Artist Bios :: print version

Miriam Abramowitsch

Miriam Abramowitsch was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the daughter of a concert pianist. Following in her father's footsteps, she devoted her life to music and has experienced a long and fulfilling career as a singer and teacher of voice. She has also had a lifelong love for color, style and texture (as a child she wanted to be a clothing designer). Three years ago, having never before attempted any visual art medium, she became interested in felting and took a number of classes at Deep Color in Kensington. Since then she never looked back and has been creating and selling her colorful felted scarves throughout the Bay Area and beyond. The artist states: Felt is created by the alchemy of wool fiber with warm water and pure olive oil soap to produce a versatile material that ranges from spider-fine and soft to thick and strong, depending on its intended purpose. I design my scarves in a number of different ways. I mostly use a blend of wool and tencel fiber, which produces a soft, crinkled, shimmery effect. Right now I especially enjoy creating playful latticework scarves in a riot of different color combinations, and felting a variety of shapes and colors onto lengths of silk chiffon or hand dyed habotai silk.

Sandi Adams

Sandi Adams lives in Berkeley, CA. Interest in the visual arts has been a constant in her life. At nine, she was introduced to watercolor at her Saturday Milwaukee Art Institute class. Watercolor has remained her primary medium, but she has also worked in ceramics, textile arts, photography, and now, acrylic and mixed media collage. Her art training includes coursework at Pomona College, Scripps College, UCSF Extension, CCAC in Oakland, and served as an Art Docent at the Oakland Museum. In addition, Sandi has taken workshops with local artists including Judy Greenberg, Jane Hofsteter, Kathleen Brennan, and Ann Baldwin. She is affiliated with the California Watercolor Association, Marin Society of Artists, Valley Art Center, and Frank Bette Center for the Arts. Sandi participates regularly in juried shows at these organizations and has had three solo exhibitions in the East Bay. Last year she received five awards! Sandi uses her photography as inspiration for much of her representational work, but has been increasingly drawn to abstract layering and collage. She says, “Involvement in my artwork renews and enriches me. The doing of it, the process, is critical to my well-being. An end product is almost secondary to the process! I am working toward achieving glowing, translucent color to convey an emotional impact and enjoyment for my viewer.”

Alma

Alma lives in the bay area. She has dedicated 22 years to being an RN In public health. Now retired as a nurse, she has realized her gifts as an artist: Photography, writing, performing stand-up comedy, and acting. When taking a picture, she states, " I see everything and everyone through the eyes of love and there is always beauty " and the camera records it. Art does not come from me, it comes through me".

Salma Arastu

Salma Arastu currently lives in Emeryville and owns a studio at Sawtooth building on 8th strret in Berkeley, after moving from Pennsylvania in 2006. She grew up in Rajasthan, India and was passionate about art since childhood. She has been painting for last thirty some years, since graduating in Fine Arts from MS University, Baroda, India in 1975. Her work with continuous and lyrical line is influenced by her native culture and her residence after marriage in Iran and Kuwait before coming to the US in 1987. Born into the Hindu tradition in her native India, she later embraced Islam through her marriage. Her personal triumphs have been defined and shaped by the simple principle of faith in The Divine, as the compelling force which has guided her life and work. As for her present work she states: "Folk art, miniature art and Arabic Calligraphy are three strong influences on my art, adopted along my journeys. All textures and all colors are assimilating on my surfaces. I am creating a body of work of through continuous, lyrical line, to express joy in the universal spirit that unites humanity". She has won many awards and has had more than thirty solo shows including New York, Philadelphia, and Internationally in Germany, Kuwait, Iran and India. Her website: www.salmaarastu.com.

Georgia Bassen

Georgia Bassen, who "never met a process she didn't love" grew up in New York, Seattle and northern California, but always in "bohemia"-- her father was a novelist and family friends were panters, actors, writers and the odd professor.. From as early as she can remember she was painting and drawing and taking art classes. In high scool she worked intensively with Windsor Utley and at 17 went off to Smith College to major in art. There a scheduling glitch led her into a philosophy class, eventually into the Ph.D. program at Berkeley, and to teaching human rights, logic and critical thinking at Cal State Hayward. While teaching part time, she went through the CSUH studio art program and from there to an MFA at San Francisco State (1991). She worked in ceramics, (Leslie Ceramics prize, 1986) painting (Mel Ramos, Ray Saunders), bronze casting, sculpture (Stephen deStaebler), set design, and digital art. For the past 5 years she has been happily making jewelry, working with Hadar Jacobson in Metal Clay.Favorite artists: Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Hadar Jacobson. Icons: trees, fish and tall buildings.

Ruth Bird

Ruth Bird lives in Berkeley and was born in Boston, Massachusetts, a city rich in museums. Girls Latin (high) school was close to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stuart Gardener museum, convenient for after school enjoyment. She was fortunate to have classes in many crafts available. College major was psychology, minor, art. As a child, she had opportunities to explore arts and crafts at home, too. Enameling on copper was a "fad" for a while, but it has once again become a medium for fine art, with infinite possibilities involving light and color. Artist is excited about this "wearable art" and its potential.

