Joanne and Bill Bell have created and sold original artwork for over thirty-five years. They traveled throughout the eastern United States for many years, showcasing their work at various art and craft shows. In 2001, they purchased an old building in downtown Floyd and opened the Bell Gallery and Garden a few years later.
The Bell Gallery prominently features Bill’s award-winning landscape photography alongside Joanne’s pressed floral artwork and handmade jewelry designs. Bill primarily captures the ridges and valleys of Virginia and North Carolina, with a special focus on the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway. He personally prints his images and handles all aspects of production in his studio.
Joanne specializes in creating pressed floral art, suncatchers, wall hangings, mirrors, and, in recent years, pressed floral jewelry. She grows, gathers, and presses flowers, ferns, grasses, weeds, and leaves, enhancing their colors with inks and paints to prevent fading. Then, Joanne crafts pendants and suncatchers using traditional stained-glass methods, lead-free solder, and recycled glass, often embellishing them with semi-precious stones. Additionally, she creates beaded necklaces and earrings to complement her jewelry pieces.
The gallery also showcases the works of over one hundred local, regional, and national artists and craftspeople. Visitors can find an array of jewelry, pottery, baskets, woodworking, and other original, affordable arts and crafts. Conveniently located just steps from downtown Floyd’s stoplight, the Bell Gallery and Garden offers an inviting space for art enthusiasts to explore and appreciate unique handcrafted works.
Joanne’s passion for nature and art stems from a deep-rooted connection to the land. With over forty years of experience as a professional craftsperson, she has refined her skills in pressed floral artwork, suncatchers, and botanical jewelry. Joanne carefully selects and presses leaves, grasses, ferns, and flowers, enhancing them with inks, paints, and dyes to maintain their vibrancy. After a second drying process, she arranges her designs between sheets of glass and solders them using traditional stained-glass techniques with lead-free solder. Her distinctive soldering style, combined with various etched and stained glass elements, adds a unique touch to each piece. In her jewelry, Joanne encases flowers, feathers, birch bark, snake skin, wasp nests, and insect wings in glass, all while making sure to harm no animals in the process.
Joanne is a dedicated gardener who cultivates thousands of flowers, herbs, ferns, and wild plants. She continuously experiments with new botanicals and designs, appreciating the opportunity to merge her love for gardening with her artistic endeavors. Her favorites include hydrangeas, lavender, thyme, daisies, ferns, and tree leaves. Hydrangea bushes flourish within their deer-fenced garden, which she finds particularly easy to grow and press. Herbs such as lavender, sage, thyme, and rosemary thrive both in her studio and kitchen, and she collects tree leaves and ferns from nearby woodlands. Weeds, often overlooked, also play a significant role in her work.
Queen Anne’s Lace is a particular favorite, growing freely in the wild patches of the property alongside other native wildflowers and weeds. With minimal intervention, fleabane, yarrow, black-eyed susans, bee balm, jewelweed, and white clover thrive. Joanne also maintains a sustainable approach to gardening by composting fallen leaves, kitchen scraps, and garden weeds. This natural compost enriches the soil without the need for expensive fertilizers. Grass clippings, pine needles, and straw serve as mulch, while white clover provides food for groundhogs and rabbits. Squirrels collect walnuts, birds and chipmunks feast on sunflowers, and bees and butterflies remain active throughout the growing season.
Once flowers are grown and gathered, they are pressed, painted, arranged, and soldered into glass pieces, and then Joanne’s work is ready for sale. She presents her creations at juried art and craft festivals across the mid-Atlantic states and in their very own store, the Bell Gallery and Garden, in downtown Floyd. Bill and Joanne established the gallery nineteen years ago, and today, their daughter, Darcie, manages the store and maintains the beautiful alley garden. Visitors are always welcome to explore the gallery and experience their artwork in person.
Bell Gallery and Garden 112 N. Locust Street, Floyd, VA 24091
info@bellgalleryandgarden.com
bellgalleryandgarden.com
540.745.4494