BEE ADAMS

From iconic landmarks and tobacco barns to florals and abstracts, Bee Adams creates dynamic, colorful paintings that simultaneously tease and delight the eye. Whatever her subject, she is fearless in her interpretations. Her paintings are not careful renderings, but vibrant celebrations that allow the viewer to encounter the familiar anew as it is presented in exuberant colors with masterful execution.

Prior to relocating to the Asheville area, Bee was active in the Denver art scene for over 40 years where her work was shown. She was the featured artist at one-person shows at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts as well as The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Bee also lived in Brussels and took particular joy in capturing the intricate buildings throughout Europe with quick sketches and sharing her work in several exhibitions, from which her work spread to collections worldwide.

SYB ADCOCK

TERESA AESCHLIMAN

As a potter, Teresa Aeschliman is inspired by Iga ware, an ancient Japanese pottery wood-fired in anagama kilns dripping with molten ash. The rugged surfaces and irregular forms of Iga pots point to expressive ideas and intimate use over many lifetimes.

As a self-taught potter, Teresa attempts to infuse her pots with a similar sense of texture, time and potential, encouraging them to reveal their clay beginnings from beneath the glaze.

Teresa works out of Off Center Studios, a small pottery tucked into the mountains of Fairview, NC.

CY AMRICH

Cy believes all the arts are related, and he's tried his hand at several over the years, including poetry, music, and visual arts. He thinks all of us have the ability to be artists in one form or another, if we just take the time and allow ourselves to channel the creative energy we are born with.

His current passion is creating digital mixed media art, primarily abstract in nature. His starting point for a piece might be a monoprint, a photograph, or an acrylic painting. He then uploads the image of it to his computer, and uses digital tools to sculpt it further, before printing the final product on canvas or metal.

Cy believes in pushing boundaries, and creating art that draws you in and makes you think. He believes there is no right or wrong answer in interpreting his art. As long as a piece makes the viewer see or feel something, he considers it a success.

SHELA ANMUTH

Shela is an eleven-year resident of Asheville, having moved here from her husband’s home town of Philadelphia. Shela grew up in Chicago, where she majored in Art at the University of Illinois. With a 34 year career specializing in long term care planning (which she is still engaged in), art has always woven in and out of Shela’s life. Her time living in Asheville really kick-started her creative life, with the city’s vibrant arts community and the beautiful surroundings.

Shela has worked in many mediums, including water color, acrylics, and cold wax medium with oil. In the last few year, she has become particularly drawn to abstract work in several mediums and substrates. Two words Shela could use to describe the process and product of working abstractly? Deliberative Spontaneity.

BARB APPLEBAUM

Barb majored in Art Education at Boston University and graduated from Wayne State University.  Over the years, she has done many different types of art, most recently "off-loom" beaded jewelry that she has sold locally.

The pandemic changed all this and Barb decided to play with other ways to do art.  Having always loved collage, she tried various techniques with different papers: magazines, her own artwork, altered papers, torn newspapers, etc.  Tearing the newspaper makes Barb feel like she actually 'painting' with the paper instead of paint.  She no longer uses paint in her work - only newspaper.

ERIKA K. ARROYO

Filipino-American artist Erika K. Arroyo attended New York University’s Masters program in Studio Arts with a major in Painting. Her teachers included the renowned painter Idelle Weber, and master printmaker Krishna Reddy. She participated in a study-abroad as part of the program and presented her painting thesis exhibit in Venice, Italy. The artist also took a pottery course at Stony Brook University, in NY, hand-building prototypes of fantasy creatures in clay, which fascinated her. Since then, her forms and style of glazing reference the skills and techniques she learned in her study of painting.

