to make tapestries, fell in love with cotton looper rugs and has returned to tapestries in the form of runners that “really have a life of their own,” she says. “I can get a whole lot of color changes in a 16-by-50-inch piece.”

Handbag artisan Faye Alter has made some changes this year, too. She’s added two new sizes to her vintage bark cloth bags - a smaller iPad size and a bigger tote designed for carrying projects like knitting.

Some of her bags, which incorporate both vintage bark cloth and new upholstery fabric, also come with a crossbody strap now.

“It’s not big, crazy changes,” she says, then uses the same word that everyone else uses to describe the Block Street art sale. “They’re just evolving.”