Inspired by the spectacular scenery of the Monterey Peninsula I started painting en plein air, or outside on location. This became a passion and eventually fine art painting became my full time vocation. My interest in subject matter is not limited to just the landscape, I also paint still-life, architecture and figures.
Drawn to aesthetics at a young age, Marni was compelled to pick up a camera and begin to document what she saw. Launching a career in the film and television industry in 1979, she amassed 25 years of experience, credits and a respected reputation. But in 2003 Grossman travelled to West Africa to photograph a group of drummers and, there, she turned her camera towards the extraordinary she found in ordinary life. Since then Marni has endeavored to become a student of what is elusive and beautiful in the real and the natural.
Born in Oakland, California in 1949, I was fortunate to grow up in a wonderfully collaged city. Many cultures, views, languages, races, architectures and possiblities thrive in the expansive lights of the East Bay. My pieces are mindscapes reflecting a psycho-spiritual orientation toward life, laced with (sometimes heavy) doses of humor and irony. Themes of love and time dominate. My studio serves as a lab where things are put together from all the bits and pieces of life. Images that are all around us, waking and dreaming, go through this clearinghouse. With luck, a meaningful whole emerges.
Mary Lou has a classical art education. She received a bachelor's degree at Syracuse University, followed by graduate work at CCAC in Oakland. After an early career teaching art at Salinas High School and Monterey Peninsula College, she worked for a number of years as a designer and as Director of Publication for Saint Mary's College in Moraga. Mary Lou has received many awards and exhibited through the Bay Area and nationally, including Oil Painters of America Annual Show, Washington D.C.; Plein Air Painting Festivals in: Carmel; Marinscapes Festival; Carquinez Scene on the Straits.
Her works are in collections throughout the world and she is represented by galleries in San Francisco, the East Bay, and Marin County. She teaches Plein Air workshops on a regular basis through the Walnut Creek Continuing Education Program.
Michele Allen is the Traffic Anchor for KSBW TV...and also an avid photographer, She took photography in high school and recently picked the camera back up and started snapping photos and found that she still really enjoyed it. Different cameras, no film, lots of new locations - means lots of fun!
Michele LaMontagne Hausman creates original landscape oil paintings both en plein air and in her California studio. Her love for painting first led her to watercolors but in the mid 1990s she found her true love in painting with oils. Constantly honing her craft, Hausman sees painting as a life long adventure of study and exploration. She has studied at the Scottsdale Artist School and with modern day master artists in the USA and in France. Hausman also teaches painting at her Soquel studio and through the Santa Cruz Art League.
Michelle Murphy-Ferguson is a Northern California painter, born in the mill town of Scotia and raised in the Eel Valley town of Fortuna.
She has had a lifelong devotion to the Arts. Her works include landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, and portraits. Whether working in plein air, or alla prima in her studio, she strives to bring the viewer into reflecting on the world around us.
Inspired by past and present artists, she continues learning and studying, for painting is an ongoing process.
She has studied abroad in France, Germany, Italy and has participated in workshops in Southern California. Her work is held in public and private collections nationally and internationally.
Paola Berthoin was born in London, England, and came to Carmel Valley in 1965 with her mother and three sisters. She is a graduate of Carmel High School and California College of the Arts where she specialized in printmaking, handmade paper and animal drawing. Paola’s deep commitment to living in the Carmel Valley over the past fifty years and tending the land she lives on for the past twenty-nine years has infused her visionary ways of interpreting the land through painting, writing, and advocacy for all watersheds of the Earth.
Paul's primary expertise are chalk pastels. Using his tools, Paul renders fantastic landscapes full of color and spacious skies. His images depict the natural beauty of the regions surrounding his home town, the rustic charm of quaint Hawaiian chapels, the vibrant colors of Giverny gardens, and any other location he is fortunate enough to visit. In many instances, Paul will take photographic reference for his paintings; however, nothing is better than painting on location. Whenever he can, Paul escapes the studio with his easel in tow to set up shop on a rocky cliff edge overlooking the ocean or overlooking a fecund valley.
I have nostalgic bones. I am attracted to objects kinesthetically. Often it is a rusty item from the past, the lines on the face of an elder, some discarded tool, or an ancient stone building.
Light and texture are crucial elements for me in capturing images. A face or an object illuminated in just the right way brings out the textural qualities on a visceral level. This allows me, and hopefully the viewer, to feel as if the objects of my photographs are within reach.
I want to preserve and capture the beauty in what might ordinarily go unnoticed.