Payson Roundup

Dick Wolfe

November’s First Friday at Artists of the Rim Gallery on Main Street in Payson features artists Dixie Guldner and Dick Wolfe.

Silversmith Wolfe makes earrings, necklaces and rings out of silver, accented with exotic and local stones like amethysts, rhodocrosite and pink tourmaline — a stone which he says is becoming very popular.

Guldner hollows gourds, then paints, carves or adds accents like feathers or lace, among other things.

First Friday on Main Street starts at 5 p.m. and lasts until 8 p.m.

Both artists meld the analytical with creative impulses. Guldner started out as a concert organist, and then became a marriage therapist.

Guldner says the art of gourds is a continuation of her creative evolution.

“Generally, nature does not produce perfection,” Guldner writes in the informational sheet she gives her patrons. Gourds are long and short, thick and thin, smooth and rough.

“This is not a flaw in the gourd, but rather how nature produced it.”

Guldner contemplates the gourd’s shape and color until determining a best new incarnation.

Wolfe worked as a San Diego police officer for many years until moving to Phoenix, where he became an investigator with the attorney general. He worked his way up the ranks, and was eventually named a chief special agent for the attorney general.

He enjoys his new creative life, in which he writes and makes jewelry.