Suzy Staubach

Pottery, books and gardens – these are the things I love to make and share. My pottery is inspired by French, English and early American country pottery. It is sturdy enough for everyday use yet elegant enough for special occasions. Use one of my bowls to mix cookie dough, bake custard, or serve your guests a fancy sauce. I also make pots for the garden: rain drums, herb stick labels, bells, birdbaths and more. I throw on a kick wheel, similar to the wheels potters have used for thousands of years, and do some hand building. I fire in a homemade Roman arch downdraft gas kiln.Garden history, and gardens as a place to wander and linger, intrigue me. I like reading about gardens and writing about them. In my books I share what I have learned about both gardens and ceramics. Indeed, sharing is the part I enjoy most.

Barbara Katz

I live in the woods in northeastern CT where I create in a large, light, beautiful studio. I have traveled all over the world finding stimulation for my creativity.When I create new forms in clay I am conscious of the continuity with other artists as they have created objects for thousands of years using the same methods of shaping and firing this most elemental material available !

Gretchen Geromin& Lauren Merlo

Lauren Merlo: Our cutting boards are made from cherry. This wood is from local trees that have come down. I have them milled into boards and air dried. I then rip the boards into strips, stand them on edge, and creatively glue them back together. Then, I sand and edge them, making satiny smooth boards of various sizes.Gretchen Geromin: When I get each “blank” cutting board (my canvas), I look it over carefully letting the character and grain of the wood speak to me and help me decide what and where to put my artwork. After I have done a simple pencil sketch on the board, I work on it with my woodburning, bringing in all the details. It’s all in how I handle the tool – be it angle, pressure, or strokes – that creates different effects.

Barbara Timberman

The subject matter of my paintings developed from an early interest in botany and a later interest in gardening. The close observation of plant structure and form is always the starting point for my drawings although I frequently partner the plant subjects with complex and beautiful man- made objects.My paintings rely on the relationships between colors. I begin building my composition with the initial color of my subject and work to create a color chord that ties the work together. I find that watercolor allows me to layer and intensify color while enjoying interplay between splashy spontaneity and tight control. Time is an element in the slow pleasure of working out a complex visual puzzle.My goal is to direct the viewer’s attention to the tangled, intertwining beauty of the material world.

Richard White

I Am a figurative painter and illustrator. Retired from a varied career that, in addition to painting and drawing, has included photography, graphic design, teaching and administration.The current work reflects solid roots in classical figuration and portraiture with strong character development and expressive, painterly execution.

Kathleen Lepak

I am a calligrapher, illustrator and graphic designer and have been creating art for as long as I can remember.A freelance job at a local university hospital many years ago offered me the opportunity to try my “hand” at the art of the calligrapher. Putting pen and ink to paper is magic to me. I love the feel of the paper, the fluid rhythm as the ink glides onto the surface. Time disappears . . . focus is crystal clear . . . the magic of the scribes of centuries past is brought to life. Since the beginning of time, man has been striving to make his words or symbols look beautiful as well as communicating concepts and ideas.Combining calligraphic hands with artwork to visually enhance the chosen words is a passion of mine. Words and letters become explosions of color in my mind - language is, at once, brilliantly alive to the eye as well as the mind.

Shauna Shane

My life is defined by creating, especially in my art studio and in my garden. Living here in this spacious old button factory has made it possible to apply every creative impulse. Here I have loads of light and a large open space for a big garden and room to create and also display my cast cement leaves and planted garden sculptures.My garden is my playground, a space to fill with peonies, iris, and all manor of perennials that are in their full glory during the Art and Garden Tour. Even more, I have space to create cement sculptures in my “fort,” enclosed by a variety of willows. Within that space I can mold and cast colorful cement leaves and even flowers, beautiful in their natural form; enhanced by bright color, and better still, weather-proof in all seasons.After eight years of creating the Lobby Entry Display for the CT Flower and Garden Show in the Convention Center in Hartford, my studio has profited from those same sculptures brought home and planted to be permanent fixtures in my garden. In addition to planted “garden ladies,” a large and small planted peacock, giant illuminated mushrooms and a lighted “hobbit abode,” there are sheep, chickens, a giant tortoise, and a seven-foot lion standing alert beside a boat filled with a fountain and a fairie house display. You will find many, many succulents in hyper-tufa containers, planted globes, and spheres on small columns that can define an entry or hide an unsightly post in your yard.Inside the studio, my paintings are known to be saturated with light and color, informed by many years of painting from life. Whether landscape, animals or the figure, my paintings reflect many years of painting, teaching, and exhibiting my artwork, and not a small number of major awards.A full time professional painter for more than 45 years, I am now an elected artist and board member of Hudson Valley Art League, as well as a signature or artist member of CT Pastel Society, Academic Art Association, New England W/C Society, Lyme Art Association, Arts Center East, and CT Plein Air Painters Society. In 1988 I founded Artists Open Studio, the first Open Studio in Connecticut, which now after 35 years promotes the work of more than 65 artists in the Northeast Corner of Connecticut. Early in my career I was selected to be Resident Artist at Yellowstone National Park, and more recently I was chosen to be a Resident Artist at The New Britain Museum of American Art.I take pride in my ability to convey to others in a class or a demonstration, how to see and understand the visual world in a way that makes their artistic journey enjoyable and productive. I am fortunate to be able to teach at the West Hartford Art League, Glastonbury Art Guild, and in own studio. I enjoy giving demonstrations in all of the mediums I work in, giving participants a running description of my thoughts, decisions, and process as the painting progresses.“Because of how I see the beauty of nature, my paintings are exuberant with color and energy. I paint each day feeling the tradition of America's plein-air masters close behind me, immersed in the light and atmosphere of the day. There is simply no way to describe the intense experience and connection that occurs when painting from nature.”I welcome you to visit and enjoy my studio and garden during the Art and Garden Tour, or any time in the future. Take your time, as there is much to see.Welcome! www.shaunashane.com 860-429-3646

Mary Noonan

My artwork is in a word, eclectic. Since I get ideas from everything from the natural world, my inner world, other artists who I know or artist from history, music, found objects, (trash), I don't have a neat definition. I like experimenting.

