CREATIVES

Michael Acker Media, Mixed, Other, Other, Photography, Visual Arts RESUME Michael Acker ackermichael6@gmail.com www.mca-studios.com www.springsmuseum.org P.O. Box 1959, Boyes Hot Springs, CA 95416 541 357 2532   Biography                                            Born in New York City, raised in California and Oregon. Resides Sonoma County California.     Grants/Awards: 2021 Working Artist Purchase Award 2019 Bay Area Masters, Peninsula Museum of Art, Third Place 2d 2019 Gallery Route One Annual Juried Show, M. Louise Stanley juror Award of Merit 2014 Palo Alto Art Center Residency, finalist 2013 Creative Capital-On Our Radar 2012 Left Coast Annual Juror’s Exhibition Award, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. Michael Schwager, Juror 2011 Creative Capital, advanced to second round 2010 Pollok-Krasner Foundation grant 1992 California Works, Award of Merit 1994 SECA award semifinalist 1990 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant   Commissions/Competitions:. 2013 Aptos Blue public art, finalist, Watsonville, CA. 2010 “Water(ing) Logic(ally), Site-specific Garden Installation, Sonoma Community Center, Sonoma, CA. 2001 Fountain, Creekside Court, Berkeley, CA. 2000 Fountain, Bayer Corp, Berkeley, CA.   Solo Shows: January 2020 Sonoma Library October 2019 FOG Gallery, San Francisco 2018 Resident Artist Show, Sonoma Community Center 2016Alley Gallery, Sonoma, CA. 2013 Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. 2012 Sonoma community Center offices   Group Shows (selected) 2022 Gallery Route One Juried –Jack Fischer juror 2022 Marin Society of Artists, Artists Visions 2022 Jen Tough, juror 2021-Three Artist Show, FOG Gallery, San Francisco 2021 Slice, Pence Gallery, Davis CA.  Faith J. McKinnie juror. 2021 Gallery Route One Annual Juried Show, curated by Donna Seager 2020 Fragments, Arch Gallery, San Francisco, curated by Jen Tough 2020 Rough Around the Edges, online, curated by Jen Tough 2019 Bay Area Masters, Peninsula Museum of Art, Award 2019 Gallery Route One Annual Juried Show, M. Louise Stanley juror Award of Merit 2018 Ingenuity, sculpture/craft Marin Society of Artists 2017 Celebrate, Sonoma Arts Guild 2016 Left Coast Annual, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. 2015 Left Coast Annual, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. 2013 IMBY Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa 2012 Petaluma Arts Center, Digital Mixed Media Joe Doyle, curator 2012 Left Coast Annual, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. Michael Shwager juror. Juror’s Award 2012 Made In California, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA. Rebecca Morse, juror 2011 Arts On Fire XV, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. 2011 Works on/of Paper, Pacific Art League, Palo Alto 2011 Gallery Route One Juried Show 2010 Mapworks, Sebastopol  Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA. 2009 Sonoma Valley Museum of Art Biennale Frances McCormack, Juror   Publications Sonoma’s Fading Images of Highway 12, Boom- A Journal of California. August, 2017 https://boomcalifornia.com/2017/08/16/sonomas-fading-images-of-hwy-12/ By: Marion Greene, Boyes Springs Businesswoman. Journal of the Sonoma County Historical Society. 2021 Number 2 By: The Springs, Resort Towns of Sonoma Valley. Arcadia books, 2017.   Collections: King County Washington Portable Collection Simon Blattner Kaiser Permanente   Special Projects: 2021-Sonoma Plaza History Project, 9 panel commission 2019 Juror, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art “Re-photography” 2018 Artist in Residence, Sonoma Community Center Fiber Arts Program 2017 Publication of Photo History of the Resorts of Sonoma Valley. Arcadia Publishing 2015 The Springs Museum of History, Art and Community-in progress 2010 Mural for the Sonoma Valley Grange     Education: MFA, Sculpture, San Francisco State University   Online: @michaelacker6 www.mca-studios.com www.springsmuseum.org www.valleyofthemoonmainstemproject.org/    

