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Adriana Dakin Founding Member
Pottery
Adriana’s Horsetail Studio
creates handmade servingware with designs inspired by nature, aiming
for “rustic pottery with elegant designs”. Horses are Adriana’s
favorite animal friends, so they are a running theme on the pottery.
She aspires to draw and sculpt designs with the bold confidence that
her grandfather drew pencil animal caricatures resembling Asian
characters. A digital slideshow and book at the gallery show the
inspiration behind the pots.
Adriana is a communications strategist with Madera Group, serves on the
board of Young Women Social Entrepreneurs in San Francisco, and the Sun
House guild board at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah. She has a
Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, a Bachelors
degree from Wesleyan University in History and Russian, and credits
clay for closer friendships during international study trips.
Carol Heady Founding Member
Pen and ink, oil and acrylic painting
Carol
was born in Ukiah in 1939. She calls herself a western artist, drawing
with pen and ink or painting with oil or acrylic. She writes true
stories, illustrates books, and patterns drawings for leather tooling
in western tack and saddle catalogs. Her animal portraits are sought
after for their realism. She is also a member of the Mendocino County
Art Association and Mendocino Arts Council.
Preserving memories is the motivation behind her art and has taken her
on an art journey that she would have never dreamed come true. She
served as show producer for the Mendocino County Art Association,
directing two shows at the Grace Hudson Museum Guild Room honoring 50
years of art and artists in Mendocino County, and a show honoring Adele
Pruitt for her life work and excellence as an artist, teacher and fine
art restorer.
Carol's artwork has been exhibited at Fetzer Vineyards, Grace Hudson Museum, Savings Bank of Mendocino County, Grand National Rodeo, Cow Palace, San Francisco, Renaissance Gallery, Cinnabar Sam's, Humboldt Savings & Loan, Golden Gate Kennel Club, Paw's LA, and Mendocino College Web Site. See more of Carol's art on her website.
Minnie McQueary Founding Member
Watercolor, oil, acrylic, ink, and giclée
Minnie has always found ways to give back to the local community of
Mendocino County and to artists everywhere who cherish the positive
effects of art. Through dedication and a true love for the arts,
McQueary has been an inspiration in the artist community with masterful
paintings along with private art instruction and techniques for over
40 years.
McQueary has performed numerous commissions for art enthusiasts throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
SunWolf Founding Member
Wood working
SunWolf makes pendants specifically for each individual, focusing on
different aspects of the self, with the idea to create a piece of
power. He usually has a brief interview with the person who wants a
piece to discuss what the person is looking for physically as well as
mentally or spiritually. SunWolf also creates other custom woodworking
jobs, such as turned bowls, boxes, and other carved wooden objects.
Laura Fogg Member
Art quilting
Laura has been a mural painter and seamstress for many years, and has recently begun to combine the two media and go in a whole new direction — art quilting. She uses a “painterly” collage style in her art, with landscapes as her primary focus. Much of her inspiration comes from the beauty she enjoys on a daily basis in Mendocino County.
Laura’s work has been shown both locally and nationally. Many pieces have been juried into major shows, and a number have been prizewinners. Her work has been published in calendars, magazines, and books. She lectures and teaches art quilting classes throughout northern California. For the last 30 years, Laura has been teaching blind people how to get around with a white cane. Maybe it is this all-day focus on lack of sight that makes the world such a visual treat for her. Everything in her landscapes is cut freehand and allowed to move around as she machine appliques pieces onto the layers below. She works fast as a means of achieving a more dynamic outcome.
An art history major at UC Berkeley, with a minor in art, Laura also has a Master’s degree from CA State University-San Francisco. She is mostly a self-taught quilter. More examples of her art can be seen on her website www.fogwomancreations.com.
Lory Lance Member
Jewelry
Lory began designing jewelry over thirty-five years ago when she
traveled among the nomadic tribes of East Africa. The imaginative and
ingenious ornamentation each tribe created with materials from the
barren lands they inhabited profoundly affected her.