Carol Jones Brown

Carol Jones Brown has been painting and doing art for over 40 years. She has a BS degree in journalism and a teaching certificate for adult school in fine art, crafts and communications. She has taught art classes at the Adobe Art Center in Castro Valley, then 30 plus years with the Hayward Adult School. She works primarily in acrylics and mixed media..She has shown in a number of galleries, and her paintings are in many collections around the world. She is a member of several active Bay Area art organizations that display her work. Carol says, “After painting for many years, I don’t try for a particular image, such as a seascape or a floral. Now I strive to create something that is rich in color, fun and exciting—a surprise for me and those who view my art. Recently, I have been attacking my empty canvases with globs of brilliantly hued acrylic paint, dncing my brushes around the canvas for a challenging start” Her works are magical, stirring and exciting and Expressions Gallery is proud to present her work as part of Spring Has Spring..

Elizabeth Dante

Elizabeth Dante was raised in the rural south and now is living and working in Richmond, Ca. Dante has worked and traveled in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Germany and Italy. She has attained an affinity for the third world, and acquired the skills of the old world This ever present influence has provided Dante with a stylistic inspiration for works ranging from classical naturalism to primitive stylistic narration. Much of her work explores the dynamics between round organic forms and hard ridges angles, and the spaces in-between. By exaggerating this interplay, her work creates a sense of tension which is both lively and sensual. Dante states, "My world combines ancient and modern rituals, extracting stylize motifs and archetypes, ancient and I pay homage to the many facets of the human sprit, characterized by warmth, humor and sometimes political commentary. Her works have been showcased in "Art on The Rock At Alcatraz" and "Dead of the Dead" exhibition at the Museum of Mexican Art. In 1990, The City f Oakland purchased her sculpture "Woman’s Liberation", as a gift to Nelson Mandela. She also received the Art of Peace Award the same year.

Susan Fan-Brown

Susan Fan-Brown lives in Novato, California and is an accomplished studio photographer and an expert at digital photo manipulation, Susan has photographed for a long list of local, regional and national companies. Clients she has worked for include, among others; Duty Free Shops, Century Theaters, Sharper Image, Carrera y Carrera, Sephora, Grace Baking and Restoration Hardware. As an artist, Susan attempts to explore the simple but sophisticated beauty to be found in nature. From the fresh spring leaf to the last gasp of a wilting flower petal, she strives to distill her imagery down to the elegant essential element.

Debbie Fimrite

Debbie Fimrite is a deaf, Japanese-inspired artist with over 30 years of experience studying, creating, exhibiting and occasionally teaching art. She enjoys painting, drawing, sculpture, computer graphics, photography, origami, creating art dolls and altering Barbies. Always interested in art as a means of inspiration, self expression and healing; she was fortunate to grow up in the presence of many supportive artists including her mother who is a painter and sculptor. Over the years she has exhibited in a number of Bay Area Galleries including the Fort Mason Art Center, the Nanny Goat Hill Gallery, Gallery Sanchez, The Tea Spot Cafe, the Japan Center, Red Ink Studios, the Market Street Gallery, Art 94124 Gallery, Age Song Gallery and participated in San Francisco and East Bay Open Studios.

Rinna B. Flohr

Rinna B. Flohr lives in Oakland, California. She grew up on the East Coast in New Jersey and New York. She graduated from Syracuse University with a B. A. in theatre arts and a Masters of Social Work. She also completed a Certificate in Psychodrama at the Moreno Institute of Psychodrama in New York. She received her license as a clinical social worker and for 37 years she worked as a licensed psychotherapist in private practice and as Deputy Director of Mental Health for Alameda County, Director of the Center for Special Problems, San Francisco Community Mental Health and Assistant Director for San Francisco County Behavioral Health Services. In 1991 her house burned down in the Oakland fire, which led her to study Interior Architecture and Design in order to rebuild her home. She completed the program at UC Berkeley in 2001. With an interior design degree she started Design Ideas (www.designideas.us) and she began doing remodels and designing new interiors that later led her to staging and floral design. She studied floral design with Ron Morgan. Her floral designs were part of the Bouquets to Art Show at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco in the past and she was a member of the San Francisco Museum flower committee. She also makes jewelry from recycled materials left over from interior design projects and later from other found objects such as found rubber from inner tubes of tires or cement from building sites. She was President of San Francisco Women Artists in San Francisco, one of the oldest women’s art galleries. Currently she is founder and Director of Expressions Gallery in Berkeley, Ca. (www.expressionsgallery.org )

