We are thrilled to announce that the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild is joining us at Artists & Makers Studios. ‘The Potomac Fiber Arts Guild promotes excellence in design and fine craftsmanship in the fiber arts. It is especially interested in providing educational opportunities for its members and the general public to further their skills in, and appreciation of, the fiber arts.’

The Potomac Fiber Arts Guild was started in 1944 as the Potomac Craftsmen Guild by a small group of people in the Washington, DC area who liked to do handwork, especially weaving. For many years they met in one of the Smithsonian Institution buildings where one of the members was employed.

With more than 70 years as a premier fiber arts guild, we have grown to nearly 400 members. Our interests have built upon and expanded beyond weaving to include a wide range of fiber art, such as lace making, embroidery, spinning, knotting, knitting, crocheting, felting, quilting, dyeing, paper making, and stitching and surface design of all types.

Our guild’s mission is:

• To widen knowledge of the fiber arts and increase the number of techniques known.
• To investigate and study the fiber art made in our own and other lands.
• To improve our membership’s creativity, methods and techniques.
• To gain inspiration from one another by sharing our experiences.
• To promote the use of quality hand-made fiber art in our vicinity.

Membership information can be found here.

Quilt by Marilyn Harrington

Born in Memphis, TN and moving to Williamsburg, VA at the age of 5, I was always considered a creative child. Always in my room drawing, building, writing stories, singing my own songs, but somewhere along the way I received the message from people around me. That my future didn’t lie in art and I should make other plans. So I spent my adolescence slowly drifting away from my creative nature, eventually graduating from Christopher Newport University with a Bachelors degree in Philosophy, and sought out a “normal” career path like any college graduate should have.

After bouncing around from job to job, I found myself into the construction world as an estimator, sales representative, project manager, and eventually, a general manager. Along the way I would draw and doodle while at the office, occasionally drafting the odd architectural illustration here or there, but I otherwise still disconnected from my artistic nature. That was until 2019.

The quarantines that accompanied COVID-19 served as a type of crucible that forced me to find outlets to express my feelings of worry, uncertainty, and sadness borne from isolation. It was while at home that I decided to start experimenting with painting, drawing, collage, etc – any other medium that excited my long dormant creative spirit.

My paintings developed into mixed media work, using spray paint, acrylic and oil paint, paint markers, duct tape, cut out scraps from magazines and books, as well as anything that I could find at the local hardware store to use in an unexpected way in my work. Finding initial success in the summer of 2022 with having (2) two original works selected to be displayed inside FedEx Field – home of the Washington Commanders – I began to believe that contrary to the childhood message I wrongly held onto for nearly 40 years, my future could actually lie in the arts.

In 2022, through some quite unexpected circumstances, I lost my job at the construction company I was General Manager of and after much discussion with my wife, Wendy McAlister, decided to form “McAlister Creative” and see just how far my creative and artistic talents could take me. Since then, I have done everything from handyman work, bar-tend, and assemble IKEA furniture for money – anything to keep the dream alive. However, more importantly, I’ve steadily grown my portfolio to include several murals, commissioned art pieces for private homes and office, customized shoes, customized guitars, graphic design for clothing company, and even labels for a local brewery.

I currently live in Kensington, MD with my wife of 18 years, Wendy McAlister and my three amazing boys Malachi (16), Silas (14), and Canaan (11).

