Please describe your current work:

Art should tell a story. A good story should have just the right amount of details. Not so many that you’re overwhelmed. Just enough to make you notice what’s important.

So, my details are these: after 20 years in banking, I “retired” to stay home with my 5 kids. Shortly thereafter, I picked up a novel about the Victorian language of flowers.

Having worked at a greenhouse through my teenage years, I already had an appreciation for flowers. But I was inspired by the idea of using the meaning of flowers to tell a story. I picked up a student-grade set of watercolors and began a personal journey of observation, exploration, and practice.

I began to focus on the details that make each subject unique, and I let them tell the story. My style is primarily realism, with an allowance for some of the looseness watercolors can foster. When so much in life can be overwhelming, I find that the simplicity of just a few blossoms on a white page focuses your attention on what matters.

My subjects usually come from my iPhone photo library. They aim to

…preserve a memory (mom’s vases of gladiolas in the summer)

…convey a sentiment (cosmos to wish joy in love and life)

…honor an emotion (the joy of a child’s handpicked bouquet)

…or just make you slow down and appreciate the small stuff in life. Those are the details that matter.

What future direction do you envision your art taking:

My favorite part about displaying and selling my work is hearing the connections people have to it:

“Our first house had a magnolia tree in the front yard.”

“My grandma and I made little bouquets of lily of the valley every spring.”

“My sister had a hard year, and this is her favorite flower.”

“This piece brings me so much calm.”

I hope to keep exploring nature and mapping out those connections for people. If I can build a body of prints to sell at shows, I will also be able to take on more commission work.

This year, I painted my first two large pieces (watercolor full sheet 22”x30”). The larger size was a challenge both in my composition and my technique, but I would like to continue stretching myself in both areas.

I also plan to attempt some plein air work on both botanicals and landscapes.

What future direction do you envision your art taking?

As a self-taught artist, I started with student-grade materials. I have since upgraded to professional, light-fast pigments, as well as 100% cotton paper. My brushes have been at the bottom of the list. I would love to invest in some professional sable brushes instead of routinely discarding cheaper brushes that have lost their tips.

I would also like to purchase an iPad to use for my reference photos rather than working from my iPhone. Working on larger pieces from a tiny 2”x4” screen makes the scaling very difficult.

Right now, my studio is a small desk in my attic. I only have space to work on one large piece at a time. Once my pieces are completed, I struggle to find a safe place to store them so they’re not damaged. I also frame all of my works myself, so my home is usually jam-packed with stacks of framed art in the weeks before a show. I would like to invest in some better storage solutions or potentially rent a studio space.

Lastly, I have been blessed to sell many of my original works. I feel this is at least partially due to my pricing strategy-I prefer the work to be shared, so I price it to sell. I do not currently sell prints because the cost of professionally scanning and printing the works is so high. I would like to invest in a high-quality scanner so that I can begin selling prints. This would allow me time to work on larger pieces while being supported financially by the lower-ticket print pieces.

Please describe your current work:

Since my husband’s death in 2023, my artmaking has been driven by spiritual explorations and curiosity. Thoughts about my own mortality and the existence of “being” have guided my work. The questions I have come easily; how to address them visually is the challenge and my goal. As a result, the images have become a documentary of sorts, chronicling a soul’s journey from the temporal world and into the spiritual realm.

LIGHT is a constant element incorporated as an actual art medium and as subject matter - literally, metaphorically, and symbolically. Photographic processes, particularly cyanotype and lumen printing, are the primary vehicles for this visual trip.

Cyanotype is a camera-less photographic process that requires a specific chemical formula invented in the mid 1800’s. Activated by ultraviolet light and developed with water, it produces a deep Prussian blue. My compositions are created with botanicals, cut glass objects, fabrics, and other transparent, translucent and opaque materials providing depth, texture and symbolic meaning to the work.

“Celestine Peace” represents a mortal’s view of eternity, while “From Chaos to Peace” portrays the soul’s exit from the temporal world. “Convergence” and “Rusted Angel” advance the narrative with a dreamlike fluidity. “Resurrection”, “Golden Slumber” and “Ethereal Glow” layer familiar gestures, titles and colors, inviting viewers to engage more directly with the work and inform personal interpretations.

These images were produced on heavy printmaking and silver gelatin photo papers. More recently, I have introduced silk and cotton fabric substrates, adding physical and symbolic layers to the images. The fluid movement and translucency of silk give “Exiting the Mortal Coil” and “Liminality” an ethereal presence.

