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Laura Fogg

Visual Arts: Textiles, Visual Arts Instructor

Laura Fogg has been an art quilter for over twenty years. Her work is shown regularly in major quilt shows across the country, including Visions and Quilt National, and many pieces have won cash awards. Articles and photos of Fogg’s work have been published in most of the quilting magazines in the US, as well as in a number of national and international books and calendars on art quilting. She has also been featured in two documentary films (one by the American Quilters Society and the other by Lifetime TV in conjunction with the Vagina Monologues production), and appeared as a featured artist on Alex Anderson’s “The Quilt Show” in 2018. Fogg is the recipient of two art-related awards in Mendocino County- the Women’s Art: Women’s Vision award in 2008 and the Mendocino County Arts Champion award in 2012. Art keeps her busy! She is a 10-year member of the Corner Gallery and a longstanding Board member of Art Center Ukiah. She is also a devoted advocate and patron of public art. Laura Fogg has lived all of her adult life in Mendocino County, where she worked for 30 years as a teacher of the visually impaired. In that capacity she won the Schoolmaster of the Year award in 2011. She is now retired and happily watching five grandchildren grow up. Fogg was an art history major at UC Berkeley, with a minor in art, and has a Masters in Education from CA State University-San Francisco. She is mostly a self-taught quilter, though she studied briefly under Natasha Kempers-Kullen many years ago. She currently lectures and teaches art quilting classes and retreats throughout northern California and has been on the board of directors of the Arts Council of Mendocino County since April 2022. I have lived and worked in Mendocino County my entire adult life. After raising my three children I finally found the time to do art seriously. Since then I have won numerous awards in quilt and museum shows across the country and have been published in national quilt magazines and several books on art quilting. My work was also featured in the HBO documentary, “Until the Violence Stops,” which dealt with exposing and preventing violence against women around the world. I was also honored to win the Art Champion award in Mendocino County. I currently teach art quilting classes and retreats across the western US. I am open to any quilt guild, fabric store or group of individuals who want to put a class together. My current work has primarily moved from landscapes and “pretty pictures” to social, environmental and political commentary. I have discovered that through my art I have a voice, which is of primary importance to me at this time.

Sunny Franson

Literary Arts; Visual Arts: Painting; author, publisher, digital formatting including photos,

Sunny Franson Currently I live on a small walnut acreage where you feel connected to earth and surroundings. With degrees in wildlife biology and cultural anthropology, minors in language and music, and graduate work in ethnomusicology, I tend to see ecosystems, because that’s how nature works. This planet has so much beauty and intelligence, the scale is infinite and inspiration is a given. Adaptation, oil, 24x18x0.5, ©sfranson, $1300 Like everyone I continue to evolve as a person, for me in ecology, art, and writing. Time is a precious commodity as it is for everyone, and sometimes life and its pitfalls overtake you. Then you have to choose priorities carefully. It’s vital to remain committed because after all it’s your lifetime. See a video of some of my artwork at https://youtu.be/_GMKa3QYKwY Chicken society is part of The Secret Lives of Chickens or Tales from the Chickenyard and Beyond. My dad called the book he wrote when in his late 80’s Second Age. He had hoped to see it formatted and published, and it was an honor to do that for him. Dark Water is about healing from posttraumatic stress by Opal Rose. Reflections: A Modest Collection of Short Stories includes stories that are complete fiction although some include ecology. Every experience becomes a teacher and every painting, book, or woodland pool adds to that, but most of all, they underscore the importance of humility. Best not to put your moments off. Once they’re past, they’re gone forever. Never forget to be grateful and to share. Contact: sunny@pacific.net Webpages at pixels.com: https://pixels.com/profiles/sunny-franson/shop www.rootlets.com Web Gallery Representation: Personal http://www.rootlets.com Artists for Conservation Foundation http://gallery.artistsforconservation.org/artists/1334 Fine Art America https://pixels.com/artists/sunny+franson Professional Affiliations, Art Current member: Artists for Conservation http://www.artistsforconservation.org Current member: Oil Painters of America http://oilpaintersofamerica.com Current member: Lake County Arts Council http://lakearts.org/default.htm Current member: Gualala Arts Council http://gualalaarts.org Current member: Arts Council of Mendocino County http://www.artrsmendocino.org Art Exhibits, Galleries Main Street Gallery, 325 Main St, Lakeport, CA 707.263.6658, www.lakearts.org Dolphin, 39225 Hwy 1, Gualala, CA 95445 707.884.3896, http://gualalaarts.org/dolphin-gallery Gualala Arts, 46501 Old State Highway, Gualala, CA 95445 707.884.1138, http://www.gualalaarts.org Art Center, Corner Gallery, 201 South State St, Ukiah, CA 95482 707.462.1400, http://www.artcenterukiah.org Author, Publisher Books and ebooks are available online and at brick and mortar stores. More information and links are at http://www.rootlets.com The Secret Lives of Chickens by Sunny Franson www.rootlets.com/chickens/chickens.html Second Age, by Carl Franson www.rootlets.com/secondage/secondage.html Dark Water: Healing from Stress after Trauma, by Opal Rose www.darkwaterrippling.com Reflections, by Sunny Franson www.rootlets.com/reflections/reflections.html

