Artists & Makers Studios

With silk as her canvas, Phyllis Gordon creates hand painted, one of a kind scarves, scrolls and framed art. 

Working mostly from her own photographs, combining her love for color and fabric, Phyllis finds silk painting addictive and exciting.  The lustrous silk brings an added dimension that goes beyond paper or canvas.

Phyllis studied drawing, oil painting and watercolor for many years before turning her focus in 1996 to painting on silk – a most unpredictable canvas.  

She has studied with nationally respected silk artists Susan Louise Moyer, Karen Sistek, Natasha Foucault, Suzanne Punch and others at numerous conferences and workshops and has exhibited in juried venues and galleries in the North East and Mid-Atlantic.  Phyllis was juried into the Silk Painters International exhibit, “Asian Art, Botanicals on Silk” at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, DC.  

After many years in Massachusetts, Phyllis and her husband retired to Maryland in 2011, where she continues to explore her art while enjoying time with her family and grandchildren.

Phyllis Gordon 

designsonsilk@me.com 

designsonsilk.com 

In the three decades that I have been maintaining a studio and making serious art, I have found myself doing many different things in many different media.  But as my studios have become smaller, I find that space is a powerful informer of the things artists make. 

Natural processes of development and changes in interests (themes) are the other main vehicles of change.  I am, like the proverbial caterpillar/butterfly, transforming once again.

I will be working on smaller paintings, but still on modular drawings.  I have always been a figurative artist; I will continue with the figure.  I am sometimes driven by “global politics”.    If and when I need to respond to that, I will do so.

Several years ago, I started confronting the aging process.  For my 65th birthday, I started working on a series of 65 self-portraits.  I suspect that work will be at least part of my continuing focus.

I am showing four very different images.  The first two I deem political: “Cain and Abel: The Assassination of Rabin”, from 1996, and an installation in response to 2001 called “When Mothers are Missiles and Babies are Bombs”.  The others are later portraits:  a self-portrait called:  “Katherine the Great” and a very recent drawing called “Now/Then”.

If you don’t see me working in the studio five days a week, it will be because of my other “art”,  illustrating children’s books, which I do in a home studio.  With over 50 published books, and two presently in the works, there are sometimes deadlines that keep me focused there.

www.katherinejanuskahn.com

Richard Svec worked for five decades in the Graphic Arts industry.  After retirement, an affinity for fine arts, in particular the Impressionists, began to emerge.  That matured into his own interest in learning how to draw and paint.

For the past four years, Svec has studied with numerous local artists.  In 2013, he began a three-year certificate program offered by The Compass Atelier.  His work has improved greatly and he is now at a point where he is taking his “second career” more seriously.

In his new space at Artists & Makers Studios, Richard continues his artistic study at The Compass Atelier, and looks forward to honing his artistic voice.

svecart.com

I believe an artist is a kind of magician, bringing the unseen into the tangible world. With a bit of color, piece of paper, canvas, brush, pencil or scissors, there are ways to transport the viewer somewhere else. The creation is born solely in the mind, the eye, and the hands of the artist. As an artist, my goal is to capture the emotional energy of the environment surrounding us. Portraying the atmosphere and movement of a scene through color, light and shadow engages the viewer in the artistic experience itself. 

My main love is capturing the beauty of the natural world but cityscapes and man-made places also fascinate me. I enjoy working in different mediums. I use watercolors, acrylics and fiber to create my art.

Currently, I am studying oil painting in the Master Artist Program at The Compass Atelier at Artists and Makers Studios in Rockville, MD.

maralynalpertfineart.com

Johnnie Gins works in silver, gold and copper to create wearable art from jewelry to metal purses, mezzuzahs and playful tableware. She collaborates with glassmakers and other artisans to add more color, depth and texture to her pieces. Her objective is to capture small shifts in the landscape that occur on a daily basis. Her solid craftsmanship and unique designs make her work instantaneously recognizable.

Leslie Kraff was born with a crayon in her hand and an insatiable desire to observe and record everything she saw. 

“Everyday life is riveting to me.  I feel it is important to be aware of the daily vignettes that weave their threads throughout the fabric of our lives.  They become a large part of our life stories. When I put a frame on a painting, it is as if that instant is forever bracketed.  No other moment will be exactly like it.”

Leslie has had several other careers including stints as a high school French teacher and a clinical social worker.  Her journey continues with paint, winning ribbons along the way. 

Leslie’s current work explores mood, color and form as expressed in the natural world.

LeslieKraffStudio.com

Norma Schwartz, born in Argentina a few months before the end of World War II, began practice as a psychoanalyst, started a family and was involved in social and political issues during a harsh dictatorship. 

She emigrated to Spain, where the hope for a new democratic era was starting to emerge.  Norma moved to the United States in the mid ’80s, and found the opportunity to pursue a new passion: sculpting. 

As a sculptor, learning the techniques, exploring new materials, creating new forms of inhabiting a three-dimensional space, and the importance of light gave her the opportunity to express what would otherwise be impossible to express in a different way.  

In sculpting she found a new language to talk about her thoughts and feeling, where each of her works are an attempt to say something through an abstract language and each of them has the background of her own life.

norma.schwartz@verizon.net

301-762-3696

Jody Sachs draws on her love for nature and science, inspired by nature and beauty in the simplest forms.  From leaves and trees, plants and insects to water and underwater life forms, Jody forms silver and gold by hand, transforming them into literally “precious” objects with a particular regard for the interaction of their shapes to make earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

SialorsDesign.com