My last example is a work in progress. Printed on cotton, it is a heavier, more grounded image - physically and conceptually.

What future direction do you envision your art taking?

Thematically, I intend to continue my exploration of spiritual and temporal worlds. However, after 3 years of mourning my husband’s passing, I am learning how to navigate my new reality. Life goes on.

Visually, I anticipate incorporating 3D elements into my work. Layering fabric-based images over armatures such as mannequins and natural forms will provide an actual solidity to the work. The tactile nature and illusionistic quality of this approach will invite more viewer interaction and relativism. Creating “free-standing and relief photographs” will add “life” to the inanimate objects.

I also hope to expand my media to include glass. I have been working with fused glass for some time and have created some “cyanotype-inspired” works. I envision more photo and glass combinations.

This is an ongoing narrative - daily life and circumstances will determine how the story evolves.

How will you use this award to move toward this vision of that future direction?

Receiving a Summerfair Aid to Individual Artists grant would enable me to expand my production timeline. Because I depend on sunlight as my ultraviolet light source, my “cyanotype calendar” runs from June through September. I process my images outside with a garden hose, as my basement utility sink is not big enough to handle prints larger than 11” x 14”. If awarded this grant, I could purchase an artificial ultraviolet light source custom-built for larger works. I would also be able to invest in a stainless-steel darkroom sink, enabling me to work year-round.

Additionally, this award would provide the means to expand my knowledge and skills through workshops and classes offered at local and regional facilities and venues. Some workshops are in­ person events, and many are offered online for a fee. (Clifton Cultural Arts Center, Brazee Street Studios, AAE Glass and Lisa Vogt Fusing.)

Also, creating an organized, designated studio space in my home has been a challenge. This grant would provide the funding needed to purchase ready-made storage units for flat files/images and shelving to organize photo chemicals, glass, and other tools.

Thank you for your consideration and time.

Please describe your current work:

In my current practice, the elements of nature that inspire my work are water and mountains. These imagery and symbols are intimately linked to human experiences such as memory, movement, time, and encounters with life and death. They have provided protection, strength, and sustenance throughout our evolution and existence, as well as a magical connection to nature.

In the Belonging/Sense and Float series, I began creating a series of mountain landscapes after reflecting on my sense of belonging and the concept of home. These works aim to establish a connection to place, evoke memories, and capture the passage of time, as well as convey the transient nature of moments. This installation touches on various aspects of human nature, such as a sense of belonging, growth, hope, and faith.

I work primarily with hand-building methods in clay, using a variety of clay types. Mountain shapes are made out of red clay and applied oxides, and the figure is made out of white stoneware using underglazes and oxides with multiple firings that layer meaning onto form. I feel the purpose of my work is to express the importance of a spiritual sense of self-realization in relation to nature and share this idea with the viewer.

What future direction do you envision your art taking:

I often create large-scale installation pieces that depict or draw the viewer into an almost dreamlike scenario, hoping to provide time to heal oneself by looking back on one’s own memory and reflecting on nature through my creations. In this time, I plan to make installation work that brings up environmental issues that are more grounded and visceral, hopefully to ground the viewer in more immediate concerns.

In addition, I would like to continue exploring the relationship between nature and human life and create a series of sculptures. I aim to push my figurative work to embody more narrative elements and to experiment with more diverse colors and compositions.

How will you use this award to move toward this vision of that future direction:

I plan to have several group shows and make a new body of work for a solo show in the future. Besides clay, I often use mixed-media elements such as metal, fabric, paper, resin, etc. I use these for my installations and for supporting structure. Experimenting with various materials is crucial for uncovering new possibilities. I intend to utilize this award to acquire materials, tools, and equipment that will enable me to explore innovative approaches to my work without the burden of financial constraints. Additionally, this award would facilitate the hiring of a part-time studio assistant and assist with the shipping and documentation of my artwork.

Please describe your current work:

After a three-year period of balancing my time between being a homeschooling mother. A lead artist on a 2,400-square-foot interactive mural. participating in a woodworking apprenticeship with my grandfather, and an unexpected move, I was used to putting my personal work on the back burner. Through these experiences, I learned patience, problem-solving, and the importance of experimentation, while also gaining an immense appreciation for woodworking. My extended hiatus from the painting studio compelled me to begin this body of work; It became my goal to marry the two mediums of painting and woodworking.