Elizabeth Clark

I make a variety of crafts and art with a concentration on Jewelry. I like to use natural elements and themes in my work. Sometimes my jewelry contains stones, glass, wood, leather, or different metals. There may be actual insect wings or plants that I have found incorporated or symbolized. I create with a touch of whimsy. I think odd can sometimes be beautiful.I enjoy gardening and have several gardens in my yard. My garden aesthetic is somewhat wild or haphazard garden lightly tamed. I have spent a few years creating and expanding a moss garden in front of my house.

Leanne Peters

I started Art and a Little Magic to create unique artwork that is then reproduced on many items that are decorative, practical, and reasonably priced. The works are colorful and quite detailed. Recently with the help of my agency, I have several artworks licensed for puzzles, fabrics, paint by numbers, and more. It’s a fun journey! There are many designs to choose from that include nature scenes, an array of animals, insects, and always a little mystery/magic. I am exploring painting Magic Cabinets which show a landscape through an interior scene, because I enjoy the cozy inside as well as the beautiful outside magic all around us. Come see what I have to offer!

Janet Dauphin

I am a fused glass artist continuing to marvel at the shapes and colors glass transforms to in the kiln.

Nora Lili Charters

My work is an attempt to capture the sometimes all too fleeting beauty of this world. I am an award winning small town photographer shooting nature, portraits and yoga.

Michelle Allison

I describe myself as a studio woodturner: I've been a woodworker all my adult life (some sixty years). I formerly built musical instruments and furniture. My work sculptural lathe turned vessels from green wood, found locally. Closed (hollow) and open (vases, bowls) forms. The green turning allows thinly turned vessels to shift into pleasing distortions as they dry, this movement occurring in lieu of cracking or checking as with dimension lumber. Features include a variety of rim treatments (carving, burning air brush paint), thin wall piercings and my signature dyed, high gloss ‘electric guitar’ finish. This involves intense surface dying with a built up clear coat resulting in a visually ‘deep’ surface, high reflection index and dramatic display of the grain and other natural features of the wood. Often mistaken for glass, ceramic or metal because of the unexpected color saturated finish, but distinct from these media because of the relative ‘weightlessness’ and lightness to the touch.

Scott Rhoades

I work in acrylic paint in my studio and the paintings are predominantly representational in style. I work from photographs of images based on my experiences and travel such as the wilderness, weathered barns, historic buildings and other subjects. When I paint I feel connected to the subject matter as if I am revisiting and that inspires me to look closely at places of interest wherever I go. I also enjoy accepting commissioned work.

John C. Starinovich

My medium is tree holes from downed trees. I made the first mirrored wall hung sculpture in 2005. Hand and power tools are used to compliment the natural pieces. Adornments are used to enhance the interest of the piece. The custom mirror adds function and creates an interior world to explore. A lengthy controlled decay process aids in debarking and saves the beautiful cambium layer. Spalting also occurs during this process which adds lines and color variation seasoning halts decay. No stain is used. Finish is flat lacquer and /or 2P10 glue. Stamped with date and makers mark. Mirror template included. My work has been described as whimsical to avante garde. A friend said, “I’m amazed with what you can do with a piece of rotten wood.”

Nancy Bunnell

Nancy Allyson Bunnell is an award-winning pastel painter, who has exhibited and won many awards throughout the state, including the Connecticut Pastel Society, the Monson Arts Council, as well as exhibiting at Lyme Gallery, Canyon Rd, N.M., and others.She started art training at SCSU, but the job market forced the change to Special Education for 30 years. She is now a certified art teacher through training at three CT Universities and has been teaching children and adults over 20 years, including the Community School of Arts at UConn, Vernon Art Center, West Hartford Art League, and at the Glastonbury Arts Guild. She has been the coordinator and creator of the Art and Garden tour started 7 years ago and most recently become Chair of the Ashford Arts Council.

Aline Hoffman

Although I’ve been an artist all my life, in the 1980s I began calling my work Emotional Realism, no matter the medium. I chose that term based on how viewers tended to respond to my works. Historically, I’ve created detailed pen & ink drawings, stone sculptures, and various other media. In the 1970s I focused on Abstract Expressionism. For 20+ years, starting in 1989, I worked almost solely as a Chinese brush painter. At AGT you will see my more recent works: Sculptural Gourds (cut and painted; each an original piece of art): some functional (holders for pencils, eyeglasses, etc.), some decorative. I’ll also show Birch paintings on textured paper, and Pyrography (wood-burning).

Rich Longmore

I studied illustration at Parsons school of Design in the long ago pre digital days. For the last 20 years I have been doing freelance digital illustrations mostly for tabletop Role Playing Games.