Explorations: Textures and Patterns in Nature 

Easels Nine is a group of artists that started meeting via ZOOM after the beginning of the Pandemic in 2020. The original intent of the group was to find a way to communicate as artists while avoiding the risks of face-to-face social interaction. Each week they shared art with one another. Dynamic critiques over two years became richer as did the work that the artists were producing, creating a diverse body of work. 

A unifying factor revealed a love of nature and how each artist interprets the beauty and energy in patterns and textures that nature provides. This theme explores the many ways that the artists see the world with their individual artistic expressions. The goal of our proposal is to present the viewers with an opportunity to experience nature through many different lenses.

Lynn Anderson
The landscape has become my passion for all-season plein air painting visiting the Michigan lakeshore, ponds and nature preserves. I paint in the loose impressionist style, paying close attention to the color notes found in the shadows, while emphasizing the texture of natural habitats and the embedded, seasonal colors that continually change over the course of hours, days, weeks and months — eliciting an emotional response for both me and my viewers.

Elaine Dalcher
Passionate about the beauty of the land, I use a close-up, immersive perspective, strong, bold color and energetic brushwork to invite the viewer into my paintings and to offer a fresh, intimate vision of the familiar.  This body of work explores the Patterns and Textures found in nature - a recurring theme that connects my on-site landscape paintings, my recent 'Thicket' series and my newest Industrial Landscapes. These newest paintings are informed by the need to find meaning and relevance in the resilience and fragility of nature, even as she is threatened by human encroachment.

Susan Ellison
I am a lifelong artist whose mediums have recently been either graphite or oil paint with a primary focus on landscape ranging from traditional natural landscapes to urban and industrial themes interpreted in a loosely representational manner.  Being a perpetual observer of the world around me provides me with abundant inspiration and I hope that the connection I feel with my subjects resonates with viewers of my artwork.

Kathleen Kalinowski
As a contemporary impressionist painter, the inspiration and concepts which inform my work stem from the many years of painting outdoors en plein air.  I interpret the poetry of the landscape around me by observation and memory, articulating the  nuances of mood and movement that I find in nature.

Debra Reid Jenkins
The influence of Asian art, curiosity and my training in formal portraiture are the underlying backbone of my art whether I am working in realism or abstraction I use different visual languages to tell the same story. Working with oil and cold wax, the patterns and textures I observe in nature have become a strong design element in the creation of movement in my paintings with the goal that the viewer will experience the feeling of ‘being there’ rather than looking at an object on the wall.

Karen VanDam Michmerhuizen
It all began with a new box of Crayolas, followed by the enjoyment of experimenting with watercolor, oil, cold wax, and always pursuing the next idea.  My go to subjects usually are the everyday and ordinary beauty we too often overlook.

Joy Richmond
Through using various mediums of oils, pastels, and watercolors my artwork evolves from our surroundings. My paintings can be landscapes, still lives, or portraits all of which I try to find the extraordinary in the ordinary so that the viewers can experience and see the visual  beauty that is all around us.

Barbara Schilling
My art journey has taken me in many different directions throughout my life, but currently I am feeling a strong influence from contemporary Russian Impressionism. I am very excited about doing more with textures, vivid colors and bold brushwork. I consider my work to be more about creating an energy than a strict representation of the subject, and feel that it combines a mix of realism, Impressionism and expressionism.”

Judith Tummino
I paint from observation in order to capture the essence of the motif, whether still life, landscape, or figurative, in order to freeze a moment in time which will never be the same again. By manipulation of the media, oil, pastel, gouache or casein, I work with the changes in the light, shape, value and color hoping to create a mystery which will move the viewer to connect with my work and perhaps experience a peaceful feeling in an ever-changing world.

Sister Scripts

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The intent of our exhibition is to give voice to women through images and words. We are interested in the scripts or messages that drive us or hold us back, language that comes from within and without, language we’ve absorbed from intimate relationships, the media, and culture. Our pieces explore our own struggles and triumphs and discover how we often overcome them through our work along with the support of like-minded artists, mentors, family, and friends.

