This is a re-beginning and rediscovering of my thoughts/ideas. Having grown up with a visually impaired mother, I experienced what resilience looked and felt like. It was layered and complex, but showed me the drive to be seen and heard in a sighted world. And although my mother could never know what my work would look like, I chose art as a means for expression. In the early days of grunge before it had a name and the Seattle art scene, I found self expression in that same desire to be heard during that loud and noisy time. In the 90’s, I moved to San Francisco for work, to expand upon my art studies and delve deeper into the art world. As I painted and sculpted by night, I worked full-time by day. However, once married and with kids I found it necessary to put my art aside (as an all or nothing gesture) to raise the family. Life progressed and circumstances changed, I’ve found that resiliency in life has led me back to art and expressing my own resilience. I love motion, action and expression in my work. Oftentimes drawing upon symbols and the history surrounding them. Symbols feel understandable and are bridges between foreign cultures and times. I believe there is a collective sense of experience or self across history and culture. This for me is rich for the imagination. The motion and action for me are an expression of the restlessness of my life to be heard. My style of painting expresses layers of imagery which is reduced and built upon again. There is a struggle to escape the past, yet we are all defined by it. Layers are reduced and altered and form the foundation of the next layer until the thought is complete.

Michael Morrissey started his photographic career initially as a landscape architect who gave innovative photographic presentations of potential park proposals. Serendipitously thereafter he documented his travels and lectured on his adventures starting with a photographic lecture series of Paris in the early 1970’s. From there he traveled with his camera from Paris to Kathmandu as the driver of the Magic Bus, an experience that reinforced his desire to travel and his willingness to take risks, and document what he experienced. Since then, he traveled to every continent of the world creating a body of work capturing awe inspiring images of the people and cultures in over 110 countries of nature and sublime landscape photography. Morrissey’s photography has been exhibited in California, New York and Bangkok. He established permanent residency in Marin County in 2008. True to his beginnings, with every photograph there is a story and Michael is a great storyteller. Spirit House Productions published his works including Facing the World – Egypt, The Siege of Heptanese, Facing the World – Greenland, Nostalgic Rides, Peru – Along the Sacred Valley, Carnaval 2010! San Francisco, Slanted Doors and Facing the World: Kaleidoscope. Spirit House Productions produces an ongoing Artist Sketches biographic series which has been featured in the SFBAY area including Elmer Bischoff, at the MOCA. Other artists featured in this series include M. Louise Stanley, Marty Knapp, Kathleen Lack and Jeff Downing, to name a few.

My paintings are executed in oil on canvas, paper and wood panels. I often paint on location, direct from the landscape. My paintings are done in a direct, immediate style responding to the warmth or coolness of the air, the stillness or the rush of the wind, the quietness of the coastal mist, or the brightness of the sunburnt hillsides. In the studio, I often apply a more contemplative feeling to the final details. I paint my local environment, but I have also painted in Hawaii, the mountains, the desert, the Pacific Northwest, and Australia. I see my work as a reflection of and a physical response to the natural environment surrounding us. I want to share my particular experience of nature, capturing a moment in time, the mysterious beauty of the natural world that we often neglect in the rush of our lives. I want to give the viewer a place to rest for a time and enjoy.

Ellen Levine Dodd currently creates art full time and teaches art workshops, group and private lessons in her studio – artNovato – in Downtown Novato. She lives with her husband in Bel Marin Keyes in Novato. She was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Winthrop, a small New England beach town near Boston. She has been painting, doing photography, and printing since early childhood. She attended Clark University on an art scholarship and studied painting at the Worcester Art Museum school and photography at the Worcester Craft Center. During her junior year at Clark she took a year and traveled to Europe and the Middle East doing photography and studying cultural diversity. When she returned to the United States she attended Massachusetts College of Art studying photography and printmaking. After further travels she moved to California and graduated from Sonoma State University on the National Dean’s List with a BA in Fine Art. and a double major in painting and photography. My work is oil and cold wax with mixed media. The under layers are often painted with acrylic and gesso, using mark making materials of graphite, colored pencils, Prismacolor, and wax art crayons. They are overpainted with oil and cold wax, oil glazes, oilsticks, oil pastels, graphite, charcoal and wax art crayons.

Gil Sambrano is a representational California artist whose work is focused on cityscape and landscape paintings. He draws inspiration from his love of big city life as well as the local scenic environment of Marin. Capturing the energy of the city at night is especially intriguing and the most expressive of his works. Although his work can be highly realistic, it can also push boundaries towards the abstract. Gil is a self-taught artist who has developed his skill set through the mentorship, inspiration, and encouragement of many artists over the years. Gil is a member of the California Art Club and has exhibited work in various venues including Edward Montgomery Fine Art Gallery in Carmel, Studio Gallery in San Francisco, Art Works Downtown, Sanchez Contemporary Gallery, Falkirk Cultural Center, California State Fair, Marin County Fair and his work has been featured on the cover of journals, booklets and music CDs.

I am inspired by using a variety of media to express statements about the rhythms and cycles of living. The creative nature of the universe excites me and I filter this through my lens of female experience. I started working with pine needles in 1996, a direct result of living under some messy long needled pine trees, and added ceramic back into my mix of media in 2001, as a way to personally heal after the violence of 9/11. A chance encounter with two large jack rabbits in my front garden started me on a two year path of sculpting life size hares. Since August, 2019, I have been incorporating these hares into a series of bas relief sculptures of the Major Arcana of my own imagined tarot deck.

Sioban Scanlon explores the theme of intimacy in both still life and landscape painting. Her journey into the world of painting and drawing began 30 years ago in a little town outside of Aix-en-Provence. Studying art at L’Université Américain d’Aix-en-Provence, she learned to paint in the fields and country lanes of Le Tholonet. This quiet introduction into how to see and how to enter the world of representation and abstraction has informed her work ever since. For the past several years, Scanlon has studied painting with several contemporary painters including Carol Lefkowitz, Kathleen Dunphy and Dean Fisher. The unruly elegance of nature is an ongoing source of inspiration for her paintings. Observing the atmosphere surrounding objects is at the heart of her painting practice. Scanlon continues to explore the quiet intimacy of objects and the natural world in oil and watercolor.

I like to carry my camera everywhere I go, documenting and finding inspiration in the most unexpected places. I have been drawing most of my life and photographing since I was an early teenager. I spent my early childhood with a Huichol indigenous community in the Mexican Sierras and my school years in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. My father gave me my first camera at 14, a used Nikkormat, and I have been hooked ever since. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology with a visual focus from San Francisco State University. At around that time I started making video documentaries that took me from Indonesia to Mexico. I have taken root in Novato, discovering all that beautiful Marin County and Northern California have to offer and inspire.

My vision is to capture and express images that both embrace and reach beyond the here and now. Photography is an alchemical process – the subject is the raw material, the gold is an image that expresses universal truth beyond that subject, one that makes us think and remember, and ultimately, see the world in a new and different light.

In 2006 Jill decided to shift from her textile design business and turned to painting. She has won prizes at the San Juan County Fair, WA for her work in 2007, 2008, 2016, and at the Marin County Fair in 2019. In 2019 she won an honorable mention and a blue ribbon for her interior painting Sanctuary. She has shown her work at The Robert Beck Gallery in San Anselmo. In 2014-2017 and 2019-2021 she participated in Marin Open Studios, which is a great community experience. She has participated in two group shows at the Graton Gallery, CA in 2015 and 2016, the STUDIO Gallery and Sweetie’s Art Bar in San Francisco in 2016, and at The Liberty Arts Gallery in Yreka, 2017. Jill has studied with Marsha McAllister in Friday Harbor, WA. and in the last few years taken several workshops with Marin County artist Timothy Horn, Peggy Kroll Roberts, Sarah Sedwick, Aimee Erikson, and Amy Brnger.

My current personal work reflects my 25 year art journaling process and how that has healed me. My work now takes form in larger mixed media pieces with collage and writing as their foundation. Above all else, my artistic process serves as a profound journey of self-discovery and emotional healing. My art making weaves in aspects of art journaling, collage, printmaking, painting, asemic writing and book binding. Through these powerful and limitless portals of mixed media, I explore the depths of my emotions, allowing them to surface and be transformed into tangible artistic expressions. Each piece I create is a reflection of my inner landscape and serves as a testament to the power of art to heal and illuminate the path of self-understanding. Making art is an essential part of my life. It is as important to my well being as eating well, sleeping, exercise and prayer. I strongly believe that my creative practice has healed me on a deep level, and I strive to honor that gift by sharing my understanding of creating art as a healing tool with my students and clients.

Rob Roehrick is a retired graphic artist and art director of Roehrick Design, a communications design studio formed January 1993 (until January 2021) in Marin County. He collaborated with a variety of for-profit and non-profit clientele, creating innovative solutions to promote their organizations. Rob’s professional design experience prior to 1993 included staff positions in the firms Destiny Two (Minneapolis), Lance Wyman, LTD (New York), Ace Design and Phippen Design Group (Sausalito). He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Macalester College in 1981 and a Master of Science (Communications Design) degree from Pratt Institute in 1987. Rob is also co-founder and trustee of Gaines-Jones Scholars, a public charity started with his wife, Anita, in 2001, with a mission to grant college scholarships to African-American students in Southwest Georgia and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Marisa Goudie is a ceramic artist with a diverse Chinese and English heritage that inform and enrich her artistic journey. She is also a Veterinary Surgeon who has worked in Asia, South America, and Europe. After relocating to San Rafael, California, to raise her family, she enrolled in evening pottery courses at the College of Marin and now works from her home studio.

My sculptures celebrate the bond between people be it mother and baby, lovers,friends or family. I was educated in England at Schiller College in London and at The Camden Art Center where I studied under Malcolm Woodward, assistant to famous sculptor Henry Moore .I returned to America where I studied sculpture and the fine art of Patination at College of Marin under the wing of Lucas Film Arts model sculptor Richard Miller. I have been exhibiting professionally since 1991. I have participated in many juried shows and group shows. I have also been featured in the prestigious Designer’s Showcases in Marin and Sonoma Counties . My works are displayed in private collections from Palm Springs to Portland and Los Angeles to London. Along with all of my Bronze sculptures, I am excited to show my new paintings of colorful flowers and still life in the May 2024 Open Studios.

Christie Close is a painter and sculptor residing at her studio showroom in downtown Mill Valley. She has a fine arts education, a background in Zen practice, travel, writing poetry and short stories, environmental activism, and work with women and children. She is a Bay Area Postpartum Doula working with newborns and new parents. Her early and major influences are from Japanese and Russian teachers and artists active in Europe and America from 1910 to 1960. Christie is educated in the classic arts of drawing, composition, color theory, sculptural form, and design. This artist has found her unique and original voice, developing her style. There is a palpable presence and meaning that comes through in her work. Many personal experiences and breakthroughs are visible in the works she calls The Water Series, The Earth Series, and The Victress Series. The name Victress Arts is a statement about personal triumph over limitations and a prayer for our water, air, and earth to recover from many challenges. Her approach is influenced by early nature-focused life in the California High Sierras, scuba diving in many tropical locations, and living in the Sangre Di Cristo Mountains near Taos New Mexico.

