Out Of The Fire

A self-taught artist, Logan grew up in St. Cloud Minnesota. A US Army veteran, Logan was deployed to Iraq during operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn in 2010. In Iraq, he served as a route clearance Truck Commander responsible for finding and destroying improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

After the military, Logan pursued a career in the high-pressure worlds of political campaigns and contract negotiations. At 40, burned out from fighting (both literally and figuratively) his entire adult life, Logan left that world to pursue art. “I want my life to be about more than domination and destruction”, he said, “In the second act of my life I want to leave something behind that creates meaning and wonder”.

Logan currently lives in Minnesota with his wife and two bulldogs. He paints both abstract art and servicemember POV real scenes from the war.

My mission as an artist is: Create Meaning, Create Wonder. Those words guide my journey as an artist and in life.

Creating Meaning helps me process the past. As a veteran of the Iraq war, painting scenes from my time in Iraq has helped me work through complicated memories. The process of making those pieces is revelatory, giving me a deeper understanding of the chaos, fear, or brotherhood that the scene represents.

Creating Wonder in my abstract artwork gives me faith in the future. Wonder can’t be created in a factory or designed by a machine, it is a uniquely human emotion that ignites the imagination, drives us toward creativity, and helps us arrive at solutions to the challenges before us.

Out Of The Past

John Calabrese is Professor Emeritus of Art at Texas Woman’s Univ. where he taught Art History, Aesthetics, History of Film Noir and Neo-Noir, the Art of Alfred Hitchcock, and was in charge of the Studies Abroad Art History Program which he initiated in 1994. He has published articles on Paul Klee, J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “The Trouble with Harry.”
His graphite pencil drawings have been exhibited in numerous national juried exhibitions among which are: “Wanderlust” Art Fluent Online Gallery, MA; “Intergalactic Open” Shock Boxx Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA; 14th Annual Contemporary International Drawing Discourse, Univ. of NC, Asheville; 28th Arts North International, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hopkins, MN; CAL International, Conroe Art League, Conroe, TX; and another “Wanderlust” Webster Arts Gallery, Webster Groves, MO.

I use delicate nuances of texture and shading to create mood and atmosphere while suggesting what may be going on in the mind of my subject, The Femme Fatale. The Femme Fatale emerged full-blown during the classic era of Film Noir, 1940-58. She was the “fatal” woman who would use every means at her disposal to get what she wanted, including murder, and stopped at nothing. She was intelligent, resourceful, determined, aggressive, and ruthless. She lurked in darkness and as she emerged from her shadowy world her actions were pivotal in determining the plot outcome of many significant film noirs.

Out Of The Shadows

John Calabrese received his BA in Art from Catholic University, Washington, D. C., his MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, and his PhD in Comparative Arts from Ohio University.

He is Professor Emeritus of Art at Texas Woman’s University where he taught art history, aesthetics, history of film noir, the art of Alfred Hitchcock, and was in charge of the studies abroad art history program which he initiated in 1994. He has published articles on Paul Klee, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, and Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “The Trouble with Harry”.

A delicate nuance of value and texture becomes tools in conveying powerful dramatic statements about earthly beings who are not afraid to wonder, think, dream, and take that one step beyond.

The inhabitants of the cosmic atmosphere appear at odds with their surroundings (many of which are actual, specifically named astronomical objects). This is the result when the merely earthly confronts its unavoidable connection to the awe, mystery, and majesty of the heavens. However, when fragile earthly beauty confronts sublime heavenly beauty, the earthly is reverently and silently humbled.

Outside The Frame

Joanne Chase-Mattillo was born in the beautiful Midwestern University town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. While the natural surroundings of her childhood were inspiring, the beauty of nature surrounding Los Angeles was the impetus for her entrance into the field of photography. Joanne began vigorously studying photography and other art arenas to hone her skills as a visual artist. In 2000, she graduated from California State University, Los Angeles with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). She is now a full-time artist.

