CREATIVES

Brooks Palmer Acting, Children's, Composition, Directing, Fiction, Film Office, Folk Art, Illustration, Improvisation, Instrumental, Literature, Media, Music, Non-Fiction, Painting, Performance Art, Puppetry, Storytelling, Talent, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Vocal I'm a creative artist who loves to work in many fields. I write short humorous stories. I paint surrealistic art. I perform quirky improvisational songs and short stories on stage. I draw funny words-of-wisdom cartoons. I write books of surreal fantasy humor. I perform my As You Are show for eager audiences. I don't question my creativity. When it shows up, which is often, I put it on paper, or record it, or perform it. I love to put what I do out into the world, whether it's on stage, or online, or published as a book, or on a gallery wall. I love to uplift people with my creations. I hope my art makes people feel good about being alive, and inspires them to be creative in their own way.

Christopher Reiger Illustration, Literature, Mixed, Non-Fiction, Painting, Printmaking, Visual Arts

Originally from the rural Delmarva Peninsula on the mid-Atlantic coast, Christopher attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, before moving to New York City, where he lived and worked for a decade. He graduated from the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts (NYC) in 2002.

Whether exploring an abandoned city lot or a tract of forest far from an urban center, he still feels the same excitement he felt as a boy, when he found many of his experiences in the "natural" world similar to those of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. Carroll’s premise that "things get curiouser and curiouser" guided Christopher through many an outdoor adventure. As an adult, his love of the outdoors has evolved into a fascination with natural history, conservation, and ecology, and his visual art, illustration, design, and writing projects wrestle with contemporary constructions of nature, and the human relationship to nonhuman animal species.

Christopher lives in Northern California with his wife and two young sons.

Janeane Rose Sanborn Photography, Visual Arts Janeane Rose Sanborn As an artist, I am fascinated by the emotions explored in transformation and my work follows along general themes of journey, awakening, healing, and acceptance. Images I create are usually set in nature, utilizing the elements of the landscape to illuminate the subject. It is my intention to capture mood through natural lighting, movement, or props that symbolize the story I am telling. In the editing room, I can take an image and add elements to strengthen a concept, with the use of color toning, texture, and image compositing. When I am creating a particular composition, I am exploring the emotion that I feel as I envision the possibility of relating to my audience. Connection to my audience is what inspires me to create; to tell a story that compels the viewer to be curious about the deeper meaning and to participate in a fluid way. I want the viewer to find a bit of themselves that perhaps they hadn’t known. I am passionate about being an artist that nurtures and invites others to join the journey to a place of openness, with strengthened resolve toward compassion for ourselves and others. I recently became an exhibiting member of the Arts Guild of Sonoma and was chosen to exhibit my image "Awakening" in a juried exhibition for "she", with Juror Joyce Tenneson.  

Abraham Schroeder Children's, Design, Graphic Design, Literature, Mixed, Photography, Sculpture, Visual Arts I am an artist, designer, and author living in Petaluma. My art includes digital, mixed media, and sculpture, electronics, metal, clay, collage. I also do freelance graphic and web design. My children's picture books are The Gentleman Bat (http://www.TheGentlemanBat.com) and Too Many Tables (http://www.TooManyTables.com). Before moving to CA, I worked for 7 years in the Asian Art Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During that time I managed a massive 5-year project to catalog, digitize, and rehouse the MFA's spectacular collection of 50,000+ Japanese prints. An 1880’s woodblock print of bats by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in the MFA collection was the seed of inspiration for The Gentleman Bat. Read more about the hidden art historical references and book production process at http://www.TheGentlemanBat.com. My second book, Too Many Tables, features fun, colorful illustrations and a comically entertaining story, with a subtle message of generosity and community woven throughout. I do school, library, bookstore, and children's museum visits with large and small audiences. Depending on age and interest, I adjust the presentation to the group, often including interactive drawing activities, amazing bat facts and science, and introductions to Japanese woodblock prints. As an artist who worked closely with the illustrators of my books, I am always happy discuss the book making and illustration process, as well as writing, rhyming, and editing, and I do Skype/FaceTime for schools and groups around the country.

William Smith Printmaking, Teacher/Instructor, Visual Arts

William Smith (b.1970) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with an emphasis in printmaking from Sonoma State University, CA. in 1996.

As an undergraduate student at SSU, he collaborated with many artists as a printer and technician at Aurobora Press, in San Francisco and independently around the Bay Area.  In 1998, he received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from West Virginia University.

After completing his graduate studies, he returned to California where he continued to work at Aurobora Press and teach part-time at Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College. He has taught all levels of drawing (including figure drawing), foundations courses in design as well as printmaking. He still teaches part time at Santa Rosa Junior College while making and showing his art.

In addition to art, he is a music enthusiast and has played drums in various punk and hard rock bands since the 90’s. William Smith lives and works in Santa Rosa, CA. Passersby may hear anything from classic jazz to hardcore punk and metal bellowing from his studio.

Kathleen Truax Illustration, Painting, Visual Arts How many times did I choose a career path? The first time: My major. Art was my preference, but disliking the attitude of the art department I abandoned it for psychology. It turned out the professors were behaviorists, and that didn't suit me either. I settled on history, a good place to start when you are only 18! But art wasn't forgotten. I married at 21 and while my children were young I took 10 years of studio art classes, enough to constitute a minor, if anyone was counting. The second time: An advanced degree: Again I looked at an art degree. Still no. Psychology won and this time it was a better fit. I became a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and practiced for 29 years. Possibly the all of this was necessary to mature as an artist. The third time? 5 years ago when I retired. I was itching to paint more than ever before! Now I have the time--and perhaps not the worry about starvation! I have not settled on a style nor narrowed my subjects of interest. Portraiture, Figure & Landscape still predominate in my work. Since retirement I have embraced abstraction and surrealism as well. Because of my background as a therapist, both are far more interesting to me than they might have been earlier. I have a lifetime storehouse of sights, ideas and feelings: shapes, colors, lines, concepts, symbols, images, dreams, & fears that may emerge on a canvas— sometimes surprising me--when I play with paint and then develop whatever shows up, almost unbidden. While it is true that we don't get to return to an early choice and re-do it, I feel as if I have had the opportunity to do the next best thing--return to an early love, painting, and go at it with even greater enthusiasm than before!