I studied at San Jose State University. Beyond getting married and raising a family – I studied at the College of Marin for many years. With many other students under Kent Rupp’s tutelege, we formed a group that exhibited in numerous venues and eventually formed what is now MarinMOCA. I have been teaching “The Portrait and the Figure” class at MarinMOCA for the past 20 or so years. I have also been teaching at the Novato Unified School Districts 4th and 5th grades under MarinMOCA’s Arts Enrichment Program.

Liz Schiff is a Bay Area watercolor artist, printmaker and instructor. Her work has been in multiple group and solo shows over the last twenty years. Liz is a member of the California Society of Printmakers and holds an M.A. in Communication and a B.A. in French.

Katya McCulloch, MFA San Francisco Art Institute, is a community artist whose work can be found in private and public collections including the Library of Congress and numerous special collection libraries. As co-founding artist and Director of Teamworks Art Mentoring Program she makes art with high-risk and incarcerated youth in Marin County, CA. She also teaches printmaking at San Quentin State Prison through William James Association’s Prison Art Project. Katya spent most of her early life in Germany, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C., where she graduated from public school.

My paintings are a composite of recollections and evolving observations of the familiar. The subjects chosen allow me to revisit and focus on sacred objects and locations which hold a special place in my heart. Connected by my personal history and observations, the subjects also share a common presence of being anytime, anywhere. The paintings are watercolor, gouache, monotype paper, and thread.

After many years of working as a tech designer, Rainey has returned to art practice. Earlier work explored the impact of technology on the body/mind and the world of computer games as art. Her current inquiry turns away from human exceptionalism to collaborate with the more-than-human world. Rainey’s work has been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto, Canada. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center as an Artist’s grant recipient. Select publications include Dark Mountain Journal, Aeonian Magazine Online, Sculpture Magazine, Rhizome Online, Videogames and Art, edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. Rainey holds a BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts.

As a museum designer, I must process large quantities of information in order to synthesize insights that inform tangible design solutions. In my free time, I use this same skill to notice interesting patterns that I can reshape and combine into unexpected layers. When I have the time, I make silkscreened prints, playing with color combinations and vibrancy. I sell my work as digital reproductions, usable objects and limited editions. Brianna is a museum designer and decorative artist who designs story-inspired patterns. She has directed over 100 design projects and collaborated with IDEO, the National Park Service, and numerous museums. Brianna spent her childhood in Pasadena, where she painted murals on her bedroom walls, practiced cello, and made dioramas.

Although my strongest passion lies in the ceramic arts, I have spent over 25 years in a variety of disciplines ranging from photography and jewelry, to studying acoustic guitar and publishing photo-realistic art. I feel that my diverse interests have provided me with a broader understanding of how we all interact with and truly need art in our daily lives to nourish ourselves. Having taken ceramic courses at a variety of facilities and having my own studio, I consider myself mostly self-taught. I do enjoy studying work from students of the Leach/Hamada tradition and have currently been influenced by those who studied under these two great craftsmen. I believe I am continually on my journey of working toward my own aesthetic and individual style, further defining myself as a unique ceramic artist.

The son of Methodist Missionaries, Daniel lived in Malaysia and Singapore until moving to Chattanooga, TN at the age of nine. He graduated with high honors from Princeton University in 1988 and a Master’s Degree in Architecture from Harvard University in 1995. In 1992 he received a Fulbright Scholarship to draw the Amsterdam Exchange, the masterwork of the Dutch architect Dr. H. P. Berlage. He received funding from the Dutch Ministry of Culture for an additional year of work, and in 1996 the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut mounted an exhibition of his drawings and published the book Drawing Berlage’s Exchange. The book was awarded a Citation for Excellence by the American Institute of Architects. In 1999 the Getty Center in Los Angeles mounted an exhibition of his drawings entitled A Structure Revealed: The Amsterdam Stock Exchange. (Click here for LA Times article.) He has lectured and exhibited his work at architecture schools such as the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In 1997 he was awarded the Rome Prize, in Architecture, for a year of research at the American Academy in Rome. His work, a spatial analysis of Bramante’s Tempietto, was also supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation in Chicago. In 2007 he established Castor Architecture in Mill Valley, CA to work closer to the home he shares with his wife Jennifer Jerde and their daughters Nell and Gwen. Jennifer is the founder and creative director of Elixir Design. Over the years, Daniel has created his share of forts and follies – including a play structure for the Mountain School in Corte Madera, and an installation at the Children’s Museum, or Zeum, in San Francisco. He was a member of the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade Committee and remains an avid designer/builder of parade floats.

A fourth generation San Franciscan, John Bucklin has been painting, drawing and sculpting since he was a young age. Trained in the classical tradition at the Florence Academy of Art, he continued his studies in New York City, earning a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been shown in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and in Serena & Lily stores across the country. He also exhibited his work at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery. He lives and works in San Rafael, CA. A lover of the outdoors, he finds inspiration from his wilderness travels. Capturing the wonders of nature, he sees beauty everywhere- rivers, oceans, deserts, sunsets, mountains- and also in simple objects like river rocks and wildflowers. He loves the unknown possibilities and physical challenges he experiences outdoors, whether he’s hiking to 14,000 ft. on Mount Shasta, or rafting the Grand Canyon. “All these adventures push me further, and are a metaphor for my creative process.”

Upturned Roots is inspired by a tree in Glen Ellen – Kenwood I’ve been drawn to – especially the roots. After the 2017 fires, I searched and found it still intact. I saw the world in the tree, the concept of pareidolia. I begin by preparing the panels in order to create a foundation for the silver. Building up many layers of luminous ground enables the interplay of light with the silver, creating a three-dimensional effect. The sun’s rays shifting on the panel’s surface results in an image that is ever-changing. New forms emerge and dissolve, like the forms I see in this tree’s roots. Drawing with silver is sustainable and connects me to the lineage of artists I’m influenced by who worked in silverpoint in the ages before graphite was discovered and mined. Today as I am writing this, the fires are again raging in Napa. Again, I go into my studio, the elements, in order to honor them. They are all we have; they are the matter we are made of.

Ms. Monizʼ art education background began at Southern Oregon University. Jo received a BA in Environmental Design from the University of Washington. Jo has also lectured on design drawing at the University of Washington College of Architecture. Her background in architecture has been a strong influence on her artwork. She currently holds a Hawaii architectural license.. Prior to moving to the Bay area to pursue art full time, Jo was represented by the Seattle Art Museum Gallery and Waterworks Gallery of Friday Harbor, Washington. Jo is a member of the Sausalito Center for the Arts and currently resides and has an art studio in Sausalito, California.

Annie Danberg is a life-long artist based in San Rafael, Ca. She draws inspiration from the infinite mysteries of the natural world, and the ways that nature can reflect the inner world of the psyche. She takes a process-oriented approach in her abstract paintings in acrylic and oil where she allows the voice of her intuition to dance with organic form.

I got bit by the art bug at an early age… making cards and drawings with pencils and crayons as presents for my family. Later in High School, I took as many art classes as I could, but found pencil drawing and watercolor painting to be my favorites. I continued studying art in college at Western Michigan University. While there I discovered a new creative outlet in video production and writing. That’s when I got into the broadcast news industry where I would remain for the next 30 years. After leaving the business during Covid, I dove back into drawing and painting. I moved to Marin nearly two years ago and have been working out of an incredible studio in Sausalito. Rediscovering my passion for fine art has been a magical experience and one that I am truly grateful for

Jonah Burlingame, born in San Francisco in 1968, is part of a family of artists who span three generations. His minimalist, abstract pieces have garnered attention and praise in the Bay Area, resulting in commissions from prominent professionals. For over 25 years, Jonah has honed his signature style, using a squeegee to apply paint and suspending each layer in varnish to create a harmonious relationship between organic textures and structured forms. His work invites viewers to step beyond the confines of reality and into a world of imagination. Growing up in Northeast Ohio, Jonah studied art history and graphic design at Kent State University. After gaining recognition and awards in the Midwest, he returned to his birthplace of San Francisco to pursue a career as an artist. He now lives in Marin with his wife and two dogs, where he continues to exhibit and establish his reputation in the local art community. He also serves on the board of Marin Open Studios in service of its mission to connect artists with the public

Chris grew up in Los Angeles and then went to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. There he met and worked with Peter Schumann and Bread & Puppet Theater. He was introduced to papier-mache sculpture and agitprop performance. His first professional job at age 20 was to redesign the Fun House at Coney Island, New York. Celebrated with a front page review in the Village Voice, the Fun House was populated with his papier-mache creatures and special effects. From there he was briefly in Venice, Ca and then onto San Francisco and the Sausalito Waterfront. He was a regular performer and hawker of his masks at the Renaissance Faires. In the early 70’s, he was one of four collaborators of the heralded SNAKE theater in Sausalito. In 1980 he founded Antenna Theater. With Antenna he has written, designed and produced over 40 plays and special events. Antenna has toured in Mexico and performed there at the Guanajuato International Arts Festival at the invitation of Bellas Artes representing the United States. The Theater has also toured, by invitation, to London’s Round House (five months presenting EUPHORIUM), Paris, Rotterdam and five cities in Germany. His work has also been presented in Italy, New York City, the Smithsonian (seven months), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland. Chris is currently creating various presentations around Queen Calafia, from whom the name California was derived and the Heart of San Francisco event — a free public event of a skywriting plane drawing hearts over the Golden Gate and other Bay Area landmarks. Antenna is a non-profit, 501C3, organization located in Marin County, CA.

The beauty of trees has always been an inspiration to me. Their shapes are formed by the forces of nature combined with the adaptions each tree makes to grow. It results in complex grain patterns with timeless beauty. The wood I use is taken from trees that have fallen or are cut because of disease, not harvested. For instance, I am turning salvaged old growth redwood when available. The wood comes from stumps of trees cut years ago. Some of these trees as old as 2000 years. The wood is still strong and the grain incredibly beautiful. In the past year I have started to make utilitarian bowls in addition to decorative bowls. I am making large salad bowls from walnut and have created some beautiful pieces. I have enjoyed the challenge. It takes several years to dry the large pieces of wood to make these bowls. I plan to make more as the wood matures so it can be turned.

Nature, landscape, organic images are themes of my oil paintings. I have lived in some beautiful places that have inspired my art – Santa Barbara, Paris, Mendocino, Squaw Valley, Marin. I have studied art with accomplished artists whose work resonates with me. I am active in the Marin arts community, have participated in the Marin Open Studios since 2010 and have exhibited extensively in the Bay Area.