She has been part of group shows such as “Trip7” at The Drawing Room Gallery in Manila, Philippines (2004) and “Objects of Art” at the Philippine Center Gallery in New York City (2005). Her work was chosen to be part of a juried exhibition at the Washington Square East Gallery’s prestigious “Small Works” show in lower Manhattan (2005), and in 2006 she was the only potter at the 1st NY Coffee and Tea Festival in Manhattan. In 2007, she won an Honorable Mention at the Phoenix Fine Arts Gallery in Bellport, NY, for her piece “Arc of T,” and in May 2013, she had a one-woman show at Pinto Gallery in Antipolo City, Philippines. For the “Live With Clay” show at Artspace Gallery in Patchogue, NY (2014), she referenced East Indian clothing that has mirrors embroidered on it and incorporated that with her love of nature to make art in which you see yourself as you look at it.

JOANNE BETSO

While working in a scientific field for almost 40 years, Joanne never lost sight of how much she loved taking art classes in high school, college, and in night school.  Space and time were limited to actually make art - until retirement,

That’s when Joanne found cold wax and the freedom to create all of the works that she had dreamed of.  She still works in watercolors, acrylics and mixed media work but cold wax was something she had searched for for years, but didn’t know existed.

Color grabs Joanne no matter where it comes from, but the colors in nature have been most inspirational lately.

DON BEVIRT

As a photographer, Don has always been concerned with how light reacts with a surface. Interior as well as exterior light has a certain quality that is somehow both dramatic and yet somehow comforting. The color of the light and the reflective quality of how light bounces off surfaces to create interesting forms and shapes have inspired Don to create his body of work.

By using the camera in a fluid way and post visualizing the final image, Don can encounter a new reality. The photographic act consists of entering a space of intimate complicity, not to master it, but to play along with it and to demonstrate that nothing has been decided yet. The instantaneity of photography is not to be confused with the simultaneity of real time. The flow of pictures produced and erased in real time is indifferent to the fluid dimension of the photographic moment.

DIANE BIELAK

A self-taught quilter, Diane was raised in a family of accomplished seamstresses and picked up those skills early.

Diane began as a traditional quilter, but after 7 years of making and selling traditional quilts, she began experimenting with a more contemporary approach. Today Diane’s main focus is on creating custom art quilts. Her award-winning work has been shown both nationally and internationally.

Diane’s work often reflects nature. Color has always been an important part of her work. Her hand-painted and overpainted fabrics offer a lot of opportunity to feature that. Her designs are inspired by her own hand-painted fabrics and are often embellished with natural materials such as beads, ceramics, papers, and yarns.

boball

As a part of the ‘Highwater Center’, a cheap rent coalition in 80’s Biltmore, 'boball' used his dyed fabrics to sew kites and small ‘birbs’ in order to display his wares.

The use of fabric as a social totem is historic - it communicates.  The use of beautiful African fabrics is a message of emerging reparations to descendants of enslaved black Americans, and a message of..."Look here" to all others.

MARY K. BRYSON

Mary K. Bryson was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She started her formal art training in college where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She received a Masters of Associated Medical Science. In 1990, she opened her own medical illustration studio, and has since produced award winning illustrations for pharmaceutical companies, medical journals and advertising agencies worldwide.

Mary’s landscape paintings emerged in 1998 when she realized she had not painted with the color green in 8 years. (Medical illustration does not use any green unless one is painting the gall bladder.) This yearning led her, literally, to greener pastures, where she paints in oils and pastels.

Mary discovered the genre of still life painting in 2008 when she studied with Pennsylvania artist Frank Arcuri. As a still life painter, she manipulates the viewer by first enticing him with the light and then inviting him to explore the shadows of a painting. It is an adventure and an indulgence for the eyes.

NAN COLE

Originally from a small town in Southern Illinois, Nan spent many years in the heart of Chicago before moving to Fairview, NC. After retiring from a long corporate career working with math and logistics, she decided to give the other side of her brain a little exercise and learned to do furniture upholstery. Furniture construction and fabric fascinate her, and Nan admit to having a bit of an obsession with upholstery fabric (ok, and maybe with old furniture, too…).