Lory creates wearable art that reflects that ethnic genius and is
suitable for western tastes. Her pieces are one-of-a-kind with designs
composed of precious and semi-precious stones, ethnic and antique
beads, sterling silver, antique buttons, whimsical found objects, and
much more. She seeks to impart the sources of the materials and their
social, anthropological, and legendary history. She believes jewelry
needs to be handled and examined for its texture, intricacies, and
drape.
Robert Pappas Member
Glass
Robert, owner of Glass Mountain Designs, has been a fulltime art glass professional for 27 years. After receiving a bachelors degree in Fine Arts, he started teaching at the college level. His art glass windows and custom lighting can be found in hundreds of homes, several churches, and restaurants nationwide as well as some in Europe.
In 1997, he started producing many styles of glass for lighting which as sold wholesale to several lighting companies. As a result of this production, there are about 14,000 light fixtures out there with glass made by Robert. Some are very simple and some are very complex. He seeks to bring beauty into everyday lives of others. He has lived in Ukiah for 6 years.
John Richards Member
Woodwork
John was born in New Mexico in 1937, and was raised bi-lingually in a Latin neighborhood with a Spanish mother and English father. All his life, he has worked in woodworking (30 years) and as a machinist (19 years), making components and raising his family of four children. As a young man, he moved to California in 1960 looking for a job, ending up in southern California. During the Apollo moon-landing program, he worked as a machinist supplying airplane and missile parts to Navy carriers and corporations. He moved to the Ukiah area around 1972, working as a cabinetmaker, and started his own company in 1986.
John loves to experiment by combining his woodworking and machine shop
skills in intricate ways. He especially loves making his beautiful
abalone pens. He gets his exotic woods from around the world, and local
wood primarily from burls – black walnut, oak, redwood, maple, and
buckeye. He enjoys the beauty of the different kinds of wood he works
with, such as rosewood, purple heart, paduak, ebony, and blood wood. He
inlays abalone, mother of pearl shells, elk and deer antlers, and ebony
and ivory from recycled piano keys for his pens.
John
crafts his boxes made out of wood and epoxy. He creates a mold,
assembles the wood burl parts, and very slowly fills the mold with
epoxy. When dry, he slices the lid off, designs the inside pockets by
hollowing the sections out by hand with routers — the deeper, the more
difficult. He then re-polishes the box, designs the outside, and
attaches hidden barrel hinges so that the design of the box is
emphasized. He sometimes inserts abalone, pearls, and gemstones such as
garnet, amethyst, malachite, lapis lazuli, and ice flake quartz for a
sparkle on the inside.
Holly Cratty Member
Acrylic and oil painting, mixed media
Holly’s work is celebratory in intention and focuses on natural
subjects such as trees, landscapes, and the forces of nature. Her
primary painting style is abstract and minimalist and usually composed
of two color fields. These fields typically convey the impression of
an abstract land or seascape, such as an internal earth and sky or an
inner sense of body and mind. They can also be interpreted as depicting
a sensory experience, a memory of the natural world, a feeling, or
something imagined. She typically includes a hard-edged vertical or
horizontal line in many paintings both as a visual counterpoint to and
a ‘container’ for the organic energies expressed through color and
gesture.
Holly’s works are offered by several galleries in California (including
Palm Desert, Walnut Creek, West Hollywood, and Willits) and she is also
represented by Butters Gallery in Portland, Oregon and Stellers Gallery
in Florida. Her Limited Edition Prints are available through Casa
Publishing and Hambleton Fine Art Services. Holly has an MA in
Philosophy from San Francisco State and an MFA from John F. Kennedy
University. In 2000 she received the Susan Seddon Boulet Fellowship
Award. Find out more about her works here.
Elliot Little Founding Member
Photography
We live in a beautiful place.
Elliot enjoys capturing the beauty of Northern California and producing images that celebrate it. The opportunity to explore the colors, shades, and textures on many different scales in the “digital darkroom” has greatly enriched this activity.