I am a long time professionaI realist artist and illustrator with an international clientele. My subjects include portraits, landscapes, marine art, and historical imagery. I value painting directly from life and I apply that discipline whenever possible to my studio paintings. I first studied architecture and practiced that profession as a young man. I then acquired special training to become a master of watercolor and oil painting which has facilitated my long and successful career.

In the summer of 1992 my mom and I took a watercolor painting class at my alma mater Drake High. I played around a little with painting small vases of flowers from life for a few months, but then hardly painted for nearly a decade. Life changes (divorce, living abroad, meeting and marrying my husband, Joe) brought me to a more collected and creative place and in 2000 I began to paint again. I took a few workshops and adult ed classes, one community college credit class on color – but no other art training. I decided that I would finish every painting I started – finding my way through all the parts that I struggled with. This has turned out to be the best way to learn. I started small – a quarter sheet of watercolor paper – and quickly progressed to painting on full sheets. But, my painting time was quite sporadic – work would lie untouched for months. In 2004 I was faced with an enormous disappointment – that I’d not have my own children in this lifetime. It was unthinkable that my life would not include having kids – I am a born mother. My response to the grief was to pray for the energy and inspiration to adopt, or to be given something else to that would fill the meaning void in my life. At first it seemed that something else was life coaching and I enrolled in a coach training program in 2005. In the winter of 2006, just as I was completing my training and planning to build a coaching practice, my friend Eleanor Harvey asked me if I wanted to do Marin Open Studios together the following May. I replied with “that means I have to sell my art, right?” She told me, yes, that was the idea! At that time, my pieces were very precious – they took me forever to do and they were my babies! But a voice told me that if I wanted more art to come through me, I needed to let them go. That spring I jumped in to preparing for open studios with a vengeance. I had my art reproduced by Steve Kimball with Light Rain in San Rafael (soon after I went to work there for nearly 5 years!). And I had sets of greeting cards made. Open Studios brought an overwhelming response to my work, inspiring me to paint more and search out other ways to show and sell my artwork – completly eclipsing my plans to be a life coach. Since late summer 2011, I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned with weekly watercolor groups and this has become as central to my life as making my own work. Because I am largely self-taught, I initially had no idea what I knew – painting is such an intuitive process for me. I’ve discovered that if you put a painter and her or his work and questions in front of me, just what is needed comes spilling out of me. My experience now is that I was born to do this. The part of me that was drawn to life coaching informs how I teach, bringing me full circle. I’m so clear now that I have indeed been given the “something else.” What I do is filled with purpose and meaning and I feel so privileged to be spending my life this way.

I was born in Munich, Germany. I came to America when I was 5. I grew up on the East Coast and returned to Germany after college. My parents wouldn’t let me go to Art School, so my undergraduate degree in History Of Art. My first husband said if you could ever choose where he was going to live it would be Mill valley, California. We founded a Poster Company in the 60’s. The whole collection is now in The Victoria Albert museum in London. I finally did go to Art School in San Francisco. I received a Master’s degree from the San Francisco Art institute. I have a beautiful studio in my house which i call my Mother’s guilt for not letting me go to Art School.

With several decades of inspiration from Mt. Tam, I have tried to portray the inherent natural beauty of my favorite scenes. When I use the landscape as a point of departure, it is usually an attempt to evoke the hidden magic of the environment.

Through my photography and writing I search for the art and poetry in nature and seek to capture that in my landscape, nature, and bird photography. I am drawn to shapes and colors in the natural world and wildlife. I am a retired Sleep Medicine professional and Counselor.

Currently, my works are both abstract and representational. Color always takes center stage in my paintings, and the natural world is an important source of inspiration. I started painting many decades ago, but the demands of business and family kept my brush quiet. Recent studies with Chester Arnold and others have reignited my passion, and I am able to spend many hours with paint and canvas. My early formal education and training as a microbiologist helped develop a fine visual discrimination know-how. In later years my printing and graphic arts company tuned my eyes to design and color relationships. I have found this unique set of skills invaluable in developing my fine arts process.

Nicholas Coley was born in Connecticut in 1971 and raised in Muir Beach, California. He hitch hiked around the states for a couple years after high school trying to find Don Juan and Carlos Castenada. He was sure he had a destiny to become a medicine man or a brujo, but after getting hepatitis in a hostel in Santa Fe, he moved to Europe and studied art at the Beaux-Arts plus another small school for painting in the south of France. He lived, studied, and meditated daily for a year in a Buddhist Monastery outside of Bordeaux. After reading ‘The tropic of Capricorn’ by Henry Miller, he decided he was not meant for the disciplined, monastic life and went off in search for a more creative and spontaneous world, taking him to Prague for a year and selling paintings to tourists on the Charles Bridge. From there he took the transiberian railroad through Russia and deep into China before having a complete spiritual collapse in the summer of ’94. The good news is it’s been a slow climb back up the mountain toward the benificence and belonging of a higher power. Anchored by the love of a good woman he’s actually been able to support his family, three extraordinary little kids (and seven chickens, and now a husky/lab puppy) even putting a down-payment on a house…all exclusively with the proceeds from painting sales, which he’s damn proud of and still sort of in dumb happy shock. For almost 20 years now he has been painting full time, almost everyday. Turns out, he was something of a medicine man after all.

A plein air and studio painter, I like to paint landscapes that often include structural elements in dramatic light. Look on my website for complete information, and more paintings, including small works immediately available for purchase on my “Shop” page. I happily accept commissions. Visits to my studio in Fairfax are available by appointment year round. I received a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in NYC and worked as a graphic designer for 20 years before beginning to paint, and eventually became a full time painter in 2006. I teach painting workshops across the country and abroad. My work is represented by five galleries around the U.S. I am a signature member of both the Oil Painters of America, and the California Art Club.

Randall Stauss’s paintings in oil and watercolor have captured Lake Tahoe and the West Coast for over forty years. Making his summer home at Fallen Leaf Lake with his wife Edith, he is a familiar sight to the locals and tourists alike, and is often seen painting along the lake’s shore. A third generation Oregonian, Stauss began drawing and painting at an early age. He studied at Oregon State and the University of Oregon. In 1985 he was accepted as a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, the same year he began teaching his popular plein air workshops. Randall has enjoyed two extended painting trips in the last several years, spending most of 2017 in Hawaii and the better part of 2021 in Pacific Grove,CA on the Monterey Peninsula. After back to back Plein Air sabbaticals, Randall is content to be staying closer his San Rafael home and studio. 2023 Plein Air events in Carmel, Alameda, Mill Valley, and the inaugural Sausalito Plein Air and Gallery Exposition have been satisfying, rewarding and a great inspiration.

My studio will be open both weekends of Marin Open Studios: Sat and Sun, May 4 and 5, and Sat and Sun., May 11 and 12. I grew up just outside Glasgow in Scotland. My grandmother loved to draw and paint in watercolor, and from the earliest age I have been fascinated by painting in watercolor with its brilliant colors, luminosity and sparkle. I came to San Francisco in my early twenties and have lived in the same house in Sleepy Hollow, San Anselmo for over forty years. Painting flowers in my garden, still life and the beautiful scenery of Marin County are a constant source of interest to me. One of my watercolors, “Mt. Tamalpais” was selected as a finalist for the “Get Covered” competition and article about artists in the May issue of Marin Magazine. One of my paintings was juried into the 2017 edition of the American Art Collector produced by Alcove Books in Berkeley, California. This year I am particularly excited as one of my watercolors was accepted into the de Young Open 2023 which was at the museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco from September 2023 to January 2024. I have also had one of my watercolors accepted into the California Watercolor Association’s 54th. National Exhibition, January 2024 – March 2024.

Kathleen Lipinski Biography PERSONAL Born 1950, Detroit, Michigan. Became California resident in 1968. Married to artist Steve Emery in 1985. Self employed artist since 1981. EDUCATION B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz, fine art. A.A., College of Marin, fine art. Also attended Santa Monica City College, U.C. Extension, COM Adult Education, private classes. AWARDS Marin County Cultural Treasure Award 2015 Sausalito Art Festival, first and second place awards in painting: 2009, 2008. Sausalito Art Festival, first and second awards, printmaking: 2002, 2000, 1999, ’98, ’97, ’81. California State Fair Fine Art Exhibit, award winner five consecutive years. Marin County Fair, Best in Class (drawing and painting), firsts and multiple other awards. Pacific Sun ƒ??Best in Marinƒ? award for best local artist. 100 Magnificent Marin Women, 2007 recipient. PUBLICATIONS Cover, Marin Magazine, 2013, Finalist 2017. Cover, Bay Nature Magazine, Tenth Anniversary issue, 2011. Book cover, Tamalpais Trails by Barry Spitz. Book cover, Open Space, by Spitz UC Santa Cruz Review. Ross Valley Winery, label art. Poster artist, Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, ƒMarin/Scapesƒ and the Sausalito Art Festival. Screenprinting Magazine Cover, Common Ground SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Retrospective with Steve Emery, Falkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA. 222 South Main, 8′ x 14′ and 8′ x 4ƒ’ paintings commissioned by SOM for Salt Lake City, UT Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA. Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, San Francisco and New York. Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, CA. Three person show. Bolinas Museum, group show and auction, Bolinas, CA. “Works on Paper”, group show, 7 pieces, Gump’s Gallery, San Francisco. Stanford University Artspaces, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. One person exhibit. Hop Kiln Winery, one person show, Healdsburg, CA. ƒ??Married to Artƒ?, Bay Model, Sausalito, CA. Branson School Art Gallery, Ross, CA, one person exhibition. Marin Theatre Company, Mill Valley, one person exhibition. Bear Valley Visitor Center, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, Pt. Reyes, CA, one person exhibition. Pacific Presbyterian Professional Building, Lobby, San Francisco, one person exhibition. West Coast Works on/of Paper”, Humboldt State University. E. Pickard-Smith Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, juried group show. San Diego Art Institute National Juried Exhibition, San Diego, CA. Dominican College, San Rafael, CA, two person show. Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, one person exhibition plus several group shows. Los Angeles Audubon Society, Wildlife and Environmental Art Show, juried group show. Gallery Three, San Luis Obispo, three person show.