More recently, Nan has been trying her hand at various artistic pursuits, and has found it to be so much fun! Being around so many creative and talented artists and craftspeople has been inspiring for Nan, and Re.Imagine is the perfect combination of those interest It’s also been incredibly energizing, albeit a little stressful, rehabbing an old building and setting up and running her own business for the first time. Nan is the owner and administrator of Re.Imagine Gallery and Studios.

SUSAN COLEMAN

Susan grew up in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. After college she spent 38 years working in health care management, primarily in the Washington, DC Metro Area.

In retirement she wanted to do something creative. She was always interested in learning to paint and intrigued by watching skilled artists. While still working she took several oil painting classes to learn some of the basics.

After retiring, Susan moved to Asheville in the summer of 2018 and took art classes at AB Tech and painting classes at Black Mountain Center of the Arts. Her subjects were mostly scenes from nature and older outdoor structures that would help develop skills with depth, light, perspective, shading, and color mixing.

Susan developed an interest in collage after taking a class and joining a collage club in 2023. She uses paper, paint and other media to create ‘scenes’ of places she has hiked. Susan is an artist in the Re.Imagine Gallery in Fairview, NC where three of her oil paintings are on display. Susan also has an oil painting in the Asheville Strong Exhibition at the Asheville Art Museum until May 5, 2025.

JOANNA D’ANDREA

A native New Englander, nature lover, an elementary classroom teacher for over thirty years, and always an artist, Joanna has long experimented with pencils, paints, and fabrics as outlets for creative expression. 

Initially interested in clothing construction, quilting, and art quilting, her interests in watercolors, portrait drawing, and ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art) shifted for focus in yet another direction!

She has been a member of the Asheville Quilt Guild, Mountain Art Quilters, Fairview Area Art League, and SAQA.

FRANCINE D'ANTUONO

Francine D’Antuono is a graduate of the University of Maryland in 1979 with a degree in fine art and applied design, she has enjoyed a long successful career as an illustrator and graphic designer. She relocated to the mountains of Western North Carolina in 2015. Francine’s illustrations and graphics have appeared commercially nationwide in zoos, aquariums, and museum shops.

In 2005, she returned to her childhood passion of horses and riding. Inspiration from rural surroundings fueled her motivation to return to her fine art roots. Many of her subjects are equine often transported into fantasy settings inspired by her travels. Flora and fauna are also frequent subjects that she approaches with a subtle sense of whimsy. Francine’s main medium is Gouache (opaque watercolors) and other water mediums.

Francine's original paintings are custom framed in exotic hardwood frames created by her husband Rich, who is a professional fine woodworker. Rich and Francine work together to ensure that each presentation compliments and enhances the colors and subject matter of each painting.

MARY DOLL & LINDA DOLL CLUXTON - ‘MERLIN’S ANGEL’

Merlin’s Angel presents craft jewelry “with a Celtic flair.” It began with beaded jewelry created by Mary Doll for the Celtic Fairs she worked for decades around the country. Linda Doll Cluxton also worked many of the Celtic shows with her sister Mary and inherited her inventory of both jewelry and gemstone beads.

Linda started her own collection of crafted gemstone jewelry with a wearable, fun Western North Carolina feel. She writes, “Merlin was Mary’s nickname, and now she is among the Angels.” Linda loves the healing nature of the gemstones and honors her sister’s memory with profits from her jewelry going to local food banks.

SUE DOLAMORE

Sue Dolamore has been painting since 2014, when her last child was finishing high school. She began taking classes at ABTech and soon found herself painting with and eventually coordinating Asheville’s large plein air community. During this time, Sue focused primarily on the landscape and played with many different media. She gained a strong foundation in the basics of painting in acrylic, oil, and watercolor. 

She opened a studio in the River Arts District in July 2019 and with space to play, she began to delve into new techniques including more abstract work. By removing the representational information, another level of experience is accessible which allows for exciting discoveries about perception, emotions, and meaning. 

