Jekyll Island Arts Association April Exhibit
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
By Betty Rasmussen
The Jekyll Island Arts Association will not rest after their busy time with the Arts Festival but will be mounting a new show in the Gallery right away. March 19 to April 19, will feature Debra Yaun’s exquisite colored pencil art and the beautiful pottery of the Jekyll Island Pottery Guild.
Debra grew up in Tampa, Florida, where as a child she found she had a knack for drawing people. She painted a few commissioned portraits in high school, including the daughter of one of her teachers. In Sarasota, she graduated from Ringling School of Art and worked at Busch Gardens every summer as a quick sketch artist. After meeting her husband, an advertising web designer, at Ringling they moved to Atlanta. Debra has worked as a fashion illustrator, layout artist, a graphic artist and an art director. She quit working after her first child was born and returned to painting seriously in 1990. She started drawing and painting from photos of her own children and friends children, often late into the night. Debra displayed her work in a local library and at art shows but found donating pieces to local fundraising auctions was her best exposure. Initially most of her clients were from Gainesville and Buford, but now she has clients from all over the Atlanta area due to word of mouth. Debra has received many awards, has written quite a few books, and designed colored pencil and watercolor kits. Whether she’s drawing or painting animals or people, Debra’s work has an exactness that lends itself to pencil. Every hair is rendered, every detail articulated.
The Jekyll Island Pottery Guild has many, many talented artists whose work has graced the shelves of the Shop of Goodyear Cottage for a very long time. It is always with great anticipation that we look forward to the times when they move into the Gallery to display their talents as the 3-D part of the Gallery show for the month. Expect some beautiful and useful pieces of the highest quality from the greatest artists in the Southeast.

















Jekyll Island Authority is a proud participant in the Humane Society of South Coastal Georgia’s “Coastal Dawgs Unleashed” art fundraiser. The Humane Society’s goal is to raise $200,000, to support the shelter’s daily operational expenses and the capital campaign to build a new shelter by recruiting thirty-area businesses to sponsor Dawgs. Talented artists from the Jekyll Island Arts Association will paint our 4-foot-tall fiberglass bulldog named “Essence” to represent all the wonderful things about Jekyll Island. The dog will be worked on from November – March were final touches will be done live at the Jekyll Island Arts Association’s Art Festival.

In 1984 Len Poleszak founded the Jekyll Island Arts Association’s Guild and Pottery Shop. Si Fryer, one of the founders of the JIAA introduced Len to the craft that would change his life. The first time at a wheel Len immediately centered and threw a pot. No one was more surprised than he was and Len became hooked with “playing in the clay.” Over the years, he won prizes in JIAA festivals, sold lots of pots, exhibited many times, enjoyed teaching others and was always eager to learn more.












and back are realistically completed. Caitlin Barrow, a senior at Glynn Academy, likes the freedom provided to interpret set programs at her school. She says, “everyone works well together and is open to others’ ideas and art interpretations.”
The 2008 Jekyll Island Arts Festival is Friday – Sunday March 7-9. The hours are 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on the grounds of Goodyear Cottage in the Historic District. Admission is free. Members present their entries to be judged on Friday morning. The categories are painting, photography, pottery, woodcarving, fiber arts, porcelain arts, handicrafts and ceramics. The festival shop will feature many items for sale by members, and the café, brunswick stew and other favorites will be served! Be sure to peruse the bake sale for dessert. Marshgrass Bluegrass Band performs while you watch demonstrations by weavers, carvers, painters, and potters. Be sure to enter the raffle to win some of the donated art!
An exciting combination of artwork will be featured at the Jekyll Island Art Association’s gallery January 4 – February 2 when it welcomes the artwork of the Georgia Coastal Artists Guild along with the popular Raku pottery by members of Jekyll’s Pottery Guild.