Future Exhibitions
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June 8 – 16, 2019
Reception | June 12, 5 to 7 pm
Desiree HajnyDesiree Hajny has been involved in the arts for the past forty years, as a teacher in both the public and private sectors, as the author of eight books, as a contributor to 7 others, and contributing editor to several periodicals in the United States and Europe. Desiree has been creating wood sculptures of mammal’s full time since 1985.
Today, Desiree’s beautiful and ornate carvings can be found nationally as well as internationally. In art competitions she has garnered 26 best-of-show honors, over 150 first places, and 18 Viewer’s Choice awards. She continues to teach seminars throughout the United States and Canada, and in 1997 was asked to travel to Germany to consult on a book on carving a wolf. Commissions include Disney Animal Kingdom MGM Grand, and the National Forest Products Association.
In April of 2003, Desiree was the 3rd recipient of the Wood Carving Illustrated Woodcarver of the Year Award. This award is presented annually to national and international carvers.
Marie McDonough
Marie has always said that when she grew up she wanted to be a wood carver. “I want to create beautiful carvings from wood, to share my knowledge and skills with young and old and to continue to promote woodcarving so that it does not become something of the past”. At age 67, she is living the dream. Marie accepts commissions and says she has not found anything she cannot carve yet and loves a good challenge. Her work is available at Marie’s Wood Carvings, a studio and workshop at 106 S. Main St., Stockton IL 61085, where she offers classes and workspace for youth and adult.
Marie was born in Florida, raised in the bush country of British Columbia, Canada where she observed the wildlife that is so much a part of her wood sculptures. Eventually Marie came to Dubuque IA, where she studied advertising layout and design at Clark College. Marie opened The Art Shop that sold artists’ consignment pieces. Marie taught private oil painting classes as well as courses at Northeast Iowa Technical Institute. Family business sent her to California, where she attended Long Beach City College studying visual arts and sculpture. Returning to the Dubuque area she met and worked with a master wood carver part time for a year until “life” carried her away to other pursuits. Over the last 30 years Marie has worked full time in the senior living industry and accepted commissioned pieces when time was available. She has Marie’s Wood Carving Studio and Workshop in Stockton IL.
Rick Frels
During the last 30 years, Frels has been carving mostly animals and humans as well as doing chainsaw carvings.He has taken some weekend and 5 day classes but is mainly self-taught. Rick lives in Hillsdale, Ill.
Alec Lacasse
Lacasse is a sculpture of the human face. He has taught many artists about the art of carving the “realistic face” in wood. Since his first showing at age 12, Alex has taken many best of show awards and first place awards. He currently lives in Michigan.
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July 1 – August 29, 2019 |
Artist Reception | Saturday, July 13⋅2:00 – 4:00pm
Louise O’Donnell has lived on both coasts and in America’s large cities and small towns pursuing her career as an executive of creative design and merchandising for the catalog industry. A graduate of Iowa State University, Louise chose to return to her home state and pursue the happy life of painting Iowa countryside, traveling and volunteering. “I am inspired by the big sky and the colors and drama of the flat plains and rolling hills, but most of all by the people. I’m drawn to both past and present people who in their ordinary lives inspire and evoke in me a very real connection. Each painting I do must mean something to me and I hope that it means something to those who view them.
Louise works in watercolor and pastel. Many of her paintings are available in museum quality giclee prints.
515-321-0559 | Facebook: Louise O’Donnell, Artist
Mayela Fonseca
Artist Biography
Fonseca was born and raised in San José, Costa Rica. She immigrated to Iowa in 1986 and later became a U.S. citizen. The Des Moines area has been her home base ever since. She traveled extensively in Europe and Central and South America as well as throughout the U.S. for her former employer, Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Traveling gave her the opportunity to meet people from and experience the rich culture each country offers. She has found that each face offers a story of its own. That is why she enjoys painting portraits and expressing through those that each individual is beautiful and proud of their heritage. Currently, Mayela is working on a series of portraits tentatively titled “People of the Des Moines Farmers’ Market.” After she retired in 2012, she had the time to dedicate herself to her passion of watercolor by taking classes at Mary Muller’s Studio and at the Des Moines Art Center, as well as in workshops throughout the U.S. by renowned watercolorists. She enjoys the watercolor medium the most, though she has worked with charcoal, graphite, pastels, and ink. Watercolor provides the challenge of controlling the water and at the same time letting the water seek its own course. Mayela has exhibited her work at the Iowa State Fair and at the Iowa Watercolor Society’s (IWS) Annual Watercolor Exhibition in 2015 through 2018. She has had watercolors in the IWS’s year-long traveling exhibition in 2015 through 2018. In 2015 she received the Transparent Award
Artist Statement
What attracted me to watercolor as a medium is its fluidity, transparency, and light. Watercolor keeps me centered. You can’t control the paint completely — as you can with oils or pastels. The combination of water, paper, and pigment take a direction of its own, despite your intention. Working in watercolors always brings these unintentional interactions. Nudging them toward what I see is the challenge and reward for me. Watercolors, like life, remind me I am not always in control and that letting go can bring beautiful and unexpected surprises. My watercolor work does not tend toward the realistic. I am always after the impression or feeling of the subject.