Peter Alan Mixed, Recovery Fund Grantee, Visual Arts Peter Alan, visual/conceptual mixed media artist was born and raised in Southern California, completing his under-grad at Sonoma State University in Studio Fine Art, History and Psychology.  Then he lived in Italy to experience the concepts of art history, while receiving a mentorship from a local native Roman painter (name, non-disclosure agreement).   Since then Alan has held a number of painting studios making art for galleries, non-gallery venues and private collectors mostly in Southern and Northern California. Principles and elements of painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture all come together into one application.  Mostly on paper or on plywood panel, a wide-range of content goes through a vigorous and rigorous process.  With oil paint, plaster, charcoal and collage, Alan develops richly dynamic surfaces using additive and deductive "marks" – an image, a scrape, a slash of paint, etc.  Tinkering with anything art-makeable at reach, his concepts range from layered portraits, figures, dresses, fingerprints, Americana icons, walls with journal-entry-like stencil and text.  Overall, Alan's style falls inside Traditional and a Contemporary Art.   With figurative academia and unconventionality of the avant-garde experimentation Alan brings forth boldness, sensitivity and playfulness with a dark spin. 2018-2020, Alan created artwork from the remnant ash and debris collected from his Glen Ellen home/painting studio lost in 2017 Nuns Wildfire.  As a revisit to the Jasper John's "flag" motif, the American and also the California flag depict a kind Symbolism of his content of loss, but now transformed into his most dynamic creative process.  The ash, strips of charred wood and other remnant “found objects" integrated with collaged ink-jet images printed on emergency assistance organizations' handouts as well as pages from his journal/sketchbook, Alan offered up inspiration and healing for his community stricken with the aftermath of one of the worse National wildfire on record.

Art Of Nature Amanda Rose Hopkins (A. Rose) Arts Administration, Illustration, Mixed, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Visual Arts

Artist's Statement Amanda Rose Hopkins Art of Nature

Throughout my work I use various mediums to help people fall back in love with nature. My work also explores the complexities of human kind's relationship to the environment. Using the  visual language of color I create an emotional feel, which connects directly to the heart and mind. The use of bright sensual colors, occasional subdued hues, and earthy elements brings about a range of feeling tones. The series of sensual flower paintings are meant to wet the palette by exciting the visual senses with their extremely bright hues and complementary colors. The most subtle hues and purest feelings I encounter when in direct contact with nature. The intricate patterns, finely composed colors, and rounded shapes fuel a constant curiosity of the organic. Ecological elements are missing from this current linear realm humans have built from concrete and synthetic materials. Thus my intention is to bring an ecological aesthetic into "built space". My art strives to insert pieces of the earth herself into man-made settings. Recently my love of painting and landscaping has combined into mixed media paintings which use found moss, bark, and seaweed with sensuously colored oil paint, to create an explosion of the senses. These hands use sensual colors with an environmental aesthetic with the intention of exciting the senses to help them focus on the beauty and magic of nature.

Susan Bercu Mixed, Visual Arts I am a visual storyteller creating three-dimensional assemblages that use recycled materials. My themes include our existential threats: science denial, global warming, assaults on our US Democracy and basic human rights. “Cast-Offs” Streamers is my current endeavor funded with an artist grant from Creative Sonoma’s ArtSurround. The intention is to create awareness around energy consumption and over-consumerism where our cast-offs are sent to the landfill. Everyone in the community is invited to collect and donate their plastic and metal waste for their new artistic lives in a collaborative hands-on creative project. The streamers are hung from the trees in Helen Putnam Plaza, Petaluma. “Art With Conscience” is my art website: https://www.susanbercu.art/.  My need as an artist to create order out of chaos is tested in these hyper-chaotic times. The narrative leads me through a range of media where I rotate between 2-D and 3-D artworks. I paint and draw. I construct assemblages using recycled materials. I am compelled to sound the alarm about the universal threats and disasters...to implore members of our global community to act with conscience. My childhood fascination with President Abraham Lincoln culminates in "Strange Fates of Lincoln: A Portable Museum". https://www.lincolnstrangefates.com/ These bizarre but true events surrounding Lincoln and his family are chronicled in tabletop exhibits that I built from cardboard and illustrated with my drawings and paintings.