Carlea Warren-Rossi Illustration, Mixed, Other, Painting, Visual Arts Carlea developed an interest in art from an early age. As her family would say, she was born with a pencil in her hand. Due to her shy nature as a child, she had difficulty communicating with others solely through words, so art became her form of communication with the outside world. It existed as a way to openly express her feelings, emotions and beliefs, since images could cross over so many linguistic and cultural barriers. Born and raised in California, Carlea went on to receive her B.A. in art studio from the University of California, Davis. Currently, her focus is combining art with social justice and community building.

Barbie Watts Artisan, Creative Sonoma Grantee, Functional Art, Illustration, Mixed, Multi-Media, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Youth, Visual Arts Living through some iconoclastic times, I feel like the truth seeker and the magician, asking viewers to see what I see in my drawings, paintings, sculpture, video’s and writing about it all.  I grew up in a family of exceptional people.   Trained in painting and ballet from a young age, I would move on to different mediums and styles of art for the the rest of my life. I would pour myself into every style, medium and philosophy I could afford. Having to find alternative sources for the necessities of, say, painting, I scoured alleys and dumpsters at businesses, looking for and finding paper for drawing or mat board, wood for stretching canvas, sometimes the canvas.  I also found canvas and more, not at the art store, but discount fabric stores or hardware store.  I still reuse today, making paper mache containers, boxes and pencil cups, using plastic clamshells, soup cans, as molds.  Old aluminum foil makes great armatures for my smaller pieces, the mermaid candlestick holders or boxes and such. Water is my current interest and being able to make air to water collectors in a way it would catch the public s attention. I think there power in having some control over those things that are normally out of our control, like the drought in California.  Water from Air collectors on’t depend on anyone or any company, to work. They can be made from the simplest materials. WHY aren’t there more?

Richard Wizardsky Audio, Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Media, Mixed, Painting, Photography, Visual Arts

I have been illustrating and painting all my life and have been painting on glass for about 20 years.

I graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania USA. I graduated with a triple majors in Graphic design, Illustration, and 3 dimensional design. With that education I embarked on a carrier as a graphic designer for Mellon Bank, Bd&E, A.Magazine, In Pittsburgh newsweekly, and produced and Edited Further Magazine,and then short stint into movie graphics for Disney and Lions GateFilms. I have been showing in galleries since 1989 from One Taste Gallery in San Francisco, a group show at the Buddha"s Palm Gallery, Coffee Bizarre, Frame of Mind Gallery, Main Street Coffee,Coffee Bazaar and Slice of Life, Peace in Medicine Gallery, The Pine Cone, Aubergine Emporium, Tiny Town, Hardcore, Guyaki to name a few in West County.. Then in Pittsburgh At Lascquax Gallery, The Beehive, City Books the Zenith Gallery, the Pittsburgh regional history museum as well as the Bloomfield Gallery, my works also adorn Theresa Heinze's foundation for fine arts, More recently showing at Tiny Town, hardcore, Guyaki,Fat heads Gallery , Polk street Gallery, Aubergine after Dark Emporium, Live painting at Festivals and local concert venues such as hop Monk and Lupin Lodge. I focus my artistic sights on the Images and objects of nature, using vivid color to convey their most exuberant form. Through my art I hope to bring people closer to the spiritual relm of the natural world they are immersed in.

Artist Highlights

• ArtWanted.com Gallery:    Fine Art
• Represented By:    FurtherImages
• Past Clients:    Mellon Bank, Disney, Inn Pittsburgh Magazine, Further Images and words, Film Joey coyle, Heinz Foundation, DDf&m etc

Ron Zak Mixed, Photography, Visual Arts Ron Zak is a photographer, teacher and traveler based in Sonoma who works to reveal moments of irony and interconnectedness in his images of diverse cultures and environments. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Zak served in Vietnam from 1965-67. He then left the Steel City to attend college in San Francisco. He earned a Masters in Art from SF State University in 1976 and presented his first solo exhibition titled “The Human Condition” at SFAI’s Walter and McBean Gallery. In 1979, Zak moved to Sonoma and started doing photography for newspapers and magazines. He went on to start Zak Photographics, which specialized in advertising, book illustration, fashion and portraiture work. He is well known for his photo ad campaign used for decades by Gundlach Bundschu Winery. His teaching career began in 1979 at Napa Valley College where he mentored many students who became professional and established photographers. From 2005-2017, he lead the photography department at Solano Community College and for the past thirty years Zak has coordinated travel courses for photographers to such locations as China, India, Cuba, Indonesia, Burma, Argentina, Paris, New York, and Vietnam. The travel study program was inspired by his own experience as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia (1989). Ron Zak has exhibited frequently throughout Northern California and Pittsburgh and has work in many private collections, at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa Valley Museum, and the Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art in Macedonia.

Féven Zewdi Illustration, Painting, Visual Arts

Hello! 👋🏾my name is Féven (pronounced Fay-vin) I am a passionate multidisciplinary painter and muralist.

I’m committed to elevating my skills as an artist through innovative storytelling that inspires and impact people to action. I’m currently working on my next exhibition called “Black Punch”, a portrait series inspired by the celebratory variety and beauty of the African diaspora+.