A Blustery Day
Tom decided at a very early age to pursue some type of vocation in the field of visual arts. During elementary and high school, he took every art class that was offered and studied several books on drawing. In 1970, he received a BFA degree in Studio Arts from Loras College, Dubuque, IA, and in 1972 he did post-graduate study in Creative Photography at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
He worked as the Staff Artist for the Telegraph Herald Newspaper in Dubuque, IA, and as an Art Director for Associated Litho Printing Company in Minneapolis, MN. He has taught Adult Education classes in Drawing and has also been commissioned to do many portraits over the years.
Tom has been active at the Hopkins Center for the Arts and was instrumental in its creation in 1998. He was the President and one of the Charter Members of the Hopkins Area Arts Association, which was responsible for programming at the HCA during its first five years. He’s also exhibited at and been active as a member of several local arts organizations and galleries, including The Minnetonka Center for the Arts, The Minnesota Artists’ Association, and The White Bear Lake Center for the Arts and Artistry Gallery, among others.
Tom has been living and creating his artwork in his home studio in Minnetonka, MN for 45 years. His work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally and he has won several awards in these exhibits, including First Place and Best of Show.
The subjects of my images are almost always people. I believe it’s those other souls we encounter during our lives that make it more interesting and enriched. I intend to capture some of the character and dignity that is a part of every person. We all have our individual hopes and dreams, and we each find our own path to self-expression. It’s these personal aspects of our humanity that I try to convey with my art.
It could be said that I do portraits, and that would be accurate. However, I try to create something more than a likeness. I try to show something about that individual’s personality, or perhaps capture a feeling of their situation at that particular moment in time. When I’m successful, the viewer is able to connect with the image in some way, without actually knowing the subject.
The purpose behind all of my images is to instill in the viewer a feeling that goes beyond the subject matter. My goal is to create something within the image that is universal and timeless.
A Boy And His Dog
Gina is from Fort Worth, Texas. She began painting after she won a competition for extra-curricular art classes in 4th Grade. From that point on, she attended classes up until 12th grade. She worked her way through college and received her BFA degree in 1979 in Metalcraft and Jewelry from NTSU. After graduation, all of her energy went into her jewelry and wax carving business for the next 38 years, but in 2017, she decided that she wanted to paint again, and she is enjoying it immensely. She still makes jewelry from time to time, but most of her energy is now spent on painting.
Gina prefers to work in acrylics, but she wrote and illustrated two books whose illustrations were mostly executed in watercolors. Besides living in Texas and Wisconsin, she has lived in Colorado,
Australia (for 16 years), Thailand (for 3 years), and now in North Carolina where she enjoys her rural wooded 8 acres, her husband of 41 years, their 2 dogs, 4 cats, and many chickens and guinea fowl.
Gina C Browning was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and has always tried to create Art in one form or another for as long as she can remember.
She began painting after she won a competition for extra-curricular art classes at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in 4th Grade. From that point on, she attended continuous art classes at that same museum and at other venues as well, up until the 12th grade. She worked her own way through college and then went on to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in August 1979 in Metalcraft and Jewelry from North Texas State University. Her degree plan also included several figure drawing and painting classes. After graduation, all of her energy went into her jewelry and wax carving business for the next 38 years, but in 2017, she decided that she wanted to paint again, and she is enjoying it immensely. She still makes jewelry from time to time, but most of her energy is now spent on painting.
In 11th grade, she won an art scholarship to a private school in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for one year. While at that school, she was blessed to be able to attend a weekly painting class at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Gina prefers to work in acrylics on canvas, but she wrote and illustrated two books whose illustrations were mostly executed in watercolors, pen and ink, and watercolor pencils. The two books are “Moonbeam Dreams” and “Musings, Moments and Misadventures”, published in 2009 and 2011.
Her paintings (and jewelry) have been collected internationally and across the US. She has won numerous awards locally and nationally.