Allegra Burke Artisan, Fiber Art, Jewelry, Mixed, Multi-Media, Printmaking, Recovery Fund Grantee, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts, Woodworking A self employed working artist since 2003, I am also an instructor, problem solver and creative. I work in a variety of mediums: Sculpture, Collage, Printmaking, Fiber art, Kanoko Shibori, Shifu, Book making, Boro, Tapestry, Assemblage, Encaustic, Felting, International mail art, Marbling, Block printing, and Mono printing. I have taught at the SRJC, Riley St, and by request to various art groups.  

Cade Burkhammer Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Design, Fiction, Functional Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Instrumental, Interior Design, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Music, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Video, Visual Arts Cade Burkhammer, born April 21st 1973, has been painting and exhibiting paintings and playing music since he was 13 years old around the country. Painting styles include surreal oils, abstract acrylic and latex, experimental and controlled mixed media, watercolor illustration, original Photoshop photography, ceramics, bronze sculpture, writing, landscape design, gardening, science, healing arts, bardic meditation, drumming, piano, DJ... Cade is the creator of 'The Wise Fool Tarot', a self-published independent manifesto that took 15 years of research, meditation, painting, writing and raising funds for printing and distributing. This year will be Cade's second tarot release collaborating with another author. His third oracle deck is in the making. Cade is the creator of 'Wrecords', a series of recordings and sound collages in the vain of Vicki Bennett and Philip Jeck, which is the musical accompaniment for the video series 'Recycled Memories.' A multi-media event featuring video and sound collage of noisy vintage meditation of the forgotten past and dreamy future combined with live drums, piano and sometimes female vocals.

Patti Buttitta Artisan, Design, Functional Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Mixed, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts Patti Buttitta, artist and graphic designer— Patti draws on her background and experience as an artist, illustrator, writer and printmaker. She enjoys the challenge of complicated projects, but relishes the simple and immediate. She is known for innovative graphic design ideas, including logos, brand packaging, catalogs, books, publications, newsletters, direct-mail marketing campaigns and websites. She has achieved stunning results within limited budgets. Clearly communicating and concisely articulating concepts, she works with clients, colleagues, vendors, suppliers and other professionals to bring creative concepts to life. Her illustrations have complemented her many design solutions for wine labels, food packaging, marketing materials and brochures. Patti has turned her attention to website design, applying the same sense for clear communication and satisfying visual organization.

Teresa Camozzi Mixed, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Visual Arts Bio : TeresaCamozzi Multimedia California artist Teresa Camozzi, born in Rabat, Morocco, immigrated to the United States when five years old. Her artwork evokes the complexity of the Islamic, while her immigration shades her political view.  Studying in San Francisco's Academy of Art, her mentor was Ernst Posey. Known internationally for large-scale permanent public artworks, she combines representational and abstract images via conventional art methods (photography, drawing) and computer technology. One example is a seven-story installation near Shanghai, China; another is at Miami International Airport. She earned the National 2009 Americans for the Arts Award for public work in Plano, Texas. She is currently engaged in creating and exhibiting her documentary series about the 2020 Pandemic. Healdsburg CA Februrary 2021

Ron Carter Architecture, Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Children's, Creative Sonoma Grantee, Design, Directing, Fashion Design, Fiction, Film, Functional Art, Furniture, Graphic Design, Illustration, Instrumental, Interior Design, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Muralist, Music, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Poetry, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Woodworking

My Path... Divergent visions gave rise to my creative present. A present refreshed by art as life and livelihood.

