Textures Craftworks: The combined effort of area artisans: January 2014

Hi everyone-

As 2013 came to a close, we at Textures mourned the passing of one of our own, Andrina Carlton, who left us on December 29.

Andrina lived a life full of adventure and love, and was an inspiration for many. She will be remembered for her friendship, commitment to the community, and her creative touch as an artisan in copper enamel and slumped glass, which led her to help create and build Textures Craftworks for the past 30 years.

Andrina was born in Hamilton and grew up here. She graduated from McMaster with a BA, then served 2 years as a WRN during WWII, followed by 2 years teaching secondary school.

She married Edward (Ted) Carlton and together they raised four children in Dundas. Andrina was very much an “outdoors-person”- playing golf from age 16 to 86, and also enjoying skiing, kayaking, and world travel.

Somewhere in there she began enamelling and working with fused glass, and became a master at both. She produced beautiful pieces in her basement studio in Dundas.

Andrina joined Textures in 1983, very early on during Textures’ 1st year, and was a working member for 30 years.

We could always count on her for opinions and guidance with the problems of running the store. In the early years she very graciously let the group run garage sales at her Dundas home to raise money to keep Textures afloat – those were fun days for everyone involved and also very successful.

Andrina was looking to pass on her knowledge of both fused glass and enamelling, and ran a number of workshops to get others started. Margo Griffith, Lorna Wakeham, and Sharon Beasley studied enamelling with Andrina, who was a very patient teacher. They carried on for a while at Sharon’s place, but only Lorna continued with it – she had a natural talent for enamel work.

Margo Griffith, Andrina Carlton, Sharon Beasley and Lorna Wakeham in 1989.

Andrina with fellow Textures members Vida Rogers and Sumi Nogami at the Hamilton & Region Arts Council retrospective show celebrating Textures' 20th Anniversary in 2003

She was really good at working in the store because she had such a wide knowledge of many different crafts, had good public presence, and was very good with customers.

Andrina still wanted to be involved with the store after she had to stop working in the shop a few years ago, so took on the job of balancing and checking the daily sales.

She was very proud of still “having a job” in her 90’s and was excellent at sorting out messes - and she never used a calculator, only brain power!

Andrina always flagged problem days with red ink, and occasionally Treasurer Sharon Beasley would get a message in red, marking something that she could not fix – “GRRRR this one’s for you. I have a headache and I’m going to bed. It’s all yours.”

Andrina retired from this job about 4 months ago ,at age 93.