Joanne Tullis has been one of the Creamery’s premier supporters since it’s inception in 2006. She received her Bachelor’s of Architecture degree from Rice University and has been a design-builder for 30 + years. Moving from Washington State in 2008 to make her home in the North Fork Valley, Joanne has become an active member of our community and supporter of the North Fork Valley Creative Coalition which grew from the well-attended and fruitful discussions at the February 2011 Chamber Business Forum/ North Fork 2020 round tables and from previous efforts by valley arts organizations to establish cross-sector collaborations. The Creative Coalition is actively working on strategies for community economic and social well-being, including creating a directory, marketing, providing educational opportunities, and promoting public art and events.

Joanne’s show “Putting the Pieces Together” showcases her quilting, mixed-media and fiber art. In her photographic collages, multiple photographs and close-ups of each wind-twisted tree are combined to form multi-sided portraits of individual junipers. Several colorful stained glass and fused glass works will also be displayed. Multi-talented Tullis is proud to bring you her first professional exhibit in the Churro Gallery.

The Gnome’s Traveling Rod Museum presented by Jeff Hatton is an unmatched presentation, in that it spans over 200-years of fly rod construction history, with rods dating from the mid-1700’s through up to the 1960’s. It is the most comprehensive compilation of pre-1860 fly rods in existence anywhere in the world, and it depicts the evolution of rod construction from solid wood rods of the 1700’s, through to the composite tipped wood rods of the early to mid-1800’s. This collection continues through to the designs of the modern bamboo fly rod of the late 1940’s into the early 1950’s, when the use of fiberglass became popular and rod construction became somewhat automated.

You will be fortunate to see rare heirloom rods made of ash, greenheart, lancewood, snakewood, hickory, bethabarra, Calcutta cane, Tonkin cane, baleen, fiberglass, and early graphite composite materials. Jeff creates handmade bamboo and exotic, hardwood fly fishing rods. The hardware in the rods is of locally cast bronze, hand carved with pure art, fish themes featuring the “smiling cutthroat” – a signature trait. A customer from Singapore describes Jeff’s work as “ancient looking with modern performance”. The rods are finished in hand-carved wooden cases inlayed with semi-precious stones and scrimshaw ivory. The cases are protected in a leather scabbard. Jeff has a waiting list of two years for these special rods and builds only five to ten a year. His sales are worldwide. Hatton is the published author of Rodcrafting and is working on a second and third book. Jeff refers to himself as a “trout bum” working from his shop in Paonia