Experiences like the ‘Tubbs Fire’ that hit Santa Rosa serve to strengthen the ‘artist within me’. It foements subjective creative moments that utilize my past, present - and my future as focal lenses. Spontaneously, I chose The San Francisco Art Institute over The Rhode Island School of Design and the School of the Art Institute  at Chicago for my formal Art education. I received my BFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Public Art. I’ve studied stone sculpture for 10 years with Master Sculpture-Ante’ Marinovic, one of Croatia’s premier stone sculptors and is considered a Croatian national treasure. I explore the collaboration between artist, media and tool in such a fashion as to give rise to multiple layers of compressed info within each piece I create no matter if it is a purely visual work or an interactive space or environmental art form. For me, art screams out into all aspects of my life. As an artist in western society, dogma and bravado go hand in hand with economic choice. Art is my life. If it’s not nailed down or permanently affixed,  it’s in trouble of becoming art resource material. Well, upon further review, even that won’t deter me from considering an objects use in an art piece.

Jason Cool Acting, Architecture, Artisan, Arts Administration, Ballroom, Ceramics, Children's, Choreography, Composition, Crew, Dance, Design, Directing, Equipment, Fashion Design, Fiber Art, Fiction, Film Office, Folk Art, Functional Art, Furniture, General Services, Glass, Hip-Hop & Funk, Illustration, Improvisation, Improvisation, Instrumental, Interior Design, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Modern, Multi-Media, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Photography, Poetry, Production, Professional Performance, Puppetry, Sculpture, Storytelling, Talent, Teacher/Instructor, Theatre, Visual Arts, Vocal, Woodworking

Jason Cool/Henson

1. Raised by musical and artistic tallent. from my grandfather Walter cool.writing and composing set designs on and off Broadway as well as music teacher. He tought me many things about music ,set design ,and writing stories making songs.mom colleen cool was a d.j for many years growing up .her morning talk show won an addy award. experience of the evolution of radio stations format from vinal,reel to reel,8 track,cassette,cd,to digital.learned lots about the insider secrets and politics , selling air time ,being a paid musical artist.and much more.on my dad's side .the "story family." his grandmother had 21 kids .4 sets of twins ,all natural birth!all musicians playing together ofton..on ed sullvon show and groucho marks.this popular family band and I would practice at grandma's regularly. As a kid growing up. i would try many instruments pianos ,drums,accordion ,banjo ,mandolin etc. I have been in theater,loved the arts, music ,writer. open to everything since i was a young  kid.arts and music are my life!if i dont know how to do something,i  will be honest!i ask,try and will do all things of interest with love !and any collaboration with heart.I Compromise to learn others perspectives because im always learning. preforming on and off stage.jamming with the public.sharing what i know. Learning what others are willing or able to teach.I  loved all the music,art,storys,I have been a part of, or experienced 1999 to current over 15 countries I visited. World Share

Catherine Cruz Multi-Media, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth Artist Statement Catherine B Cruz is a French-American abstract artist who works with mixed media, multi-layered collage, and reclaimed materials. Informed by more than twenty-five years of experience in the design world, Catherine takes inspiration from a unique perspective, which spans architecture, interior design, and sustainability. Her art work is informed by textures and patterns created by the passing of time and the effects of the natural elements on the built environment.  A walk in any city like New York, Paris or Barcelona, is always a source of inspiration. In the process of observing the contrast between new and old architecture, the textures of walls, the torn posters, and the typography on the storefronts, she creates her own visual vocabulary that she utilizes in her mixed media work. She is also attracted to textures found in the rural environment such as old wooden fences, painted barns, and rusted metal that she photographs, analyzes and abstracts.  She is not interested in replicating them but instead she lets them inform her art. As a predominantly self-taught artist, she has developed her style by exploring materials and techniques. Her abstract vocabulary is based on intuitive mark making, lines and forms, as well as the exploration of visual and tactile textures and a good understanding of color.  Her process involves layering materials on wood panels or canvas such as her own painted papers, vintage papers, paint, graphite, and oil pastels. The layers are often sanded to reveal patterns and details. Artist Biography Catherine was born in Mantes-la-Jolie, France, not too far from Claude Monet’s home and gardens.  She grew up in several places including Versailles and the Cote d’Azur, attending high school in Cannes.  While a teenager, she was an exchange student near Nashville, Tennessee, and later on she moved to the US on her own to attend college. She received a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design (Cum Laude) from Florida State University in 1993 and had a successful career as residential and commercial interior designer, followed by a second career and the creation of her own business, C2 Green Solutions, as a LEED-accredited green building consultant working with international architectural firms in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and Houston. Always an avid learner, she has studied art history, color theory, painting, classical figure drawing, perspective, printing, and pottery in both France and the US. Her passion is to encourage others to unleash their creativity, experiment with materials, and connect with their imagination.  In 2018 she created Be You Art Studio and launched her creative workshops for children and adults.  She shares her time between Sebastopol, California, and Valence, France, with her husband and her son.

