When I was a child, I dreamed of being an artist. In my teenage years, however, my parents encouraged me to focus on something more practical, and I turned to my love of English and journalism. With college degrees in those subjects from the University of Michigan, I went on to a thirty-year career in public school teaching. Only after retiring from teaching in 1997 was I finally able to return to my childhood dream. As I attended classes given through Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation, the Ann Arbor Art Association, and Elderhostel; I became fascinated with watercolor and the possibilities it offered for structure and transparency in natural settiings. In 2001, I founded Westside Artists, a studio group that meets twice a week at Trinity Lutheran Church. As a member of Ann Arbor Women Artists, I am in charge of revolving exhibits at the Curves exercise facility on Plymouth Road. My work has previously been shown there and at the Curves in Westgate Center, at Malletts Creek Library, and at the Ann Arbor Art Center. Currently, my watercolor print floral greeting cards are for sale at Matthaei Botanical Gardens.
Jim Clark arrived in Michigan in the mid-sixties to study zoology at the University of Michigan. A decade later, he had become a potter and a member of the Ann Arbor Potters Guild. Half a decade after that, following a personal challenge, he had evolved into a miniature potter – a maker of wheel-thrown porcelain miniatures. These have been sold at miniature shows both locally and in many states. Today, he still makes porcelain miniatures. He has been at it so long that his earlier pieces have appeared on eBay as “vintage”, and he occasionally receives reports, through secondary parties, of his recent death.
At the end of the last millennium he became interested in watercolor. Essentially self taught in this medium, he took one beginning class and then started to teach watercolor classes the same year - a great way to learn. He has been a member of the Chelsea Painters since 2000, and is also a member of the Ann Arbor Women Artists. He has exhibited with both groups for the last seven years, and has won awards for both his painting and pottery in AAWA juried shows. Several of his watercolor scenes of the Ann Arbor area have appeared as covers for the Ann Arbor Observer.
John Copley has been interested in art all his life, from the time he painted himself Prussian Blue as a child.
Great encouragement throughout his boyhood led him to the University of Michigan, where he received his Art School Degree in 1969. (During this time, he was briefly a member of Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen.....but that's another story).
Since departing the University of Michigan, he's worked in many aspects of the arts, including jobs as a sign painter, graphic artist, illustrator, muralist, and backdrop painter for theatrical productions. His work can be seen throughout the University of Michigan, and some of these projects have received national awards.
Currently, he's concentrating on painting, which is his first love. John's commissioned paintings can be found throughout the United States and beyond. Some of his works can be seen on this site.
A traditional oil artist and avid plein air painter, Sandra combines the intricacies of composition and technique with what she sees, what she loves and what she knows from her own experiences. The surface of her work is a varying impasto of color applied over a toned canvas. Some edges are blended to create subtle gradations of color while vivid or bright colors are placed next to one another over deeper richer hues. “Nature and Life have taught me many lessons and every new painting is a journey to discover more facets of their elusive beauty. It is my hope that through my work I may joyfully share my reverent admiration of nature’s awesome and eternal beauty and the essence of human character.”
Self-taught in several artistic disciplines, John Dubielak particularly enjoys capturing images in both 35mm and digital photography. Whether it is the intricate complexities of God’s wondrous creative power reflected in an insect’s physical design, or the ability of humankind’s ingenuity, John’s photographs are intended to reflect his deep appreciation for all things that surround us in our daily lives.
He shares his photographs in the hope that each work will create a lasting image in the viewer’s mind and to stir personal reflection and thought.
Until five years ago, I captured images of landscapes and people in black and white photographs and processed them in my darkroom.Then a digital camera appeared in my life and color was integrated into my work.
An abiding interest in natural light infuses my portrait work and it also fuels my investigations into the environment and all it contains.Every time I create an image I try to project the pleasure that the observation of a flower, an animal or a particular sense of place gives to me. A shared moment between the viewer and the photographer that can give pause and transmit delight is what motivates me.
I am my own keeper of the past… I preserve what I see and want to impress in memory.
Lone Jacobsen is a Danish artist residing in Dexter, Michigan.
In addition to being commissioned for portraits and other customworks, Lone mainly paints wildlife and landscape. She uses acrylic or oil paints on canvas. Her paintings are well prepared with emphasis on shapes, sizes and placement. Her paintings are not photographic repetition of her subjects, but are intended expressions or translations of a moment/personality.
Although Lone's studio is in her home in Dexter, many of her paintings are made during frequent visits to her home country of Denmark. She has a cottage in the woods near the Baltic Sea where she enjoys the abundance of wildlife. The nearby beach offers wonderful opportunities for studies of seagulls, wading birds and other terrific flyers.
Harold Joy was born with an ability to do exquisite work with his hands. His gift was first nurtured while attending school in Owosso Michigan, where he grew up. His skills as an artisan have been used his entire life and now since retiring he is devoting his talents to the area of woodworking. He sees organic shapes and forms and liberates them from blocks of wood on a small and large scale. He has been known to restore a 1950’s coffee table into a desk that doubles as a piece of modern art, create a yard sculpture from a “standing log” after a tree was cut down, build quilt stands, wine cork trivets, business card holders, sculptures and more. He devotes his time and energy pursuing the “shape within.”
Life inspires me. A sunbeam streaming through the clouds; a lily pad floating in the water; a child gleefully crawling after a big blue ball; a mushroom waiting for the fairies to come and dance; the texture of old wood or rusty locks; a solitary tree etched against a snow covered hillside; dew drops on leaves or spider webs; a young soccer player making his first goal. I find myself captivated by the many sights I encounter as I go though the motions of daily life so I rarely leave home without a camera.
"We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those pieces and help us remember how we were." -- Ernst Haas, 1985
I hope you enjoy the pieces of life that I've managed to capture.
Dian’s compositions are inspired by the play of light and shadows. She enjoys painting street and market scenes, interiors, the human form and still lifes. The quality of light and its relationship to the objects in the paintings are important elements. Awnings and umbrellas are especially interesting subjects. Scenes of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, depicting the everyday life being lived are also special subjects. Dian enjoys working in her studio or on location. Her work is greatly influenced by artists Clark Hulings, Donald Teague and Richard Schmid. Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she seriously began studying art in 1989 studying under John Bruce, an illustration artist, of Darien, CN, and Naomi Gage of St James City, FL. Dian’s work has been exhibited in numerous group shows including Ann Arbor Women Artists and Fairfield Glade Art Guild. Her awards include a finalist in the Artist Magazine competition and Best in Show at the Fairfield Glade Art Guild.
Victoria's love of nature inspires her work. “In nature, we see quite beautifully ideas about relationships, or a fleeting moment, or even a particular phenomena. And when I see something that strikes me on a personal level, something so beautiful, then I am drawn to capture and communicate this. I see it really as sharing.” Victoria paints primarily still life’s in the time-honored tradition of the old master's style Chiaroscuro, but more recently has shifted her focus to include some landscape painting. She is simultaneously exploring a more painterly quality in her work that is more playful and loose, impressionistic, and more reflective of her own personality.