Besides living in Texas and Wisconsin, she has lived in Colorado, Australia (for 16 years), Thailand (for 3 years) and now in North Carolina where she enjoys her rural and very private heavily wooded 8 acres, her husband of 42 years, their 3 dogs, 4 cats, and copious chickens and guinea fowl.
A Brilliant Mind
Karen Sachs has been transforming her art into a creative reflection of her soul since she was a young girl. Painting allows her to express the reality of life’s challenges with transparency and beauty, revealing truths that words can never do justice. Her unique talent has earned her multiple awards for masterpieces conveying emotions onto a canvas with grit and passion that have taken her work all around America. She is an artist dedicated to uncovering the true nature of the world with stunning truthfulness! If we are looking at ways to influence her heart and her world, she has to open up, avoid sugar, and be who she truly is!
Art is where my heart is, and for me, that place of comfort and security has always been found through creating art. For years, I’ve been using my art to express the depths of my soul: from the colors I choose to the brushstrokes, to every unique tool I use – each painting tells a story. Each piece of artwork is like a journey into my inner world, filled with emotions, feelings, and experiences that have been hidden away – it’s almost magical. My passion for creativity and transparency when connecting with the world has earned me numerous awards and exhibited shows – proving just how powerful art can be. I’m proud to continue pushing myself artistically in order to capture the beauty within our ever-changing world!
A Cold Spring
I was always interested in art, but never picked up a pencil or brush until the age of thirty. I started taking design classes because I was frustrated with sales and wanted more creativity in my life. After a number of design classes geared toward a career in design, I found myself increasingly attracted to fine arts classes instead – figurative painting, anatomy, and so on.
All of my work is biographical in one form or another, either myself or my family history.
Well, how did I get here? I was walking down the street and I met this guy named Edvard Munch and he had a friend named Beckman. We hung out and talked for a while, then I walked further down the street, looked down an alleyway, and saw three people standing there. One was named Rauschenberg, the other guy’s name was Kienholz – and he and his wife were dressed exactly the same. (Why do all these people only wear black?) Later I noticed this Rauschenberg guy just picking up what looked like broken things in the alley and it looked like fun to me. Down the road, I met a guy named DeKooning who introduced me to a couple of other guys named Pollock and Rothko. They sure seemed to bicker with each other a lot, but I could tell nonetheless they were all friends. (I noticed this Pollock guy dressed all in black as well…) Anyway, I still visit these different neighborhoods, depending on what mood I’m in, but I never leave the town of Expressionism. I kind of like it here.
A Corner Outside The Bird Cage
Benjamin Xu. 1961 Born in Shanghai, China. He is a disciple of the 3rd generation of master artist Zhang Daqian. A director of the USA / Chinese Art Institute of Painting and Calligraphy. A director of the Chinese Art and Culture Association. Green Mood Painting Club founder. He has been dedicated to the combination of artistic creation and abstract landscape for a long time, painting originated from the appearance of nature, and then towards form and spirit as the ultimate goal, using the linear structure of calligraphy to paint. The temperament of splash, impact, coldness, and lushness, accompanied by chaos and flying.
Over the past 20 years, everyone knows that the world has undergone historic changes, which our generation has experienced and witnessed, and which have also made me learn so much more than I have learned in my life. The so-called art comes from life. As an artist, I use my method to present this feeling with a modern and unique expression technique. It is also my feeling and reaction to this reality. I think art is based on the times. Works are the trajectory of an era, and they are worthy of us leaving a mark on this reality. The temperament of splash, impact, coldness, and lushness, accompanied by chaos and flying, creates another Zen image.
A Crisp Vivid Awakening
Chuck Jones, Ph.D., is a Knoxville, Tennessee, USA-based, primarily self-trained abstract acrylic-on-paper painter with a long adjacent career in Clinical Psychology. Raised in the plains of the Midwest U.S., open spaces, lines of site, room to wander, and color patterns have a significant impact on his work. As do a blend of hard and soft edges configured into geometrically informed shapes. Fields and forests and lakes and rivers, you know. All provide shapes and colors and designs to abstract. In the last couple of years, he has had more than 70 pieces invited to national and international exhibits.