Sue Mary Fox

Sue Mary Fox splits her year between her winter workroom in Berkeley, CA, and her summer workroom in the village of Robbinston, Maine. Born and raised in a rural hamlet on the wild Maine coast, Fox spent her early summers organizing bits and pieces of nature’s “art parts” into patterns on 2- and 3- dimensional surfaces. Much of her outdoor time was spent along beaches assembling installations of flotsam & jetsam that would become rearranged by time, tide, and weather. Participating in the long term process of building & observing the progress of disintegrating beach installations has been a life long interest. Although she trained in ceramics at university, Fox spent 32 years in the field of design & construction using the sewing machine– at various times employed making Art to Wear clothing; costumes for theater, dance, opera, & circus; and more recently in creating site specific installations for commercial interiors. A full time studio artist since 2001, Fox maintains a fully equipped sewing studio on each coast where she primarily produces boldly colorful quilts with an abstract contemporary edge. Her large format quilts have been exhibited across the United States and in Europe. Scarf making offers the joyful opportunity to play with color and texture.

Avram GurArye

Avram GurArye lives in Berkeley and has been in architectural practice for the past 40 years. In Pratt he studied architecture, architectural history & art history. When it came time 30 years ago to put away his posters he looked around for affordable art to hang in his home and he said " I can do as well as that" and he started painting. Three self taught years later he created his first "painting". No stopping him now. The hardest thing for him to do was to determine subject matter. With his architectural background he decided to do constructions, things that could be built but why? The paintings these giclee prints are done from are painted with Prismacolor pencil on Stathmore Bristol board 500. His manner of painting is in transition and he collects artists whose work he likes and can afford.

Rohilah Guy

Rohilah Guy was born in Canada and moved to the Bay Area in 1964. Rohilah works in pastel, watercolor, acrylic and sumi-e. She has recently begun Learn, Inc. photography. Rohilah has always been interested in art, studying it as a child and in university. Encouraged by many people along the way, the artist continues to explore all facets of art. She has been a weaver and a textile and clothing designer. The paintings in this show combine watercolors and acrylics and aim to lift up the viewer and to bring the spiritual dimension into focus.

Susan Hall

Susan Hall was born in Florida but has resided in the East Bay since age 5 and currently lives in Albany. She earned a BA and MSW at UC Berkeley. After 21 years as a juvenile probation officer, she retired in 1994 to pursue her life-long interest in art. Her journey into painting began with watercolors in sunny Puerto Vallarta Mexico where she hangs out for a month every winter. More recently she has turned to oil and acrylic painting and has taken art classes at Laney college. She is a frequent world traveler. What inspires her most is color, design and value contrasts. She is attracted by abstract organic patterns found in nature such as the graceful rounded shapes of fruit, trees or other plant forms. And she is drawn to rich color combinations. She is also part of a local plein-air group that paints from nature. Her work has been shown in many restaurants, several galleries in the Bay Area and is on display year-round in a gallery in Puerto Vallarta.

Denise Hart

Denise Hart grew up in a ramshackle house perched on the ocean’s edge, with the looming rainforest to her back, in British Columbia, Canada. She worked professionally in environmental planning for several years. She began to paint full-time in 2004, first in acrylics and more recently in oils. Denise particularly enjoys exploring color as a means to express her understanding and love of the remote places she loves to frequent. In 2006, Denise received an Honorable Mention for her painting “North of Saddlebag” in the Yosemite Renaissance XXI juried exhibition. She has also shown work in juried shows in various venues in Northern California (Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont, Coastal Arts League Museum in Halfmoon Bay, the Alameda Arts Center, and the Sacramento Fine Arts Center), in Southern California (Wylie and May Louise Jones Gallery at Bakersfield College) and in other states, including the Laredo Center for the Arts in Texas and the Wichita Center for the Arts in Kansas. Denise has shown her work in several shows at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley. She lives in Berkeley.

Adam Heffler

Adam Heffler is an east coast expatriot currently rooted in Oakland. A doodler since way back when, he started looking at his art as a "serious venture" shortly after leaving the academic womb. He is a self-taught artist that specializes in a very precise, detail-oriented pen and ink style that he has cultivated over the past few years. He feels that his art is somewhere between linguistic and totemic, and absolutely loves it when people tell him what they see in his art. Sometimes they see things that he saw too, sometimes, it's something completely unexpected.

Carla Woshawnee Heins

Carla Woshawnee Heins is a self-taught artist, of German-American and Native American heritage. She is originally from a small town in Minnesota. She came to San Francisco 35 years ago, 33 of which she has lived in Oakland. She uses 90% recycled materials in her work blending fiber, acrylic, watercolor, pencil, pastels, beads, found objects into wherever the energy takes her each time. She has a broad range of styles and media used and the pieces in this show aren’t necessarily indicative of her work. As in her poetry and writing, her acting, performance and music she works intuitively following the beat inside. She considers all of these creative forms blessing that have aided her and still do in healing the carnage of her past. Part of the creative process for her is discovering and locating materials without having to purchase them, making the pieces small and light-weight enough to fit into her vehicle, the shopping cart, in order to transport them on foot or via bus to wherever the hanging or showing place will be. “Low-toxic, low-profile, low mileage, low impact on the Earth.” Artist states: “I hope you enjoy viewing/experiencing these as much (or a portion thereof) as I’ve enjoyed making them.”