Ruth Donovan Design, Functional Art, Graphic Design, Holidays Shop Local, Illustration, Mixed, Multi-Media, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts I am a local artist and cofounder of The Beluga and Bee Studio located in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square District. For the last decade I have been heavily involved in Sonoma county's art community. I have dedicated my time and studio space to host group art shows for other up and coming local talent. This is important to me because I was taken under the wing of a retired photographer, Ron Emanuel, when I first moved to Sonoma county. I feel inspired to pay it forward to other aspiring artists.  Community and active support are key to a healthy art community.

Helena Donzelli Artisan, Other, Recovery Fund Grantee   Helena E. Donzelli Artist/Humanitarian Helena Donzelli spent the first many years of her career in the high tech industry in Silicon Valley. She has varied experience in ranging from recruiting, to Marketing & positioning then leaving the industry with her last position as a technical due diligence specialist for high tech investment and venture capital firms. During her time off, she persued her passion in the world of visual arts with plans of leaving high tech and creating for a living. In 2011, she moved to Sonoma County to bring this dream to fruition. Utilizing her background in Interior Design, she purchased furniture retail store in Healdsburg, Ca. Initially, She sought out training by Annie Sloan who lives in England and has a line of paint created just for furniture. She was also educated and trained to offer classes at the store teaching the chalk painting technique on furniture. She also offered custom painted furniture pieces as well as retail stock on the floor, all hand painted. After closing the store in 2014, she continued to teach classes in furniture painting for Benjamin Moore, local retail locations, in her local art studio and at Art Escape in Sonoma, Ca. Helena’s current creative venture was born out of losing her own home in the Northern California wildfires. She decided to make art out of the survived objects and posted her ideas on Facebook. Within 24 hours, she had 14 messages from other survivors asking her to make them art out of the charred objects. That was the beginning of her new business “Ressurected” in Sonoma- she acquired a warehouse as of January 1, 2018 and has been creating art for fire survivors as well as for retail sales. Helena also was commissioned to do an art installation at a new restaurant in Kenwood as a tribute to the community. Since the fires, She has been featured in Press Democrat,  Sonoma Magazine, North Bay News, San Francisco Chronicle, Sonoma Index Tribune, Sonoma Sun, Kenwood Press, Chanel 13 CBS News Sacramento, KTVU Chanel 2 News San Francisco, Chanel 5 KCBS News San Francisco & KCBS Radio San Francisco.

Simmon Factor Mixed, Painting, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts

Poetic narrative art in mixed media, featuring surreal and playful juxtapositions, patterns-painted and collaged, strong forms and colors.

Art studies and degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northeastern Illinois University. Successful career in graphic arts and design. In 1993, he started Village Art Supply in Santa Rosa, California, a rich resource to the Sonoma County artist community and thousands of students, artists, and crafters.

After selling Village Art in 2012, Simmon continues to create, exhibit and teach at Chroma Gallery which he and Robin Factor founded in 2014. Most of these works are available for sale or as Giclee prints.

