3D Filament Pens and Award Winning Art

If you haven’t been by the Milton Studio Art Gallery, you may want to stop in sometime soon. At the small eclectic gallery right here in Caswell County, there is a collection of numerous artists from all over the region. Owner Shirley Cadmus has operated the gallery for over 15 years and not only assists other artists with offering their work to the public, but she creates some unusually unique art of her own.

When Shirley retired from teaching art at Averett University, she opened the gallery with the goal of helping people own original art and to support the artists in the region. In the studio gallery one can find paintings, drawings, pottery, handmade jewelry, handmade wooden bowls and other creations.

As an artist Shirley has been creating interesting pieces her entire career. Her specialty has always been pottery, but she also paints and draws. After many years of creating raku pottery, she contracted emphysema and had to refrain from creating it. Raku is the process by which pottery is fired at a relatively low temperature and then moved while hot to a closed container with combustible materials like paper or sawdust that ignite and cause a reaction creating colors and patterns in the pottery's surface. Each piece of raku pottery is unmatched and pieces can be quite expensive.

Since moving away from raku designs, Shirley has been experimenting with a new method she has created of making pottery like baskets with a 3D pen. Her 3D pen uses a plant based plastic filament to create 3D objects by heating the filament and extruding it through a narrow tip. The plastic cools and hardens quickly, and she then builds upon a form. The pen heats up to different temperatures depending on the type of plastic used. It takes months to create a piece.

Over the years Shirley has submitted her pottery work in various shows across the

country. Her 3D pen basket, ‘What a Story!’ was awarded second place at the 28th International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Fine Craft at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Most recently, in New Bern, NC at the Bank of the Arts National Juried Exhibition, Shirley’s entry won Best in Show for the contemporary crafts category. This exhibition included categories of 2D (paintings, mixed media), photography, contemporary crafts (pottery, jewelry, textiles, wood, glass and metal art), indoor sculpture and outdoor sculpture. Artists from all over the nation were featured in the exhibition.

If you are not familiar with the process of art shows, a juried exhibition is one where artists submit their work in categories of the show and the pieces are judged by an experienced professional that is knowledgeable in the art world.

The juror for the Bank of the Arts event in Craven County was Jeff Bell, the Executive Director of the North Carolina Arts Council. Prior to that he was the Arts Innovation Coordinator for the City of Wilson involved with the Whirligig Park there. Bell also served at both Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh.

To see the winner of this prestigious exhibition at the Milton Studio Art Callery, stop by and ask Shirley to see it. If you take some time to browse around, you may be amazed at the interesting creations that are available in Milton.

As published by AC Hodges in The Caswell Messenger August 7, 2024.