Diza Hope

Visual Arts: Murals, Painting, Works on paper

Diza Hope is a Northern California painter working in oil, acrylic and pencil. She studied at California College of the Arts and draws inspiration mostly from natural forms. Lately she has been interested in investigating the architecture, rigidity and beauty of animal skulls juxtaposed against the delicate, undulating and graceful shapes found in flower petals. Besides the formal interest; the distillation of the skull becomes a symbol of our universality and basic oneness, being that we are all made of the same carbon, calcium and stardust and the flower, a symbol of our impermanence, but also the beauty we all have the capacity to create and share. Color plays an important role in her painting process as well and she enjoys pushing the boundaries between harmony and discord through her use of it.

Happy/L.A. Hyder

Performing Arts: Spoken Word; Visual Arts: Mixed Media, Photography

I am celebrating 48 years of making images. My desire to photograph began in the 1950s as I became aware of the power of photographic imagery (although I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time) through the Life magazines that came through our door weekly. A self-taught photographer, I count Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, and the myriad other pictorialists in Life’s pages, as my mentors. Shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1969 and two days after using a friend’s 35mm camera, I had my own Nikkormat with a 105mm (portrait) lens. At a camera store, I learned about film and how to load the camera. I joined the SF Photo Center, and, following their two-hour fundamentals in developing and printing class, was let loose in a darkroom. Within two years, I began working with a Hasselblad medium format camera (the negative is 2 ¼” square and there are 12 shots to a roll of film) with a 150mm lens (equivalent to the 105mm) and had my own darkroom. I grew to love the square format and credit the twelve shots per roll of film with the honing of my style of shooting – I spend much time setting up my shot, using my negative as a painter would her canvas, in order to print full frame. I walk away without shooting if my framing cannot achieve what first attracted me to look through the lens. I still credit those Life photographers for helping me hone my visual perspective. While the Hasselblad remains my most cherished tool, in 2009 I was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. I find the lightweight digital cameras I’ve been using feed my creativity. Able to carry one at all times, I am able to capture those images that earlier would only be captured in my mind since the heft of the Hasselblad meant I would only carry my camera when I was focused on photographing. With digital, I am also enjoying, and getting very interesting results, working with movement to produce abstract images. I also work with mixed-media assemblage, most often using my own images within the piece. Although taking more images using a digital format, I retain the habit of setting up shots with precision and printing my images full frame, and continue to retain a strict sensibility when choosing what to print. I also use an Epson 1400 printer and the immediacy of these digital tools is truly a wonder to my years of working in film, first in a darkroom during my 22 years working in b&w, and, with a switch to color exclusively in 1997, in having film developed and working with a professional printer.

