OjaiStyle, a website featuring local Ojai artists and products, today officially opened for business. OjaiStyle has 14 local artists and more than 3500 products including fine art, jewelry, glass, pottery and gifts. Long known as an artistic community 90 miles north of Los Angeles, OjaiStyle is the first website dedicated solely to showcasing artworks from Ojai and the Ojai Valley.
“It is with great pride that we are launching OjaiStyle,” said Katrina Rice Schmidt, co-founder of OjaiStyle. “As an Ojai Valley resident and original art lover, we wanted to build a destination that people could visit and get a feeling of being in Ojai, even if you cannot be here in person. To make the visit to our site even more special, we have created short videos for each one of our artists. Visitors will learn about what inspires the artists, how they create their art and watch as they demonstrate their craft. They are fun to watch and really give you a greater appreciation of how the art is created.”
OjaiStyle is made up of five shopping areas: Fine Art, Jewelry, Glass, Pottery and Gifts. Each of the sections of the site offers a wide range of styles, prices and selections of art. These include:
Fine Art: From oils, to watercolors, to digital photography to wood carvings, OjaiStyle features more than 130 different pieces of original art exclusively found on OjaiStyle. Artists include award-winning oil painter Kate Hoffman, whose vivid and colorful original art include horses, a kitchen art series of three fruit images and nudes; Shahastra whose wide range of work can be found throughout OjaiStyle and focuses on landscapes and images of Ojai; Cindy Pitou Burton, a former New York Times photographer who has created a sepia series for OjaiStyle that includes images of Ojai, Santa Ynez, as well as nature; Maudette Ball Finck, a printmaker and woodcarver; Ruth Farnham whose thoughtful and intricate pieces are inspired by her travels; Katie Van Horne an artist specializing in portraits and charcoal sketching; Bernadette DiPietro, the OjaiStyle Artist of the Month whose vast and inspired works include an ancient Indonesian technique of applying wax and dye to handmade Japanese paper.
Jewelry: All handmade, OjaiStyle jewelry designers include: Lupe Razo, whose necklaces, earrings and bracelets can be described as casually elegant; Tegan Hope who creates her one of a kind signature pendants through a wax casting process; Teal Rowe whose glass earrings come in 30 different colors; Shahastra who has created sets of religious inspired pieces.
Glass: Hand-blown glass works by Teal Rowe are featured on OjaiStyle that include Teal's signature color, a smoky blend of several colors that cannot be found elsewhere.
Pottery: OjaiStyle includes three distinctly different and unique potters: Leslie Thompson whose work combines weaving, quilting and other designs in her exquisite black and white creations; Richard Flores who is skilled in both two dimensional and three dimensional fine art; and Bruce Tomkinson, whose Japanese inspired works showcase his travels abroad.
Gifts: If ever there was a perfect destination for those hard to shop for people, this is it. The OjaiStyle Gifts section includes hand painted Ukrainian Eggs, made from Ojai chickens, Peace Doves with one of a kind necklaces - the perfect backyard conversation piece and Ojai Note Cards photographed by Whitney Hartmann printed on linen stock.
About OjaiStyle
OjaiStyle was created to promote and distribute the products of Ojai artists and merchants online. The company was founded in 2007 to showcase Ojai culture, products and original artwork with online shoppers and making local products available to anyone. For more information please visit www.ojai-style.com.
Contacts:
Anne Smith, 408-313-8089
anne@ojaistyle.net
http://www.ojai-style.com