As Steve moves through the landscape, infused with the smells, sounds, seasons, he returns to his studio to reinhabit this passage. His paintings begin without a destination, from a single calligraphic brush stroke. As more lines are added, spaces become inviting to inhabit. As elements of interest are born, self-conversations are held regarding their meaning. Often times a central, somewhat seductive, element which emerges, becoming something to rally around. Then, the rallying may take on an even more cryptic, intriguing meaning that renders the original meaningless. As he continues painting, (at times more drawing-with-paint), traces of past elements are left behind; a trail of history, not to retrace steps, but a reminder of the foundation each painting was built upon. He is not an abstract painter, nor a painterly painter. A structure, or language emerges to convey, sing, or dance a story, which is itself a myth of its’ own making. For these reasons, Steve refers to this work as lyrical, a reference to that which moves through time with musical accompaniment. He also works with more realistic, intimate portraits of landscape, both his local Marin, as well as the Sierra. Where the landscape work generally go from transparent beginnings to finished compositions, the lyric work is more experimental and searching. He also plays piano and accordion. Steve works primarily in acrylic on various forms of watercolor paper. Here is a description of technique. “Diluting the acrylic paint to a transparent color, I wipe my brush to get rid of excess moisture, then draw on the paper. The paper is never wet, and the colors become richer with each successive layer applied. The lighter, more luminous colors use the white of the paper to illuminate from behind. I paint layers of color around those areas. The darker tones are more layers of different applied color, slightly less dilute paint, and are generally the last to be applied. When dark areas require a return to light, it takes many successive drawn layers, as acrylic paint is very transparent. IOnce dried it doesn’t dissolve with successive layers. In the initial transparent stages, the composition, details and future are still directionless, but as the painting evolves to become meaningful, I begin to use less transparent colors. I use Arches 300# Hot-pressed watercolor paper, as well as a multimedia board which has a little resin in the paper. Each has its’ own inherent texture and absorbancy characteristics, which becomes more apparent after many layers.”

I am an artist in mind and spirit. My passion to paint began when I was 10 years old. My first teacher was a French impressionist; she encouraged me to be bold with color and to bring my heart to the canvas. Her sage advice allowed me to deepen my style over many decades as an abstract impressionist. Although my work evolves, as I have, through my experiences and the many artist groups and teachers, including those at the art student league in NYC. I have remained true to the foundation learned in my past while I explore the language of plastic in this ever-changing world. My paintings are a personal expression of my past, present, and future.

Watercolor painting has come to me late in life. I taught social studies, art history, and basic design at Redwood High School for 32 years, never pursuing my personal interests until retirement in 2001. After several years of watercolor classes with Marty Meade at the College of Marin, I began to study with a group of eight talented women under the guidance of Cara Brown, a well-recognized watercolor artist in the Bay Area (Lifeinfullcolor.com). We are now known as the Magnolias and have had several group shows at the Marin Civic Center and other local venues. Through her encouragement and critical eye, I continue to grow and feel more confident in my paintings. I have exhibited at the Marin County Fair, with the Marin County Watercolor Society, and a private show at Creekside in San Anselmo. Covid has restricted exhibits for the past two years. More recently I have had shows at the Redwoods and Lanphier Dentistry, and won a second place at the “Gathering Color” Exhibit at Falkirk. My family has always been supportive and the recipient of much of my early work. Friends have begun to ask to purchase paintings and gicleé prints, as well as cards. If you are interested in my work, please contact me. I’m always looking for subject matter so if you want to try a commission, let me know, or have a photo that might look nice as a watercolor, please pass it on.

Suzanne Siminger grew up in Santa Monica, California, knowing from a very early age that she was an artist. She attended Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree. After graduation Suzanne joined the Peace Corps and served in Brazil. Her main employment was at KGO-TV (ABC) in San Francisco doing courtroom drawing and news graphics for which she won an Emmy Award. At age 40 Suzanne went back to school and attended the San Francisco Art Institute, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree. Like many young artists, Suzanne experimented with many subjects (figurative, abstract, expressionistic, etc.) and materials (oil, charcoal, pastel, etc.) before settling on contemporary realist landscapes, both in watercolor and oil. Her work is in many collections, both local and abroad. Please visit my website at suzanne siminger.com.

Born in Bakersfield, raised in the agriculture towns of the San Joaquin Valley, schooled through public schools including Fresno State, my business of commercial real estate brought me to San Francisco in 1984. Birth of twin daughters in 1985 brought our family to Belvedere, our home since 1989. A friend once said, “When I drive home each day, I thank God I get to live here.” That’s how I feel about living in Marin.

I graduated from the ” Institut Supérieur d’Architecture St Luc ” in Brussels, Belgium, with a degree in Interior Architecture. I loved completing my juried designs with watercolor renderings, and, as a hobby, have been painting since then. I am very fortunate to live in beautiful Marin County, California, where I participated at several solo shows, Marin Open Studios, gallery exhibits, and at the famous yearly Marin County Fair, where my paintings won several ribbons. I joined the ”537 Magnolias“ in 2021. They are a group of gifted and passionate watercolorists directed by the very talented and known Cara Brown. I am proud to be part of that group. We share our work and paint together every week. Their enthusiasm stimulates and improves my artistic skills day by day.

I was born and raised in Sausalito, California. I currently reside in Mill Valley, California. My sculpting is inspired growing up near Sausalito’s waterfront where I witnessed many artists, including Barney West (Tiki Junction), who would create artwork out of common logs. Scott was inspired by this creative colony of people and began his own career on the Sausalito waterfront restoring large yachts and tugboats, including the Tairona, a 108’ Steel Tugboat, that still sits at the end of E Dock in the Sausalito Marina, opposite the Spinnaker Restaurant.

Richard is a Northern California landscape artist, painting with oils, primarily en Plein Air. The discovery and joy of painting came to him quite late in his life path, but not unexpectedly. Landscape photography was his chosen creative medium for thirty years. Large, medium and small format cameras… using primarily black and white images and the magic of polaroid transfers on watercolor paper. Most of his career was spent as an entrepreneur, importer and graphic designer. He became more heavily involved in the art industry as the product manager for Savoir Faire, the exclusive importer of Sennelier French fine art materials where his eyes were opened to the unique history of the impressionist era and to art materials in general. He is a committed pleinair painter and has studied with many of the finest professionals in the nation. Richard is regularly invited to many pleinair events and participates in annual Northern California shows that raise funds for numerous causes. He is one of the MALT (Marin Agricultural Land Trust) painters and other shows include MarinScapes, Laguna Plein Air Invitational, Sonoma Plein Air, Napa Valley Art Festival, the San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival and the Door County Plein Air Festival. Richard retired from PleinAir Magazine in 2019, is an artist member of the California Art Club and was co-chairman of the CAC Northern California Chapter for eight years.

I spent my formative years in former Czechoslovakia. I studied painting at the School of Art and Design in Uherske Hradiste, Czechoslovakia. After graduating I continued my studies at the University of F. Palacky in Olomouc, where I majored in Art and Czech literature. In 1972 I emigrated to USA. I spent my professional life as an art director at various well known New York City ad agencies, both consumer and pharmaceutical. A few years ago I returned to painting. I found my new home in California. Inspired by Californian sun and lively art culture, I am following a new path to more creative freedom of abstract expression. I participated in numerous exhibitions in New York and San Francisco area. I subscribe to Henri Matisse’s belief that art should be like an easy chair–feast for the eyes and rest for the soul.

I grew up in Westwood and moved to N. CA when I went to UC Berkeley. My parents owned a restaurant in Hollywood on Vine St. for 35 years. My father put my 4 sisters, brother and me in movies as soon as we could walk. My three older sisters were a singing and dancing trio until they got married and had families. They cut records, entertained the troops and won washing machines on amateur hours. I’ve written a memoir about those years, several short stories and countless poems. I got an MA in art and another in Art Therapy. I worked as an Art Therapist in the Bay Area for many years while I made art. I paint and sketch the figure, face, landscape, still life and all combined. I use w/c, oil, pastel, ink and multimedia. I also sculpt the figure and head and have cast some in bronze. Please check out my website and click on Art in the Barn to see a short film about my exhibit of life-size female figures. Feel free to contact me for announcements of future shows.

Katharine Boyd received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been shown at Touchstone Gallery, Washington DC, LHUCA gallery in Texas, Tam Realty, San Anselmo, the Glasgow Museum of Contemporary Art, The Nevada Museum of Art, Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael, Ohlone College, PS122 in New York City, NAME Gallery and Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago, LeMoyne Gallery in Los Angeles, The University of Nevada Reno, Laguna Art Center, Southern Exposure Gallery San Francisco. She teaches drawing and painting at Marin Academy in San Rafael.

William Leidenthal grew up in Palo Alto, California, in the 1950s and 60s. In the summer of 1967 William was creating music event posters for Rock venues in San Francisco. A year later he left California on a sailing voyage to the South Pacific. After the birth of his daughter in Hawaii, William graduated from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Liberal Studies in 1984. He went on to graduate school in North Carolina earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1987. During the 1990s William had an art studio in Los Angeles, California, while working as an Art Director and Graphic Artist for advertising agencies in the Los Angeles area. The artist currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a studio in Sausalito, California. William also enjoys playing music, traveling, and visiting art museums. William has been showing his paintings, drawings, etchings, and other art works throughout the United States, from New York to Honolulu, from Los Angeles to Miami, since 1979.

Eric Zener has been painting for over 30 years. He is best known for his paintings with water as a primary element. Water has been the source of a variety of narratives: spiritual and physical renewal, taking the plunge and nostalgic memories of play and fun from childhood. Eric has always been intrigued by our relationship with nature – from its transformative qualities to produce joy to its equally transformative quality of fear and danger. He enjoys exploring this relationship with nature not only through his water paintings, but also through what he categorizes as “Journeys”, “Land” and “Sleep”. Eric Zener’s work has been exhibited in the United States, and internationally, for over 30 years. His solo exhibition history has largely been with his long standing dealers in San Francisco and New York. Additionally numerous shows in Asia, Australia, Europe and other galleries in the US have been part of his curriculum. Eric’s work has been featured and reviewed extensively in art magazines and other publications. Apart from gallery representation his work has also been included in museum shows and international residency programs.

Kay Foster had a long career in television, both writing and producing. She worked on many shows you might be familiar with including Heroes, The Following, The Practice and others. Once she retired, she moved from So Cal to Marin where she began to pursue her other love: art. She began her journey as a mosaic artist and quickly moved on to mixed media and acrylic work. These mediums were far more suitable to someone as impatient as she is. Plus, she loves the freedom of working with color and shape and this gives her ultimate freedom of expression.

John Hersey is known as one of the founders of digital illustration. He is a world reknowned illustrator having worked for clients such as the New York Times, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Time Magazine, Bandai Corporation, Le Monde and the Times of London to name a few. He has made an Absolut ad, designs for Swatch watches, robot toy designs for Bandai Corporation, posters for the Museo Fortuny in Venice Italy and has won the prestigious Cannes Silver Lion award for Illustration. He also has won a gold medal for editorial illustration and page design from the Society of Publication Design as well as numerous other awards and accolades for his innovative illustration and design

Tubi Ho is an abstract painter based in California specializing in acrylics and mixed mediums on canvas. She started out as a Chinese calligraphist at age 10 when she developed the skill for composition and spontaneous brush strokes. With a background and judgment in interior design, Tubi has sold art to collectors nationwide and her paintings can be found on display in numerous homes and commercial buildings across California.