Sue now has work that synthesizes both her representational painting with the abstract and enjoys teaching a full spectrum of techniques.

LYNDA DONALDSON

TERRILYNN DUBREUIL

Travel and art share a life-enriching and creative partnership in this Terrilynn’s life. She has a passion for exploring new places throughout the world and creating original art with a focus on pastel painting but also uses watercolor, photography, and other media. The joy of life, creative expression, and spiritual sensitivity are the characteristics of her artwork. Color, light, and texture convey a balance between impressionism and realism.

Augmenting a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, she has studied Master level courses and pursued opportunities to expand her personal knowledge and creative resources. She has been teaching various media and techniques for thirty-five years, including many Pastel Societies, the Asheville Art Museum, and other studios. Various classes, workshops, and demos – live and virtually – keep her delving for more learning herself. 

Terrilynn is a juried member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA), an active member and volunteer of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS), a Signature and Board member of the Pastel Society of Maine (PSME) and the Appalachian Pastel Society (APS), and various other international organizations. She exhibits and sells artwork in diverse venues, and has received multiple top awards at juried International Shows. 

PAULA ENTIN

Paula has been quilting for several decades and is frequently accepted into juried quilt shows around the country. She had a one-person show at the NC Arboretum in the fall of 2019.

She is a member of the Asheville Quilt Guild, the Mountain Art Quilters, and the Fairview Area Art League.

Her current focus is the juxtaposition of both hard and soft materials, outside of traditional art quilts and cotton fabrics, that gives the viewer a deeper look into the things that surround us on a daily basis.  Fabric, leather, steel, wood, and glass touch us and show us our world.  She strives to incorporate unlikely partnerships, to upcycle, and to open up the viewers’ minds concerning fiber art and how it can live in our homes.

BILL EVERETT

For over thirty years, Bill has taught Christian Social Ethics in Catholic, Methodist, and inter-denominational seminaries in the US, as well as in India, Germany, and South Africa. He has written numerous academic books and articles as well as poetry, a memoir, and an eco-historical novel.

In 2000 he began building round communion tables and related furniture for churches and chapels from North Carolina to Massachusetts. He has been turning bowls since 2002. Living in Waynesville, NC, he draws on native hardwoods from the southern Appalachians for his creations. Many of his bowls and tables incorporate mosaics and precious stone inlays, where he is helped by his wife Sylvia, a noted artist working in many media around spiritual and religious themes.

NICK GENTILE

Nick is an artist living in Asheville, North Carolina who works with metals, found objects, and century-old machine parts to fabricate sculptures that embrace and punctuate the raw materials used in their design and construction.

Nick explores the haunting abstraction of biological and mechanical to reimagine elements of industry to create something new yet familiar. His work utilizes a variety of self-taught metalworking skills including forming, welding, brazing, and casting.

DON GILMAN

Don is a resident of Asheville.  His whimsical designs are made of hand-forged copper and locally obtained stones in their natural state.

In addition to displaying at Re.Imagine Gallery, he is a cast member of Marquee Asheville and volunteers at Haw Creek Forge located in the Mill at Riverside.

MARCIA GLEASON

At the heart of Marcia’s creative process is a desire to create unity. Looking back on her life, she has seen this principle unfold in many ways. Marcia has had a long career as a psychotherapist working with individuals and couples as well as leading workshops and training programs - the process of assisting others in integrating fragmented parts of themselves into an experience of wholeness is, to her, a form of art.

Twenty-five years ago, Marcia began quilting. She was drawn to the process of using fragments of colorful cloth and transforming them into fabric art. Subsequently she became certified in a powerful method of integrating art with personal growth called SoulCollage®, which she now teaches. Collage involves the same principle of fusing together various images to discover something new and transcendent about ourselves.