My painting ideas are made tangible in the woodshop. I have been implementing more math than I ever imagined needing as an artist and using it to hand-build and stretch my own canvases in asymmetrical shapes with five to seven sides. I then paint portraits that interact with the strange shapes they are occupying. My aim is to explore the tensions between joy and sorrow, with each painting focusing on different topics such as parenting, the beauty industry, social media, connection to nature, and abuse. With intentional choice of color, calculated layers, and subtle facial expressions. And recurring hand and teardrop motifs, I further emphasize these complex emotions, encouraging viewers to stop, hold their gaze, and share in an intimate moment.

The previous three years have influenced the way I now approach my studio practice. With a long and involved process in the woodshop and painting studio, I’ve learned to take it slow. By cycling between different pieces at different stages, I avoid burnout and am gradually bringing several paintings to a finish simultaneously. There isn’t a rush, and this gives my work the time and space it needs to grow and develop, not only visually but also in its meaning,

What future direction do you envision your art taking:

I never expected to make public art or to fall in love with woodworking. My dream was always to become an exhibiting artist and show my paintings throughout the country and abroad. I wasn’t ready to give that up, so I began this new series with my painting, “Holding That Pain Is Holding You Back,” with which I was awarded the New Woman Fellowship at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center. My award includes a solo show in the gallery next year; It's exactly what I’ve been working towards.

My art is currently in the “new direction” phase, and what you see in my attached images is the beginning of that. Other than my first image, the following four paintings are still in­ progress, and I felt it was important to take the risk and share them in my application. Each of the four unfinished paintings will be brought to the same crisp level of finish that the first painting achieves. It is my ambitious goal to complete 20+ paintings to be displayed among charcoal drawings, wooden sculptures, and rocking chairs in the next year. I am also exploring connection to place and the inheritance of knowledge and tools passed down from my grandfather. This summer, I cut down a walnut tree from his tree farm, milled it, and am now curing it in his garage. Once the wood is dry, I’ll use it to frame a large-scale painting of him, sitting in the rocking chair that he taught me to build with his tools, among the rows of trees that he planted as seeds, that I have known and walked among my entire life.

How will you use this award to move toward this vision of that future direction:

I will use this award to prioritize and sustain time spent in the studio. As a mother, a partner, and now a caretaker of my grandpa, there are plenty of things already pulling my attention away from my work.

I have much of this body of work planned, but only some of it has started. Financial help would benefit me beyond my dwindling budget from the New Woman Fellowship award that has been spent on necessary materials and supplies for my show.

This award would give me crucial time. With it, I would not have to teach as many classes, pick up studio assistant hours. take on commissions or do murals and mural repairs. Working under these constraints has impacted my ability to work towards a larger technically driven practice. I have had to adapt and, in many cases, work all day outside of the studio, come home and make dinner, and then steal a couple late-night hours in the studio instead of winding down for the night with my family. I wanted to have these paintings completed by the application deadline and could not. All that to say, I am extremely grateful for having these opportunities throughout the years to sustain my practice, but I do not have unlimited time; Every hour spent on a side job is an hour taken away from running an operational wood shop/painting studio and pouring my heart and soul into this body of work.

These funds will be put towards more than doubling my number of paintings and freeing up my schedule to prioritize my work within the year timeline I have until my solo show at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center in October of 2027.

Please describe your current work:

Experiencing the dry and parched land of Texas, my childhood home, gave to me an appreciation of the earth. The banks of clay that made up much of our land, led me, unsurprisingly, to use clay as my artistic medium. With this material I tell stories . .. I am an author in clay.

My enduring fascination with the human form, and particularly the female figure, remains a central point of reference in my artistic practice. Embedded within narrative frameworks, these figures inhabit spaces that traverse fantasy, social consciousness, and humor, moving fluidly through imagined and contemporary worlds. The stories I sculpt and compose continue to evolve in response to the increasing complexity and, at times, unsettling nature of contemporary life.

The pronounced relief of my sculptures invites shadow to become an active participant in the work, heightening surface texture and reinforcing the rhythmic movement of the compositions. These formal qualities are intertwined with the emotional intensity that underpins each narrative.

What future direction do you envision your art taking?

The allure of the human form and its uncanny ability to register the explorations of human narratives is what still continues to give my work direction. However, I am now looking to enlarge and deepen my well of resources for inspiration. As an identical twin, I have long been interested in duality versus individualism. This effort to extend my points of inspiration has brought me to a desire to study Jungian psychology. Drawing from Jung’s exploration of myth, dream imagery, and the shadow self, I’m interested in seeing where a study of my twinship will take me.