Martha Paulos was born next to the Mississippi River in Iowa. She decided to be an artist when she was five years old and has never looked back. Education: Art classes at the Figge Museum in Davenport, Iowa as a child. Took many art classes in high school with wonderful teachers and working artists. Was a studio assistant to a visiting New York painter. Went to the University of Iowa and majored in Drawing and Painting. Moved to San Francisco and have exhibited in many galleries in the bay area and beyond, including Tokyo Japan. Illustrated three books and won awards including the National Bookbinders Award. Have lived around the Bay Area and have now settled in Novato, CA.

Nancy McLennon was born and raised in Western Michigan. As a child, she loved wandering in nearby woods, daydreaming, and dipping her toes in the little streams. Color and drawing were her passions throughout her childhood, and from the age of five, she knew she wanted to be a professional artist. This dream brought her to obtain her undergraduate degree from Kendall College of Art and Design, where she studied with many amazing professors, such as Fine Artists, Jon McDonald. and (the late) Curtis Johnson. Nancy enjoys living on an insanely steep hillside, where she can view and paint Mt. Tamalpais! She regularly paints the iconic landscape. It inspires her to wake up and paint God’s creation right outside of her window or on her deck. In the original paintings descriptions, you will note that most of her paintings are on canvas and some are on wood panels. All originals are signed by the artist, are wired on the back for ease of hanging, and come with a Certificate of Authenticity. Nancy’s work has been exhibited at locations throughout California and are held in private collections all over the United States. Her return policy is available on her website at nancy-mclennon-art.com Year round, contact her by email or phone, to schedule an appointment at her 817 D Street, San Rafael gallery. Many thanks!

Laura Culver was raised in Orinda, CA and earned a B.S. in Graphic Design from UC Davis. After a career in stock photography and advertising, she settled in San Rafael CA, and for several years was an artist specializing in Hand-Colored Photography. However, her life changed in 2006, when she chanced upon a local oil painting class. A little fun quickly became a driving passion, and she left the photography behind, to pursue the creativity and challenge of plein air (outdoor, on location) oil painting. She began studies with Camille Przewodek, the Marin Art School and many others. Focusing on the “Colorist” approach, she gradually developed a distinct soft style, with a palette of intense warm and cool colors. She is an 8-year member of the BayWood Artists, a small group of professional landscape painters dedicated to the preservation of local open spaces.

My inspirations come from the Italian masters and classical drawing styles and from my career as a medical illustrator. I combine raw textured elements and morph them into more realized and polished renderings. Its this juxtaposition of “finished” with “roughhewn” that brings in the energy and dynamics for me and hopefully the viewer. I earned my BA at UC Berkeley and continued my art training at the Art Center College of Design in illustration. I went on to receive my Masters Degree in Medical Illustration and freelanced in NYC before moving to the Bay Area to continue fine art and commercial illustration.

Davis Perkins is a California landscape painter with an unusual background. He has had a long career as a smokejumper, firefighter, paramedic, and professional artist. After serving as a paratroop sergeant (first with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, and later with the 12th Special Forces Group of the Army Reserve), Davis worked 13 summers as a smokejumper, parachuting into forest fires with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. During the winter he attended art school, graduating from the University of Oregon with a degree in fine arts. His early work was featured in solo exhibitions at the Alaskan State Museum and the Smithsonian Institution Air & Space Museum. Both museums selected his work for their permanent collections. In addition, one of his paintings hangs in the Pentagon with the United States Air Force Art Collection. In 2015 Davis was selected as a Signature Member of the Oil Painters of America. Davis exhibits his work in galleries and other art venues in Northern California, while continuing his life of travel and public service. In 2007 he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and created paintings from his view at the summit. He remains active as a paramedic, and as a member of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team of the Department of Health and Human Services. Since 2010 Davis has served on medical relief missions to Haiti; Ethiopia; Cambodia; Liberia (Ebola outbreak); Vanuatu; Nepal; Lesvos, Greece to aid with the recent refugee crisis; and Mosul, Iraq, working with trauma patients in the current conflict.

I am a San Francisco Bay Area contemporary painter who works in a realistic style. I show the world from above and below, using fresh angles and points of view to help us see familiar subjects with newly sharpened eyes. I like to show how the rhythm and patterns of life reveal themselves in a contemporary way. My goal is to stimulate the imagination of the viewer. You may view this work in Playing With Color on this site. I use a limited color palette to convey my own interpretation of familiar scenes and subjects. By careful attention to value, temperature, and hue, my work shows how light and atmosphere affect how we see. I want to make viewers aware of the differences between the real and the invented.

Joy received her B. A. in Art, Dean’s List, Honors Program Graduate, Cum Laude Dominican College (now Dominican University of California), San Rafael, CA 1993 as a “re-entry” student. She has been exhibiting her work for over 30 years and currently has a studio at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael. She has had many jobs over the years and is currently a Program Office with the Fenwick Foundation and is an Ambassador for FOREVER, which offers digitization and cloud storage for photos and documents, and photo gifts. As a “photo coach” she helps people get their photos organized and assists them with photo books and more. She is involved with community organizations including Side by Side (Sunny Hills) (53 years), Dominican University’s Women, Leadership & Philanthropy Council, and the Federation of San Rafael Neighborhoods. Joy’s priority is family and she is very interested in philanthropy, especially children & community issues, and the arts. She enjoys travel, photography, digital photo albums & helping others with their photos, printmaking, painting, broken-tile mosaics, and gardening among other things.

I’ve been drawn to creating with my hands since early childhood. Having explored many different mediums, I have found that weaving provides the perfect balance of structure and freedom. The canvas starts as blank warp ends threaded on my loom, while the design builds line by line in a slow reveal until the piece is finished. It’s not until the tapestry is cut from the loom that I see the work in its entirety and it takes on a life of its own. My designs are intentionally spare, often abstract, and minimalist in style and composition. Small design details are embedded in the work, allowing the observant viewer to discover them on closer examination. I enjoy experimenting with materials, compositions, themes and perspectives. My inspirations range from traditional masks of the Pacific Northwest to the sculptures of Henry Moore. These artists share an aesthetic that emphasizes form and simplicity by reducing a subject to its essence. The result may be simple, direct, emotional, sometimes fantastical, allowing space for each viewer to bring their own life experience to the piece. I liken my compositional style to music, in some ways similar to jazz rhythms that create balance without symmetry. Some of my tapestries reflect an inner call for peace, our need for retreat and self-renewal. These works are often inspired by Nature, such as Coastal Fog and Vanishing … Other works, in my “Finding Voice” series, comment on the intensifying discord in our world. Recent themes have included such issues as climate change, immigration, racial injustice, the COVID pandemic, increasing political polarization, and the need to create an equitable world for our children. Weaving attracts me for its simplicity: two opposing sets of threads twining together to create a whole. Working at the loom provides me the opportunity to sit in the stillness of my thoughts, allowing my hands to think.

Why I paint: I have always been drawn to the power and beauty of nature, especially where land and water meet. The beautiful nuances and varieties in natural light, textures, colors, shapes, repetitions and rhythms in the outdoor world fascinate and energize me. As I move paint around intuitively and add or subtract here and there, I stay open to surprises, fortuitous accidents and unexpected results. This manipulation of materials feels good. It is a fun way to paint! I love the process, the wet, messy paint itself, the endless possibilities for lines, shapes, and mark making, and the satisfying feeling of time well spent.

In college I majored in Industrial Arts with a Fine Arts minor. I moved to New Hope, PA and began designing modern furniture, which was influenced by the great mid-century designers, George Nakashima, Paul Evans, and Phillip Lloyd Powell, who resided there. Art Deco designs also played an important role in my 2 and 3 dimensional projects and continued to be an important feature in all my designs. I moved to New York City in the ‘60s, got married, and lived in a loft where I designed and manufactured modern furniture, sculptures, and accessories. One of my chairs and a sculpture were exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I have lived in California since 1972 and my sculptures, along with my abstract paintings, have been displayed in various galleries. I have also curated several art and sculpture exhibitions. My current art projects include designing table furniture with my abstract paintings on the tops. “Tables As Art – Functional Art” collection includes coffee tables, 3 pc sets, console/entry tables, and breakfast/dining tables. Most tops have my abstract painting designs, others have polished copper, brass, and aluminum patchwork and some have a combination of both. All tables come in many sizes, shapes, and colors and have handcrafted architectural stepped legs. I live in Novato, CA with my wife, Deborah, surrounded by my furniture, paintings, and kinetic wind sculptures on my front lawn and back deck. I am a member of International Sculpture Center, Pacific Rim Sculptors, and Marin Open Studios.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1954, Kathy grew up in a family of artists and enjoyed drawing from an early age. Self-taught, she found subjects for her art all around her. Always drawn by the magic and power of the ocean, she moved to Marin County in 1986 to explore the beauty of the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean. She is a passionate kayaker and often take a camera out onto the bay to capture scenes for her studio work. “Light is so powerful – the way it makes things pop and dim, changing the scene before your eyes. I’m always absorbed, watching the interplay of colors, shapes, and movement, waiting for that special moment I’ll want to capture and savor through painting.” – Kathy Gray Kathy has a background in illustration and studied graphic design at Platt College in San Francisco. She has been commissioned to paint family homesteads, portraits, pets, seascapes, and Marin landmarks. Her oil painting, North Tower won Best of Show at the Marin County Fair as part of the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. Recent works include a life-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Fog Signal Station, which focuses on the old signal station under the Golden Gate Bridge on a foggy morning. The Raven, showing elements of the poem along with a portrait of poet, Edgar Allan Poe; and Glass Beach, with its mesmerizing waves rhythmically rolling against the barnacle-encrusted rocks. Presently, Kathy is exploring a new theme of woodland animals in watercolors. Her passion is showing animals in a whimsical way and having fun in the process.

Barry Beach’s artwork combines processes and materials from natural and synthetic sources. His work focuses on the processes of transformation and time. He uses malleable materials like wood to document time and transform it into many forms. Forms and processes in my work are metaphors for his transformation. Barry’s adult life has been a journey of learning and discovery, both artistic and personal, correcting what is broken, removing what is unnecessary, and trusting the process. He regularly exhibits work at venues such as the Crocker-Kingsley Art Exhibition in Roseville, CA, Long Island Foundation for the Arts and Sciences in New Jersey, Art Poetica in Brooklyn, Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, and Root Division in San Francisco. His education includes an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives and works in San Rafael and has a studio at ArtWorks Downtown. He teaches art at Marin Academy and has a college advising and portfolio preparation business, helping artists and designers prepare for college.