Instagram: @mark_mcalister and @mcalister_creative

Phone: 202-309-3245

Website: www.TheMcAlisterCreative.com

Etsy: www.TheMcAlisterCreative.Etsy.com

Barry D. Lindley is particularly known for the strength and vigor of his paintings, as well as his expressive realism in landscape, waterscape, and cityscape and the agility and fluidity of his sketching on location around the world. Recent work emphasizes interpretations drawn from around the DC area and the Arkansas countryside, and from his travels, in places such as Alaska, Paris, Vietnam, the Caribbean, Mallorca, South America, and South Africa. He is a juried member of Washington Society of Landscape Painters, a Signature Member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, Potomac Valley Watercolorists, and Mid-Southern Watercolorists and of the Institut des Arts Figuratifs, and is a founding member of AquaFolio International Group, with whom he has exhibited in Canada and Greece.  He is a regular Contributing Writer for the Canadian publication Watercolour Gazette, taught courses at BlackRock Center for the Arts and Eureka Springs School of the Arts, and presents lectures and workshops to artists’ groups. He has paintings in over 300 private collections and many corporate or public collections in 27 states and 7 foreign countries and has won numerous awards.

 “I travel widely and draw incessantly.  An avid birder, fisherman, hiker, and traveler, I am fascinated with the world around me and driven to express that experience. My art reflects my interest in the sensuous qualities of paint, paper and canvas, abstract design with concrete references to nature, and making paintings as a link to shared experience.  In all cases I begin with direct observations, on-site analysis, and – when possible – sketches, although I sometimes use my own reference photographs in making studio paintings.  In style, my paintings are largely interpretative, or expressive realism.  I choose medium, character of brush work, compositional emphasis, and color relationships to represent how I looked at the subject, how I felt about it, and what I want you to experience as well.”

His most recent major solo exhibition was at The Art League Gallery in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA.

In addition to scientific degrees from DePauw University and Case Western Reserve University, he studied drawing at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis and painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he also served as Visiting Lecturer of Medical Illustration.  As a painter, he has participated in workshops but is primarily self-taught from active practice, visits to the great galleries of the world, and books.   Now a resident of Rockville, MD, he lived and worked for many years in Indiana, Ohio and Arkansas. A full-time artist after a distinguished career as a scientist and educator, he paints on location and in a studio in Rockville.

BarryLindleyArt.com

Seema Reza is the author of A Constellation of Half-Lives & When the World Breaks Open. 

Based in Maryland, she has led writing workshops within correctional facilities, military and civilian hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, and universities. She is the CEO of Community Building Art Works, a unique arts organization that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. Reza’s work with veterans is featured in the 2018 HBO documentary We Are Not Done Yet. She was awarded the Col John Gioia Patriot Award by the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore for her work with service members. An alumnus of Goddard College and VONA, she has had writing online and in print in McSweeney’s, The LA Review, The Feminist Wire, The Offing, and Entropy among others. Case studies from her work with military populations have appeared in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans. She has performed across the country at universities, theaters, festivals, bookstores, conferences, & one fine mattress shop.  

Writing. Reading. Educating.

Poetry

SeemaReza.com

Lauren Cook’s artwork is informed by her rural midwestern heritage, her deep appreciation of nature, an insatiable curiosity about diverse human cultures both ancient and contemporary, and how these interests converge as the world deals with environmental and civil sustainability. As an artist, she revels in finding the creative flow and interplay between these themes as expressed in her paintings and experimentations with materials in 2D and 3D forms. Her creative life is also strongly influenced by her work as an arts activist and educator, and in particular by the exchanges of teaching and learning she experiences with her inspiring students and colleagues. Her art is exhibited in group and solo shows.  For more information on her art visit laurencook.com.

In addition to her personal work as an artist, Cook teaches visual arts including Advanced Placement Art and Design at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. She also offers private art instruction, small group Summer Studio Sessions and custom Studio Nites events from her personal studio in Chevy Chase, Maryland as well as online.   She is a committed arts activist and currently serves as chair of the board of the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Maryland. Cook has experience with independent curation, K-12 and collegiate level curricula and teacher training, serves as a jurist for competitive exhibitions and awards, and presents at regional and national conferences.

Cook holds a Master of Art in Art Education from Maryland Institute College of Art, a Master of Business Administration, Management of Science and Technology from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Philosophy from Grand Valley University.  Cook is a member of the International Society for Education through Art, the National Art Education Association, the Maryland Art Education Association, the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, the Maryland Federation of Art, Artists and Makers Studios, Montgomery Art Association and presents at regional and national conferences.  