Sanna Koski

Visual Arts: Painting

Painting and drawing have been a lifelong pursuit for me. I focused on realistic portrait drawing in black and white for many years, before deciding to dedicate myself to learning to paint landscapes and the figure from life in watercolor and oil. I also paint portraits of people as well as animals in both mediums. You can see more at my website: SannaKoski.com I show my artwork at the Prentice Gallery in Mendocino, and I welcome commissions.

Suzi Marquess Long

Visual Arts: Murals, Painting

Suzi Marquess Long, Artist, pastels, murals, commissions Suzi@mcn.org SuziLong.com

Jim Moorehead

Visual Arts: Photography

My artistic vision is best conveyed through the photographic image; the goal being that the image speaks directly to the viewer, preferably without the use of written or spoken language. Since childhood, I’ve looked at the world through a viewfinder, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally, trying to capture on film or digital memory, that image that best records my impression of a scene, experience, person, whatever. I’ve traveled extensively and like to think that I’ve collected a record of my life through the camera lens. Although the methods and equipment have changed radically from my first Brownie Hawkeye with its paper-encased roll film to the Canon digital SLR, my artistic skills are inherent, not tech dependent. The camera, software, printer, website are merely the tools used for expression of my art.

Performing Arts: Spoken Word, Storytelling, Vocal; Visual Arts: Film, Illustration, Murals, Painting, Performance Art, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

JAYE ALISON MOSCARIELLO, MFA, Transart Institute/Plymouth University Cell/Studio: 310.970.4517 artisall@earthlink.net www.chasethemonkey.org BORN New Haven, CT RESIDE Redwood Valley, CA SELECTED MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS 2007 “The Last Show,” Asto International Art Festival, Asto Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA “Simultaneous Multiplicity,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA Gwangwhamoon Int’l Art Festival, Korea National Assembly Library of Korea GIAF, Korean Cultural Center, Bejing, China 2006 “15th Lantern of the East LA International,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2002 “Mane Manebu,” Kid’s Plaza Museum, Osaka, Japan. 2000 “Bridging Two Milleniums,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India 1999 “Group Show,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India. Rutman, Howard, “What’s Up & Coming,” LA City Search.com, January 2002. Emenegger, Ashley, “How to Get Unstuck,” Artline Newsletter, Los Angeles, CA, Fall 2001. Etkin, Jay S., “Body & Self – A Hit in Memphis,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.7, num.2, Mar 2000. Lalit Kala Akademi, Catalog, I.A.S.G. Invitational, March 1999. Shaw, David, “1nE Review,” Memphis Flyer, Memphis, TN, December 1999. Shay, Daniel, “7th Street Int’l: Round Up the Usual Suspects,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.4, num.10, Washington, DC, December 1997. ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCIES 2006 – 2008 SEA, Montebello, CA Berendo Middle School, Los Angeles, CA La Vida West Pregnant Minor Program, Lawndale, CA Sponsored by Theatre of Hearts/Youth First, Los Angeles, CA PUBLIC ART 2008 Walgrove Elementary School – Courtyard Mural , Mar Vista, CA Hillcrest Elementary School – Outdoor Mural, Los Angelels,CA 2007 99th Street Elementary School, Library Mural, Los Angeles, CA 42nd Street Elementary School, Outdoor Mural, Los Angeles, CA ART WORKSHOPS 2000-2005 “Breaking Out”, Art Bootcamp for Blocked Creatives, Santa Monica, CA “One Minute Storytelling” Sister Corita Art Center, Los Angeles, CA “Sending a Message,” Sister Corita Art Center, LA, CA EDUCATION MFA, Transart Institute/Plymouth University, Berlin, Germany and Plymouth,UK