Bruce Heppler

Bruce Heppler was born in Berkeley 1955 (Kaiser). He graduated Berkeley High in 1973 and worked at Lawrence Berkeley Lab from 1975 to 1983 as a mechanical technician. He moved to Covelo, Mendocino Country and opened a welding and repair shop. Bruce has been working with metal all his life. He did an art sculpture for a benefit for a local music teacher whose mobile home burned (made a phoenix from trailer frame), got positive comments and started making other things. He takes inspiration from many sources, notably Louis Armstrong, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers. When he’s not working on farm equipment, he’s making art.

Melanie Hofmann

Melanie Hofmann graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the California College of the Arts in 1996. Her home and studio are located in Berkeley. She first explored the joy of creating art in pre-school and she has not stopped since. As a teenager Melanie fell in love with fiber art, specifically with weaving and dyeing fabrics. Melanie has received awards from the Taegu International Textile Design competition and from Manhattan Arts International. Limited edition prints of her digital art are in the corporate collection of Lifescan, Inc. in Milpitas. Melanie works with both textile and digital media. For this show, she is featuring her textiles and Italian Charm bracelets. Her work has been inspired by a number of artists including, Jean Miro, Rene Magritte and Magdalena Abakanowicz. She was also influenced by the artwork of her maternal grandmother, Zura Young, an abstract painter. Melanie seeks to convey through her work the interactive process with her media and a visual representation of her inner world. In addition to Italian Charm bracelets featuring her work, she can make custom bracelets with photos and artwork that you provide.

Stan Huncilman

Stan Huncilman was born in Indiana but he is a product of the San Francisco Bay Area art world. He attended San Francisco State University where e was introduced to Funk Art and Happenings in the ‘70s. He received his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984. S.F.A.I. is the home of the Bay Area’s leading art instructors. He has been a sculptor for more than 25 years. Stan works in a variety of materials. As a matter of practice he uses the material that is most expedient to creating the sculpture he wants rather than “pushing a particular material.” His sculptures often begin from a simple sketch. He prefers to work in a in a direct manner tan her than making molds of models before the final sculpture. The artist states: “I combine a child-like playfulness with primitivism. This creates a wonderland of intriguing forms and convoluted messages. When I enter my studio there is a mental sign post reading “Linear Thinking Stops Here.” Through my sculpture I create a world of nutritiously puzzling paradigms whose roots may be in religion, folk art, nineteenth century industrialisms or Greek mythology. In this world, a whimsical sense of humor walks arm in arm with an obstinate determination to create. The sculptures in this exhibition are part of his “All My Psyches” series, a whimsical yet intriguing observation of the complexities of consciousness. His solo exhibits include Holy Names College in Oakland, California and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

Devon Kelley-Yurdin

Devon Kelley-Yurdin grew up in lovely Burlington, Vermont. After discovering at a very young age that she had no hope of focusing on just one thing at a time, she
spends most of her energy trying to absorb as much information as she can about as many different things as possible, and her art reflects that mindset. She states: "A
crucial part of my process is sifting through past 'scraps' to discover and utilize old ideas, patterns, and ink washes that were created months and years ago. By recycling
these thoughts and textures I can develop an ongoing dialogue from piece to piece. And, while producing new work, new scraps are created that, in months or
years, may help enrich and build this dialogue." In the summer of 2008, after a 5-year stint in Brooklyn where she earned her BFA in Communications Design and
Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute, she packed up and relocated to the Bay Area. In addition her astonishment with the amazing year-round produce, California has proven to be the perfect place for her to continue to make daydreaming and obsessing both productive creative activities.

Jenny Sueyoun Kim

Jenny Sueyoun Kim lives in San Francisco, CA. A daughter of Korean immigrants, Jenny was born and raised in Los Angeles. She comes from a long line of artists, mostly painters, and she herself has been drawing and painting since before she started school. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Linguistics, her passion for art intensified, and her interest in three-dimensional media flowered from her “love of decorating the human body—from tattoo art to jewelry." In 2004, she began taking Metal Arts classes at the City College of San Francisco, and metal immediately became her favorite medium. She states: “What's so amazing about working in metal is its coldness and hardness, and with it, being able to create a sense of elegance, movement, and life--which really spoke to me like no other medium has.” Her jewelry pieces reflect her love of organic forms: floral and figural. Her work is entirely hand-sculpted from wax, which she creates in her home studio, and then casts into sterling silver at Scintillant studio in the SF Mission district. She does all steps of the sculpting and casting process herself, from start to finish. In 2007, she began working as a silversmith and jewelry designer on a full-time basis. Her website is at www.jennykim.org..