Jo Myers-Walker
Artist Biography
Jo teaches painting classes at the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center and a variety of other locations. You can find scheduled classes and workshops on the Classes and Events page, pictures of some of my work in the Online Gallery, and more thoughts on art and healing on the Tomato Bisque Soup Club page. Iowa Artisans Gallery (Iowa City) and Artisan Gallery 218 (West Des Moines) have my paintings for sale when available, and the Classes and Events page has a list of shops that carry my artwork (call ahead if you want to make sure it’s in stock). Follow my blog to see what I’ve been doing lately.
B.A. and M.S., Art Education, Iowa State University
Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center
Newman Catholic Student Center at the University of Iowa
Artist Statement
I’ve been an artist and art teacher for more than 50 years, working with people of all ages. Although I’m mostly into watercolors, I’m always exploring new techniques and materials. For me, the most joy of creating something is in the process of dreaming it up and figuring out how to actualize it. In 2013 I sold my studio building in Gilbert, Iowa, and moved to Iowa City, giving me the freedom to paint, live simply, go “on tour,” and be of service. I try to encourage others to have the courage to risk and live creatively.
My classes and workshops take a gentle approach. They all involve real artistic technique, and also some element of the “inward journey.” In everyday life we get so caught up in details, so we take time to learn to be silent, listen, and allow the Spirit to work. Not only does this promote relaxation and renewal, but it also improves the artwork! By telling their story through art, people often create beautiful things that they never thought they could.
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July 15th-September 3, 2019
Meet the artist reception | August 9th from 5-7PM
Artist Statement
I have enjoyed photography for my entire life. Beginning in about 6th grade my dad had a darkroom and let me help in the darkroom and take photos, and I have taken photographs ever since. first with a Kodak Brownie of my dad’s then my first camera a 127 Kodak, then with a Contina, range finder 35MM, then with my first digital a Minolta 700i, now with a Nikon D90 and Nikon D7100. In my retirement, I am doing more photography. As I go thru life day by day, seeing things that call to me, beautiful things, meaningful things, ordinary things in a different setting, that I feel a need to capture and preserve for others to enjoy. So I take photographs. I see a person, thing or scene that I think would make a beautiful photograph, and it’s my job to try to capture what I am seeing. Sometimes I can. Sometimes the light, the scope, the beauty I see, can not be captured, even with today’s technology, but I have to try. I don’t have a specialty and take photos of many different subjects, in many categories, and find beauty in many things.
I develop photos in Lightroom and Photoshop, sometimes using new techniques such as HDR sparingly. I am sometimes torn between color and black and white, I like a beautiful color scene, but it seems for some photos black and white makes a person see the subject itself without the distraction of color and that is good too…
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September 5 – October 31, 2019
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Artist Biography
Putting his college art experience and degree to good use, wherever feasible, is what local artist Greg Dickinson is all about! A local visual artist, muralist and sign painter, Dickinson, a Clinton, Iowa resident, is a native of rural Sabula, Iowa, also known as “Iowa’s Only Island City”, a Mississippi River town of nearly 600 people, 60 miles north of the Quad Cities (Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa, and Rock Island and East Moline, Illinois). Born on February 17, 1960, in Savanna, IL, he has been involved with producing various kinds of artwork in Sabula, Clinton, and the Quad Cities, ranging from designing and painting murals in Clinton, to exhibiting his hangable paintings in shows in Sabula, Clinton, the Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Dickinson enjoys depicting popular images in his paintings, ranging from local and national television news anchors, like Paula Sands and Tom Brokaw, to NABISCO cookies, like Oreo. Dickinson had his first big break in art when he was awarded a second-place award in a statewide drug abuse prevention poster contest as a junior at East CentralHigh School in Miles, Iowa. In November 1976, he was presented with a plaque from, the late Governor Robert D. Ray.
After graduating from high school in May 1978, Dickinson enrolled in Mount Saint Clare College (Ashford University) in Clinton, where he served as Yearbook Artist during his two years there, graduating in 1981, with an AA degree in Liberal Arts. He then transferred to Mount Mercy College (University) in Cedar Rapids, graduating from there in 1983, with a BA degree in Art. He got his first shot at mural work at Mount Mercy when he was asked to create a small mural in “The Tool Box”, the equipment room in the Student Union. During his senior year there, he was commissioned to design and paint a larger mural in the hallway leading to the bookstore.
After college, Dickinson got his first taste of exhibiting his works at Mount Saint Clare in February of 1984, displaying his works in the college’s main building first floor. In the summer of that year, he got his first Quad City art exposure at the Rock Island Summer Festival’s Arts and Crafts Fair. Here, Dickinson got his first television coverage on the 6 p.m. News on WHBF TV-4. Dickinson has had much success displaying his works throughout the region since, including a solo show at the downtown Rock Island Public
Library’s art gallery in the spring of 2016, part of a two-man show with David Balluff in the Quad-City Arts Center Gallery in Rock Island in the spring of 2018. Dickinson also had some of his cookie paintings exhibited in a group show in NABISCO’s world headquarters art gallery in East Hanover, New Jersey, from June through September, 1997.