Gene Avery North

Visual Arts: Illustration, Painting

Leopard Woman and the Teachers ©2013, 30 x 48 Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Gene Avery North studied painting and photography with Burton Callicott and William Eggleston, respectively. She currently resides in the hill country of Northern California. Strongly influenced by the realism of the fifteenth century Flemish and Italian masters, Gene uses her technical capability, combined with spiritual symbolism, to create a very realistic dreamtime world. For Gene, the creative process begins with an impression, a fully developed image which is the inspiration itself. Little or nothing is done to change or interpret these original “ideas” or lucid dreams. The meaning of these symbols is up to the viewer. “One reason I paint is because I was unable to go to veterinary school, and the art school let me go there for free. Then I mostly painted for rich Texans, which left me indelibly outraged. Now that I am on some hard-won social security, I no longer have to do commissions of things that I would not do otherwise. Painting is the best way I know how to express myself, without using language. I talk way too much. I have always wanted to be a cartoonist, who could paint like Bronzino. Back in those days, if the powers that be did not like what you painted, you would be drawn and quartered by four laughing horsemen. I do not like to talk about art, because the personal reasons I have for painting, are completely irrelevant to the viewer. When I say my words about the paintings, they influence the people who read these placards. Sometimes when I go to a museum, I realize that I just spent more time reading the message than actually looking at the picture. And while it may be true that the meaning is what fascinates, I would wish that the paintings could just speak for themselves. For this reason, there are no cards for you to read about these paintings. Sometimes when you dream, or “see” something interesting, you would never dare to put it into words. There’s something very libelous about words in America, but happily, it’s still safe to be a “crazy artist”. There is no explanation for spending about 500-1,000 hours on each picture. Doing something with my hands, and focusing my attention on that, makes me stop thinking. Which is very quiet, and peaceful. I like to paint heroes and goddesses, with plenty of horses. I like to make graven images and pray to them while I paint them! I want the world to be happy. I am an artist because it prevents me from exploding.”

