Deb has always been drawn to the beauty of nature—its bold colors, strength, extraordinary textures, and sculptural forms. Her free-form weavings definitely reflect that passionate interest. As a self-taught fiber artist, Deb incorporates a variety of natural fibers and plant materials into her one-of-a-kind creations. Along with discoveries of unusual or exotic wood which become the “framework” for a piece, the process of creating is what excites her the most.
Artists
Best known for her linocuts, Laura aspires to find new methods of integrating positive and negative space through her artwork. Her images, whether printed or appliquéd in fabric, typically explore the striking contrasts between black and white and tend to be bold and heavily patterned. Laura’s work often reflects her interest in organic shapes and the natural environment.
When asked to provide an artist bio, Doug simply provided his education and exhibition history. This display of candor suggests one of the very art qualities that inspires him and his work, specifically the artistic purity and directness of ancient civilizations. Doug prefers clay and the raku firing process to create sculptures and non-functional ceramics, ranging from the size of small animals to large scale figurative work.
Judith enjoys making pottery that has both utility and aesthetic appeal. She favors stoneware clay for its strength and durability. The rich earth tones of cone 10 reduction glazes help her achieve subtle color variations which mimic shades found in nature. In all her work, her primary goal is to create ware that can be used and appreciated on a daily basis.
Laurén's paintings explore landscape, memory, and responding to current environments through expressive mark-making and bold use of color. Her pieces often use abstract forms to evoke feelings associated with a particular time and place. As a painter, she inspires her audiences to pause, acknowledge, and reflect on the everyday through tendency and tenderness, reverence and reverie, memory and memorabilia, storage and stories.
Apart from some limited informal instruction, Bill is a self-taught potter. As a retired geochemist, he relishes the technical aspects of working with clay as an expressive medium. The application of multiple glazes of different colors, finish, stability, and texture to create interest and depth is what he strives for in his work. From his small home studio, Bill mostly produces functional porcelain and stoneware pottery.
Mike Hamm has been making pottery off-and-on since 1983, and has been a member of the Greater Lansing Potters Guild since 2023. He credits growing up in an engineer’s house and his background in life sciences as the inspiration behind the use of formal geometric shapes with subtle modifications in his pieces. With an ever evolving approach to throwing, clay selection and design, Mike's primary focus is creating pieces that are a pleasure to hold, use, and view.
Lansing-based artist Daniel J. Hogan is a cartoonist who primarily works in watercolors to create humorous illustrations, comics, and cartoons. Daniel also does cartooning digitally, including his comic Foxes & Boxes. His work can frequently be found at art festivals around the state.
Barbara Hranilovich has been an artist for as long as she can remember. She made it formal with a BFA in oil painting, but the learning never stopped. As a fine artist Barbara works in acrylics, oils, ceramics, encaustics, and printmaking—each of which brings something unique to her toolbox. Her work is sometimes serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, and often about nature—where she finds her peace and solace.
Clay is Barbara’s medium of choice. She makes pots with simple, good forms and decorates them with brushwork and color. She finds great enjoyment in making the functional and tactile—things that people use, hold, and feel in their hands. Barbara works in clay structural forms, as well.
Sophia has always been driven to create and loves to explore different mediums and styles, including watercolors, pencils, pastels, acrylic, and oil painting. Through abstract painting, she studies the patterns around her. She is passionate about telling a story through shape and color, and is happiest creating abstract paintings that are deceptively simple. We’ve found the bright colors in Sophia’s works to be an instant mood boost, and hope you’ll swing by to enjoy them soon!
Sonja Mattson-Barnes is an artist whose creative process revolves around the balance of building and removing layers. Drawing from decades of experience with oil and watercolor paints, she imbues her work with an abstract, memory-like quality. Through these landscapes, Sonja aims to offer viewers a shared, inspirational experience that resonates on a personal level.
Nathaniel Ostrom's dual passions for marine science and art shaped his career. While working in a chemistry lab, his fascination with glassblowing emerged, driven by the need to repair scientific glassware. His journey in glass art deepened at Fireworks Glass Studio, where he learned modern glassblowing techniques, while also exploring stained glass and kiln-based glass fusing at the Flint Institute of Art and Perronville Glassworks. Nathaniel’s current work focuses on integrating glass fusing and glassblowing.