In addition to color and black and white film, Joanne shoots digitally and employs the techniques of infrared imaging and enjoys creating 3D anaglyphs to be viewed with red/blue lenses. As an extension of photography, she has branched out to do videos and has a YouTube Channel, THE VIDEO ART OF JOANNE CHASE-MATTILLO. Along with nature, Joanne frequently photographs female and male subjects at themed studio shoots. She often uses the photograph of models combined with images of her nature photography to create unique photo montages.

Joanne has exhibited throughout California, nationally, in Korea, France, England, Switzerland, Scotland, Greece, Spain, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Holland, Taiwan, Brazil, Dubai, and Italy.

As a photographer, I am constantly in search of iconic imagery. The craftsmanship and perfection of classic Hollywood cinema have always been an inspiration and a goal I seek to achieve in my photography. While enjoying the technology of the present and how it has enhanced photography, I am very drawn to recreate photographs that reference the best of the past. It is my intent that the viewer of the images I create will be taken out of the everyday present to a magical place where, at any time, they would dream of going. Whether photographing people or nature, I strive to honor the best and the beauty of all that I have an opportunity to capture with my camera.

Summer days are the dream moments of the year that are looked forward to in dreary seasons. The beach, pool, lakes, and oceans draw all to embrace the sun and beat the heat. When we think of summer, we embrace all that the warmth of the sun brings.

Outstanding In Her Field

G.M. Owen is from the middle Tennessee area; he is a self-taught painter with no formal training other than art classes in middle school. He started painting around the age of twelve, placing art in the annual juried art competition at the State Fair Art Show, and later joining a local art guild in his late teens. After high school, he was hired as a staff sign artist for the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Nashville, Tennessee, and later worked as a sign artist for trade show/expo companies working in the southeastern states. By the mid-eighties, the art of freehand lettering was replaced by computers and wide-format printing. He re-entered tech school to study desktop publishing, and he has worked for the last 30 years as a graphic designer in the wine & spirits industry. He has always painted and placed art in venues, restaurants, and juried art shows along the way. His style of art ranges from portraits to still life fruit. He uses non-traditional oil paint, which is an oil-based enamel and reflects back to paint he used as a sign artist painting billboards and walls for the Coca-Cola company when he was younger.

I think about paintings, and I see pictures of different images, and I try to convey what I see in a magazine or online into a painting. A lot of times, I will first make a mockup of what I want to create using Photoshop, and then I will paint that image on canvas. At times, the painting takes a different path from what I started out thinking about painting.

Over The Mountains

My work explores the intersection of geometry, landscape, and society, reflecting on networks, globalization, and the built environment. Using geometric forms as fundamental building blocks, I construct compositions that function as fractions of a whole—fragments that, when assembled, form an independent entity. This process mirrors the way individuals, memories, and structures come together to shape our world.

While geometry serves as my primary visual language, I also create landscape sketches where architecture and nature emerge through abstraction. These landscapes are not mere representations but rather conceptual spaces, suggesting the presence of systems, histories, and evolving structures. They embody the tension between order and organic growth, permanence and impermanence.

Recent projects have expanded my engagement with materiality and media. In Πρωτοσέλιδο 1, I worked with newspaper strips to create an image that, much like media narratives, was fragmented, vague, and open to interpretation. The piece drew inspiration from the New Realism movement, exploring how layers of information can shape or distort reality. In Πρωτοσέλιδο 2, I am considering the transformation of a rug into an artwork, incorporating geometric interventions and textual elements to challenge perceptions of material and message.

Beyond my artistic practice, I work with children who have visual impairments and multiple disabilities, leading a workshop in aesthetic education. This experience continuously reshapes my understanding of perception, space, and artistic communication, reinforcing the importance of multi-sensory engagement and alternative ways of seeing.

Through my work, I seek to construct a dialogue between structure and fluidity, clarity and ambiguity, control and chance. Whether through geometric abstraction, landscape-inspired sketches, or material experimentation, my aim is to reveal the underlying patterns that connect places, people, and ideas.