Recently her emphasis has shifted to mixed media art, because of her love of combining different materials and seeing what happens. Marcia’s current work combines various molding textures and gels that are then embellished with acrylic paint. Finally, she adds elements of both handmade and found objects.

NANCY GRINDSTAFF

The daughter of a crafter, Nancy has created for as long as she can remember. Making mosaic “anything” had been her favorite for over 25 years.

About 10 years ago, Nancy decided the space over her garage needed “something.” When she couldn’t find art that worked, Nancy realized she’d have to create it myself. That’s when she discovered the joy of designing and painting barn quilts, scaled down in size for houses and gardens.

Nancy has taught barn quilt techniques for several Asheville area art centers and also create traditional and non-traditional barn quilt designs in her Outdoorable Art business.

ELLEN ‘EJ’ HAACK

Ellen holds a Master’s Degree in clothing and textile design. Born in rural Michigan, nature has always been important in her life. She has lived in Fairview, NC since 2016.

Starting with sewing and designing in 4-H, Ellen began painting in watercolors while traveling as an adult. Oil painting has become important to her in the past six years.

Ellen’s work is color-driven and neurographically changing, evolving into collages incorporating fabric, watercolor, oils, pencils, and inks.

SARA HALL

Sara is a fiber and bead artist living and working in Fairview, North Carolina. Early in her 32-year career in upholstery fabric design and product development, Sara discovered needle-weaving with seed beads as a portable, meditative medium in which she could engage while traveling frequently on business. Since retiring from the textile industry in 2020, Sara has continued to pursue her passion for beadwork and has taken the opportunity to get back to her fiber art “roots.” She finds nature and music to be her strongest healing and nurturing forces, as well as greatest inspirations. Most recently she enjoys eco-printing unique compositions of leaves, flowers, and dyes on silk.

In 2021, Sara entered her first juried art competition at the Museum of Beadwork in Portland, Maine. Her piece entitled “Petalura” won the grand prize and is currently in the museum’s collection. In addition to beads and fiber art, she enjoys reading, hiking, singing, cooking, scuba diving, and her dogs. She treasures time with family and friends.

WREN HENDRICKSON

Wren’s jewelry evolves from her heart and is inspired by the flow and patterns in the natural environment around her. She creates her jewelry using traditional fabrication techniques, meaning that everything she makes is individually crafted by hand in the metal itself, without molds or casting. Each piece is unique and individual, and while Wren has a distinct style and follows similar design themes, they are never exactly the same. A lot of her designs are completely one-of-a-kind. They speak to her as she makes them, and she listens and lets them flow from her hands, heart, and mind.

Wren uses 18K yellow and white, and 14K rose and green golds for their best color. Many of the Diamonds she sets are warm, natural colors, champagne to cognac, and golden or lemon yellow. She likes combining different colored gemstones and metals, using different textures, and finishes. Wren has fun making jewelry, and finds it very spontaneous and intuitive. She loves the special meaning jewelry has in people’s lives and the ways it is used to celebrate events and feelings. Wren likes creating art that she hopes will be valued for its meaning into future generations, and loves creating special custom pieces or recycling old jewelry into something new and personal.

PHIL HULSEY

Throughout life art has always been Philip Hulsey’s passion, but never a full-time pursuit. Careers in Art Education and Landscape Design provided creative outlets for the artist, however his preferred medium of painting lent inspiration and a truer sense of accomplishment. Three major series of paintings gain prominence: The Liquid Series, abstractions about movement and change, Journey of the Orbs, surrealistic images which represent a spiritual search, and The Chakras, predominately realistic plant vortices inspired by Philip’s interest in the metaphysical and his love of plants and nature. Living systems, plants, and water are constant sources of creative stimulation.

Originally a Virginian, an adventurist spirit and desire for change led Philip to South Florida and New Orleans. Upon retirement Asheville became home where the full-time pursuit of art began. A new concept, Tribal Spirit Masks, was born. These sculptures, created from gourds and natural materials mostly found in the wilderness, celebrate nature and give the artist a fresh new approach to his art.