After learning about Chinese ceramics from the Song dynasty and motivated by her own particular fascination with teapots, Wenfen began making pottery. Today she finds inspiration in nature, architecture, and Asian culture. Drawn to the challenge of balancing form, function, and beauty in her work, Wenfen most enjoys creating pieces that people can use and cherish.
A colorblind artist, George paints rich, contemporary landscapes that reflect his profound connection to nature. Inspired by his unique perception of color, Peebles’ works predominantly feature brilliant hues and vibrant contrasts. From his Michigan studio, he draws introspective observations from his environment when exploring new concepts. Through his dynamic brushstrokes, Peebles invites viewers to experience the electric energy infused into each of his creations.
Sally’s art practice is fueled by process-oriented experiments with materials and sculptural form. Making paper by hand allows for her to work directly with plants and to satisfy a penchant for observing and collecting natural objects. Specific plants are cooked, beaten to a pulp, manipulated, and dried which transforms them into paper—both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. Colors, textures, and biomorphic forms turn the experimental artifacts into artifictions to question.
Developing her creative voice has always been an intuitive narrative of her surroundings. Animals and birds appear prominently in Jennifer’s ceramic art and reflect many wildlife encounters made both at home and while traveling. She employs a variety of methods to create imagery on clay, including sgraffito and traditional printmaking techniques modified for her own purposes. Jennifer’s goal is to send each collector away with an extra bit of beauty that will forever reside in their home.
Mythology, philosophy, femininity, eastern and western theology, creation stories, and personal history all show themselves within Leanne’s work. Meditating upon the relationship between animal and human, human and environment, and human and history, she searches for juxtapositions to occur and reveal themselves through the clay. Human figures, animal figures, and the combination emerge, which encourages Leanne to find out more about the story being told in three dimensions.
Robert Shelburg is an artist who values experimentation across a number of mediums. Spanning from acrylic paintings, to ink drawings, to graffiti art, Robert finds home in the unusual. His abstract works often incorporate a signature tissue paper and decoupage layering technique, adding dimension, texture, and complexity to his pieces. A lifelong creator, Robert draws inspiration from his cross-country travels which helped shape his artistic vision, as well as from his daughter and partner.
Kathleen Skaar has always been an artist at heart, and a home-grown one at that. She enjoys working with fabric and textiles (and even worked in fabric stores for 10 years), and continues to sew, quilt, knit, and crochet. Kathleen spent her early pottery days at Flint Institute of Arts, where she practiced wheel throwing for many years. Today, she is interested in hand-building and the freedom it allows to create any shape, size, and style. In her work, Kathleen explores innovative texture and glazing techniques for unique, functional pieces that others can enjoy in their daily lives.
David Such is an artist who also fosters and encourages art in others. A multi-talented creator, his work includes painting, sculpture, and photography. David developed a love and a lifelong passion for art early in life and parlayed that love into a career, starting in film and leading to a 40-year career in videography. Beyond the camera, David explores painting and sculpting, and was creator of the annual Lansing art sculpture competition and auction, Old Town ScrapFest.
Sean Tulgetske is a creator based out of Detroit, Michigan. Through his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mobiles, his work examines and playfully organizes organic forms inspired by the natural world around him. They offer a meditation on the gravity of both internal and external structures which guide him longingly for balance.
As an artist, Barb Whitney's studio practice offers her a way to process memories, to consider the future, and to be perfectly present in the moment. Barb creates paintings as a means to an emotional end, and the works represent her sense of abstracted reality. While her training is academic, her work stems from a highly intuitive painting process, wherein she often paints several works concurrently and with an intricate layering technique.
When she was young, Ai felt great joy to be served every meal with colorful, high quality porcelain wares. In her home in Hiroshima, Japan, each sibling was assigned their very own rice bowl and teacup. Her work today reflects her fascination with traditional Japanese patterns and the passion for pottery she has harbored since childhood.