Micah Sanger

Visual Arts: Painting

Visionary Arts Gallery 45004 Albion St. #8, Mendocino At the Gallery paintings from my Traveling Museum Exhibit (https://www.perception4u.com/museumexhibit) are displayed along with the theoretical physicist quotes that accompany each painting. The exhibit is to encourage viewers to explore in depth the meaning of the words of these great insightful, intuitive physicists and to allow the paintings to lift them into new ways of looking upon their world, revealing its mystery and wonder. An enriching experience awaits the visitors to the Gallery who come with a curiosity and a wish to live life to its fullness and who know that there is much more going on here in this world than first meets the eye. New Video: “The Art of Theoretical Physics” FREE BOOK DOWNLOAD of “TOBE and the RIVER IS” In celebration of our courage and compassion during these times, and because, for many, it is also financially challenging, I would like to offer everyone a free download of my award-winning book https://www.perception4u.com/bookgift ____________________________________________________________ If You Feel Inspired to, please make a donation to the Arts Council of Mendocino County Explore with Tobe the power and wonder of the great River Is. Go on an adventure which is the discovery of yourself. Reviews: “Sanger has succeeded in writing the modern-day Siddhartha: an intricate tale of a deep spiritual journey, within and without. His artistic use of words and illustrations gently opens the door to truth and carries you to the living River; you will be hooked.” Joe Kittel, author of Spiritual Principles in Strategic Alliances and founder of SPiBR.org LLC. “Gorgeous phrasing, fully entrancing and sparkling with freshness. The author has a fine instinct for wowing the reader at the start, and throughout, with beautifully crafted sentences. Even better, the effect hides the effort. Nothing about this book seems forced which is what elevates it. And the wow factor of this book is masterfully-written. Beautiful visuals…engage our senses and place us in the scene. Well done. Stays with the reader.” Writer’s Digest Judge, 24th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards ____________________________________________________________ Biography I have been an active artist producing paintings since 1970 when I changed my major at Clemson University from engineering to art studio. That was when I discovered my true passion for art. I have been diligent and dedicated to my calling as an artist ever since. I continued my development as an artist when I apprenticed under the nationally known artist Richard Goetz in the early seventies for a brief time, followed by attending the University of Santa Barbara and Chico State University, CA, from 1980 to 1985. Plums – Unified Field, 7″ x 15″ mixed media In 1996 I pulled away from the gallery art scene to go deep into a contemplative life—a life of open-eyed meditation, studying the world 8 to 12 hours a day and often more for many days of the week while taking notes, making sketches, and developing paintings about what I was observing. Out of this exploration into perception and awareness, a rich new way of looking at my world and a new approach to painting arose. Besides objects becoming more alive and energetic in my perception, a sense of this world existing in a dimension, and what I call a “unified field” arose. These perceptions, I found, do not subtract from this physical experience but only add to its mystery and wonder. They also parallel, in many ways, the ideas of theoretical physics. Beyond Form to the Light, 56.5″ x 106″ mixed media I started working on an educational website, (www.perception4u.com) to pass on to others through the text and exercises the experiences and insights I was having. I used my paintings to give visual expression to the ideas I was relaying. Through the exercises on the website, I was attempting to open up to others their own revelations of deeper levels of perception. Over time a substantial number of paintings were created. I knew that one day they would be the source of future exhibits. Barn Jackson Hole, 54.5″ x 61″ mixed media As I watched people interfacing with the exercises of the website, I realized that some individuals needed a more emotional approach to exploring perception. So, in 2013 I began writing and illustrating my book, “Tō•bē and the River Is,” with the idea that through the life of the protagonist, people could experience new ways of looking at their world. The Dream of a World in a Holy Mind It is a whimsical fairytale full of living metaphor. The “River Is” is itself a metaphor for the matrix of the unified field that surrounds us. It was published in 2016 and has already won two Global eBook Awards, one for illustrations, The New Apple Book Award, followed by the prestigious Ben Franklin Award and the Nautilus Book Award. (The book website is www.4riveris.com ) Turtle Rock and Back View of Artist-Dimension, 28″ x 34″ In September of 2017, I started to exhibit my work publicly for the first time since 1996. It started with the Sausalito Art Festival, then the HarmonyUs Festival followed eventually in 2018 by the HarmonyUs Festival again and the Edgewater Gallery in Fort Bragg, California. Now my focus is on displaying my art as a cohesive whole in a traveling museum exhibit with the same purpose it shares with my website, my book, as well as my public speaking engagements—to inspire people to explore the life-enhancing nature of deeper levels of perception. It really is an exciting project of combining my paintings with the words of theoretical physicists to create a very powerful effect. I also mention in my museum proposal that I will give a presentation at a couple of the local high schools. Clear perception opens up a new and exciting world, creating a new enthusiasm towards living, something many of the students can use nowadays. FlatRock – Dimension III, 63″ x 82″ mixed media Visionary GALLERY OPEN DOOR HOURS Friday, Saturday, Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 11:00 to 5:00 11:00 to 5:00 And open by appointment. Please call number below. Open throughout the week for events and classes. Phone Numbers: Visionary Arts Spiritual Center Micah Sanger Sally Wells (505) 455-2867 (707) 357-3466

Serge Scherbatskoy

Graphic Arts; Visual Arts: Photography, Printmaking

Reclusive.