Charles Lucke

Charles Lucke lives in Hercules, CA. He began borrowing his father’s cameras while growing up in Stratford, CT, and has been a freelance photographer since the 1970s. He added a darkroom to each of five consecutive residences, and though he shoots mostly digital today, he continues to mine an inventory of thousands of slides and negatives for images to exhibit. His first solo exhibit, “Four Ways to Abstraction,” was on view at the XZIBTit Gallery in Hercules for two months in 2007, and in July 2008, the Hercules City Council awarded him First Place in the first annual Hercules Photography Contest. Charlie’s inspirations include Hugo Steccati and Ruth Bernhard, who, though their work is very different, were both creatively involved in photography to end of their long and interesting lives. Regarding his interest in abstract photography, the artist states: “There’s a desire in me to create something that no one else has created (or at least, not precisely the way I have created it.) It’s a way to free the form and change it from a visual reality to an unreality. It’s a way to free the process from the precise reproduction of tone, colors, and forms and let the right brain reign.”

Jennifer Wallace Mack

Jennifer Wallace Mack has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. She works in various media: painting, photography, mixed media, and jewelry. Her work is consistent in the quality and detail in each medium she applies. She has exhibited at a number of solo and group shows, many of which were juried. Shown at Expressions Gallery is her magnificent jewelry. Jennifer has served on various Boards of Directors for long standing Artists Organizations such as the San Francisco Women Artists, where she was a past President and continues in the current Board as Vice Treasurer and The San Francisco Gem and Mineral organization where she is currently Treasurer.

Janette MacKinlay

Janette MacKinlay grew up in Florida, England and Montana and now lives in Oakland. She loved art as a child and as an adult studied Gallery Management at CCAC, had her own gallery, and served on Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Commission. Janette moved to New York City in 1997 and lived across from the World Trade Center. She was home on 9/11 and was fortunate to survive when the windows to her loft were shattered by the cloud of dust created
by the collapse of Tower One. She has studied Ikebana since 1995 an used her skills in Ikebana and her interest in contemporary art to heal from the trauma. She presented a memorial exhibition called, “There But For the Grace of God”, and wrote about her experiences in a book called, “Fortunate, A Personal Diary of 9/11”. Janette has exhibited her work in galleries and museums for several years and most recently in an Ikebana exhibition at the Oakland Museum. Janette is now concentrating on a series of “Organic Assemblage” using natural materials in exciting and dynamic ways.

John Mallon

John Mallon grew up in the East Bay Area being born in Oakland, his present residence. Arts and crafts have been an interest since early childhood. While in the Navy, pencil portraits were a hobby. From there sculpture and painting became an interest as time went by, resulting in private painting instruction from a bay area teacher. A long list of “How To” art books have helped along the way with sculpture and pencil drawing, as well as a teacher in woodcarving. Awards came from Art shows presented by the Oakland and Alameda Art Associations the past 20 years. Mallon is still a Member of both and has been President of both Associations. Mallon states: “Monet, Dali and CA painter George Otis are an inspiration to me. Color and graphite pencil is my favorite and best mediums. In this show he presents artwork that uses beads, or dots of acrylic paint to build up texture. I also have fun decorating hats and t-shirts using fabric paints and making fun clocks.”

Elena E. Maroth

Elena E. Maroth lives in Kensington, CA. She was born in Havana, Cuba and emigrated to the U.S. in 1960. She attended San Francisco State University, then worked in Marin County as an adult education teacher; since 1985 she has been Art Director of the non-profit classical record label Music & Arts in Kensington, where she lives with her husband. -- Born close to the sea in Cuba, Elena Maroth has been surrounded throughout her life by nature, music, and visual beauty. The rhythms of the ocean and the culturally vibrant life of Havana inspired Elena early on to dance and paint. She studied ballet with dancer and choreographer Alberto Alonso at Pro Arte Musical, continuing at the legendary Alicia Alonso Ballet School in Havana; she also studied art at the Escuela San Alejandro, but is largely self-taught. After moving to the U.S., Elena’s art has continued to be inspired by her early environment as well as by her ballet training: she has brought to her visual art work the joy and rhythm of color and movement. She works mainly with acrylics; most of her canvases are 3x3 or 4x4 feet in size. -- She has exhibited at SF Zen Center (2), Fourth Street Gallery (Berkeley), Green Gulch Farm (Muir Beach), La Pena Cultural Center (Berkeley), Berkeley City Club, San Francisco Women Artists Gallery and Expressions Gallery. Her published work includes a Univ.of New Mexico New Music Festival brochure cover painting and several CD cover pictures for Music & Arts.