The art side of my business is my passion—producing, exhibiting, and selling my artwork. I am what you call a true Fine Artist, which means I work in a variety of media. Currently I work in digital art, watercolor, photography, drawing, and painting but I am always open to new techniques to convey my thoughts and feelings. I look for stability in an unstable society. Based on this concept I have created my figurative series: Persona. Persona is a personal reflection that focuses on the harmony of the body and the soul: the physical versus the spiritual, represented sometimes as one, sometimes as individuals. I try to blend the idealism of the human form in combination and contrast with the variety of people – people seen through the lens of reality varying in shape, size, and form. I like to use a lot of color, movement, and spontaneity in my compositions. As for photography I am a shutterbug. I will shoot anything and everything to find a composition. I mostly concentrate my work on nature. The most wonderful thing about working with nature as your subject matter is that it is ever changing. Artist Robert Bateman states it best, “Everything in nature has its own personality.” You can never capture or see the same composition twice. There are always little nuances of change. When you take photographs or observe wildlife, they almost never stay in that “perfect” composition you envision. Therefore, you have to do a lot of improvisation and creativity to get the composition you desire. Whether I am working in photography or on a two-dimensional plane I try to capture the essence of my subject by focusing on their lines, patterns, textures, forms, colors, and shapes. My hope is to find a unique perspective in all my work. The design side of my company provides Marketing Materials as Fine Art through graphic design, website design, and social media strategy. Whether you need marketing materials for print, email campaign, social media posts, or a website, I do it all. I find the field very gratifying and challenging to create new compositions every day for my clients. As for exhibiting my art, I love to share it with the community, and I am always looking for opportunities to hang, show and sell my work. Producing art is what makes me happy, so I try to focus as much time as I can on doing just that. In 2021 I also started participating in outdoor art festivals. I look forward to continuing to share my work with the public. I am excited and honored to have studio #32 at Art Works Downtown, so please stop in whenever I am there.

Cindy Pavlinac is an artist, writer, musician and labyrinth walker with backgrounds in art, archeology, astrophysics, and Consciousness Studies. She has a MA in Arts & Consciousness Studies, a MFA in Creative Writing and Narrative Medicine, and is a founding studio artist at Arts Works Downtown in San Rafael, CA. Cindy journeys between worlds focusing on the power of place, exploring sites of indigenous wisdom and deep community to intuitively communicate the beauty, mystery, and transformation of intentional travel. Her photo essays and multimedia productions focus on ancient places of power, and images from her Labyrinths of Spirit and Grace photo library have been widely published in dozens of magazines, CDs and book covers including in Time Magazine and as Principal photographer for the books, Labyrinths and Sanctuaries of the Goddess. An exhibiting artist with hundreds of shows and awards, she has presented at events from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to Oxford University in England. She is a certified Labyrinth Facilitator and Integrated Learning Specialist and adjunct Assistant Professor in Visual Studies at Dominican University, San Rafael, CA. She currently has art in the DeYoung Open, San Francisco museum.

Kirsten Hagen’s illustrative paintings recall and reveal familiar moments and landscapes through their depictions of coastal California. While firmly rooted in regionalism and including some iconic aspects of the San Francisco bay, Hagen’s stylistic choices suggest more universal and idyllic places. Part of this is Hagen’s colorful palette of her composition and textures, suggests places you want to visit. Hagen works from her own photographs, building off these to create what she calls a “living memory.” Although fortunate enough to work with naturally beautiful source material, Hagen’s treatments in oil and acrylic and her selective use of more vibrant colors aids in the creation of a narrative in each painting. In particular, Hagen uses physical distance to ground her work, with far landscapes shrouded in opacity, but still extant. In this regard, there’s a sense of scope and continuity, with the depiction in each scene hinting at both return and renewal.

I am a clinical and performance psychologist by training serving adult clients at my office in San Francisco and nationally via Zoom. In addition to treating a wide range of clinical issues, I also work with athletes, classical musicians, artists, public speakers, brain surgeons, military and law enforcement personnel who experience performance anxiety that inhibits the high performance expectations that come with their jobs.

Watercolorist originally from Minnesota, now living in Fairfax these past 25 years. I’ve worked as an 2D animator, graphic artist, rug designer but have always held on to watercolor as my mainstay medium. I’ve shown locally and nationally and managed a few prizes along the way. Now that I’m retired, I paint, garden and write poetry regularly

I’ve always been drawn to visual art, especially paintings. I enjoy images that depict beauty and story and drama. I never imagined that I would one day be a painter myself. It took me a long time to actually try it. I started painting in 2012, and when I did, it hooked me. The images I choose to paint, cause me to reflect on life, stimulate memories, or evoke an appreciation for the beauty and power of nature. Being surrounded by this imagery, adds a richness to life. It reminds me of where I’ve been and who I am.

Tesa grew up in San Francisco during the Beat era. Her home was full of art and artists. Life in the Locks household was ALL about Art. Early college days Tesa studied metal smithing and theatre arts. She left her beloved City as a young single mom headed to the country to feel the seasons, hear roosters crow in the morning and to give her daughter the experience of earth underneath her bare feet. They landed in Sonoma. Through the 70’s and 80’s she was a masseuse, a professional birth attendant, a hypnotherapist, and finally, for the last many years, a Clinical Psychologist. When she retired from private practice in 2020 Tesa returned to the visual arts. Art became the avenue to experience and express the loss of a deeply meaningful life’s work. The joy of painting has been a rejuvenating force. Collage found its way onto the canvas, into her abstract paintings and even her portraits. Tesa has been creating new work this year and is looking forward to sharing it.

Born in Boston Massachusetts, Jane started painting in the 1980’s while she was a fashion design student in New York City. While on an extended trip in the South of France she purchased her first set of oil paints and brushes. During her stay she created numerous abstract canvases and was invited to show her works in a local church. This was the start of her love of painting. After returning to the States she had shows in independent New York City and Washington DC galleries before moving to California to work in shoe design. In California she began etching and fine art quilting as a means of expression, and to get back to “thinking like an artist”. During this time she raised a family. Her interest in oil painting resurfaced. Drawn to the beauty and luminosity of classical oil paintings found in museums, she pursued local classes in the old master’s style of painting. After completing and exhibiting a series of still life paintings she was ready for the next challenge of working on abstract subject matter. Abstract painting has been the narrative of her artistic vision since 2005. Currently she works in acrylic, acrylic mixed medium, oil, and oil with cold wax. She feels very comfortable, as well as challenged, with the process of discovering a painting through the journey of creating art. Jane continues to take classes and workshops to discover techniques that feed her curiosity. She exhibits her abstract paintings in local and international juried art shows. She has received numerous awards. Her art resides in collections locally and throughout the country. When she is not painting or entering shows Jane is designing shoes for Impo International or working as a costumer in the East Bay theater community. She resides in Walnut Creek, CA.

Suzanne Young, a lifelong creator, began her artistic journey as her dad’s little helper, exploring creative freedom with scrap wood and tools in the garage. Her passion evolved through UC Santa Barbara and the College of Creative Studies, culminating in her first solo show of sculptural wall reliefs and assemblages. Relocating to Petaluma in 1988, Suzanne’s urge to paint was ignited during a workshop in the South of France, imprinting a lasting connection between art and travel. As the force behind Suzanne Young Decorative Painting for 30 years, she specialized in faux finishes resembling old European plaster and intricate murals. Amidst this, she crafted a series of 20 intricate assemblage boxes, blending collecting, collage, and encapsulated memories. Though limited in her art practice time, retirement in 2020 allowed Suzanne to fully embrace her creativity through Nicolas Wilton’s Art2Life program. Now painting, creating collages, and assemblages full time, she’s an active member of the Art2Life Academy, engages in a creative art group, exhibits in various galleries, and imparts her wealth of knowledge through teaching. Suzanne’s current work reflects a lifetime of collected images, seamlessly merging experimentation with new materials to infuse energy and emotion into textured paintings rich with history.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, I draw inspiration from the beauty of the landscape and community that surrounds me. In my work I explore the figure, landscapes and abstract color and form utilizing a variety of media.

Storytelling and art are like oxygen and water, necessities that nourish my curiosity and fuel my investigations into the human spirit. I’m fascinated with immersive worlds and finding new ways to tell stories and how to express them visually and/or experientially. My films, stories, and art often use magical elements, saturated colors, and light as a vehicle for subconscious thought, as there is something so extraordinary about the human experience on all levels of consciousness. There is so much magic in the world if you know where to look. I spent an incredible decade working in Pixar’s Story and Creative Development departments on Academy Award-winning films such as Brave, Ratatouille, Toy Story and Cars shorts, a fantastic visual storytelling education with deep mentorship in creative producing, empathic artist management, and cross-departmental collaboration. As a painter, I channel in-the-moment emotions and also the interconnectedness I’ve felt when expanding consciousness through meditation and altered states. Flow states are my happy place of discovery and release. I received my BFA in Fine Art/Painting from the University of Colorado at Denver and my MFA in Film Directing/Animation from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I currently live in Mill Valley with three generations of family; our pomsky, Disco, and Coco the cat.

After graduating from design school, Claire enjoyed a fulfilling 30+ year career as founder of a notable Bay Area commercial interior design firm. In 2020, she returned to painting, studying with numerous internationally collected artists to hone her studio practice. As an emerging Bay Area artist, her piece, “Westerlies and Windy Seas” was honored as one of 60 works selected from a field of over 5,000 entries in an international juried exhibition and honored in a variety of local Marin and Sonoma juried shows including a solo show at Studio Vittorelli in December 2023.

Cheselyn is a New Jersey girl with NYC at her core. She spent 20 years in Chicago where she lived and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2006, Cheselyn moved to Davis in Northern California for fifteen years until moving to San Rafael outside of San Francisco in 2021. Cheselyn has taught at American River and Sierra Community Colleges as well as AiCASAC and CCA. She earned her BA in studio art and comparative religious studies at Brown University, an MFA in drawing, painting and new genres at Tyler School of Art of Temple University, and an MTS at GTU/PSR in Berkeley in Interfaith Chaplaincy and Justice & Social Transformation. Cheselyn is currently serving as Spiritual Support Counselor/Clinical Team Manager at By The Bay Health. Her work is exhibited nationally and has been included in exhibitions at the Jewish Museum in NYC, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and Spertus Institute of Judaica in Chicago with works in the permanent collections.

Anne received her Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo after which she built a long and successful career as a brand developer and packaging designer in the wine and spirits industry. Following her career in the digital realm, Anne has turned to the analog and luscious expressiveness of oils on canvas with a passion. Anne’s childhood home in the rural hills of Palo Alto held a nearly limitless view across miles of rolling golden hills that formed her early love of the natural world and a feeling of boundlessness that finds its way into her work. Her studio in Larkspur (Marin County, California) looks out over the forested canyon where she lives with her family, these expansive vistas of living a life in coastal northern California has inspired her lifelong love of the majestic power of the natural world. As her full-time practice as an abstract fine artist takes flight, Anne brings all her formative experiences into play; the exactness and precision of a design profession, the observations of the forest and ocean vistas around her and her quest for reaching new planes of being.