LaurenCook.com

As a mixed media resin artist, I am compelled to create works that are functional and/or decorative. Influenced by colors and textures from living in various parts of the country continually satisfies my ongoing desire to share my work and relish in the emotion it evokes from others. Working in this medium has taught me to relinquish control and discover the pleasure of new effects. Continuous exploration leads me down a path of never-ending design resulting in unique one of a kind works.

cell 773.490.4913
www.resinroxx.com
@resinroxx

Pinterest: resinroxx
TikTok: resinroxx
Facebook: resinroxx

As a little boy Bill Johnson always answered the question “what do you want to be when you grow up” with a very quick “an Artist”! As a senior in high school he was presented with the school’s art award. He went on to major in art in college. Two separate advisors told him he was wasting his money on an art degree. The logic was that you are either an artist or not and the only time a degree in art would be needed would be to teach or as a commercial artist. Not having money, he took the advice and dropped out. He did stay in school as a model for figure drawing classes. In this role he became a peer with the instructors and was able to have his work reviewed and get advice while being paid. Bill spent most of his life working with plants. At age 9 his family lived on a farm and he learned about vegetable gardening. At the time he did not know it was organic gardening, but it did shape his thinking about working with nature. Moving to Washington D.C. He spent 7 years working as a cook. He then worked as a staff horticulturist at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. After retiring from Hillwood in 2016 he finally grew up and is enjoying life as an artist.

BillJohnsonArt.com

Summary of Juried Exhibitions and Awards
Solo Shows
• Fall 2022: Parade Project, Abington Art Center (Jenkintown, PA)
• Spring 2023: Parade Project, Links Bridge Vineyard (Thurmont, MD)
• Spring 2023: City Color, Lyceum Gallery (Sandy Spring, MD)
2023 – Selected Group Shows
• Director’s Choice, 32nd Annual International Juried Exhibition, Viridian Artists (New York, NY)
• 31st Annual Strathmore Juried Exhibition: Play, Mansion at Strathmore (North Bethesda, MD)
• Color Love, Falls Church Art Gallery (Falls Church, VA)
• Texture, Falls Church Art Gallery (Falls Church, VA)
• Scaled Down for Spring, Wheaton Arts Parade Gallery (Wheaton, MD)
• Frames within Frames, Praxis Photo Arts Center (St. Paul, MN)
2022 – Selected Group Shows
• Life in the Pandemic and Black and White, Blank Wall Gallery (Athens, Greece)
• 5
th Chania International Photo Festival (Chania, Greece)
• Urban Landscapes and Nowhere Far, Glasgow Gallery of Photography (Glasgow, Scotland)
• Art to Art, Viewpoint Photographic Art Center (Sacramento, CA)
• Black and White: 2022, Black Box Gallery (Portland, OR)
• PhotoSpiva 2022, Spiva Center for the Arts (Joplin, MO) – Third Prize
• The Streets and Words, Words, Words, Praxis Gallery (Minneapolis, MN)
• Hill Center Gallery and Capitol Hill Art League Juried Exhibition 2022 (Washington, DC)
• Washington Gardener Annual Photo Contest 2022 (DC) – First Prize, Vignettes
• 51st Annual Labor Day Art Show, Glen Echo Partnership for Arts and Culture (Glen Echo, MD)
• Celebration, Wheaton Arts Parade Gallery (Wheaton, MD)
• Fall Salon, Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA)
• Phillips’ Mill Photographic Exhibition, Gallery at the Mill (New Hope, PA)
• International Photography Exhibit by the New Jersey Photography Forum, Watchung Arts Center
(Watchung, NJ)
• SHIM Art Network and Bushwick Darkroom Show, Atlantic Gallery (New York, NY)
• 8th International Call for Entries and Black and White and All the Grays Between, Rhode Island
Center for Photographic Arts (Providence, RI)
2021
• Street Photography and Cityscapes, Blank Wall Gallery (Athens, Greece)
• The Birds, Mpls Photo Center (Minneapolis, MN)
• Hot Summer City: Street Photography Exhibition, Vestige Concept Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Click! Photography Festival Outdoor Exhibition (Raleigh, NC)
• 7
th Annual Allegany National Photography Competition & Exhibition, Allegany Arts Council
(Cumberland, MD)
• Hindsight is 2020: Street Photography in a Tumultuous Year and Official/Unofficial: Photographs
of Washington DC, Photoworks at Glen Echo Park (MD)
• 15th Annual Contest, Exposed DC (DC)
• Washington Gardener Annual Photo Contest 2021 (DC)
• All Together Now, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts (Providence, RI)
Affiliations
• Board Member, Exposed DC
• Member, Silver Spring Camera Club
• Member, Close to Home Photo Salon
• Member, Wheaton Arts Parade Gallery
• Member, Falls Church Art Gallery
• Contributing Photographer, Sandy Spring Museum
Education
• PhD, Indiana University (Bloomington)
• MA, Indiana University (Bloomington)
• BA, Michigan State University (East Lansing)