Maj-Britt Mobrand

Maj-Britt Mobrand lives in Berkeley, CA but was born and grew up in Stockholm, Sweden. As a little girl, she saw her grandmother’s loom in the attic and was very intrigued by it and knew she wanted to master one of those. She has taken weaving classes both in Sweden and the U.S., but is for the most part self-taught. She has been teaching weaving here in Berkeley since 1968. Some of the juried shows she has participated in are U.C. Berkeley and Live Oak Art Galleries in Berkeley (1969); Artist League of Vallejo Gallery (1975); Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont (1988); and Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland (2006 and 2008). She has also participated in many Open Studios and has shown her work at various local venues and as a result has weavings in many private collections. Artist states: “I enjoy using traditional weaves and patterns in a non-traditional manner and am striving to find a harmonious balance between the natural and the artificial or planned. My inspiration is derived from music, nature, travels, and from my students. It’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm of my students as they develop their projects on their looms after I’ve given them the ‘know how’.”

Julia Montrond

Julia Montrond lives in Berkeley. She grew up in New York City and was involved in all the arts: painting, acting, dancing & singing. She majored in Theatre arts at Hunter College and studied art at U.C. Berkeley, CCAC Extension, a studio in Florence, Italy & another in Guanajuato, Mexico, as well as numerous workshops in the Bay Area. Painters she most admires: Turner, Sargeant, and most of the Impressionists. About what inspires her, she says: "I'm intrigued by the challenge of trying to capture the effect a scene or other subject has on me--of creating different moods; and of course the joy of working with color." She works primarily in watercolor & has begun painting with oil. Awards won in Art Shows include: Napa County Fair 2x.; El Cerrito Art show 3x, and being exhibited in numerous juried shows of: Marin County Art Fair; The Giorgi Gallery, Berkeley; Shadelands Gallery, Walnut Creek; and the MTC Gallery, Oakland.

Mitsuyo Moore

Mitsuyo Moore is a Bay Area artist who was born in Tokyo, Japan. She studied English Literature at a college in Tokyo. She came to the US to study painting and printing at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. She has lived in the US for more than 20 years.Moore’s painting and monotypes are reflection of rhythm, movement, and her spiritual experiences. Her artistic direction was inspired by the philosophy of Henry Bergson and his writings, “Duree Pure” and “Elan Vital,” which deepened her appreciation and understanding of intuition and inner spirit of human beings. She has shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions locally and internationally. Some notable exhibits include “Annual Open Exhibition” at the Fine Arts Institute of San Bernardino County Museum, Redland, CA; “Spirits in the Arts” at California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA; Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, Chelsea, New York; Bienale International dell’Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy; International Art Festival in Chania, Crete, Greece.

Dr. Danute E. Nitecki

Dr. Danute E. Nitecki was born in Lithuania. Her family fled the second Soviet occupation at the end of the Second World War and spent next six years as Displaced Persons in Austria and Germany. In 1950, they immigrated to Chicago, where she attended the University of Chicago, and received Ph.D. in chemistry in 1961. She worked for 20 years in UCSF Medical School doing research in immunochemistry. In 1982, she left UCSF to work on pharmaceutical research in a biotechnology firm. She has over a hundred scientific publications and forty patents and has contributed chapters to several scientific research books. She started drawing and painting for her own amusement in 1987. Since then, her work has been shown in a number of juried art exhibitions and has won awards and ribbons. One of her botanical paintings of Heracleum lanthanum (22x26) was selected for the bi-annual California Species exhibition in Oakland Museum. She contributed to a book on unusual backgrounds in Color Pencil Explorations (North Light, publisher; J. Gildow, editor, 2002). Her contribution describes a somewhat novel use of colored pencil images painted on watercolor backgrounds on sheets of polyester vellum (drafting film). She has always enjoyed painting botanicals with colored pencils (CP), but covering large background areas with CP is very painful, hence the combination of WC/CP on drafting film. Currently she works mostly with watercolor (CP requires very acute vision, which she is losing).

Fletcher Oakes

Fletcher Oakes is a Chicago native who currently lives in Richmond, Ca. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electronic art and a master’s in multimedia from Cal State East Bay, and since 1999 has been teaching digital art at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. He studied photography with some of the greats, including Ansel Adams and Imogene Cunningham (workshops), and for several years during the 1960s he studied with Jack Welpott at San Francisco State University who referred to photography as a “personal quest”. He States: “This has influenced my own work and has led me to explore many different aspects of the photographic realm. I have been working extensively with digital media since 1995. I find some of my inspiration in nature, and am constantly exploring, examining, and interpreting the environment around me.”

Elizabeth Pastorfield-Li

Elizabeth Pastorfield-Li has been exploring with a camera and playing in the darkroom since the age of twelve. She studied photography at Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Since 2005, Elizabeth has been working as a professional photographer, primarily shooting portraits and
weddings. Fascinated by light and the ability to tell a erson's story with a single image, Elizabeth is currently working with a writing partner, photographing and interviewing artists in the Women Environmental Artists Directory (WEAD). She moved to California to tell these women's stories and share their work on www.epacprojects.com. She loves the Bay
area and is looking forward to more collaborative projects in the years to come!

