Fine craft artisan and owner of both Tangora Designs and local gallery in Urbana, called "Wind Water & Light Gallery"

Undergraduate from Southern IL University in fine art Photography and Communications. Started Tangora Designs in 1989. My focus is on up-cycling discarded items and creating new unexpected uses for them. I specialize in jewelry but have been known to do some assemblages, furniture restoration, and hand made paper objects as well. I've been making "Cultured Beach Glass" jewelry and accessories for nearly 30 years. Many of those years my main income was from art and craft shows and wholesale to galleries around the country. This past year I have expanded my designs to include paper, wood, and plastic. From Art Deco to Steam Punk, my designs are proven to bear the distance of time. Once you try them you will be hooked. A few years ago my Mom started showing signs of dementia so my days of traveling to art shows needed to be reexamined. During this time we started a brick and mortar gallery called "Wind Water & Light" in Urbana, IL. My husband and I have run the gallery for 7 years. We represent around 200 artists local and national. I am excited to use Etsy to gather my clients from the days when we would show my works in areas far and away from Champaign - Urbana. We give a little something to charities every month whether it is a gift certificate for WWL or an angel that I made. You will find ear rings both symmetrical and asymmetrical, (and yes we make clip-ons), angels, mermaids, necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Now and then I make assemblages and paper bowls up cycled clocks from maps and plastic bottles. All up cycled and mixed up! Many people think the name is ANGORA but it is actually Tangora, my maiden name. But Angora kind of fits the softness of the tumbled beach glass. I majored in photography back when there wasn't any such thing as digital. I breathed too many raw chemicals during this time and had to find another discipline for myself. Walking down the beach one day I picked up a piece of beach glass. How beautiful I thought and how can I make this in Illinois? The rest is history!
Oh, I LOVE TO SWIM.
Won a few awards for my works. If you are interested, ask me and I'll tell you.

Phil was born and raised in Flushing, Queens. His Dad played big band jazz and sang Opera. Phil painted a mural on the wall of his Jr HS across from the library, of Romeo and Juliet.They never caught him (actually it was 6 foot by 8 foot and took over two months).
In college at the University of Illinois, Phil loved his freehand drawing class but quit the Architecture program after one semester. Eventually getting a degree in Communications/Radio-TV. He helped start Record Service while still in school and worked at making it the best record/CD store in central Illinois for 34 years.
At the same time Phil played in bands (Bloom and Brownfield and the Rocking Clones) stayed active on the High n Mighty softball team and appeared in over 35 theatre productions, mostly at the Station Theatre. All the while Phil was using his creativity doing all the advertising for the Record Service (and mentoring and hiring HS students to do drawings for our ads)
Phil also encouraged many local musicians and bands to record and sell local records and put out three records on his own label as well as a Record Service compilation of twenty years of music from C-U.. And eventually took up writing for some local papers and magazines about local music, theatre and art.
Since 2004 when the music industry collapse caused Record Service to implode, Phil has worked extensively on his painting developing a style of painting on glass quite different from anything else he has seen. Using Van Gogh and graphic novels as two of his inspirations he has been carving out a niche while producing over 300 paintings.
In the last three years much of his work has been portraits of avatars he meets in the virtual world of Second Life but he also works in real life as well and has started painting local artists.And most importantly Phil has two great kids who inspire him to be a better person, Tess and Joe Strang.