Ehme Haas Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Fiber Art, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Music, Other, Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Visual Arts, Vocal e.h.me is a multi-medium, hungry fArtist currently beginning an exploration of the play between place and perspective with mobile-inspired, found object suspended sculpture. an imported local of the Russian River area with a tendency toward forest frolicking, she is inspired by birth cycles and bridges, plastic bags caught in tree boughs, fermentation and regeneration. she seeks to convey a sense of the beautiful wonder within even the 'ugly' parts of experience. create(or) de(con)struct

Ash Hay Film, Media, Other, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts My art is diaristic and centered in the body; how it communicates with the earth, itself, and bodies around it. In my work, I explore ideas of gender expression, body acceptance, and radical softness. Fatness, my own and others’, comes up often as I am continually confronted with how fat bodies are treated and how they navigate this world. My use of large soft sculpture, techniques of paper layering in my paintings and works on paper, and a color palette rooted in the color pink, all support my overarching theme of softness as power. I am influenced heavily by the works of Loise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith as well as the lineage of fiber artists and crafters in my own family.

Gerald Huth Holidays Shop Local, Mixed, Painting, Sculpture, Visual Arts I have been living and working in Sonoma County for 31 years, after moving from New York City.I have had exhibitions in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, as well as a great many throughout the United States. I am an original member of the Sonoma County ArtTrails open studio tour, as well as a founding member of the Art at the Source studio tour, when I was on the Board of Directors of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. My studio and gallery are in Forestville, and are open year round by appointment, as well as during ArtTrails. I am also involved in teaching art, and conduct a monthly collage workshop in my studio. I volunteer teaching art in Sonoma County schools, and have spent the past seven winters volunteering as an art teacher with foundations in Cambodia and India.

Sue Kearney Graphic Design, Mixed, Other, Painting

They say it’s good to have an artist statement. Here goes:

 

My work is all variations on a theme, and the theme is flow. Flow and restraint. I’m better at the first than the second. Finding my way to creating the art I envision (and have rarely achieved) is what keeps me coming back to the art table, again and again.

 

#fluidity #flow #fluidartbysuekearney #abstractartbysuekearney #collage #chainpull #greetingcards #frameable #handmade #madewithlove #followme  #fluidart #fluidartist #acrylicpour #paintpour #pourpainting #fluidacrylics #abstractart #originalart #giftidea #creative #instagramart #simplifyyourlife #simplicitea #collage #acrylicskins #leadfollow #makeamark #makeyourmark

Leslie M. Levy Acting, Artisan, Audio, Composition, Crew, Directing, Fiction, Film, Film Office, Folk Art, Improvisation, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Multimedia, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Photography, Poetry, Production, Storytelling, Talent, Technical, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Vocal I am a developing multifaceted creative based in Sonoma County, offering a breadth of knowledge and growing experience. Currently a senior at Sonoma State University in Communication and Media, I am looking for collaborative and mentorship opportunities within Sonoma County primarily and the Bay Area at large. A writer to the bone, I have experience with video work of all kinds (mostly camera, lighting, and directing/producing, some with editing) as well as some audio experience (ever-expanding because it is my second passion next to writing). I believe I have a lot to offer in a wide range of areas and love helping creative juices flow like watersheds into a project.

Adrian Litman Ceramics, Furniture, Illustration, Painting, Sculpture For the past 30 years, I have been working on a variety of projects for Civic, Corporate, Business and Residential clients, integrating art into architecture as well as designing free standing two and three dimensional pieces that create a sense of encounter and engagement through visual distinction or interaction. As an artist, I find inspiration and fuel for creative expression by contemplating the world around me. My inspiration is enhanced by concepts introduced by contemporary science, social issues, politics and cultural diversities. I use abstract and figurative interpretations to convey messages and emotions with sensibility, combining control and passion. Depending on the scope of design, volumes, shapes and vibrant luminous colors, are crafted to converge in an elegant harmony, stimulating the mind and emotions of the viewer. Having an eclectic approach to design, I feel comfortable flowing from dramatic subjects to whimsical and humorous themes. I have a broad range of diverse artistic skills and experience of working with a variety of durable materials like stainless steel, copper, brass, bronze, porcelain and glass as appropriate for harmonious integration with the site's architectural style and environment. For most of my large size public art designs, I cooperate with architects, structural engineers and licensed public art fabricators. As a basic principle, I create public art designs with flexibility in order to allow the project stakeholders and community input and participation.