DANA IRWIN

Dana earned a BFA in graphic design at University of Georgia with post-graduate studies at Tyler School of Art in Pennsylvania, Art Students League in NY, School of Visual Arts in NY, and Pythagorian Art Institute, Samos, Greece.

Her career as Art Director for national book and magazine publishers spanned 35 years in New York City, San Francisco, and Asheville, NC. Presently she is a member of the Saints of Paint, a collective funding non-profits and artists based in Asheville, NC.

Her artwork has been shown at Greenville Museum of Art in SC, Upstairs Gallery in Tryon, NC, Semi-Public in Asheville, NC and is found in collections in the US and Europe. Her painting, Blue Ridges at Craggy, was selected to be part of an international exhibit in the US embassy in Pristina, Kosovo, 2019-2021. The exhibit is known as Art in the Embassies Program, US Department of State.

Dana freelances graphic design, creates art from her home studio, and works as an assistant at Re.Imagine Gallery and Studios.

CHARLES KELSO

DAVID KOLL - SOUTHERN IMAGE PHOTOWORKS

Long before first peering through the lens of a camera, David fell in love with the natural world. As a boy, he felt the wonderment of nature stir in his soul. As he grew, this profound relationship with the Earth also grew and one day, David’s inner artist awoke. With the camera as his tool, David came to see the world in a new way.

As the awareness of the light around developed, so did the light within. The instantaneous capture of a moment in time becomes eternal when shared and experienced through the eyes of others. Each of you are part of this process.

KIM KUPER

Kimberly Kuper is a self-taught mixed media artist, hoping to harmonize expressive energy and quiet space. Inspired by wild places, she finds the mountains and surrounding landscape a never-ending source of ideas. 

JANET LINK

Multifaceted is a good description of Janet’s work. She designs and creates jewelry and oil, acrylic and alcohol ink paintings and prints. She enjoys sharing my ideas and methods by teaching a variety of art classes and workshops.

Art in various forms has always been part of Janet’s life and a way for her to express herself. Her mother was her first influence in being creative when she was very young. She sees color and designs all around her, is constantly jotting down ideas for paintings, and loves learning new techniques. Having painted for over 45 years, she trained in oils and acrylic but fell in love with alcohol ink and watercolors. Janet loves to wear jewelry and feels like wearing it is art - when she creates her jewelry her hope is that others will enjoy wearing it as well.

Janet grew up in Levittown, PA and moved to Asheville 36 years ago where she has raised her two children and found her wonderful husband. Asheville is also home to JLArt studio, and Asheville’s beautiful surroundings have become part of her art. Janet has a degree in education with a minor in Art. She believes that being creative is an important part of our wellbeing, and is happiest when she is working in her studio creating something. Life is sweeter when art is present.

CATHY MANDEVILLE

Growing up in the mountains of Western North Carolina, spending much time outdoors, and hiking with her family has instilled in Cathy a great appreciation for the beauty of our mountains and surrounding landscapes. She has always had the desire to depict her interpretation of this beauty on canvas.

More of her inspiration comes from the works of the great American painters of the Hudson River School of the late 19th century such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church. After spending a few years in a beginner’s class, Cathy realized that she had the overwhelming desire to paint more realistically. She began taking classes from local artist, John Mac Kah at his private studio in 2008 and have been studying there since. Through studying with John, Cathy has learned the old master’s techniques of using traditional gesso, making her own panels, and painting with traditional oils. Cathy believes her talent and the beauty of this creation surrounding her is an invaluable gift from God that should not be taken for granted. It is her hope that her artistic interpretations of this beauty will spark some meaningful memory and bring a sense of joy to those who view it.

TINA MANIRE

Tina studied Art, Art History, and Business at Wayne State University, Detroit MI. She spent many years raising a family and working in corporate America. In the last few years she has had more time to dedicate herself to re-exploring her creativity and experimenting in new mediums of ink, paint, and textures.