Dickinson has designed and painted murals through-out Clinton, including a “Welcome to Lyons Shopping District” (1993) and “Welcome to Rastrelli’s Restaurant” (1996) in North Clinton. He also designed and painted a boulder on the west edge of Clinton, in 1990, featuring Clinton’s official city flower, marigolds, and daisies, representing happiness and optimism. During Sabula’s Sesquicentennial, in 1985, he helped design and paint the “Sabula Sesquicentennial Viaduct Mural”, depicting life along the Mississippi River and Sabula, itself. Dickinson’s artworks are represented in the Quad-City Arts Sales Gallery in Rock Island and The River Arts Center’s Gift Shop in Clinton. His works are also present in the Clinton Area Chamber of Commerce office and the studios of WQAD-News 8, in Moline.
Artist Statement
The inspiration for Dickinson’s work is the late Andy Warhol, the pop artist who used such common images, like Campbell’s Soup cans, and celebrity portraits, like Marilyn Monroe. During his leisure time, Dickinson enjoys the art of the animated film and takes interest in attending art exhibits and going to movies. His other interests include watching local television newscasts as well as bowling, fishing, roller skating, eating out and walking on Clinton’s recreation trail. He served for many years as the downtown Clinton Weather Watcher for WQAD News 8. In short, Greg Dickinson has been very fortunate to keep his art education and degree frequently put to good use.
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September 5 – October 31, 2019
Biography
Larry J. Davis, a native Iowan, grew up in Clinton, Iowa along the Mississippi River. After attaining a BA in Fine Art at the University of Iowa he completed a four-year tour with the USAF in England before returning to the Midwest to begin his professional arts career. In 1986 Davis moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he took a position at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville, serving as both a full-time Professor of Art and for many years as art department coordinator. During this time he finished Masters Degree studies at Jacksonville University while also pursuing an active artistic output and exhibition schedule. His 2010 retirement from academia saw a long-awaited return to full-time studio activity. The 2012 relocation of Davis Studio to Knoxville, IL was an opportunity to reunite with the Midwest culture and landscape that has long been inspiring to the artist.
Artist Statement
My undergraduate art experience in the 1960s at the University of Iowa, as well as later graduate study there, left me with an appreciation for both realistic and abstracted art. While I still use both approaches, the bulk of my current production is in oil/cold wax and is in an abstracted manner. Many of my abstracted landscape paintings and drawings feature high horizons that allude to distant prairie or coastal vistas, while still allowing pictorial space to explore the intervening colors, shapes and textures of the ground plane downward to the viewer’s feet. Later oil paintings trend toward a more complex surface through the inclusion of cold wax techniques. 50 years of figure drawing also exerts a strong influence on the organic motifs in many of my works.
This selection of my recent paintings is comprised of a combination of both Impressionistic and Abstract Expressionist interpretations of landscape, still life and figurative subjects. In the last few years I’ve concentrated on using oil paints, along with cold wax, to achieve complex color and textural results, primarily on cradled panels. Some of the works also combine charcoal and oil sticks to enhance the importance of drawing as the fundamental tool in the finished work.
Having grown up in Clinton, IA it goes unsaid that I have a reverence for the inspiring landscape, flora and fauna of Jackson, Clinton and Dubuque Counties. I hope this shows up in some of the newest works created for this exhibition.
- December 1, 2019 – January 31, 2020
Artist StatementPam’s tremendous love of nature and the beauty and wonder of the world around her was fostered at a very young age. Coming from a very artistic family, Pam was surrounded by art and craft supplies lending themselves to constant creativity. Raised in the town of Aurora, Illinois. Pam and her husband Steve moved to Cora, Wyoming in 2005.Pamela began oil painting officially when taking a class with her then 8-year-old daughter, Stephanee. It was a mom and child “make and take it class” at the local college. The first oil painting was of a wolf lying in the snow. The painting brought out such exuberance and joy in finding a talent she didn’t know she had. Pam studied under this same local artist for many years.
Pam then went on to use not only oils but other mediums such as acrylics and alcohol inks. Once a very realist and structured oil painter Pam has found such joy and freedom in abstract alcohol ink painting. Her paintings burst with contrasting and harmonious bold colors bringing life to her compositions. Pam’s distinctive personal but style emanates joy, peace and expresses her vibrant spirit.
Pam’s tiles are not only wall or table art, but she also paints useful items such as coasters, trivets, and cups. She believes you can create anything once you see it in your mind.
Pam’s work is displayed and for sale at The Gnome Colony in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, here at the library, from her personally or on her website www.soulfulpaintbrush.com
Contact information:
Pam Fetzner
Phone 307-367-3574
pamela@soulfulpaintbrush.com
www.soulfulpaintbrush.com
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December 1, 2019 – January 30, 2020
More to Follow
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June 8 – 16, 2019