Festive fare Browsing at the Foundry Artists Holiday Sale BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

This is the 23rd year for the Annual Foundry Artists Holiday Sale, which is at the Pawtucket Armory this time around. The two-weekend event concludes December 19 through 21, presenting work ranging across the crafts and artisan map: jewelry, ceramics, apparel, glass, furniture, and more.

Fine arts offerings have increased in recent years at the juried show, so on this page some visual artists are featured. Not only are the prices of the work relatively low, since the Foundry Artists are selling directly, but also there is no sales tax on purchases in the Pawtucket Arts & Entertainment District.

The show/sale was first presented in December of 1981 by a community of artisans and artists who were working in the Foundry Building on Promenade Street in Providence. The building was converted to office space in 1995, and while the residents dispersed to studios throughout the area, they have reunited annually for this event. Participants now include members from Massachusetts and Connecticut.

This year, proceeds from a silent auction will go to the George Wiley Center, the statewide advocacy organization. Details on that and examples of work by other artists can be found at www.foundryshow.com.

The show is open on Friday from 12 to 8 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Brian Hull, photography. Hull has a good eye, and restricting himself to black-and-white emphasizes his sense of line and composition. In one image, a railing and a stairway behind it are a study of rectilinear relationships, but he is fascinated enough with pattern and order to print and frame studies of rows of auditorium fold-up chairs and even gleaming porcelain urinals. The beautiful has not been neglected, though, as weed stalks stand against darkening twilight clouds and, in another picture, a copse of bare trees are balanced by a winter sun burning through clouds. Prices: framed photographs, $15 to $95; unframed $45; gift cards, $3.

Sandi Gold, pastel paintings. Gold�s works have the softness you�d expect from her medium, and the subject matter she chooses usually benefits from the gossamer sheen of pastels. Tufts of dune grass recede to a background beach house reduced to its blocky geometry. A stately shore hotel is further softened by its fa�ade being in shadow. A sun-drenched white wall in Stonington is dappled by leaves on an unseen tree. Some of the originals are priced above $3000, but since there are no brushstrokes to miss in a reproduction, her archival-quality prints don�t lose much besides size. Prices: framed, $45 to $295; matted, $25 to $155.

Lisa Silveria, photography. The prints on display by the Massachusetts photographer are less self-indulgent than her designation for them � "photoneurotika" � indicates. Street sights and architectural details from a trip to Ireland retain a timelessness from their absence of people � although colorful chickens atop a yellow wall were too much for her to pass up. More typical are images of a castle interior wall with window light framed by the stone work. Prices: framed, $40; matted, $6 to $17; gift cards, $3.

Greg Stones, watercolor paintings. Some of the subject matter is past quirky � a flying saucer motif? � but some of Stones�s work that combines small pencil drawings, typically with a watercolor painting in the center, are worth taking seriously. A diving nude is surrounded by various sketches of her in the same setting. A black dog casts a long shadow on grass; around it are others strolling or sitting in the park, some equally solitary. Individual images include some elegantly simple landscapes. Prices: unframed, $15 to $35; framed, $35 to $315.

Benjamin McCormick, photography. His "Under the Surface" images may have started because he is a fisherman, but McCormick�s output has everything to do with his work as a photographer. A close-up of a squid eye, surrounded by iridescent specked skin, is closer to National Geographic than to Captain Nemo. Intense colors dominate, often virtually monochromatic to concentrate the impact, as a mackerel looms out of a school of fish or the photographer and Photoshop team up and we see a bonito tuna lunging for bait. Prices: matted 8"x10" prints, $95.

Jean Ridall, watercolor paintings. What captures Ridall�s eye is mostly scenic or otherwise attractive: a moored white dinghy, casting its reflection in a still harbor; a red wagon beneath potted flowers; a narrow river, with geese gliding by in one picture, and just bare tree trunks framing another view. As with Sandi Gold, admirers don�t have to go to the expense of an original when a favorite image scales down nicely into a well-printed reproduction. Prices: framed originals $85 to $500; framed prints $45; gift cards, $4.

Robert Wilkinson, photography. A self-described pictorialist, Wilkinson declares in a posted statement that he is less interested in "emotionless vistas" than in the esthetics of a visual opportunity. Nevertheless, his photographs sometimes display a concern with delicate tonal range that offers more than prettiness. Seascapes and treescapes abound, sometimes with colors enhanced or changed digitally. But even when Wilkinson doesn�t dramatically alter the view he found, emotion sometimes is implicit by the attention he brings: a sand path between reeds, with a cloud-filled sky in the background, might as well be a church aisle. Prices: framed photographs, $20 to $250.