Nicole Cameron is a Bay Area based practicing artist and teacher. Although she is a natural crafter and maker she is most noteworthy for the vast collection of vibrantly colored paintings that bring love of place and the natural creatures of this world into painterly existence. Born in Sacramento, California Nicole has been a practicing artist based in and around the San Francisco Bay Area for over 25 years and currently resides in Marin county. . Nicole graduated from SFSU with a BA in Art with emphasis in Painting and Art Education. She later earned a Single Subject Teaching Credential, Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, Museum Studies Certificate, and an MA in Art Education from Boston University. Along with creating art Nicole has taught art for 18 years to many different ages and currently is an elementary school art teacher in Marin County (known to her students as Ms. D.). Nicole has a vast exhibition history that spans from 2002 to 2018. Nicole considers teaching art another art form in which sharing skills, techniques, and empowerment through self-expression is vital for the human experience. Showing her audience how she views the world in a myriad of shapes and color is a passion she hopes the viewer will take away.

For years, I painted in watercolors, mostly botanical subject matter, mostly representational. More enjoyable for me to paint and for the viewer to view are my more whimsical, imaginative paintings. I created some of these in watercolor but have moved to acrylic and oil on canvas, and to drawing. Exploring shapes and forms, I relish the abstract. All my work shows my love of color. My work now: colorful, whimsical, joyful, and imbued with humor and mystery. In addition to practicing my art for 75 years, I’ve also spent many years teaching art to people of all ages, from preschool children to seniors. I have exhibited my artwork in California; Portland, Oregon; New Mexico; Tijuana, Guadalajara, and Mexico City in Mexico. My work is in collections throughout the United States, in Mexico and in Colombia, South America.

I begin my paintings outside in nature. There, I am influenced by the all the elements. Being at the site allows me to deeply experience the nature as I am painting it. My subjects are thoughtfully chosen to reflect certain feelings. The paintings are composed to draw the viewer deeply into the painting, so they may also experience this natural world.

Biography: I was born and raised in Southern California. While still a high-school student I attended Chouinard Art Institute on scholarship. After graduating from high school I attended Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and received my BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. I’ve studied privately with American Impressionists Jean Henry, Don Hatfield and Caroline Anderson. The books by Dan McCaw and Richard Schmid have been invaluable. My awards include: Best in Show, National Open Show, Marin Society of Artists: “Flute Player”, 2012 First Place – Best and Brightest, Scottsdale Artists School, “Portrait of a Young Black Woman” – Scottsdale, Arizona 2015 Best in Show – Members Show, Marin Society of Artists, “Her Song” – 2015 Publisher’s Prize, California State Fair – “Farmers’ Market” – 2016 First Prize – Painting, Marin County Fair “Family Tradition” – 2017 Special Award, Seager/Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, California “Family Tradition” – 2017 First Place – Marin County Fair, Virtual Gallery – 2022 I am represented by: Richardson Gallery, Reno, Nevada Alma Gilbert Gallery, Burlingame, California Kertesz Galley, San Francisco, California

Jane is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an accomplished portrait and landscape painter and a lover of nature and photography. Jane is also a licensed Marriage, Family Therapist (MS, MFT) specializing in Kids and Expressive Art Therapy.

After loving to draw, I thought that would be the end of it, but 12 years ago, while living part-time in Mexico, I took a painting class from a wonderful Canadian teacher named Donna Dixon. Donna told me about Carol Marine who helped me let go of painting too much detail, instead painting the general not the specific, shapes not things. It’s always a challenge and I’m always learning.

Thanks to the trustees and the estate of Connie Smith Siegel for the Connie Smith Siegel First Annual Landscape Painting Award, given to Christen Coy during the 2020 Marin Open Studios Virtual Exhibition, “A Sense of Place.”

I was born in Tahoe, and have always loved the outdoors. In school I studied cinematography at SFSU, worked for a bit, then decided to join the Peace Corps. Living high in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, I fell in love with teaching. I came back the the U.S., and went back to school pursuing a biology degree. currently I fund my photography habit by teaching Biology at SFSU, and College of Marin. I have a partner and two young children, who I love to share my time with. As such it’s hard for me to be completely dedicated to my photography, but I get out when I can.

Nathalie Worthington is a skilled landscape painter, capturing both color and light. Her paintings are held in private collections throughout the United States. A creative “type” born to a family who embraced the arts, Nathalie’s childhood was filled with much time spent with paint, clay, colored pencils, drawing, and art study. She surrounded herself with the paintings of her grandmother on her father’s side, and the mosaic landscapes of her grandfather on her mother’s side. Always keen on drawing, Nathalie studied the works of Durer, Escher, O’Keefe, Dali, and the Impressionists. Her art classes through college were riveting and pure joy… the math and science not so much. She earned a Bachelors degree at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Painting using acrylics on canvas, can be said to have truly begun at age 28 when she took a painting course with Joseph Solitairo at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Joseph taught her all the techniques: canvas stretching, priming, and toning and initial compositional lay out, perspective, drawing, color theory, intermediate washes, and final glazing for each painting. This one class launched her on a painting journey that would wind through the next three decades. Despite the conscious decision not to count on her art for financial support, she painted almost every day and sold quite a few through galleries and shows. Her early days were spent hunting scenes and birds for inspiration in the Florida marshes, coastlands and vast endless horizons of central Florida. She gravitated to plein air painting by recalling her grandmother’s outdoor water color paintings on their family picnics. Her first and only child, Hudson Worthington Harr was often to be found looking up at his mom at the easel, and down at his lego creations. He continues the family’s proclivity for creativity in his own way, with some physics in the mix. After many years of painting, Nathalie sought to explore more possibilities with her style. She worked toward a freedom from detail that her focus on drawing had evoked, and took a workshop with Albert Handel. Two years later she sought an evolved color pallet and took a workshop with Brian Blood. She didn’t seek fame and fortune as an artist, though has had some humble recognitions and a good number of collectors. She eschewed competitions and an art career to enjoy the pure creative challenge of making paintings. She is currently immersed in California landscapes, painting directly from the inspirations she finds in hills and coastal locations. This new territory is offering the open vistas she sought in Florida and the mystery she sought in the forests of North Carolina with an added helping of dramatic California light. She has included casein paints in order to align more closely with her environmentalism. Education: CCV Montpelier Life Drawing University of Vermont Design and the Environment Bachelor’s of Art from Goddard College Cleveland Institute of Art Fine Art Painting Publication: Paint North Carolina One Woman Shows: Thomasville Cultural Center, Thomasville, GA Cleveland Botanical Center, Cleveland, OH Cleveland Women’s City Club, Cleveland, OH Intown Club, Cleveland, OH Pentagon Gallery, Cleveland, OH Carolina Brewery, NC Saladelia, Durham, NC North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC North Carolina Botanical Museum, Chapel Hill, NC Group Shows: Nuance Galleries, Tampa, FL Michael’s Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL The Pier, St. Petersburg, FL Ten Beach, St. Petersburg, FL Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL One Tampa City Center, Tampa, FL Epcot, Orlando, FL The Art Gallery, Willoughby, OH Sertoma, Raleigh, NC Carrboro Art Center, Carrboro, NC Panzanella, NC Carolina Community College, Pittsboro, NC St. Petersburg Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Plein Air, Raleigh, NC North Carolina Arts Incubator, Siler City, NC Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, NC North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC Glas, Raleigh, NC

Fawn Bailey is a mixed media artist in the SF Bay Area, working from studio 101 in Sausalito’s historic Industrial Center Building. Her work is evolving as her bold, saturated abstracts transition to earthy expressionism while using lines and pattern to convey the natural boldness that earth bestows. A common thread throughout her work is the use of shapes derived from the natural world, including fungi, lichens, plants, and geological formations, inspired by her youth in the NY Catskills and her studies in the sciences. Her use of multiple media and varying techniques including monoprinting, collage, layering, and unique mark-making in her art imbue a feeling of sensual depth and a visually tactile experience that draw the viewer in for a closer look.

Delisa Sage has been painting since the age of 2, when her mother put butcher paper on the walls and let her paint. She received a degree at UCSC where she created her own major in Art ,Art history and Psychology. Her thesis was on Creativity in the Lifecycle. Delisa then sold her work as a full time artist for 5 years working with art consultants, galleries and corporate collections. She then started Collage Gallery in San Francisco selling it and her second store Collage Clothing after 20 years. After a career in interior design and art, she is now fully focused on her art at ICB Studios in Sausalito.

Erika grew up in a small town in Southern California, where she spent a lot of time roaming the hills on either a horse or a motorcycle. She attended the University of Redlands, where she studied printmaking under John Nava. After a move to San Francisco, she graduated from SFSU with a degree in Industrial Design. Although she had a career in the Insurance Industry, she never stopped creating and has explored printmaking, encaustic, mixed media and painting.

My name is Tina Kleinjan Setzer, my artist “pseudonym” is Tina Who. Iƒ’m a 5th generation Californian, SoCal Native, a Cancer with my moon in Leo, an extroverted introvert. I live in Marin County and have lived in the Bay Area for 18 years. I have 3, school aged children. When I’m not painting, I enjoy parody song writing, studying esoteric subjects, being on the water and escaping to warm places whenever I can.

Trained in oil, ink, wax painting, and monotype printing, Wo works primarily on wood, washi paper, and stone. As the daughter of NASA Scientists, her education explored not only art but questions in Physics and Philosophy. Wo holds a BA in Philosophy (summa cum laude) with honors from John Carroll University. Her art education includes concentrated atelier art study in Scandinavia, Japan, and the US including the Art Students League of NY and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Since the end of the pandemic, Wo has continued study through the Rhode Island School of Design Illustration program. Wo’s work is in the permanent collections of: the New York Hall of Science Museum, the Hosby Konsthall Print Museum(Sweden), and the Museum of Encaustic Art (Santa Fe, NM) and numerous private collections. Her work has been exhibited at Context:Art Miami for the past 4 years with the Alessandro Berni Gallery. At the invitation of the European Cultural Centre, her work will be on exhibit during the Venice Biennale 2024 (April -November 2024, Venice, Italy) at the Palazzo Mora pavilion for the ECC: Personal Structures Exhibition.