Thinking about artistic intent: Some French friends, Francoise Davoine and the late Jean-Max Gaudilliere wrote a book, History Beyond Trauma, subtitled: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one cannot stay silent.” The Idea: Much outside our internal awareness drives our lives; incessantly shaping our path despite being consciously invisible; unthought knowns insistent upon acknowledgment despite our desire to ignore and even disown them or perhaps simply our failure to have fully registered their significance.
In keeping with this wisdom, he paints, asking that deeper internal territory the foundational question, “What wants to be said.” Or slightly different, “What wants to reveal itself?”
He’s looking for the intricate felt sense that’s trying to find its way to the surface – in words or in paint. It’s a powerful orienting tool, challenging to wield but meaningful and fascinating to explore.
In short:
Whereof Chuck thinks, he paints.
Whereof he paints, he thinks.
And all the while, he strives to articulate both.
Of late, he’s been steering toward a minimalist simplicity, offering a gesture toward a glimpsed vision balancing a contemplative quiet against the loud, intrusive complexity of our current world. Quiet is refreshing.
A Dozen Roses
Marlene Siff was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx. She was an art honors student at the High School of Music & Art (now LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts located near Lincoln Center). She earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from Hunter College, where she studied with Richard Lippold, William Baziotes, Raymond Parker, and William Rubin. Ms. Siff was also elected to Kappa Pi, the Honorary Arts Society.
Marlene describes herself as being born with a paintbrush in hand! Her past includes teaching elementary school after graduation and then creating bed linen and kitchen collections for J.P. Stevens. After finding commercial success, Ms. Siff also designed kitchen and dining room collections for JCPenney. Tennis, cooking, going to the theatre, and race-walking at the beach also play an important part in her life.
Marlene Siff’s work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and universities throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Katonah Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Mattatuck Museum, the Attleboro Arts Museum, Columbia/Barnard University, the University of Texas, the Walsh Art Gallery at Fairfield University, Eastern Kentucky University and The Capitol building in Washington D.C.
Ms. Siff’s work is also in the permanent collections of the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT, the Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT, B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., and in the Brian C. Nevin Welcome Center at Cornell University. Her work can also be found in many private collections, including the collection of Ronnie Heyman, MoMA’s board of trustees President.
Since 2015, Marlene Siff has been juried into 153 competitions throughout the United States and has won 67 awards. She works in her home-based studio in Westport, CT.
Every day, we are confronted with the fragmentation of our non-linear lives, trying as in a puzzle to make the pieces fit together and make sense of it all.
In a world that can feel full of complexity and chaos, I am passionate about creating art that communicates a sense of harmony, balance, order, and spirituality.
My paintings work on paper, and sculptures depict imagery of personal and global events and psychological issues. They are a reflection of the world we live in, expressed through geometric shapes, color, light, space, texture, edges, and movement, each interplaying with one another and engaging the viewer to participate. The love I have for my family, gardens, ballet, theatre, and music has also always found its way into my work.
Every painting begins with a conceptual vision and ultimately seeks to convey a narrative. The multi-dimensionality and layered nature of my work aim to penetrate the illusions of reality, reaching the mystery and essence of the soul.
A Dream
Born on January 31, 1941, in Hannover, Germany, Berni Stephanus is a German-Russian artist whose life and work are deeply intertwined with a rich tapestry of cultural influences. His father hails from Germany, while his mother’s roots trace back to a Russian Jewish family from Kishinev.
Stephanus’s artistic journey began with a diverse educational background. After completing his schooling, he pursued studies in translation in Geneva, Switzerland, before immersing himself in the world of painting at the local academy. It was here that he first began to explore his creative impulses and develop his unique artistic voice.
From an early age, Stephanus displayed a penchant for expressionism, with his first paintings emerging at the tender age of 15. Over time, his style evolved from figurative representations to more abstract forms, reflecting his ever-changing perspective on the world around him.
The turning point in Stephanus’s artistic career came in 1967 when he began to experiment with collage as a means of expressing his political convictions. Inspired by the tumultuous events of the time, including the Vietnam War and the Prague Spring, his collages served as powerful vehicles for protest and dissent.