Her paintings are heavily influenced by the abstract expressionism movement, although she also enjoys creating representational art. Tina likes to explore abstractionism and color fields using bold strokes and vibrant hues. Her goal is to provoke a sense of movement and energy, inviting viewers to see the world in new and unexpected ways.

FLETA MONAGHAN

YVETTE MONROE (In memoriam)

Yvette, a Fairview resident since 2015 (and is incredibly grateful to be so), is delighted to be part of Re-Imagine Gallery. Long fascinated by the beauty of gemstones, she harmonizes natural (undyed) gemstones with silver, 22k gold vermeil, gold fill, bronze and titanium; hand working metal, setting stones, and threading the gems.

It’s a joy to work with these natural pieces of color, energy, and light, exploring the endless possibilities.

Yvette sadly passed away last year. She is missed and fondly remembered by her artistic community.

DEANA MURCHISON

Deana was born and raised in Southern California and moved to Northern California after retiring from the corporate environment in 2004, where she worked as a Corporate Communications, Public Relations and Corporate Event Planning Consultant. Her work over the years allowed her to travel to many parts of the world.

In 2017 Deana and her husband moved from California to Asheville after the devastating fires of 2015 took away the community they loved and many of their friend’s homes as well. After helping friends get back on their feet they decided we needed a fresh start and here they are. We found a lovely home in Fletcher which borders Fairview, and their new home has enough room to house her studio and the basement houses her husband's woodworking shop.

Deana has been an avid quilter, quilt designer, long arm quilter, and sewer for over 20 years. In addition to quilting and sewing, she also am passionate about making handbags and totes out of interesting fabrics, and enjoys dyeing fabric, painting on fabric, watercolor, pyrography, beading, jewelry making, book art, and just about anything that lets her express my creative self. Deana has taught both sewing and quilting classes in California. She currently teaches classes in Alcohol Inks, Fluid Art (Acrylic Paint Pouring), Folded Book Art and Sewing at Purple Crayon Asheville.

When she is not teaching or taking classes, Deana bicycles both in Asheville and around the world. She takes classes at UNC OLLI, and volunteers her time at the Folk Art Center and at the Veterans Restoration Quarters, helping to make food and serving the Veterans that live there.

ANELIESE PARKER

Aneliese was born in the Midwest into a family of readers and teachers, close to nature and books. She was also glued to the television watching Gilligan’s Island, Johnny Carson and M*A*S*H!

All of this informs her work which she describes as “narrative art,” a term she first heard from George Lucas. She liked the term because it covers all of her own forms of artistic expression: from illustration to cartooning to animation to songwriting. She likes most things (and people) that are infused with tension, humor and heart.

Aneliese works in pencil, ink and watercolor pencils for illustration and cartooning, and natural stone and glass beads for jewelry.

CHRIS PETERSON

Chris has been a professional illustrator his whole life. He was educated at the Art Institute of Boston and at Art Center College of Design.

His first opportunities were small illustration assignments for Time magazine and the New York Times. He then moved to San Francisco where he designed posters for Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, and Paul Simon and many commercial clients.

Chris is also a fine art painter, and his work is currently on display at several local art galleries including Re.Imagine.

SELENE PLUM

Selene holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Until recently, her studio has been a 100 year old farm house in Green County WI, where she spent the majority of her time working in wax and oil and growing herbs and flowers.

She now lives in Asheville, with her studio in the much coveted Riverview Station. Selene is busy hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains and producing meditations and memories about the framework of this new landscape.