Nicki Adani is a Bay Area sculptor, designer, and painter. She studied fashion design at the French Design School ESMOD and worked as a designer in Europe, New York, and California. Born to a German-Israeli family, Nicki grew up in Munich; the contrast of her heritage informs her work on a conceptual level, as she explores to create balance by bringing together opposing elements. Exploring empowerment and inner transformation is a constant in her work. ​Nicki’s extensive background in the fashion industry contributes to her sculpting process. She weaves her fashion design and pattern-making experience into her work process, and applies it to sculpting with wood and steel. She molds and configures materials that at first seem unyielding to create evocative and thought-provoking works of art. ​Her work has been featured at BottleRock Napa 2022, Silicon Valley Sculpture 2020, 2021, 2022 at Burning Man 2019, at Julie Zener Gallery in San Anselmo and at Art Ventures Gallery in Menlo Park. She received an honoraria grant from the Burning Man Arts Foundation for her large-scale sculpture, “Taking Flight,” currently displayed at the Petaluma Arts Center. In 2020 she was selected for an artist collaboration under the Sonoma ReOpening Grant program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also been a build crew member for David Best Temples, working on art installations for the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. and the Oakland Museum of California. ​Nicki works in her studio and lives with her family in Mill Valley, California.

Cathryn Lynea focuses on self-exploration through various mediums. Her work often features themes of expansiveness, openness, and new beginnings along with touches of her own ancestry and self-exploration of body image and of seeing oneself. Lynea’s versatility and adaptability are evident in her ability to seamlessly transition between mediums, exploring her role as a woman transforming from past into present.

While working as a model builder in an architectural office in Cambridge, MA, Alex Friedman took an evening weaving class at the YWCA and became instantly fascinated with the many possibilities of woven textiles. Her enthusiasm led her to a job in New York City weaving shaped tapestries for the bulkheads of a fleet of Pan Am 747 jumbo jets. From that point on, Alex Friedman has maintained her own active tapestry studio. By manipulating the warp, using eccentric weft, leaving slits and/or adding embellishments she can create a dynamic surface movement which is unique to her style. She has participated in many solo and juried exhibitions in the US and abroad, including the Textile Symposium in St. Petersburg, Russia, an Artist in Residence in Surrey, England, and as a panelist at a Tapestry Design Symposium in Washington, DC. She has had the opportunity to live abroad and to travel to many places to seek out the broad diversity of textiles has given her a rich insight to the local cultures as well as meeting many other tapestries weavers. Alex has executed numerous commissions for residential, corporate, and liturgical clients and has exhibited internationally, receiving recognition with many awards. She has evolved her own unique style that continues to receive critical attention. Her work has been published in numerous catalogs and several recent textile books. Alex is active in many Bay Area based fiber organizations. She continues to promote tapestry through lectures and workshops. She has served as the President and Co-Director of the American Tapestry Alliance, an international organization of over 900 tapestry weavers and she currently serves on the Executive Board of the Textile Arts Council at the de Young Museum. A native San Franciscan, she lives in the Bay Area and maintains a studio at the ICB in Sausalito since 2006.

Bibby has been creative since she picked up her first crayon. She started private art classes at 10 and put her art career on the hold at 11, after being criticized by her art teacher. Turning her adult creative talents toward cooking, Bibby became a marketing manager for Williams-Sonoma, and then decided to go to culinary school. From there she offered interactive cooking classes which evolved into the company, Parties That Cook, with satellite office in Chicago, Seattle and Portland. The business was successful, but Bibby had an epiphany when, as a panelist at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She heard her company described as a lifestyle business. “I realized I had been pushing so hard, that I had left my own lifestyle behind. And I had forgotten what I liked to do.” And what she liked to do was paint. Coming full circle, Bibby sold the business and shifted her focus to becoming a full-time mixed media artist, living and working in Sausalito, CA. She is unconstrained by the formal training of art school and has studied with Nicholas Wilton, Michael Cutlip, Michael Shemchuk, Mark Eanes, Heather Wilcoxon, Leslie Allen, Louise Victor and Carl Heyward.

Art has been a driving force in my life as far as I can remember. As a teenager, I majored in advertising and illustration at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. After studying art in college, teaching special education in the Bronx and designing country music album covers in Nashville I found my career calling – Medical Illustration. Graduate school brought me to San Francisco where my studies included anatomy, physiology, surgery and medical and scientific illustration. For the next few decades I worked as a Medical Illustrator while making art whenever I could. These days I am able to make more art. The balance shifts from year to year. For me, these 2 vocations are complementary in expected and unexpected ways and I am grateful to have both.

I’m drawn to to the power and beauty seen in the world around us and the variety of line to be found in the human form, and when I work in the abstract it is a search to find the essence of these in paint and color.

Stephen Mangum is a contemporary realist painter born in 1954 in Mississippi and currently living in San Francisco. A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, his paintings in recent years have been focused on themes of racism and social justice though portraiture and figuration. His award winning series “Illusions of My Childhood” was recently displayed in a solo exhibition at the Rosa Parks Museum. He has also exhibited at the DeYoung Museum, the Crocker Museum, the Triton Museum, and the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art and has been juried into and won awards in numerous national and international competitions. He has also been featured in American Art Collector, International Artist, and many art journals. A member of the Portrait Society of America, the International Guild of Realism, and the National Oil & Acrylic Painters Society, his paintings are in private and corporate collections across the U.S.

Rebecca grew up with a spatula in one hand and a paintbrush in another, among a family of artists and cooks. She received her first watercolors at age 5, when she also observed my mother and grandmother transforming mounds of brilliant vegetables into delicious, comforting soups. She’s blended the two together, as chef/author of 7 award-winning cookbooks and a painter. She finds making art and cooking opportunities to be fully present in life, to pay attention to flavor, color, texture and composition. To be inspired by nature. To be so absorbed in tasks that time expands. Working in her kitchen or studio is an immersion experience, in a vibrant, reverent, tactile, visual world.

Born into a family of artists, designers, and architects, my paintings fuse the structural sensibilities of my architect father and the often riotous color sense of my interior designer mother. I studied painting at Trinity College with colorist George Chapman who was a student of Joseph Albers and learned the art of defining space with color and value. After 30 years of success in the graphic design field, I decided to get a real job and become a painter. My work is shown at The Pamela Walsh Gallery (Palo Alto, CA), The Portland Art Gallery (Portland, ME), The Blue Print Gallery (Dallas, TX) and Ruby Living Design in Mill Valley. I have also exhibited at The Jen Tough Gallery, Benicia. My work has also sold at other Bay Area galleries such as: SLATE Contemporary, Andrea Schwartz Gallery and Chandra Cerrito / Art Advisors. My illustrations have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Marin Magazine.

Karen Meadows has a rich history in the art world. She was born in Northern California, and raised by an artistic mother who allowed chaos and encouraged art making from a young age. She was surrounded by nature spending hours roaming the hills on her horse. The natural world has been a strong influence in her art making. Karen received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts, and upon graduation was accepted into the Lausanne Biennale and her 10‹¨« x 14‹¨« fiber wall piece was selected to travel to various museums across Europe. She was selected as Artist in Residence in San Francisco to make art for public buildings using industrial discards. (SCRAP) In addition to art making, Karen has established herself as a valued educator, creating innovative art programs at Redwood High School. She is passionate about guiding students through the creative process and has written extensively on the subject.

Elizabeth Geisler is an award-winning Bay Area painter, with a background in printmaking, photography, music, and film. Best known for her water reflection paintings, Geisler creates images that reside somewhere between photorealism and abstraction. Up close, the color use and brushwork read as abstraction, but from a distance, they blend into a more representational depiction. She often uses intense colored underpaintings that show through in varying degrees in the finished piece, which provides an added depth to her paintings. Geisler’s work has shown in group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and can be found in collections worldwide. She began painting at a young age, and while still in high school, was awarded a life drawing scholarship to the Otis College of Art and Design. In college she studied both visual arts and mass communications, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from UCLA. She continued her art studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, Barnsdall Art College, and the City College of San Francisco. Born in Los Angeles, Geisler now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and works out of her studio in Sausalito, CA.

John Kunzweiler is a Marin County, California artist who today is deep into oil painting. John’s educational background started in advertising art and marketing (plus an MBA along the way). Always with a camera, John captures shapes, shadows and shades. In painting, John takes it all several steps beyond. His style is Impressionistic, free form and vibrant. John concentrates on everyday scenes adding his own unique interpretation. John is based at the ICB in Sausalito.

Born in San Francisco; studied at UC Berkeley, UH Oahu and the San Francisco Art Institute. Continuing education at Marin Junior College, studies with Michael Azgour, Mark Eanes and the Creative Visionary Program with Nick Wilton. I’ve served on the Marin Arts council, the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, the Board of Artisans Gallery, the Marin MOCA gallery Committee and the ICB Artists Association. My paintings are represented in private and corporate collections from Canada to New York to Mexico and in California. I have been traveling all my life, extensively in Western Europe, the Yucatan, British Columbia, Mexico and Hawaii. The museums of Paris, Nice, Florence, Barcelona and Bilboa still draw me there.

Although I make my living as a commercial photographer I have always experimented with paint, paper and wax as a way to step away from the computer. My mixed media collages on paper combine photography, paint, paper and Xerox transfers. I am also constructing boxes, and adding LED light to illuminate my photographs.

Kathryn studied at Art Center College Of Design focusing on package design and illustration.she later moved from L.A. to New York City to take advantage of publishing industry opportunities. She provided illustrations to the NYT book review, small book publishing and various other newspapers and magazines. Now ,back in the bay area Kathryn is very happy to be making paintings informed by her northern california suroundings.

ICB Artist Claudia Cohen has been creating since early years. After studies at the Corcoran School of Art and George Washington University, Washington, DC she obtained her bachelors of art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in conjunction with Tufts University. At the time and for many years her focus was in sculpture. Now it’s figurative and narrative painting, with the help of studies with COM’s reverend teacher Chester Arnold. Her creations are multilayered and reflect her life and inspirations. Renaissance portraiture also underpins her work.Claudia takes her audience on a narrative journey filled with interpretative reflections and fantasies. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the US and internationally. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the George Sugarman Foundation, and several Marin Arts Council Grants. In 2023, her painting Nevermore was part of the De Young Open.

I was born in Texas and received a bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech University. After working in the advertising and public relations industry, I began my art career in the 1980’s. My art has been exhibited extensively in the U.S., as well as group shows in Hong Kong, Paris, Mexico, Japan, Korea and Italy. My work was twice chosen for “Selections,” a juried competition of San Francisco Open Studios. I was a past nominee for the SF MOMA SECA award, and the U.S. Art in Embassies Program selected my paintings for exhibition. I was an active member of the Alliance of Women Artists, an international coalition of women artists dedicated to the support of women in the visual arts. I participated as an American artist member for twelve years in the Global Culture Center, founded by Japanese sculptor Kenji Horiuchi, dedicated to promotion of an international exchange of art and culture. I was a founding member of SOMA Artists’ Studios in San Francisco where my studio was located until 2017. My current studio is number 273 at the ICB Artists Studios located in Sausalito, California.