Kim Keller
kllrkmbrly@yahoo.com
917-463-9326

Images Lost and Found – A Photo Website

Cindy Rivarde is an artist living and working in the Maryland Capital Region.  Her work focuses on connections and resonance in response to a sense of place and time both with landscape and figurative subject matter.  Early in her career, she worked as a scenic artist in the theater, which helps to inform a sense of drama and tension in her work. 

Email:  cindy@cindyrivarde.com

Website:  www.cindyrivarde.com

IG:  @cindyrivardeart

Phone:  305-903-9112

Elizabeth Matthews is an oil painter working in the New Romanticism style using dramatic landscape as a metaphor and setting to confront challenging life experiences. Matthews lives and works in the Washington, DC metro area with a studio in Bethesda, MD. She was born in Salt Lake City and taught art in the Utah school system for ten years. Her education includes an M.Ed. in teaching and learning from Utah State University; and a BFA from Brigham Young University in painting and drawing; a K-12 teaching certification and a gifted and talented endorsement. 

Her work is currently included in the Potomac River Life exhibit at the Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA. She has work in the respected art collection of Salt Lake Community College and her work has recently been recognized with two honorable mention awards at The Art League Gallery in Alexandria, VA (2022); “Painting of  Exceptional Merit” artist award from Rehoboth Art League (2022 & 2021); and an FY21 EMGRR artist award from Arts Fairfax (2020). Other distinctions include solo exhibits at Bountiful Davis Art Center (2020) and Finch Lane Gallery (2019); and painting awards at Utah Valley University’s Woodbury Gallery (2020) and the Springville Museum of Art (2017).

ElizabethMatthewsArt.com

Originally from Pretoria, South Africa, I lived and worked in Cape Town from 1995-2022. I recently relocated to Maryland and have joined Artists & Makers Studios.

I hold a BA Visual Arts (2010) and an associate’s degree in journalism. Additionally, I have pursued continuing education and training, including mentorship, community arts facilitation and volunteering.

My work has encompassed oils, acrylics and watercolors, pastels, ceramic sculpture, linocut printing and collage, and often incorporated embroidery and knitting. My thematic/conceptual interests concern the complexities of the human condition and the role of duality in our social and psychological worlds.