Lauren Sinnott

Visual Arts: Graphic Arts, Murals, Painting, Works on paper

See a detailed description about Lauren’s latest mural From Finland to Fort Bragg complete with photos & videos here. I am an artist, historian and former politician. www.historymural.com will show you how so many things in my life and work have recently come together in the perfect project: my monumental history mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center. But let’s back up a little. My diverse portfolio is partly the result of making a living through art in the modern world. Before photography was invented, everyone would want me to create their image. Now, it’s really only dogs that people commission portraits of. I even paid a vet bill once with a mural of dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, and mice. At Point Arena High School, I painted a face that gets walked on: the sports mascot, a 6 ft. grinning pirate on the floor of the basketball court. A local big wave surfer modeled. Art entwines with life… and also its loss. That surfer was part of my California family and I portrayed him as a life-size 3-dimensional winged angel after his death at sea. The lady who commissioned this work died recently and now the angel has come back to me. It all started in Wisconsin’s dairyland, where I was raised by an artist mother and poet father. My mom supported us on graphic design, and as a toddler I worked at a little table alongside her. Our house was filled with paintings and books. It was the Age of Aquarius and I knew I was supposed to be at Woodstock, but it was impossible. I was ten. I spent my senior year as an AFS exchange student in Belgium, speaking only French and learning to take class notes in perfect outline form. I discovered the art of conversation, four-hundred year old homes and good coffee. It was there that I began to feel the pull of an old culture living still where it had always been. Back from Belgium, I attended Rice University in wonderfully hot and humid Houston, TX. I earned a BA in Art and French, then a BFA in painting, and an MA in Art History. During graduate study, I encountered a work whose untold story began to open before me, becoming the subject of my thesis, The Double Portrait of Two Men in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And the story blossomed again with stunning new research on the part of several scholars, leading to my recent paper, Beloved Disciple: Vittore Belliniano and a Double Portrait of Two Men, which explores the possibility that the exalted Venetian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini and his head of studio were lovers. I taught art history for several years at the museum school, painted one of my most exquisite mural in a private bathroom, and became a single mother of two. But I yearned for the ocean! Not the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, which I had never even seen. And Northern California to be specific, because friends had told me “Your kind of people live there.” My boys and I left town in a converted school bus with a wood stove and beds. We found Point Arena located with its lighthouse on a jutting tip of land WEST of the San Andreas fault. This is the other California, where populations are dwarfed by the ridged landscape and pounding ocean. This is exactly what I was looking for, except I forgot that it was going to be impossible to get my PhD. The consolation prize was my life in politics as City Council member and then Mayor of one of only four incorporated cities in Mendocino County. Point Arena is the seventh tiniest city in California, which meant the city staff was small and overworked, and our jobs as elected officials were large and unending. On top of legislative activity, we also had the tasks of employee hiring, evaluating, and firing. It helped to have an eye for detail. It didn’t help to earn only $100 a month. (See more about fights and triumphs in city government and much more of my artwork on my main website www.artgoddess.com which will be sleek and modern by Christmas!) My boys and I lived in our bus in the fragrant manzanita forest for a year and when we moved to town I supported us with art and rent. I took jobs ranging from art cars to tombstone design, from wedding dresses to sewing a life-size brocade torso complete with all female reproductive parts for a doctor. I created the Velvet Vulva line of purses for the lesbian, feminist and enlightened market. I painted curbs and hemmed pants. Business signs and design services were a mainstay. I picked blackberries, ate wild mustard greens, baked my own bread, and gleaned apples from the ground. We took in a parade of roommates to make ends meet. My house was teeming with the boys and their friends, and was full of books and paintings. Recently my son who learned Mandarin and now lives in Taiwan paid me a compliment. He said, “Mom, I never knew we were poor.” And of course, in real terms, we weren’t. All of these experiences have caused me to reflect on the ultimate purpose of the artist and the historian. Art history is a jeweled necklace, a string of masterpieces threaded on inspiration from around the world. Yet art was made by, for, and about real people who led complex lives. A man who loved men and didn’t have wealth or a noble patron in 15th-century Venice could be burned alive in the Piazza San Marco. Ghosts walk in those grand cities and on the quiet streets of my own town, where no more than a century ago, it was permitted to shoot an Indian after dark. Forced servitude, kidnappings and massacres took place across California, including multiple occurrences here in Mendocino County. During the 1850s, the new state government’s official position was denial of rights and extermination was seen as inevitable. Depravity haunts exaltation, and the sacred charge of the historian is to give voice to the fallen, to shine light on the common and hidden, as well as the great. As a Renaissance painting mutely accomplishes merely by surviving, the historian keeps a subject alive with his published words, and the muralist with her imagery. I love the motto of Yale University: Lux et Veritas. Light and Truth – with one we find the other. My latest and largest project, the huge historical narrative mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, is the result of these threads interweaving. I could use all those hours of life drawing, all of that house painting, all my knowledge of narrative art through the centuries, and all my experience working with the public in administration. This is a public work for everyone and about everyone. It contains over two-hundred portraits and tells many stories of people who live here now. People can see why this art has meaning. They understand the argument I once presented to a dear friend over dinner: “You will be fascinated,” he was informed, looking doubtful as he questioned art history and the importance of such things. “History is to humanity as memory is to the individual,” I said. We are each of us walking backwards into the future. “Would you want to do that with your eyes shut?” My companion smiled, saw it was true, and ordered champagne, since he was about to hear what had been revealed by a Venetian inventory from 1569.* *That the great collection of Gabriele Vendramin included a little box portrait of Giovanni Bellini with the portrait of Vittore, his disciple, on its cover.