Lamprinos is a visual artist based in Athens, Greece, whose work delves into the intricate relationships between geometry, landscapes, and societal structures. Born in Athens, Lamprinos pursued formal art education at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki where he honed his skills in painting.

Beyond his studio practice, Nikos is dedicated to arts education, leading workshops for children with visual impairments and multiple disabilities. This commitment not only enriches the lives of the participants but also continually informs and inspires Nikos’ artistic perspective.

Lamprinos’ work is held in private and public collections, reflecting the growing influence in the contemporary art scene.

Overcome

Lee Hutt is a sculptor based in South Hadley, MA. She earned an MS in science from Columbia University to become a psychotherapist, and studied art at the New School and sculpture at Mount Holyoke College and at Lyme Academy. She has continually honed her craft by participating in workshops conducted by those sculptors renowned in their fields.

Lee Hutt combines psychological insight with an intuitive response to her subjects. Ongoing study of “classical realism” is evident in her great skills as a sculptor. Her work ranges from portraits to figurative compositions.

She has exhibited extensively and received numerous awards.

Hutt is a Fellow and member of the Board of the National Sculpture Society, and a member of the Board of the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club.

From her studio in South Hadley, Lee now works in ceramics, experimenting with slab-built representations of people and animals. The added application of glazes has sparked her interest.

“Perfect is the enemy of good” is a quote usually attributed to Voltaire.

While I appreciated the warning inherent in the message, I was caught up in classical techniques that I felt were a historically validated process and a well-trodden pathway to excellence. It was the “right” way to do things.

I cannot explain…even to myself…how or why I yearned to explore other ways of working.
Was it the isolation of the pandemic? Left to myself…fewer exhibitions to participate in…and time…? Perhaps that was the conspiracy allowing me to refocus and approach sculpture as if I were just learning for the first time.

YouTube taught me how to make a cup from a slab of clay… No model…no armature…no mandate. I experimented with the ceramic way of building, and after several workshops…SLAB Work took off.

The results are portraits that are playful and honest, and leave the viewer to come to their own conclusions.

To rediscover sculpture in a new way at this stage in my career has been amazing and energizing.

Own Souls Warning

Michelle Vezina Peterlin is an American Artist.

She was born in Gardner, Massachusetts. She is a second-generation American on her maternal side. Her artistic ability expressed itself around the age of 5. At this time, her parents had the foresight to enroll her in private art lessons. She spent her youth receiving training from the Fitchburg Art Museum in Massachusetts. She received her bachelor’s degree in painting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. At UMASS, she was fortunate to study under master painters, John Grillo and Leonel Gongora.

She spent the first 10 years of her career as an art curator at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Historic New Harmony (Indiana), and the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art (Indiana). In 1993, she and her husband relocated to Southern Indiana. In 1998, she decided to leave the curator field to raise her children with her husband and paint full-time.

She is currently an adjunct painting professor at the University of Evansville. She is an elected member of the Rhode Island Art League. She is a member of the National Acrylic & Oil Painters Society. She is the art director and board member at the New Harmony Artists’ Guild in New Harmony, Indiana.

Her most recent work has evolved around being Jewish, American, and a woman in a world of conflict. Many of the models are family members. Her compositions have to do with peace, war, conflict, folklore, and religion. She uses universal symbols for peace, conflict, good and evil.