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Mary Jane Pories

​Mary Jane Pories is an award-winning improvisational artist, teacher, performer, and entrepreneur. Her work reflects her improvisational approach to the world around her. Mary Jane holds a BA in Art and English and was Art Director/Graphic Designer for a small magazine before earning an MA in Teaching. She taught art in high school, design thinking at Kendall College of Art and Design, and studied painting at Bennington College and Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work is in private collections and has been exhibited in juried shows throughout the region. Mary Jane is an active member of Grand Valley Artists and lives with her wife and Tonkinese cat in Grand Rapids, MI. 

Sri Soekarmoen McCarthy

Sri Soekarmoen McCarthy, also known to her friends and family as OETJOEN, is a Javanese born artist who recites in Wyoming, MI.  Her cheerful personality and multicultural background are reflected throughout her work. She is fearless and finds joy in experimenting with new methods and collaborating with other artists. McCarthy (Oetjoen) has created poignant, charming and sometimes whimsical works of art.

Save What We Found

Save What We Found features five women artists from Michigan whose work explores careful observation of passages of time. Each artist is a collector—sensitively documenting daily experiences through gestures embedded in clay, in diaristic photos, altering objects from Midwest landscapes, and reflecting on memories through evocative mark and color. By responding to current environments and through contemplative musings expressed through a variety of media and voices, the work creates a dialogue between stillness and movement, yearning and reverence, time and memory.

Amanda Acker

Amanda Acker is a self-taught artist living and working in the lakeside village of Onekama, Michigan. Blurring the line between her personal narrative and surrounding environment, her work explores what it means to be a human moving through the natural world.

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Elizabeth Barick Fall

Elizabeth Barick Fall is a mixed media and installation artist and photographer from Michigan whose work is fueled by her passion for nature and the environment and deep concern for social justice. Through her sensitively crafted objects, she provokes, connects, and communicates with the viewer. While exploring societal questions, her work remains intuitive and personal, reflecting her life as a maker, a woman, and a Midwesterner.

Rebecca Casement

Rebecca Casement is a multimedia visual artist that creates affective abstract sculptures and installations using ceramics, mixed media, sound, and textiles. Her work beautifully calls to attention the moments in life that alter who you are and how you see the world.

Laurén Gerig Brady

Laurén Gerig Brady work is an exploration of landscape, memory, and responding to current environments through expressive mark-making and bold use of color. Laurén's painting process is rooted in abstraction from observation, delving into rhythms of nature and noticing that, in the exchange between person and place, there is the development of a deep urgency to capture, understand, and hold on.

Rebecca Gonzalez Cifaldi

Rebecca Gonzalez Cifaldi is a photographer, artist, graphic design historian, and educator. Rebecca has an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago and is an Assistant Professor in the Art, Art History, and Design department at Michigan State University.

Inspiration

As art teachers we understand the importance of inspiring our students to create and the best way to do that is to inspire ourselves as artists to create work that is meaningful to us. We each used this prompt of inspiration to create our own works of art.  "Let all ideas circulate freely, not merely your own." -Kurt Vonnegut
 

Emma Bandos

Emma is in her third year teaching at Lowell High School, Where she is an Art Teacher and an Art Department Head. She loves creating work using a variety of mediums and typically uses bright colors while combining realistic and unrealistic aspects together. She received her B.F.A. in Art Education from Western Michigan University.

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Christine Cosgrove

Christine is a teacher at Lowell High School. She has been an art educator for 14 years, although this is her first year at Lowell. Christine earned her bachelor's degree in Art Education with an emphasis in Ceramics in 2009 from Grand Valley State University. 

Sarah Ellis

Sarah is a Spanish and Art teacher at Lowell High School, where she has worked since 2006 except for a year sabbatical in Spain in 2018-19. Her work has been featured in local, regional, and national news outlets, including the New York Times. She received her B.F.A. at Aquinas College in painting.