As he approached retirement from the practice of medicine, Shel considered a post-retirement career in art history, but soon realized that wouldn’t provide the outlet for expression and creativity that he needed, so he took up where he left off some fifty years before, making art.

Shel works mostly in acrylic paint and he usually emphasizes vivid colors. His subject matter is primarily still life because he believes that still life offers an opportunity to breathe life and importance into otherwise inanimate and mundane objects, and he seeks to make artistic sense and evoke emotions by selection and arrangement of the objects and the interplay of shapes, colors, lines, and textures. Shel has exhibited in solo, group, and juried exhibitions. He is represented by Pierre-Paul Gallery in Ann Arbor.

Pictured:  Red, White and Green I, Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20

In the fall of 2002 Marilyn began taking drawing classes at the Ann Arbor Art Center. Her previous experience with art was making paper dolls as a child. After a year she took beginning watercolor at the Ann Arbor Art Center. She began group classes (May 2004) with watercolor artist Barbara Starner (except July and August) until mid December when she moved to Texas. March 2005 she began classes with Leslie Masters at her studio where she continues to work. She moved into the use of acrylics and, most recently (Fall 2006), the use of water-soluble oil paints. Her watercolor painting Tribute to Hiroshige was accepted in the Summer 2006 Ann Arbor Women Artist’s Juried Exhibit.

Pictured:  Porches in Arles, Water Soluble Oils, 12 x 16     

Leslie loves color. Her goal as an artist is to capture the feeling of light as it surrounds us. Her acrylic paintings explore abstract color glow from the landscape around her Ann Arbor studio as well as the mountains and canyons of Europe and the American West. She has spent years developing her knowledge of color theory and has written a book on that subject called How to Paint a Rainbow. Leslie has a BA degree in Art from Indiana University and an MA degree from the University of Michigan. She is well known in the Detroit, Michigan area as both a color painter and a teacher of painting and color theory. Leslie has had numerous one-person exhibitions in Michigan and in Ohio and has participated in many invitational and group exhibitions throughout the Midwest. Recent awards include, First Prize, Ann Arbor Women Artists, 2007, and Best of Show award, Invitational, Lawrence Street Gallery, 2004, Royal Oak, MI.

Pictured:  Pink Cloud, Acrylic, 48 x 56

Following a career in University teaching and research in neurobiology, Edith Maynard turned to painting as a way of creatively expressing a life-long fascination with visual imagery, especially with shape, color and the effects of light. Her watercolors are inspired by forms in the natural world, including humans, and by shapes of man-made objects, particularly by large industrial and agricultural complexes and the components of heavy machinery. She often uses unreal or exaggerated color to portray her strong emotional reactions to this subject matter. Her work has won awards in national juried exhibitions and is presented locally in the Chelsea Gallery.

Pictured: Steel Mill No.2, Watercolor, 27 x 21

Dolores McDole - fused glass, enamaled glass, stained glass
   Email:  DiamondD71@hotmail.com

Gwyn McKay - acrylic, mixed media
   Email:  gwynmckay@gmail.com

Angie is a Michigan born and raised artist. She has been painting and exhibiting since 1979 when she received a BFA from Eastern Michigan University. She worked on her degree while raising daughters as a stay at home mom and wife. She has exhibited in many locations in Michigan, nationally and in Germany. She has been in many juried shows and have won numerous awards.

Angie was chairwoman of the Michigan Water Color Society from 1989 to 1992 and president of the Ann Arbor Women Artists from 1982-84. She has primarily worked as a painter. She has several motifs over the years. Angie is known for her landscape paintings and her Egyptian series. However, recently she has a new series based on Angels, Saints and Martyrs.

Pictured:  Havasu Falls, Acrylic on Paper, 22 x 30

Carol Morris
   Email:  SilkRhino@aol.com

Brenda Oelbaum - oil; acrylic; latch hook; pâpiér mache; mixed media
   Email:  boelbaum@yahoo.com

Elizabeth Ong
   Email:  elisong@comcast.net

Dee Overly - colored pencil; graphite; pen and ink
   Email:  deeoverly@yahoo.com

Pencils! Pencils! Pencils! Dee loves them. Although she has worked and experimented with many mediums, she'll never abandon the faithful pencil. And with the advancements of pigments, her arsenal now includes colored pencils. Dee exhibits her work regularly in both juried and non-juried shows and has won awards for her colored pencil paintings. She is also one of the featured artists in the art book, Art Models Life Nudes. Dee holds a degree in Architecture Design and is a member of the Ann Arbor Women Artists, Colored Pencil Society of America, and the Detroit Colored Pencil Chapter 104.