I have participated in several group exhibitions over the years including at Beit Berl, Israel (1982), the Natal Society of Arts, the AVA and Ruth Prowse Art School (1990’s), the Innovative Threads Exhibition at Artspace Durban (2007), and the ‘Mi’Story Exhibition at the Jean Welz Gallery in Worcester. In 2012 my work, ‘Hestia’s Lament’ was a finalist in the prestigious Vuleka competition, in 2013 ‘Emancipation 11’ appeared in the Sasol New Signatures finals. In 2014 I had two works, ’Urban Palimpsest’ and ‘Mirage’ in the finals of the Vuleka competition and in 2015 I won first place with ‘Undergrowth’. Most recently, my work appeared in “Paper” at Glen Carlou gallery in 2021 and Edg Gallery – an online exhibition in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ingeb-art.com

Helen Hanssen is a maker and craft person interested in hand-tool woodworking. Influenced by the work she did working in historic preservation and graphic design, Ms. Hanssen became enamored of traditional joinery methods and 18th century hand tools. Shaping wood with antique hand tools allows for her to bring all her passions together, including her background in Japanese art and design. Through the use of hand tools, she embraces the physical demands of ripping, crosscutting, and re-sawing timber after the furniture parts have been carefully laid out.

Ms. Hanssen finds using antique hand-tools in her workshop a satisfying experience and enjoys restoring vintage tools— many of which started out as rusted metal or dried up wood. A number of her hand planes date from the early1800s to 1960s and required some degree of tuning and refining. She believes working with hand tools isn’t all about creating an end product but rather the pleasure in the journey such as feeling the bite of a sharp chisel or driving a tenon home with one final tap.

Wanting to set up a small apartment workshop, many of Ms. Hanssen’s early projects were “shop furniture” designed by Christopher Schwarz at the Lost Art Press, such as the Dutch tool chest, a Japanese tool box, a saw bench, and a Roubo-tyle workbench. For a beginner, these projects act as a deep learning primer for hand-tool woodworking. From this hand-tool foundation, Ms. Hanssen started attending multiple woodworking classes taught by Aspen Golann (Bench brush, Windsor Chair, and pencil-making) at the Florida School of Woodworking in Tampa, Florida.

Recently retired from her position with the federal government, Ms. Hanssen is now embarking on her hand-tool woodworking adventure full-time.

Education

Helen Hanssen grew up in Maryland and received her BA in East Asian Studies with an emphasis on Japanese art history from the University of Maryland, College Park. She later studied graphic and web design at the Corcoran College of Art + Design and fine art B&W photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Ms. Hanssen had a gratifying 39-year career working for the federal government in Washington, DC as a web and graphic designer.

Helen Hanssen Woodworks

Art is Biography

Dorothy McDonough McGeorge

Dorothy McGeorge has most recently returned to the Washington area. Her paintings over the years have chronicled her surroundings from the open plains of Nebraska, the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the urban cityscapes of Montreal, Quebec and most recently the Southwest in New Mexico.

Her undergraduate degree in Fine Art is from Saint Mary’s College of Maryland where she studied with Baltimore realists Earl Hoffman and Tom Rowe. She earned her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska in 1993, where she studied with James Eisentrager and Karen Kunc.

In her thesis, “Monumental Images of the Midwest,” she used Dynamic Symmetry, a classical approach to organizing the picture plane into segments to compel the viewer to share the whole of the image through its parts. The idea of perfect proportions found in nature, supported by mathematical principals, has a direct influence on her work. The University of Nebraska had an impressive staff of highly regarded, regionally and nationally know artists, including painters Dan Howard, James Eisentrager and keith Jacobshagen and printmaker Karen Kunc.

She worked mostly with James Eisentrager who believed strongly in the gestalt principle that we perceive visual data in organized or configured terms and Dynamic Symmetry, a term presented in the 1920s by art theorist Jay Hambridge. These principles can be seen not only in the work of impressionist and post impressionists, but in more contemporary and sometimes abstract work of artists like Richard Diebenkorn and Willem de Kooning.

After receiving her masters, she became an artist with the Hayden Galley in Lincoln, Nebraska which was associated with the Sheldon Memorial Museum of Art. The subject of her work shifted from grain elevators (monumental midwestern images) to smaller local architectural images and familiar city and industrial scenes. When she moved to Washington, D.C. area in1995 she continued supplying the gallery with paintings of Lincoln with local structures until 2005

In 2005 she moved to Montreal Quebec. There she worked from her studio in the Complex du Canal Lachine, in St. Henry. Her work was of the City of Montreal, cityscapes of structures that reflected the character of the place through perspectives that transformed the colors and shapes of surfaces through direct sunlight and shadow. Her work shown mostly there at Espace D’ Art du Canal.