After an initial start in photography when he first came to California
from the East Coast forty years ago, Elliot let it go in the whirlpool
of the late 60’s. During his time in Ukiah he has experimented with
juggling, acting, and singing, but constantly had an eye on the natural
beauty of our area and a desire to express his appreciation of it.
Returning to photography about ten years ago, he soon started riding
the increasingly exciting waves of digital photography in a celebration
of the wonders surrounding us.
Rose Peterson Myers Founding Member
Watercolor Batik
Using a technique similar to that used on fabric, Rose produces
“Watercolor Batiks” on hand made and oriental paper, as well as
traditional watercolor paintings. Rose also creates jewelry, stained
glass, weaving, felting, and other hand needle arts.
Recent shows include Winesong's Artist Showcase 2007, Mendocino College
Gallery, Brutocao Galleria in Hopland, Grace Hudson Museum's Mendocino
Artist's 50 year Retrospective, Main Street Program Wine and Art
Festival, Humbolt Bank and Saving's Bank of Mendocino County.
Rose is the Education Coordinator for Mendocino County Art Association, and a member of the Watercolor Association of Sonoma County, Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino County Art Council, California Watercolor Association and Society of Decorative Painters. See her website.
Susan Blackwelder Founding Member
Watercolor and oil painting, pastel, drawing, clay sculpture
Susan has always loved to draw. She particularly enjoys capturing the likeness of her subjects, which often include the faces and figures of both people and animals. She also enjoys a multiplicity of art materials — painting in oil, pastel, and watercolor, and
sculpting in clay. Her work shows a sense of fun. Known for her expert ability to capture the
likeness of her subject, she has numerous commissioned works to her
credit.
Susan is continually expanding her techniques and has most notably
studied with Nancy Teeling Baltins, Bob Comings, Paula Gray, Wayne
Knight, Tony Couch, Judy Betts, Dale Laitinen, Jane Burnham, Erin
Dertner, Barbara Nechis, Christopher Schink, and Mac Magruder. Susan
has built a clientele for her art and her works are held in both public
and private collections.
Bonnie Veblen Founding Member
Sculpture
With bronzes in many collections, including The Smithsonian Portrait
Institute, Washington, DC, Bonnie has become an artist of distinction.
She is now currently challenging herself in new directions, exploring
photography. Bonnie’s original writings lend another dimension to her
art as she endeavors to always view the world with a fresh eye. With
bronze, camera or pen, Bonnie imparts a vision to any medium as she
strives to expose the vitality, warmth and spirit of her subject. The
results are truly classic.
Bonnie accepts commission work and offers workshops and seminars on
creativity and art processes. Her current project is PRISMASCOPE: A
PORTAL OF POSSIBILITY, an inter-disciplinary educational platform. See
her website for more of her art.
Cassie Gibson Founding Member
Textiles
Cassie has enjoyed the process of creation since childhood. As an adult, she has worked in several mediums: 3D soft sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, silk screening, and painting on fabric. In the last 20 years, she has concentrated on using silk dyes for painting on silk and velvet and devore (the burnout process). Recently, she took a quiltmaking class at Mendocino College and began to stitch on her paintings.
Her ideas come from nature, family and social issues. Once she has the idea, the work frequently seems to flow as do the dyes on silk. She is blessed to have the time and the opportunity to create.
Cassie has studied with a variety of well known artists over the years. At Mendocino College she studied with: M. Wayne Knight, Holly Brackmann, Lolli Jacobsen, and Elizabeth Ross. At the Surface Design Conventions, she studied with Peggy Juvee, Betsy Sterling Benjamin, and Wendy Huhn. At the Mendocino Art Center she studied with Susan Moyer, Kerr Grabowski, Jason Pollen, Lisa Gray, Suzanne Punch, Natasha Foucoult, and others.