Pictured: Golden Lake, Colored Pencil, 8.5 x 11

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Marge Pacer - acrylic
   Email:  paint4id@yahoo.com

Joan has been a member of the AAWA for going on thirty years, and has been honored to receive many awards in the group exhibitions, as well as in state and nationwide exhibits.  She graduated from Eastern Michigan University and took post-grad classes in watercolor from Kingsley Calkins, who was a great friend and encourager, especially in the use of color. Joan  moved into acrylics, wood and mixed media in the 1990's independent of any instruction beyond her intuition (except for her husband's beginning guidance on the best way to adhere one found object to another). So, in this art form Joan considers herself self taught.  She is a kind of a hybrid. Joan began adding clay to some of her works, mostly heads, and then added found objects when the clay had been fired.  She then painted the work.  These have mostly been angels, saints and martyrs. Her latest love is basically black and white abstract sculpture and sculptural wall work of wood and metal, but she does whatever she feels inspired by in the long run.  These may resemble machines that could, or once did, work.

Pictured:  Mechanical Dance, Wood, Metal, Electronics, Antique Ceiling Tile, Paint, 25 x 10 x 13

Vickie received her BFA from Eastern Michigan University in 1977
with a major in printmaking, and now incorporates her 28 years of
graphic and commercial screen printing experience as owner/operator of Imagecrafters, Inc (Ann Arbor) in her work. She creates digital collages and mixed media compositions of spatial planes and illusion that have roots in traditional pieced quilt designs and patterns found in nature and our surroundings.  Her work has been displayed in several Ann Arbor Women Artists' juried shows (winning several awards) and she has showed in several Ann Arbor Art Center juried shows, including The Print (earning "Best of Show" in 2007), the All Media Shows; and A Place at the Table. She has also exhibited is several local Ann Arbor and University of Michigan shows.

Pictured:  Caladesi Island, Digital on Archival Paper, 9 x 14

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Paulette Reeves

Freelance artist, Theresa Rojas, is a San Francisco Latina transplanted to Ann Arbor 10 years ago. Her use of vibrant color, particularly inspired by living in Michigan, has begun to attract a following of collectors from across the country. She works primarily in acrylics, watercolor, and charcoal. Launching her website represents her first foray into sharing her art with the general public. Theresa is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Eastern Michigan University and loves to "get messy".

Pictured:  Adobe Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20

Pamela Roselle - acrylic; oil; watercolor
   Email:  pam.roselle@gmail.com

     Visit:  www.PamRoselle.com

Pam recently launched her art career by exhibiting her acrylic paintings of Trees in the 2008 Ann Arbor's South University Art Fair Emerging Artist Program. Her intention as a contemporary painter is to create bodies of work that express the essence of nature and its inherent rhythm. Using layer upon layer of color, strong lines and textures she aims to paint the feelings she sees in the world and to draw the viewer into her bliss. The unforeseen discoveries, the zen of flowing paint and the emotions evoked by vibrant color combinations keep her painting with passion, exploring new watermedia techniques and eager to create abundantly. Her hope is that viewers of her paintings enjoy the end result as much as she enjoys the creative process.

Joan Rosenblum - pastel; oil
   Email:  jrosenblum@comcast.net

Adele M. Roy - watercolor
   Email:  adeleroy@sbcglobal.net

   Visit:  web.mac.com/adeleroy

Adele grew up on the East Coast surrounded by paintings created by relatives on both sides of her family. She studied graphic design in college and worked in magazine and book publishing for many years. It is only recently that she has pursued her own artistic interests - including photography, painting, quilting and fiber arts, doll making, and beadwork - through both self-guided study and formal classes. In all media, a fascination with texture and color variation inspires her selection of subject matter and her resulting interpretation.

Pictured: Pears on a Plate, Watercolor, 8.5 x 10.5  

Meredith Russell-Fay - oil; ceramics
   Email:  meredifay@gmail.com

Meredith lives in the woods and teaches Psychology to college students. For her, the impulse to paint rises from a desire to express aspects of psychological truth that are not efficiently communicated in words. In Meredith's accidentally neo-impressionistic portraits she strives to reveal the essential nature of her subject, while also creating an oil painting that can be appreciated as a thing of beauty in and of itself.

Pictured:  Lief and His Dragon, Oil,
36 X 36