Catherine Vibert

Visual Arts: Photography

I’m an artist with a camera and a commercial photography business. I specialize in working with people to reveal their stories and capture imagery that promotes them and their work. While I’ve been a picture taker since I was 8, when I began using a digital camera in 2008 I excelled in skill and technical ability at a rapid rate due to an unstoppable addiction to learning my craft. That’s when I became a picture maker. I mentored with master photographers and took classes online and pretty much lived and breathed photography 24/7 in order to gain the technical skill and control to be able to pretty much realize any vision I wanted using my camera, lighting gear and sometimes Photoshop. Once I got past the technical stuff, it was time to figure out what I wanted to shoot. My love of working with people and of learning who they are leant me to choosing lifestyle and portraiture as a focus for my work. I specialize in telling people’s stories through dynamic and vivid imagery. Whether winemakers, artisans, executives or the lone wolf running a business from their cabin on the coast, everyone has a story. I reveal those stories through lifestyle photography and portraiture. My work is all about visualizing together with my subjects and playing together to make the images they need to promote themselves, their work and their brand. People use these images for websites, brochures, magazine and jury submissions, social media, and anywhere someone would need to be represented professionally and artfully. My college degree via Sonoma State University is in music and vocal performance. I have worked in the arts throughout my career as a performer, audio technician and through self expression in various artistic media. I chose to pursue photography after working many years as a sound designer and audio editor. My ears were not able to hear intricate tones anymore and I needed a different career path and had always been passionate as a photography hobbiest, so it was a natural choice. I worked as a journalist for a local newspaper near Asheville, NC, writing exposés and in depth articles with accompanying photos about local community members. I went freelance as a photographer in 2011 and after trying and failing to maintain interest in many genres, I found that commercial photography specializing in people, portraits, and what people do (lifestyle) was my passion — and I am very passionate about what I do and how it can help others reach their goals. I also enjoy and pursue landscape and still life photography when I don’t have my lens pointed at a person. As an educator, I teach Photoshop and Digital Photography, most recently at the Miami Ad School in San Francisco. I offer occasional workshops in basic photography and simple art captures and am available for one on one lessons.

Barbara Ware

Visual Arts: Mixed Media, Painting

I came to Potter Valley in 1973 and live quite remotely near the Eel River. My garden, the natural beauty of Mendocino County, and the plants and animals that surround me give me the majority of my inspiration. I work primarily with watercolor and acrylics and love experimenting with mixed media. I’m in love with my experience with color as I paint, the mingling and mixing of colors on the page. And I love the total engagement that absorbs my full concentration in the process of painting. It’s transforming!

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