Tom Johnsen Founding Member
Painting, photography
Tom was born in Alameda in 1941 and started painting in earnest when he
took classes at Sonoma State while earning a studio degree. He is
curator of the Ukiah Players Gallery since 1993 and an art teacher at
Potter Valley High School. He has acted in plays since 1977 and creates
sets for the Players Theater in Ukiah.
Ann & Jon Maglinte Founding Member
Watercolor and silk painting, cement sculpture
Ann graduated from San Jose State University with a B.A. in Art with an
emphasis in painting. She studied watercolor and fabric design at
Mendocino College, and at the Mendocino Art Center. Currently she
teaches Watercolor Classes in Willits through Mendocino College.
Jon and Ann have enjoyed collaborating on art projects since they met
at San Jose State University when Jon was a design student. Jon is
working on one of a kind pieces of cement with hand carving applied
directly to the stone. Jon and Ann live in Willits and have created
spiritually inspired crafts and art since 1972.
Katie Gibbs Founding Member
Steel sculpture
Katie, who hails from southern California, attended architecture school at Cal and Harvard. She then moved to France for a new life raising three boys, with Legos and crafts replacing drawing and sculpture. She studied urban design and worked with a community design team while in France.
Back in California, her new job led her to a new material — steel. She designed bridges, and began welding pieces from scrap metal, eventually investing in a plasma torch to cut shapes in steel plate. She designs elements of décor such as gates, sculptures, and wall ornaments in steel.
She is joined in her work by her son Marc Gengoux (see separate description about his work).
Kathie Godec Founding Member
Graphite, colored pencil, charcoal, ink, soft and oil pastels on paper
Kathie has been an artist all her life. After graduating from Ukiah High School, she earned her B.A. at San Francisco State College as a Diversified Art Major, graduating in 1969. Diversifying her major allowed her to work in all forms and media. After graduating, she worked in the art department at a San Francisco printing company and in the graphic arts field until the 1990's. In 1993, she enrolled in the Certificate Program in Landscape Architecture offered through UC Berkeley Extension and graduated in 2000. She moved back to my childhood home in Ukiah in 2003.
Kathie’s artwork is a product of location, vocation, and personal esthetic. Her artistic expression runs from rendered realism to abstract expression, in various media, on paper. In the end she always comes back to her love of the "line" in all its forms. The quality and beauty of line as a simple but controlled mark on paper allowed her endless forms of expression, both timeless and deep.
Jeanette Carson Founding Member
Stained glass and watercolor
Jeanette can’t remember a time in her life when she was not creating some type of artwork. After college she worked as a commercial artist in the Bay Area and then moved with her family to Ukiah, where she opened a graphic arts and leaded glass design business, in operation for 30 years. For the last six years, she has also been painting in watercolor.
Jeanette has chosen to work with stained glass and watercolor for personal reasons —it allows her to create art that enhances the experiences of people, and expresses her feelings of all that is beautiful and optimistic in the world. Because these mediums have similar transparent qualities, they can lead beyond the immediate and out of the normal.
In creating her art, she uses designs that include the mind but do not isolate it. In a society that values reality, she wants her work to show something positive, fresh, and open.
Susan O. Gordon Founding Member
Acrylic painting
Susan creates abstract, non-representational paintings using acrylic paints on large canvas surfaces with dramatic colors. She began painting in 2003 — “I arrived late to the art party,” she says — with the intention of painting small portraits. However, after a lifetime devoid of drawing, painting, and the formal arts, she took a brush to canvas and experienced freedom with big canvases, big strokes, and bold colors of oranges, reds, and blacks.
Then Susan wanted to really feel what she was painting — to connect directly from her heart, arms, and hands to the canvas. She put down her brush, dipped her hands in the paint, and touched the canvas — it was electrical. She found myself returning to the canvas more and more frequently. Susan is the founder of Art Center Ukiah.
Willow Jackson Founding Member
Oil painting
Willow raised four wonderful daughters in Mendocino County. In her early years she grew up in an artistic family setting — both parents very much involved in their own creative pursuits and was always supported the development of Willow’s artistic skills, however they manifested, whether in writing or the arts.