Betsy Rick

Betsy Rick is a residential interior designer and fiber artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area, originally from Boston. She began weaving in the 1970’s and has exhibited in galleries and at craft fairs. She created a line of pillows and blankets sold at the San Francisco Design Center. Betsy has served on the Board as President of the Marin Interior Designer’s Association, and has served as Vice President/Marin of the Wine Country Chapter of the Interior Design Society, of which she is an Associate Member. She has won many awards for her design work. As an artist, Betsy is self-taught. She is inspired by the pioneering spirit and the work of artist Louise Nevelson to utilize the process of assemblage to create pieces both abstract and imensional that retain the messages of their varied and individual shapes and found materials. Betsy’s wall hangings reflect both literally and figuratively her interest in color and light and bring not only joyous color but also texture, pattern, movement, and dimension to a room. The use of Mylar reflects light, bringing a twinkle to the spacs where they hang. Visit her website @ wwwn.betsyrickinteriors.com

Deborah Robins

Deborah Robins is a real live folksinger who lives in Berkeley, CA. She makes fun and wearable jewelry out of repurposed and found objects like paper clips, safety pins, and sea glass, with the addition of colorful vintage buttons gathered from flea markets around the worlds. Originally from Chicago, she was exposed to fine art through innumerable trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, where the colors and shapes from several Grant Wood landscapes, captured her imagination. For two years in a row, Deborah has been selected to participate in the unique Maker Faire as “Folkiedokies: Repurposing with a Purpose”. Deborah Robins is the Executive Producer of a PBS/WETA television series about the history of American folk music, “THE MUSIC OF AMERICA: History Through Musical Traditions”. www.themusicofamerica.org Deborah is the sister of Laura Olear.

David Rose

David Rose lives in Santa Rosa, California. He was born in San Jose, California to Portuguese immigrant parents, who today still live in the same house in which David grew up. David began drawing at an early age but it wasn't until his older brother started taking him to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that David knew he wanted to become an artist- he was twelve years old. As a boy, David taught himself to draw by copying pages from his bother’s sketch book which led to copying drawings from art books. In High School he produced political cartoons for the school newspaper and in college he produced a comic strip for one semester of the Spartan Daily. David began his college studies as a graphic design major and eventually switched to Fine Arts when he realized that Graphics would never make him happy. He graduated with a BFA degree in painting and drawing from San Jose State University in 1992. “When I was in school I never paid much attention to the Fine Art Department’s push for conceptualizing. I just wanted to learn the fundamentals and to make sure that when I put paint to canvas, I knew how it was going to react. The subject matter would have to come later.” Whatever David paints, even if he paints scribbles, there is an organization to the work. He presents a series of linear paintings for this show.

Christian Schiess

Christian Schiess is a San Francisco Bay area artist originally from New Mexico. His education spans several disciplines and institutions that include a B.A. from Univ. of New Mexico-Albuquerque, in Anthropology; a B.F.A. in Visual Arts from the Univ. of San Francisco, S.F., CA, and an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Mills College, Oakland, CA. Additionally, he completed a Fulbright Fellowship at the Royal College of Art in London, UK, and is the author of the book “The Light Artist Anthology.” His awards include a grant from the Pollock- Krasner Foundation, an NEA/AFI Grant, three NEA/Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships, several artist-in-residencies including the San Francisco Exploratorium, the Bristol Exploratory England, and a New York State Council on the Arts residency at Binghamton, NY. He has been chosen twice as a visiting guest artist in Sculpture at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and currently he is on the faculty and Dept. Head of the Light Art Dept. at The Crucible, a non-profit sculpture education facility open to the public in Oakland, California.

Deborah Sibony

Deborah Sibony currently lives in Berkeley. Deborah was born and raised in Livorno, Italy of Moroccan Sephardic descent. She came to the United States at age seventeen. North African/Mediterranean influences are apparent in Deb's printmaking. "My work expresses a mixture of primal feelings which derive in large part from my heritage and my cultural experiences. I am interested in mysticism and what is behind the visible. I collage drawings to my prints in which the language is primordial, melodic and industrial. I use repetition of patterns created by rubbings or mark making tools to build a history within the work. I use visceral properties of paint, and the power of color, to convey a drama of emotions.” Deb has been printmaking for over sixteen years. Most recently she has been working at Aurobora Press in San Francisco as a master printer and teaching workshops. Her prints hang permanently in various San Francisco Bay Area collections including: Adobe Systems corporate offices, E-Bay corporate headquarters, the law firms of Jones and Jones, and Howard Rice, and The Saul Zaentz Company.Aside from her printmaking, Deb works professionally as graphic designer. She spent sixteen years at Fantasy Records in Berkeley designing CD packages. She now works independently for a variety of clients in the music, film, and publishing field.

