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Barbara Voss
has a twenty-five year history in
museum retail gallery management and sales. She started in New York, then
moved to Chicago, and finally ended up in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. In
Chicago, Barbara worked for the Terra Museum of American Art and managed
the retail space. She began carrying Ephraim Pottery and soon was one of
Ephraim’s largest wholesale outlets. She fondly remembers customers coming
to the store with pictures of their collections, talking about their
pieces and how they displayed them in their homes. This is very similar to
many of the conversations we hear at the Holiday Fest or the Ephraim
Collectors’ Convention.
Unfortunately the museum closed, so Barbara
moved on to work at the Chicago Botanical Garden and began managing their
retail shop. She stated that once she got their inventory under control,
she again contacted Ephraim and began selling their line of pottery in the
Botanical Garden shop. However, fate was not going to let her grow roots
in her new home, and soon the retail portion was outsourced to a
California company who managed sixty different museum retail outlets.
Barbara called Marilynn Reichel, of Ephraim
Pottery, to let her know she would no longer be managing the Botanical
Garden outlet and was looking for new employment opportunities that may be
available. This was just about the same time that the Ephraim Gallery
Studio concept was being worked out and planned. The rest, they say, is
history and the gallery landed a very talented, experienced manager.
From New York to Chicago, Lake Mills is now
her home. With the lack of mass transit in the area, a driver’s license
was the first order of business! Barbara says she loves Wisconsin and is
so happy to be involved with Ephraim Pottery.
With her degree in Fine Art (painting as a
focus), you can see Barbara’s artistic style in the displays throughout
the store. This is matched by her friendly smile and easy conversational
ability. You immediately feel like an old friend when you are in the store
discussing pottery, or just about anything else.
My last question for Barbara was, “What
kind of art are you involved with now?” Barbara is currently studying and
experimenting with leather crafting in the style of the 20’s and 30’s. She
has a collection of leather Arts and Crafts style purses along with some
Art Deco pieces. She would like to leather craft some of her own designs.
I am off to search the Internet to locate
examples of this type of Arts and Crafts style. Thanks, Barbara!
Jerianne Feiten, the author
of this profile, is the Historian of the Ephraim Faience Pottery
Collectors Society (EFPCS). This article originally appeared in the
Society’s latest newsletter and is reprinted here with permission. For
more information about the EFPCS please see the Society’s web site:
http://www.ephraimcollectors.org.
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