She now lives in the rural hills west of Ukiah. Her studio, An Arc of a Stones Throw, is a gift of her environment — where she finds inspiration to create from the beauty that is abundantly in nature. What an adventure!
Gloria Simmonds Founding Member
Tapestry and wood sculpture
Gloria is a Colombian folk artist. Her tapestries tell myths and legends of Colombia and around the world. She learned the old folk art tapestry weaving technique from her
grandmother in Colombia, and developed it further to express her own
style. All pieces are hand dyed by Gloria.Her whimsical driftwood figures with their graceful, dance-like poses reveal her love of dance. For the past three decades, Gloria and her husband have lived in a cabin with a view of Lake Pillsbury, and much of Gloria's artistic inspiration comes from living in such beautiful surroundings. Her work has been shown in galleries in South America, Europe and the United States.
Red Wolf Founding Member
Aluminum honeycomb mixed media
Red Wolf works on sandwiched honeycomb aluminum aerospace panels. He
finds that scoring a highly reflective groove pattern into the aluminum
substrate enables him to have a degree of control of the path of light
rays entering and exiting the painting. He has been experimenting with
materials for many years and utilizes several combinations of thin
films, particles, and coatings to create and control structural colors
at various wavelengths.
Structural
color in nature is seen in numerous places. Good examples are found in
many of the feathers of tropical birds, butterfly wings, and tropical
fish. These colors are generated optically by the refraction of light
rather than by the absorption of light, which is typical of pigmented
paints. Red Wolf sees himself as a painter and the work that he creates
as paintings. While he does paint with a large array of pigmented
paints and dies in acrylic and oil emulsions, many of the paintings
have an element of color that is generated structurally. To this end,
his technique of painting takes on elements of the assemblage of a
mixed media process. See more on Red Wolf's
website.
Marc Gengoux Guest
Sculpture, painting
Born
in the Alps in France and without formal art training, Marc feels free
to experiment with many types of media. He creates from the soul and
often works to music, expressing the sounds and texture of the music in
his own art. He works in oil or acrylic on canvas, wood, or cardboard —
whatever is at hand. He also sculpts in wood and steel and sometimes
mixes media.
Marc has exhibited in numerous galleries in France, most recently at
Galerie Cupillard in Grenoble. Marc lives in Le Sappey en Chartreuse in
France, with his wife and two daughters, and is the head of the history
department in Lycee de Graisivaudan in Meylan, France. He often spends
the summer in Ukiah with his mother, Katie Gibbs, a founding member of
the gallery.
Tim Hayes Guest
Sculpture, painting
Fun,
whimsical and daunting images play with the imagination in Tim’s art.
His artwork has bloomed into recognizable pieces with his uncanny
talent for color combinations and sculpture of the past. Tim is a long
time Ukiah resident — his parents owned the local well-known Hayes
Music store on State Street across from the Corner Gallery.
Scott Hegan Guest
Glasswork
Scott’s youth was saturated in varied vocational experience: drafting, carpentry, lutherie, metalsmithing, and computer programming. In some measure, all these disciplines prepared him to begin working with glass. He started working hot glass in college and was immediately consumed. Glass objects from his studio chronicle the passage of time and symbolize his ideas and thoughts.
Though entirely his own original creation, his murrini work is influenced by a hundred generations of glass artists. During the 1st century BC, Egyptians were forming and fusing murrini, to be followed by Romans, Venetians, French, and Americans, each appropriating the technique to serve their own purposes. The enduring appeal of murrini lies in the endless variety and complexity of design that can be produced and the possibility of adding intentional expressive meaning to an object. Each of his designs begins with forming and stretching canne out of hot glass, then sectioning these sticks of glass into slices known as murrini. These murrini are then incorporated into unique and limited production items through a combination of advanced glass making techniques that he develops in his studio.
He works with historical and humanistic themes: romantic love, approaching loss, and the passage of time. See Hegan Glassworks for more of his art.