Rita Sklar

Rita Sklar is an award-winning artist. She took up art seriously only 11 years ago, attending classes and workshops throughout the Bay Area and training with a private watercolor master in Madrid for a year. She draws inspiration from her life in the multi-cultural Bay Area. Previously, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal, West Africa and worked for corporate giving programs and foundations serving the Bay Area’s non-profit community. Recently awarded a commission by the County of Alameda, Sklar has also received a grant from the City of Oakland. Her works are in private collections across the country and in Europe. Her paintings of animals and birds have been shown at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, the Oakland Zoo and other venues. Her landscapes have been shown at Filoli Gardens. Expressions Gallery presents Sklar’s spiritual works in water media on paper. Sklar skillfully juggles organic and geometric forms, transparent and opaque paint - all held together by a basic abstract underlying shape. It is this intricate dance, rendered in strong color and value, which produces her exciting paintings. Solo exhibits featuring Sklar’s works have been held at the Montclair Gallery, Tilden Park Nature Center, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Wente Vineyards Estate Winery, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Pro Arts Gallery’s Broadway Windows Project, and the Albany Community Center. Currently, Sklar’s work are featured at the Solano Grill in Albany, the San Francisco Women Artists’ Gallery and the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto. More of her work can be found at www.ritasklar.com. Go to www.ritasklar.com to see my watercolors, current shows, and awards.

Arlene Risi Streich

Arlene Risi Streich, grew up and lives in Oakland, Ca. and cannot remember a time that she has not been interested in art. She received her B.A. ED and A.B. F. A. (Painting) from California College of Arts and Crafts (Now CCA) and has lived and spent much time in Mexico doing painting and photography. She has taught in the Oakland Public Schools, Diablo Valley College (Painting, drawing and fashion illustration) and CCAC (Children’s classes). She is presently exhibiting her glass jewelry, a medium started four years ago, and her painting. Her Jewelry work is influenced by her background in painting incorporating a bold use of color and line. Her painting and jewelry work has been shown in numerous exhibits around the country and in private collections. Artist states: “Our role as artists is to continue to amaze, provoke, stimulate, delight and agitate the senses. The fact that we continue to do so is a testimonial to not being complacent, while trying to process the internal/external creative dialogue.”

Terry Telles

Terry Telles is a native of Oakland whose art has been influenced by the multicultural atmosphere of the bay area. He took art classes at Laney college, worked with local artists and developed his own personal images and style. He started painting Mandalas, drums and music related images and has recently expanded to other visual areas. He has exhibited his work at the Alameda Art Center (Members exhibitions & Sacred Images), Alameda Art Association (Museum show, Art In the Park, Cross Currants), Javarama Coffee House, new Alameda library, Frank Bette Center. for the Arts, and has had solo shows at Market Place (Mandalas) Coffee For Thought, Julies coffee & tea shop in Alameda. He has also participated in Festivals at Montclair Art-Wine & Jazz Festival, Laurel District World Music, Festival and his works are in private collections. He is a member of Frank Bette Center, Alameda Art Association, and is now showing his work here at Expressions Gallery.

Addiam Tsehaye

Addiam Tsehaye was born and raised in Asmara, Eritrea located in North East Africa. In the early 1990's She immigrated to the United States escaping a brutal civil war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. She settled in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives and works. Addiam received her BFA in Spatial Arts from San Jose State University in 2008. Her work has been exhibited at the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Arts (CCACA) in 2007 and 2008.Addiam's recent work reflects her childhood experience of the Eritrean civil war and her interest in the cultural arts of her homeland. She creates large scale ceramic sculptures referencing traditional African crafts and materials. Addiam's work tells the stories of the people who create traditional, utilitarian objects, the people who use these objects to fill the needs of their society, and the struggles that these people must face.

Janet (Hui-Ju) Yang

Janet (Hui-Ju) Yang is a textile artist / designer who currently lives and works in San Francisco. She was born and raised in Taiwan until she graduated from high school. Since she was a kid, she has always enjoyed the hands-on process when creating artwork. However, the educational system in Taiwan has very little appreciation of Art. Therefore, she only had very basic art education when growing up in Taiwan. After coming to the U.S. for her college education, Janet finally had a chance to re-discover her passion in art and design. She realized she could be herself and put her emotion into her work during the creative process. She then continued to study and explore in the field of art and design. Janet holds a MFA degree in textile design. She has worked with apparel companies and a few publications. Her work ranges from computer graphical design to purely hand made textural design. Her inspirations come from nature, cityscape, architecture, and shapes and forms that exist in things around us. She often struggles to find the perfect balance that exists within the unbalanced. To her, the real perfection is the harmony that’s generated by having a little bit of natural imperfection in something that is overall perfect. Therefore, when she creates her work, she often breaks out of the traditional composition, conventional use of colors and materials. The inspiration of Spring Floral was to show the origin of life in a subtle and genuine tone. The colors were chosen to compliment nature and the vigorous flowers and plants. All images are screen-printed in color pigment on 100% cotton. 4/1/09

Artist Biographies - Spring had Sprung April 18 – June 5, 2009