Name That Shop Contest! (With Giveaway): Heather Buechel

Heather Buechel contacted Stalker Central with a problem. A problem that we felt sure our readers could solve. To understand the nature of her dilemma let’s take a quick look around her shop:

For starters, she does photography. Look at the vivid hues in this Dahlia close-up.


She also works with iridescent acrylic paints. This one, capturing a brilliant sunset, is called Fire In The Sky.


Oh, and did I mention she works with mosaic glass, too? This pair of framed mirrors features hummingbirds set with Swarovski crystals.


Her mosaic work is even more impressive when you realize she only started working with glass because she was bored while waiting for a shipment of silk veils to arrive. What does she do with the silk? Hand paints them in luminous, swirling colors, of course!

Heather has mastered many, many things, but there is still one that eludes her: naming her shop! Right now she’s calling it Heather’s Art and Photography. Accurate? Sure. But what she really needs is a name that reflects the very essence of her work. That’s where YOU come in! To enter this week’s giveaway, you need to supply a potential name for Heather’s Etsy shop. To get to know her better, read on!

Curator V: You are currently a graduate student. What are you studying? How did you find your way to your field of study?

Let’s see, It’s certainly was not a straight forward path! September 11th was my initial motivation to go back to school. If nothing else, it made me realize that life is short and I was wasting time at a job I didn’t much like! I picked science basically because it’s interesting, and more marketable than some other fields. As for the branch of science I bounced around from chemistry to physics and ended up in biology. I got a job doing cancer research with a great company called Precision Therapeutics. While I was there, my boss told me he thought I’d be a great candidate for graduate school and that it would open a lot more doors for me in the future. That’s how I ended up in Kentucky. I did a rotation with the Neuro section of the Pharmacology department on a whim and really fell in love with the lab, so I stayed. In a nutshell, I study sleep and aging. So, both sleep and cognition change as we age, and I’m trying to find out how those two things are related so that maybe if we fix the sleep problems we might also fix some of the cognition problems, too. It’s really cool work!

Curator V: How does your art fit in with your studies? Do they complement each other in some way?

The science and the art are the perfect complementary opposites for me. If I was only doing the art, the science part of my brain would feel neglected and if I was only doing the science my artistic side would feel oppressed! I started taking belly dance classes this year and the coolest (dorkiest) thing I thought about it was how my brain feels when it’s working to coordinate the moves – it was seriously rusty when I started, but it was amazing how quickly the basic moves became natural. I just want to be good at everything. I don’t think I’ll ever be amazing at anything, but I can at least say I’ve tried a lot!

Curator V: You show talent in so many areas: glass mosaic, photography, painting…do you feel there is something that ties them all together?

First, thank you! You feature so many very beautiful things on your site. It really is flattering to be a part of that. The one uniting thing would have to be texture. (Sparkle would be the second!) I think the subjects that catch my eye in photography do so because of their texture more so than color. The same for the glass in the mosaics, the leaves I pick to draw on, the silk fabric to paint… They each have their own feel, but really they’re all related in a way. They’re like different aspects of a (my?) personality.

Curator V; What three words best describe you?

Busy, insightful, (and my lab mate Jelena gave me the third, which I don’t know if I believe, but sounds great) enigmatic.

Curator V:Natural elements are everywhere in your work. What has made that such an inspiration for you?

I’ve always loved the outdoors. My boyfriend and I went camping in Black Water Falls, West Virginia or to the beach at Presque Isle on Lake Erie almost every weekend before we moved to Kentucky. I didn’t know how much I took those places for granted until we moved here to Kentucky. Now I don’t have the money to do all the traveling, but I appreciate the little things that I do have, like the leaves changing color or the hummingbirds that visit my garden in the summer, much more than I did before.

Curator V:Describe your perfect day from start to finish!

After motivating myself to get out of the warm comfy bed, I set up any projects that I woke up dreaming about. Then I leave for work and have a great day in the lab – all experiments go as planned. Jelena and I can take a walk at lunchtime, and the afternoon goes by quickly. On my walk to the car, I call my mom and we both talk about what projects we’re working on. (My mom is an incredible artist – I think I had to move to KY before I started being artistic because she’s so amazing I could just have her do everything for me while I was at home. Now I have to call her for advice all the time!) When I get home, Mike (boyfriend) has already decided what’s for dinner (that never happens in real life). We eat, and then take our dog for a walk. After the walk I get to work on the fun stuff that I set up in the morning whether it’s a frame, or a leaf drawing or a veil. I throw on my iPod (my cat usually comes to help) and I work until I’m too tired to keep going. Then it’s off to bed to do it all again the next day.

Here’s how the contest works. Take a look around her shop, and come up with a name you think best captures what she’s all about. If she picks your entry as the winner, you will win this fantastic “leaf tree” illustration surrounded by a teal and red mosaic frame. Heather will choose the winning entry next Sunday, December 20th.