Artist Sandy Forrest-Hartman has literally stamped her way onto the art scene by becoming one of the most prominent Art-To-Wear jewelry designers in the Gulf Coast Region. Sandy grew up in San Antonio, Texas, but now lives in Houston. She is a full-time certified paralegal at a downtown Houston law firm and teaches evening paralegal classes at a Houston Junior College. She is also a Certified Herbalist.
Sandy’s miniature palettes are dominoes, on which she creates affordable and sometimes eclectic works of art. Within the last year, she has begun to use vintage dominoes—some are bakelite, which is highly collectible, and occasionally, she is lucky enough to find ebony and bone dominoes, which she has been able to trace back to the Civil War era.
The only drawback to using those 141+ year old dominoes are the metal pins which hold the ebony and the bone together. Most of the time, the pin is flush with the domino, which does not create a stamping mishap with the design on the smooth side of the domino but if the pin is the slightest bit off, a distortion with the design will occur.
Sandy is quite fond of using those vintage dominoes because it brings everyone who possesses a “reinvintage” piece just a little closer to history. Not only can Sandy trace her genealogical roots back to several Civil War soldiers but also to at least three Texas Rangers and to the Canary Islander descendants who were instrumental in settling San Antonio.
Sandy established Mystic Angel Creations in 2001 and subsequently, her web site in 2003, www.MysticAngelCreations.com, for the purpose of teaching others to unlock their own creativity and artistic talents, as well as creating beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces of quality, yet affordable, art-to-wear jewelry.
Sandy teaches classes once or twice a month in bead and scrapbooking stores in the Houston, Texas area but is planning to expand her teaching base in 2007 to include classes in San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country.
Some of her other credits include articles about her work in the Houston Chronicle, The Galveston Daily News and Envy Magazine. She was also “Artist of the Week” for Fox 26 during the week of March 20th – 26th, 2006. She is also a member of the Art League of Houston, Houston Area Fiber Artists, and the Houston Bead Society. In 2003, she won second place in the sculpture category in the Art Walk on Morton Street in Richmond, Texas.
Sandy’s latest venture is the co-founder of the Texas Artist Market for the purpose of networking with other artists and promoting the artists and the events in which they participate. She recognized a need for a group, which would benefit all Texas artists by providing a free venue for posting events, press releases and other happenings in and around Texas. The web site is www.TexasArtistMmarket.net, which is free to all individual Texas artists and/or art groups.
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