Secondly, in declaring myself an ‘author in clay’ I am very interested in pursuing a body of work that is not only emotionally engaging but also linked both physically and thematically through words. Being an avid reader, words and story are extremely important to me. As I am a visual artist, it is the collaboration with the ‘writer’ in me that I wish to probe. I aim to investigate themes through sculptural forms in which beauty and tension, as well as the natural and the unnatural, coexist in dynamic relation. I am also interested in exploring interior narratives that foster a deeper and more comprehensive engagement with the viewer.

How will you use this award to move toward this vision of that future direction?

To begin, Summerfair’s Aid to Individual Artist Award will support me in tapping into workshops offered by the Greater Cincinnati Friends of Jung, a local organization that provides programs in the study of the works of Carl Jung. The programs they offer will allow for me to open up my reflections to more contemplative narratives.

Secondly, the A/A award will allow for the creation of a body of sculptural figures and narratives that I wish to translate into ‘book form’, coupling word with sculptural forms, writing into my works.

I wish to translate my narrative wall sculptures into a book format. For me, this poetic enterprise has always taken place internally. With the assistance of the award, I can now bring it forward.

And lastly, the award will also, undoubtedly, allow me to secure more materials as well as assist with my firing and framing needs.

Please describe your current work:

My assemblage sculptures are intended to be fluid, continuous, and dynamic, often drawing iron, natural landscapes. My distinct sculptures are designed to make inanimate structures look as though they are meant to have the fluidity of something that is rendered with a fine brush. Underlying my sculptural works are references to the synergy I experience between drawing and sculpture and an adherence to the timeless and formal language of design.

My work explores transformation of materials, meaning, and of our relationship to the everyday. I sculpt primarily with corrugated cardboard, a material that is often overlooked yet deeply familiar. Often considered disposable, this material is transformed by me into something that challenges our assumptions about worth and beauty.

Cardboard has a transitional nature, existing in a state of in-between. For me, it’s always on the threshold of change. While working with discarded materials, I am engaging in a form of material alchemy that’s intended to question our throwaway culture and demonstrate how creativity can transform the mundane into the extraordinary.

Through meticulous craftsmanship, I reclaim this material, assembling it into forms that challenge perception and evoke new contexts. When these fragments are no longer seen as discarded, but as part of a harmonious whole, they are resurrected. That moment of reawakening . . . that shift in meaning . . . is where my art comes to life.

What future direction do you envision your art taking?

By its very nature, ‘cardboard’ is a liminal material - meaning, it’s a material that often feels suspended, as if caught mid-transformation. Passage from one purpose to another is found by me to be intrinsic to its character.

This transitional component of its nature has been the focus of my work for a while.

What I now wish to turn my attention upon is not the form nor the material in which my sculptures lie but to the void that exists between the two. All of us have the natural ability to see and recognize things. We see something. Our brains immediately matches the image to a stored mental picture or pattern we’ve seen before. Recognition accomplished. Comprehension is complete. Congratulations. In this scenario, we’ve understood the object, and yet unfortunately, we have completely missed the space that the object sits within, the invisible element that surrounds the image - a space that I believe is as important as the object itself.

This negative space is only invisible until you see it. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. The void becomes a thing. It’s real. It’s tangible. It has as much shape and dimension as the object it surrounds. And, like the object, this space changes shape from each new viewing angle.

For me, as a sculptor, seeing this space as a solid form is a revelation worth pursuing. The ‘void’ ... this space, generates an invisible architecture of forms which, I believe, will present a continuous stimulation of interest, followed by a sequence of visual discoveries.

How will you use this award to move toward this vision of that future direction?

Summerfair’s Aid to Individual Artist Award will support me in expanding the scale of my work and positioning it for public art installation. I have long sought to translate my practice into materials and sealants better suited for public and outdoor display. This award would enable new research and material experimentation, allowing me to amplify the spatial impact of future works.

Secondly, this award would provide funding for a dedicated workspace that would allow for sustained, uninterrupted creation. My current environment that I share with others functions as both a studio and a display space, requiring frequent cleanup and reconfiguration that limits my ability to work consistently and at scale. The Summerfair award would provide the stability and flexibility needed to maintain a space devoted solely to making, enabling material exploration, and the development of ambitious work without the constraints of constant sharing or transformation. All of this will allow for my thoughts and ideas to be more fully realized.