A SERIES OF ARTISTS PORTRAITS

"If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change." Miles Davis.

The drastic and sudden change we all have had to endure inspires collaboration, creativity, community, and vulnerability. For us at Lulo, the temporary closure allows us more time to go behind the scenes of the work we represent and highlight a group of artists, beginning with people living in our immediate community of Healdsburg.

The individuals are captured by Sonoma County based artist Alice Warnecke Sutro, who through choreographed and collaborative images sent to her by the individuals - sketches and represents her own artistic process in digital format. Alice is an artist, writer and wine producer of Sutro Wine living and working at the historic Warnecke Ranch - family owned since 1911. We have had the pleasure of working with Alice in the past for a series of portrait sessions here at Lulo. For more about Alice's work and life read here.

Morgania is a self taught and multi talented artist, working in the mediums of jewelry, sculpture, interior design and photography.

I would like to begin by asking you about your home here in Alexander Valley, Sonoma, since so much of your work appears directly related and inspired by your space and location. What is the story of how you and your family came to live where you do?

Well, we all came from the East Bay area and my grandfather is originally Guerneville. When my grandparents decided to make the move 45 years ago, they bought a 10 acres plot out in Alexander Valley. My dad helped my grandfather, who worked for the Geysers as an engineer, build the 4 bedroom house, as well as a wood shop and a stained glass studio for my grandmother. When the house was done and I was about 5 years old, we moved from Oakland into this little town of Healdsburg with my parents. We would visit my grandparents in Alexander Valley every weekend and just run around. When I was 19, my grandmother no longer used her studio, so I moved into it and started to claim that space - which is to this day my studio.

A view from the family plot of land in Alexander Valley.

There is a beautiful emphasis on material and found objects in your work - how did the passion for transforming non precious and precious materials to works of art and jewelry happen?

Well, I think that because I am self taught and very curious as a human, that I have no reservations for trying different mediums. When I look at something that is beautiful, which is all around us everyday and something catches my eye, I want to figure out how to encase it. This has driven me to try different mediums to figure out how to capture and encase the beauty. Experimenting with resin, paper mache or concrete - ways to make it encased and special. There is just beauty everywhere. If something catches my attention, I work with it. I have a collection of things and in my studio to give me impulse to create art.

Morgania collects natural materials from her property and encases them. Seen above are elements like porcupine quills, feathers and lichen, encased in materials such as reason and vintage medical glass viles.

The first jewelry I ever made, while living in Oakland, was out of recycled leather. Very simple, not high design, but I was into the material itself, the softness and manipulation of what you could do with it. When we moved back to the country, my father had left behind large amounts of hide from his hunting trips to Alaska. My instinct and feeling was to take it and experiment with it for creative purpose and watch it unfold into a new thing.

Morgania's late father`s leather hide, transformed into beautiful leather jewelry.

I never had a desire to work with wood, I found it intimidating, Before my husband Brooke moved into winemaking, he worked as a furniture maker. He had left a 200 year old olive root from a project he was doing. A year passed and I collected the remnants from this and decided to cut into it. It had become soft, I could manipulate it and the inside looked like a geode. Ever since then I have been hooked on working with wood.

Moores's adaption of wood fragments into wearable and light pieces of jewelry.

My attraction to material things and working with them is my self expression. Others may have this through writing or articulating words, mine is through working with my hands and creation tangible objects. I spend a lot of time with my pieces - everything is hand worked, hand cut. My pieces have weight and energy to them.

For many years you lived and worked professionally in Oakland as well - did this change your outlook or aesthetic approach to the work you make today?

My husband Brooke and I moved to Oakland and we bought a house in our twenties. We lived down there for 11 years. Before becoming a jeweler, my career started out as a stylist in make up and wardrobe in San Francisco.

My accounts with stores started with a custom built four tiered rolling suitcase, which I would walk around to boutiques with and show my jewelry . That turned into being picked up by a rep in LA and doing orders for places down there.

My years in the city trained me to be more professional and value my own style, while being able to connect with a wide group of artists and designers and gain experience in the field of being a professional artist. Had I only stayed in Healdsburg I would not have the confidence in making my work the way I do today.

Vintage and industrial brass components transformed to jewelry.

Do you have a process and approach to making your work?

Yes and no. I have multiple tables in my studio with materials and objects that I want to work with. I am definitely free flow, what calls me. I have always had a studio at my house, so I can work at any time. And I spend a lot of time in this space.

Brooke and yourself are now making and running the business started by Brooke`s family, Bannister Wine. Was winemaking always a passion? How are you applying your artistic skills to winemaking?

Brooke's mom was a pioneer in the wine industry. She discovered some wild yeast that is well known around the world now because of her. She opened up the Laboratory of Vinquiry - for consulting and analytical support to wine industry. She always made really small batches of wine and sold to restaurants she liked. When she retired she sold the laboratory, but still wanted to be part of the wine industry. Brooke decided to not make furniture anymore and take on that small production of wine from his mom. Now it is solely Brooke and I making the wine. Brooke would always come out for harvest when he lived away, the process is second nature to Brooke. Bannister is known for pinot, buying grapes from small plots of pinot grapes along the Coast and making high quality, low production wines.

We want to experiment with the wines we make and find growers others don’t use. We have long relationships with the land and the family that grow and find our grapes through word of mouth.

I do all the styling the photographing for pr, pop up wine tastings and harvest parties.

Alexander Valley taken from Morgania's home.