Tawnya Lively Mixed, Visual Arts I make mixed media art & designs focused on pattern, texture and color using collage and mosaic materials. I have a B.A. degree in both Art History and Painting with a minor in Art Management from Sonoma State University. For ten years, I worked as a project manager in game design - coordinating artists, sound designers and software engineers. In the aftermath of the October 2017 fires, I founded Firestorm Mosaics in which I create new heirlooms for those who lost homes using the broken pieces of porcelain and ceramic that were recovered from the ashes of their properties. I also coordinate other mosaic artists to help with the project in addition to hosting workshops for those who would like to make their own projects.

Karen Lockert Artisan, Ceramics, Fiction, Literature, Mixed, Other, Painting, Sculpture, Visual Arts Karen Lockert was always the kid who daydreamed her way through school, seeing beauty in what most other people thought was quite ordinary, if not downright ugly. Her career was launched only after leaving her position as a high school art teacher in Los Angeles, when she began to understand that she had been repeatedly “re-birthing” and “re-homing” herself through her art work. She is probably best known for her evocative, mixed-media compositions of the vintage, vernacular architecture of West Sonoma County, where she now lives. Her work has been exhibited at many galleries in the Russian River area, including Occidental Center for the Arts, Russian River Art Gallery, Cooprider Gallery, Graton Gallery, Lawson Gallery, and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. In addition, she was a regular participant in Art @ the Source, West Sonoma County’s Open Studio tour for several years. As a spiritual, meditative artist at heart, it has been said that “her newest work gorgeously draws people into a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them”.

Gayle Manfre Mixed, Other, Painting, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts Gayle Manfre is a teaching artist, painter and art advocate. She one of the founders of Art Escape Sonoma, Sonoma Treasure Artist of 2010 and was awarded The Youth Mural Award from Precita Eyes Muralist in San Francisco. Gayle has been a teaching artist in Sonoma Valley since the 80s. She retired in 2017 and has been happily paintings since then Gayle is a member of the Arts Guild of Sonoma. My paintings are joyful and colorful and range from a wide variety of subjects. I am inspired by my travels and living in beautiful Sonoma.

Christopher Mckee Artisan, Ceramics, Functional Art, Furniture, Illustration, Mixed, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts, Woodworking more to come

TumbleWeed Expressions Meryl Juniper Artisan, Ceramics, Holidays Shop Local, Mixed, Muralist, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts While following the seasons within her Expressive Arts Inspirations, Meryl intertwines over 4 decades of Multimedia Arts Educational Experiences and Community Arts Activism. Meryl ignites and delicately encourages artistic expression and a sense of humility and humanity, while inspiring hands-on, process based learning, along with a curriculum integrated focus. In this we weave a healthy approach, revealing and enlivening the naturally creative self.  Simultaneously, Meryl thrives within her close to 5 decades of experience engaging a life within: Multimedia Visual Arts and the Performative realms of Nature Based and Street Performance Ritual, Improvisational Movement, Dance Theater, Improvisational Vocal Play, Song Writing, Movement Infused Personal Storytelling and Somatic Movement Practices. Moreover, Meryl commits, inspires and dedicates her artistic being to Community Arts Production, Process and Presentation.  Lastly, Meryl’s instinctive devotion to the natural world and the offerings of Eco Somatic Engagement, allows her to share the wisdom gleaned and harvested from all her experiences living close and being inspired by the earth, while continuously extending a steadfast faithfulness to the practices of Expressive Arts, Natural Medicine Making, Farming, Holistic Nutrition and Parenting, while moving within a Heart Centered Living Folks Arts Tradition.