As the years passed, Stephanus’s focus shifted exclusively to collage-making, marking a departure from traditional painting methods. He regards himself as an outsider and rebel within the art world, unbound by conventional norms or expectations.
Stephanus’s daily collages serve as both an inner investigation and a deconstruction of traditional painting conventions. With a blend of tragedy and wit, he challenges viewers to reconsider their preconceived notions of art and invites them to engage with the medium in new and unconventional ways.
Currently residing in Geneva, Switzerland, Stephanus continues to push the boundaries of artistic expression, forging his own path as a trailblazer in the world of collage.
The paper collages presented here serve as a visual exploration of the theme of childhood, offering a glimpse into the artist’s personal journey and inner world. Drawing inspiration from their own experiences as a dreamer and survivors of war, the collages capture the essence of escapism and imagination that characterized their childhood.
As a child, I found solace and refuge in daydreams, using them as a means to escape the harsh realities of war and destruction. These daydreams provided a sanctuary where I
could temporarily leave behind the chaos and menace of the surroundings, seeking comfort and solace in the world of my imagination.
As an adult, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing, seeking to understand the significance of my dreams through therapy. The process of creating collages mirrors this journey, offering a similar sense of liberation and exploration. Just as dreams provided a means of escape and reflection in childhood, collage allows me to delve into another world, where I can express myself freely and confront my innermost thoughts and emotions.
The collages themselves are imbued with a range of emotions, from wit and irony to contemplation and introspection. They serve as a reflection not only of the artist’s own experiences but also of the broader human condition, exploring themes of identity, resilience, and the interconnectedness of self and others.
Through the medium of collage, the artist invites viewers to join them on a journey of self-discovery and introspection, encouraging them to reflect on their own experiences and perceptions of the world. Each collage is a testament to the power of art to heal, inspire, and provoke thought, offering a window into the artist’s soul and inviting others to explore their own inner landscapes.
A Field Of Wild Irises
The work of Howard Beach resident and renowned artist Madeline Lovallo is currently being shown at the Ozone Park district office of Council Member Eric A. Ulrich. Inspired by local scenery, Lovallo’s work includes a selection of oils on canvas ranging from the Carousel at Forest Park, shoreline images of Jamaica Bay, and views from the sidewalks of Jamaica Avenue. The artist has completed works capturing Woodhaven, Hamilton Beach, Howard Beach, and Broad Channel.
Madeline Lovallo has rendered Broad Channel scenes in both watercolor and oils. The other week, she noticed renovations being done on one of the town’s most picturesque blocks. The weather was right, so she rushed to the scene with an easel in hand. Lovallo, like other artists, wants to capture the unique characteristics of Broad Channel before they disappear into modern anonymity.
Madeline Lovallo has been painting for at least as long as her City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) has been alive. Now, 14 of Lovallo’s paintings, each showing a different scene from around or neat Ulrich’s Southwest Queens council district, grace the walls of his office. Ulrich got the idea to hang her paintings after receiving a Christmas card from Lovallo that featured one of the works. He said he needed decorations for his new office, and asked Lovallo if he could hang prints of her paintings. Lovallo, who continues to sell prints and postcards featuring her works, happily obliged.
In 2015, Madeline Lovallo had the honor of having her own one-woman show, A 40-Year Journey: Capturing her Communities – Past and Present at Resorts World Casino. The show exhibited forty years’ worth of Madeline’s artistic journey. As she has painted her way through her communities, Madeline Lovallo has become one of the most beloved artists in her area.
I paint scenes from life that are comprised of bits and pieces of things that I see in my daily life. I can see one corner of a garden and then a single flower, and then combine them with other things to make an idealized garden.
My work evokes a great sense of nostalgia and the worlds I paint reflect my unique vision of idealized gardens and scenes from an earlier, simpler time. My paintings are brightly colored and joyful in nature. They are ideal for those who love the natural world and wish to be surrounded by its beauty.