UpCycled Art Auction to feature original pieces by David J. Lunin, Cassandra Gillens and Mick Csernica
From staff reports
LowCountry Habitat for Humanity will present its UpCycled Art Auction: Look Again! From 6 to 9 p.m., on Friday, March 10 at the Technical College of the Lowcountry Student Center. This years’ event will be hosted by Deanna Bowdish, who will present the live auction as Beaufort’s esteemed art auctioneer.
The Honorary Chairperson of this favorite event is Barbara Krakehl, a LowCountry Habitat for Humanity volunteer for almost two decades. Catering will be provided by Debbie Covington, and the crowd will be entertained with the acoustic music of Beek Webb.
This year, the UpCycled Art Auction will feature three local artists who have created custom pieces to be auctioned by Bowdish. David J. Lunin of Evolve Furniture Studio, Cassandra Gillens and Mick Csernica of Tidal Creek Haven will present their art along with many local and regional artists displaying and selling their work to benefit LowCounty Habitat for Humanity.
A Passion for Master Craftsmanship: David J. Lunin create surreal adaptations of traditional design
Following your passion means exploring a vocation that sparks your interest, developing skills in that specific area, and using those skills to contribute to something beyond yourself.
David J. Lunin has this passion, and it’s become the fuel for his success. The owner of Evolve Furniture Studio, David hasn’t always been a mast craftsman and woodworker. He was born and raised in Westfield, N.J. After studying electronic engineering at Monmouth University, David became less and less interested in a career behind the computer. His friend mentioned a job opening at a local furnishing shop, and David’s career path and passion changed for a lifetime.
David learned the basic skills of antique furniture restoration — stripping, sanding and general repairs as an apprentice with well-regarded firms such as Irion Company Furniture Makers in Christiana, Pa. and Kinloch Woodworking Ltd. in Unionville, Pa. Over decades of improving and perfecting those skills, specifically in 18th-century Colonial American antiques, David began creating meticulous reproductions of timeless pieces by utilizing the same attention to detail as the original craftsmen. All his pieces are built with traditional joinery like hand-cut dovetails, and mortise and tenon joints, preferring the use of traditional finishing material, such as shellac and varnish.
He also has a rare talent called woodturning, a craft that uses a wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation. This skill and his background in reproductions led him to a new passion for transforming traditional designs into contemporary works of art.
David’s showroom, located at 101 Middleton Street off Depot Road near the Spanish Moss Trail, is filled with original designs, and even his DaVinci-inspired wood lathe that he designed and built himself.
For the UpCycled Art Auction, David has converted an early to mid-century chest made of poplar and chestnut into a surreal adaptation of the original piece to be used as a present-day bar cabinet. Utilizing his hand-cut joinery and furniture finishing skills, David has set the bar for high quality craftsmanship.
Evolve Furniture Studio is open by appointment only. For more information, visit www.evolvefurniturestudio.com.
The Art of the Story: Cassandra Gillens paints a new original, Making of the Sweetgrass Basket
Oftentimes when listening to artists’ stories, it seems they discover their connection with their artistry through a series of events, or they are born artists. Lowcountry artist, Cassandra Gillens, undoubtedly, falls in the latter category.
Reflecting on her childhood, she remembers often sitting on the sideline with a sketch pad while children in her neighborhood played kick-the-can and other outdoor games.
“I was in my own little world,” recalls Cassandra, who started drawing with chalk and pencils before entering school.
If artistic muses exist, one might have had a hand in guiding the young talent to St. Francis de Sale in her hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. It was at the Catholic school that the six-year-old met Sister Babler, an art teacher who recognized the young student’s talent for art and nurtured it.
“I was kind of the school’s mascot,” said Cassandra, who often spent weekends at the convent. In fact, she felt so at home there that when the Massachusetts College of Art tried to woo her away to enroll in a youth program, the young artist refused to go.
When Gillens was 12, she spent a year in Port Royal with her grandmother. The southern culture and the pristine backdrop of the coastal town became an inspiration for her work. The sea islands left an indelible mark on Gillens and are often captured in laundry blowing from clotheslines, water pumps and wells sitting in the shadow of old oaks and the ritual of Sunday churchgoers on her canvases.
“I was told that my work helps sell the south,” Gillens said.
Cassandra’s imagination was also influenced by American artist Norman Rockwell. She remembers peeking over the lunch counter at a drugstore to get a look at his painting. Rockwell’s ability, Cassandra says, “to get to the point in the painting,” was and is a major influence in her own art which often reads like a snippet of a short story.
While the artist has been collected worldwide over the past two decades, her first piece of art was sold in 1999 at the Red Piano on St. Helena Island. Since then, the artist’s work has been featured in galleries and museums throughout the United States, as well as, in Taipei, Taiwan.
In 2008 the artist’s work was featured in the movie, Nights of Rodanthe and in HGTV’s Dream House 2013. An affiliate of Sotheby’s auctioned her work in 2014.
LowCountry Habitat for Humanity is honored to announce the inclusion of an original piece of the artist’s work entitled, “Making of the Sweetgrass Basket” in this year’s Upcycled Art Auction. The 24-inch x 36-inch acrylic painting on canvas will be part of the live auction.
Cassandra’s artwork is featured at Macdonald Marketplace on St. Helena Island. Please visit her website at www.cassandragillensarts.com.
It’s a Family Affair: Mick, Gillian, and Courtney Csernica design with the outdoors in mind
Tidal Creek Haven is just that. A Haven. Hopefully, you’ve visited. If not, you’re missing out. Tidal Creek Haven is located in the old Fordham Market building on the corner of Bay and Carteret Streets. Owned and operated by a husband/wife/daughter team, the lifestyle shop sells unique items such as one-of-a-kind driftwood & hardwood furniture, indoor gardening plants & materials, handmade decor, as well as uncommon accessories to make your house a home.
Gillian and Courtney Csernica have utilized their design and retail skills to successfully create an environment that encourages you to stay and browse a while by bringing nature and the outdoors inside. Gillian’s husband and Courtney’s father, Mick, created all the hand-crafted furniture featured throughout the store, including a bar table made with reclaimed wood from the original Fordham Hardware atop a bourbon barrel from Kentucky.
Mick’s craftsmanship merges his affinity for the outdoors and his meticulous attention to functional and artistic detail. His design style is a mix of transitional, coastal, and modern farmhouse rustic. Mick creates aesthetically alluring furniture utilizing raw wood, hand-forged steel, and epoxy resin as common elements. His marriage of masculine simplicity with feminine elegance elicits a connection with the effortless beauty of nature. As does Gillian and Courtney’s panache for interior design.
For the UpCycled Art Auction, Mick created a statement entryway table using a piece of driftwood he collected from Little Capers Island, just south of St. Helena Island. This eclectic piece highlights the family’s cohesive mission to comfortably live with the outdoors, inside.
For more information about Tidal Creek Haven and the Csernicas, please visit www.tidalcreekhaven.com.
Tickets for the UpCycled Art Auction are $50. To purchase, please visit www.lowcountryhabitat.org. All proceeds benefit LowCountry Habitat for Humanity.
Since its inception in 1990, LowCountry Habitat for Humanity has built 54 homes in northern Beaufort County, providing safe, decent and affordable housing to 68 adults and 137 children. Two houses are under construction in the Shell Point neighborhood, and plans are underway to start construction on two more on Roseida Drive soon.