Latest Exhibitions

2019 -Hera Gallery, In God We Trust: Reflections on Religion in America, South Kingstown, Rhode lsland
2019-Light House Arts Center, Tattoo: The Renaissance of Body Art, Tequesta, Florida
2019-Intersect Arts Center, Fall Exhibition, St Louis, Missouri
2020- Attleboro Arts Museum, On the Surface Exhibit, Attleboro, Massachusetts
2020-Hudson Valley Art Association, 87th Annual Juried Exhibit, Old Lyme, Connecticut
2020- Flagler County Art League, Heros Exhibit, Palm Coast, Florida
2021-Bird is the Word, Virtual Gallery Show, Florida
2021-Providence Art Club, National Open Juried Exhibition, Providence, Rhode Island
2022-Art Fluent, Unity Exhibit, Boston, Massachusetts
2022-Exhibizone Publication, Magix: Dream, Fantasy, Illusion. Featured.
2022-Artistonish Magazine, Featured.
2022 Art St. Louis XXXIII: The Exhibition, Art St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
2022 Planturium Magazine, Trees, Leaves, Flowers Exhibit Publication
2022 Member Show, Hoosier Salon, New Harmony, Indiana
2023 ArtGalleryring.com, Color Exhibit
2023 Elected Member Exhibit, Rhode Island Art League, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
2023 First Brush of Spring, Hoosier Salon, New Harmony, Indiana
2024 War Exhibit, Hudson Valley MOCA, Peekskill, New York (scheduled for February)

Painting is like breathing to me. It is an integral part of my life. My mind is always working on new compositions.

I strive to communicate my innermost thoughts through my art. I look at the world through eyes that are Jewish, American, and female. I use color and careful placement of elements within the composition to convey my message. I want the viewer to dig deeply and create a story in their minds. I never work on paper. I pick the canvas size intentionally based on how I want the viewer to experience the piece’s message. I strive to make the compositions visually appealing because I do not want the viewer to give up and turn away. I want them to hear me. My canvas can be as small as 18×20 inches or as large as 4 ft x 5 ft. Their size is an important piece of creating the viewer’s experience.

I usually start my paintings by covering the entire canvas in black gesso. Next, I do a simple pencil sketch. After this is finished, I do a complete under-painting in black and white. This way, I get all the shading and highlighting figured out before I start adding color.

The models are mostly my family and friends. I am constantly taking study photos of anything that interests me. I print these and keep them in files. If I need a figure, animal, insect, flower, color, etc., I have these at the ready.

Emotional, spiritual, religious, and intellectual elements are conveyed through color, animals, insects, plants, jewelry, and clothing. I believe the clothing a person chooses to go out into the world speaks volumes about that individual. We must honor how people present themselves to the world.

The theme of my work is peace, religious tolerance, and the ability to pursue one’s dreams.

Paint The Town Red

Lisa studied traditional and abstract art. She has worked for Interior Designers, developers, architects & set decorators Lisa has done paintings for Corporate Art, commissions, movies, television, and galleries.

Represented at Art Scene West Gallery, Solana Beach CA, and Off the Walls Studio Gallery, CA, Hilton Garden Inn lobby areas in Bellevue WA, Dibble Engineers lobby & ofﬁce, Kirkland WA, Paciﬁc Housing Northwest lobby areas W, 911 Lonestar, CSI Las Vegas, Several small Independent films, TV, and more.

Gallery shows include:
* Stanwood Gallery
* Ryan James Gallery – Solo show
* Jones Gallery
* 311 Gallery Group Show
* Hilton Garden Inn Hotel-Solo corporate show
* Las Lagunas Gallery
* Parklane Gallery
* WAV Gallery
* “1927” –Solo Private corporate art show
* Linus Gallery
* XY Gallery-New York Solo show
* Dab Art Gallery, Ventura CA

Work includes:
* Corporate Art-Graphite Architects, Seattle WA
* Commission by Owner of Intrigue Music NY
* Several pieces for the television series 911 Lonestar
* Corporate Art for Dibble Engineers, Kirkland WA
* Amy May Interior Design (clients)
* Cindy Montgomery (clients/luxury homes)
* Hotel in Florida lobby area
* Imagine Housing-lobbies
* Northwest Housing Development-lobbies
* Many more…

I consider myself an “Escape Artist” who creates abstracts inspired by subjects of architecture and nature. My art style varies between geometric shapes, forms, and lines or can be free-flowing organic. My abstracts tend to be simplistic in a format inspired by colors, textures, and subject matter to stir the imagination and create their own vision of what it represents to each viewer. I try to have balance in my compositions, not equal balance but a view that feels comfortable and brings out the most essential details of the subject. I wish everyone can keep an open mind and view all art with imagination.