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• Madeline’s Confectionary Arts Studio & Gallery brings even more art to Main Street in Urbana

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It is fair to say Madeline’s Confectionary Arts Studio & Gallery, located at 122 West Main Street between Mirabelle’s Bakery and Cinema Gallery, could be described as a beautiful collision of opposites.

On one side of Madeline’s, a “Tiffany’s-color” room houses owner Buffy Vance’s ornately decorated wedding cakes and sugar flowers. Modern furnishings in candy shades take up most of the space in the room with a small, delicate table in the middle. When I first moved in the walls were neon green,” said Vance. “It needed a change.”

Directly opposite this room, both literally and figuratively, is the other part of Madeline’s. A room with uneven, hole-ridden white walls contains glass, watercolor and mixed media pieces from local artists. Vance, though, says she has good reason for leaving the gallery the way it was sold to her, holes and all.

“I liked how rustic it looked,” said Vance. “I think it lends to the artwork.”

The gallery houses pieces from three different artists in three different mediums.

Ten watercolor pieces by Herbert Marder, a soft-spoken gentleman wearing corduroy pants, hang on the east wall. Marder, who taught English Literature at the University of Illinois until 1994, says he started painting as a “release, but much later began to see them as visual poems.”Marder, who is neighbors with Vance, said when she saw some of his work at a show in the Furniture Lounge Flex Space she asked him if he would like to show some of his work at Madeline’s.

Vance also personally knows the other two artists, Shawn Everette and Megan McNellis, both of whom she met through her sons. The glass figures and vases on the back wall belong to Everette. “I took a class in glass making at Illinois State University,” he said. “I took two semesters. It clicked, and I ran with it.”

Everette said he gets most of his inspiration from studying anatomy books and pictures of the human body. McNellis, whose medium is mixed media, says she gets inspiration from natural things. Her work, which includes pieces inspired by diseases of the eye, hangs on the west wall. “We’ll talk about sculpture and different techniques," said McNellis who studied art at Indiana State University. "She’s really creative and passionate about what she does.”

Even though Madeline’s has only been open for 10 days, Vance is in no way new to the business. After attending a French pastry school in Chicago, Vance opened a wedding cake company out of her home. While raising her children, Vance left the field for a different career path but says she has missed her passion.

“I was just sitting there thinking, for many years I worked because I had to,” said Vance. “Then one day (when my kids were grown), I thought ‘Why am I doing that now?”

Vance said she was initially hesitant, so she drew inspiration on the character from which her business is named, Madeline. “And to the tiger in the zoo, Madeline just said, poo poo!” said Vance. Like Madeline, who resided in Paris in the story, Vance plans to travel to Paris herself in the spring to take classes and learn new techniques as well as begin teaching a Cake 101 class starting March 17.

Once she gathered the confidence and decided to go for it, the next step was to choose a location. After mulling the idea over in her head for awhile, Vance said the location seemed to choose her. “I started looking around for a place thinking ‘How do people do it?’ Then I went to the bakery to get something to eat and I saw the sign, and I called and told the owner I was interested.” Vance said she enjoys being a business owner in Urbana. “It’s not just working for myself that I’m excited about,” she said. “Just being able to be back in my field is great.”