In 2011, she moved to New Mexico, there she chose to paint structures along historic Route 66 which were starting to disappear from the landscape. She showed he work in three different galleries there, the Old Schoolhouse Gallery, the Watermelon Gallery and the Gallery at 400 in Old Town.

Sandra Pérez-Ramos is a Puerto Rican artist and community art leader working in the DC/MD area. Inspired by Design from the 1950’s – 70’s, global folk arts and textiles, she invents colorful, whimsical narratives that explore fantasy or mystical and natural connections. Her intention is to create uplifting works that encourage healing, inspire connection and celebrate diverse cultures. Her body of work includes drawings, public art, murals, mixed media, fiber arts and digital, NFT art.

Her works have received numerous awards, including the Maryland State Arts Council 2022 Project Implementation Grant for her public art design “The Gathering Tree” for the Glenmont Forest Neighborhood Park, in collaboration with artist S. Diekmeyer. Her sculpture for the National Cherry Blossom Festival 2021 was acquired by the Children’s National Hospital in DC, for its permanent, public collection. In 2020, she designed the commemorative poster for Hispanic Heritage Month for M-NCPPC PG Parks and Recreation and her work “Sun Fades, Moon Rises” is part of PG County’s permanent collection. Her drawings were acquired by The Marie Reed Project for Community Of Hope in DC, by Mayor Tracey Furman, for the Kensington Town Hall in MD and by Artists & Makers Studios, arts center in Rockville, MD. Her murals for the Wheaton Gateway Project, Pike District Connector and AHCMC #Art HappensHere are currently in Wheaton, Bethesda and Silver Spring. She served in multiple leadership roles in local art co-ops and non profit  organizations, including Wheaton Arts Parade, former The Latino Art League of Greater Washington, DC and Montgomery Art Association.

Websites:
www.sandraperezramos.com

https://opensea.io/collection/festive-masks

Social media:
IG:  @art.sandraperezramos

FB: www.facebook.com/art.sandraperezramos

E-mail: sandraperezramos@hotmail.com

PH: (301)300-2343

I am a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory with a major in flute performance. I worked as a freelance classical musician for over 35 years. As a sewist and maker, I was mainly taught by my grandmother and mother, and of course, self-learning. I create purses, cross-body bags, notebooks, instrument covers and handmade accessories for musicians using colorful textiles, and accessories for creatives!

I come from an artistic family. My mother is a retired art teacher and printmaker. My daughter is also an art teacher, as well as a jewelry artist. Wellfleet Dunes, my senior thesis show, at the University of Central Arkansas, was awarded the College of Arts and Communication’s, “Outstanding Art Exhibition of the Year.”  I have participated in group shows in the Black Box Gallery and the Baum Gallery of Fine Art at the University of Central Arkansas, as well as at the Cove Gallery in Wellfleet, MA. Born in Bridgeport, CT, I have lived in Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Greece and Brazil. I received a BA from Boston University and earned a BFA from the University of Central Arkansas. I currently live and work in the Washington, DC area.

I am a process-oriented artist and constant experimentation leads me to exciting discoveries. My process embodies the predominantly intuitive and responsive way that I make art. When I work, I make choices as I go based on both intuition and thoughtful consideration. I am an “accidental artist” in the sense that I am most excited by the creative challenge of responding to the visual imagery that presents itself to me. Constant experimentation leads me to exciting discoveries.

I work mostly with various media on paper (monotype and digital prints, drawing, watercolor) to create works that I cut and manipulate in an obsessive and ritualistic way. I end up with hundreds of pieces which I organize and hang on walls, creating site-specific relief installations that grow organically across space.