Rowe Fine Art Gallery will start the month of August with First Friday, August 7, 3-6 p.m. Take a break from the summer heat and visit us at Suite A102. Then throughout the month of August, they will be featuring their newest artist, Shirley Eichten Albrecht. Shirley, known fondly as “The Basket Lady,” will be showing her Fine Art gourd sculptures and Raku sculptures.

“When I begin working with a gourd or raku, I take time to explore its shape, examine its colors and the feelings it evokes, and listen to the story it wants to tell,” says Shirley. “Only then do I begin to weave. My raku and my gourds are my canvas, and my weaving is my paint. And each finished piece takes on its own voice.”  

Shirley grew up on a farm in Minnesota and graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in art and music. She taught in Minnesota and Texas before moving to St. Louis in 1987. Shirley co-founded a basket-weaving guild there and, when she moved to Sedona in 2001, she co-founded one in Red Rock Country. Shirley has won numerous local, regional and national awards, and has been juried into prestigious shows in Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, California and Missouri. Her work has appeared in publications including Phoenix Home & Garden. 

Rowe Fine Art Gallery represents traditional and contemporary southwestern artists. The gallery, located under the bell tower in Patio de las Campanas at Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village, is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  For more information, call 928-282-8877, visit www.rowegallery.com, or find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.