SUSAN MEYER SINYAI

In 1987, when her two daughters were young, Susan finally discovered what she wanted to be when she grew up. She enrolled in the Art Department at UNC Asheville to embark on a second college career, having graduated earlier from UNC Chapel Hill with a BA in Sociology. She completed my BFA at UNC Asheville with the highest honors. Since graduating from UNCA in 1994, Susan has been a working artist, exhibiting in local galleries and winning awards in numerous local, regional and national shows. She was one of the primary collaborators with Tucker Cooke and other artists in the life-sized reproduction of Raphael’s School of Athens, which hangs in the student center at UNCA. Her work was chosen to be published in America’s Best of Pastel Artists (Kennedy Publishing 2009) and in Contemporary Painters (Schiffer Publishing 2012), and I was the featured artist in The Asheville Laurel in April, 2012.

Susan considers herself an oil painter, loving the medium because it is both predictable and challenging.  But the pastel medium is her first love, compelling mainly for its vibrancy, its immediacy, its delicious depth of color and luscious texture.  Susan finds it extremely gratifying to develop a painting in pastel, as there is no drying time and the color remains true as layers are built up brilliantly and remain so.

JEFF SNELL

Jeff Snell, who creates works in vibrant mixed media, describes his pieces as “windows into volatile spaces.”

He will often begin by just looking at a blank canvas for a long time, before “attacking it abstractly” and applying various materials. Snell takes photographs, manipulates them in Photoshop, and then collages them onto the canvas, where he’ll paint over and around them. He’s constantly experimenting with different techniques while allowing for unintended surprises to happen along the way.

The result is a cohesive juxtaposition of wildly imaginative abstract imagery and soothingly tranquil open spaces, as the canvas shifts between dimensional and textural surfaces. As Snell explains, “The environments have a tumultuous landscape feel — enchanted places with pockets of lushness and

calm. But there’s lots of movement and swirling energy in a state of flux, just like real life.

MIKE SZMANT

BOB TRAVERS

From a young age, Distinguished Wildlife Artist Bob Travers of Fletcher, NC, showed both the love of and talent for painting animals that would lead him to a career of international recognition, awards, and credits.  Taught by his father, a fellow artist and nature lover, Bob was winning the judge’s favor in shows and competitions by the age of 10.

Bob was been educated at the Pratt Institute in New York, juggling schooling with working with top fashion designers and also earning the Music Director position with a top 40 radio station. After a stint in publishing and art direction, Bob returned to his passion and began a tenure as a freelance illustrator. Publishing limited-edition prints and juried into his first wildlife art show, Bob went on to win six major awards.  Bob has used his passion for wildlife art to raise funds for both education and reintroduction programs.

Now at home in his studio in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Bob continues his journey with wildlife painting in oils.  He can be found in enclosures with cougars and wolves, as well as creating landscapes inspired by his beautiful surroundings.

JAN WIDNER

As a Contemporary Abstract artist, Jan has expanded the abstract concept to mixed media collage. She creates all her own papers using mono-printing and scraps from her previous works and rearranges them into compositions that inspire emotions and storytelling.   

She has a BFA and has been lovingly teaching the fundamentals of art to young kiddos in her home studio going on 20 years. Currently, her works are in two galleries in Asheville/Fairview.

Jan continues to experiment with new techniques and concepts developing a body of work that is beyond the norm.

ROZ YOUNG

Roz (a.k.a. Rosilyn Young) has been painting professionally for over 20 years. Originally a Yankee and confirmed city-girl, she moved to Texas in the 1990's. At one point many years ago, she and her children spent a year on a ranch in West Texas-and there her love for painting roosters and cows was born. While the owners of the ranch may have viewed the animals as potential meals, Roz saw them as giant, messy, amusing pets.

Now living in North Carolina, she still fondly recalls the cows that would jump the fence and be wandering in her yard waiting for the treats she would give them, or chasing the roosters around (for hours) who got out of the pens.

Roz's love for painting has been with her since she was a child. Professional, driven and prolific are words she uses to describe her work ethic. When it comes to painting itself, she is happily and chronically obsessed. Her work has sold to many galleries, shops, designers, celebrities, authors, politicians and art lovers from all walks of life.