Cindy Biles
Pottery

Cindy Biles’ ceramic sculpture has won awards in regional and national competitions, including Best of North Carolina Artists and Testifyin’ 2005: A National Competition. Her work has been shown in the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove, and has been accepted for an online exhibit in the Upstream People Gallery, opening in January (see ). Cindy has been published in Clay Times and Ceramics Monthly. An artist-in-the-schools, she has taught clay techniques to children of all ages.

Lynn Bregman-Blass
Encaustic and Oil on Clayboard

Lynn Bregman Blass came to her art career first through the Field of psychology and a deep involvement in the arts of Los Angeles in the 70’s and 80’s. As a psychotherapist she was always interested in the creative process. It wasn’t until the late 90’s that she began to re-explore her own creative needs. She took off from there as an artist with many gallery shows. Encaustic became her medium of choice because she loved both the luminous and textural quality of the wax. Her art is an attempt to stay grounded in the now, whatever that means at any given time. Lately it has meant circles, houses, bowls and all that we use to contain our lives. Lynn and her family recently moved from Boulder, Colorado to Chapel Hill.

Leigh Brown
Watercolors

Leigh Brown enjoys many diverse activities. Her current focus is on singing, bellydancing, frame drumming, and teaching pilates. She studied Music Theater at Florida State University, and representational painting in New York City, and Florence, Italy. In New York, she learned the art of henna painting through her experience working with Indian, Morrocan, and American artist of the Mehndi Project. She studied Middle Eastern Dance with Morocco in New York. Leigh continues to expand her experience by attending classes and workshops which explore the art of movement and music. She teaches and performs regularly in the Triangle area.

Philip Brubaker
Photography

Philip Brubaker was born in 1980 in Washington D.C. He became interested in photography at an early age when his father gave him a simple point and shoot camera. He became a professional photographer at age twenty one and has been exhibiting fine art prints all over the Triangle, including the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

Walter Creech
Water Colors

North Carolina artist Walter Creech was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, into a military family. At a young age he traveled from state to state and country to country. In the fourth grade he went to the Louvre in Paris where he saw some of the greatest art work in the world. This made a profound impression on the young artist who had started drawing at a very early age. After his father’s tour in France was over, the family moved to the small town of Swepsonville in Alamance County, North Carolina, where he continued to develop his skills as an artist by drawing every day. Three years later, they moved to the community of Cedar Cliff, near Saxapahaw, North Carolina. This is where he fell in love with nature while canoeing and hiking on his father’s farm as he spent countless hours observing nature and continuing to draw. After attending the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida in 1977, Walter worked as an illustrator for 18 years, always knowing he wanted to create his own art full time. In 2000 he started a new career as a full-time fine artist. His choice to take a road less traveled has been a good one.

Creating much interest and winning several awards in the Southeast United States, his water color originals and limited edition prints are finding their way into private and corporate collections throughout the US and Europe.

Janice Holloman
Pottery

Jan is originally from Raleigh, NC. After receiving a degree in biology from NCSU, she moved to Greensboro and attended Guilford College to complete her teaching certification. After a long career as a science teacher in the Greensboro school system, she moved to coastal North Carolina and continued to teach until retirement. While teaching in the Adult High School Department of Carteret Community College in Morehead City, she discovered the pottery classes that were offered there. Beginning in hahand builtottery, then continuing on to wheel-throwing, she studied with a local potter, Scott Haines, owner of Bridges Street Pottery in Morehead City.

A return to the Piedmont in 2001 brought the opportunity to build a new house (complete with studio) and to continue learning new pottery skills. Jan enjoys attending workshops and classes at The Arts Incubator in Siler City, Dan Finch Pottery in Bailey, and John C. Campbell School near Murphy. Her functional stoneware pottery reflects the natural forms and colors that surround the area. She resides near Saxapahaw in Alamance County with her husband David and “little dog”, Maggie May.

Mellinda Hansen Holloway
Painting - Sculpture

I have been creating arts and crafts since I was a teenager.  My interests and mediums have varied over the years, but I continue to seek new ways of using materials in an unexpected manner that yet clings to the material's traditional use.  There are often religious or historical influences in my work.  Most of my recent work has leaned more toward creating functional craft pieces that are also works of art.  The works that are offered here run the length of my career and my assorted interests.

I live outside of Saxapahaw, NC with my husband, three horses, four dogs, assortment of cats and fish.  We are expecting our first human child in August of 2005.

David Jessee
Photography

The versatility of 35mm makes it my preferred format. Out in the world, I let images find me, relying primarily on available and naturanl light, using a variety of lenses. Occasionally I use filters to exact the right contrast

Photography for me captures images at once interperative and timeless. Perspective combines with light and shade, a dance of tonalities, to suggest basic geometric shapes that act as stepping stones for whatever the viewer may imagine

While working as a contract photographer for the Anaroc Agency, The Triangle Land Conservancy and others, my primary interest is as an artist, exploring photography as an expressive medium.

Lee Johnson
Oil on Canvas

Born in 1968, Lee began his artistic training with former pupil of Arthur Maynard, Betty Lou Totten. He subsequently earned his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art from New College. After studying in New Mexico with Leo Neufeld, his interest in the tradition of representational painting led him to the atelier of Charles Cecil in Florence. After studying and teaching figurative and portrait painting at the Cecil Studios for three years, Lee returned to the United States where he currently lives in North Carolina.

Kevin Milz
Photography

Kevin Milz has a strong passion for visualization. Photography is his medium of choice to show his personal visions to the world. He studied visual communications at the University of St Thomas in St Paul, MN. After working as a graphic/web designer for some time he decided to move to NC to attend Randolph community college and continue his passion for photography at one of the best hands on school in the nation. While in school Kevin had the opportunity to mentor under one of the biggest commercial photographer in the business. He now runs his own photography business and is excited about is venture in the fine art world.

Shannon O'Connor
Paint on Vintage Wood

These original works of art were created in a folk tradition....using bright colors, simple yet evocative images...and found materials. The artist gathers barn boards from the counties surrounding the Haw River~often depicting images reminiscent of the Saxapahaw Meadow, where her daughter was born. Shannon O'Connor is a graduate of Parsons School of Design, and currently lives in Orange Co. NC

Paperhand Puppet Intervention
Sculpture

Paperhand Puppet Intervention is Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger in an ongoing  collaboration with their community. Now in their 5 th year, Paperhand, uses cardboard, papier mache’, trash, and a variety of puppetry styles to help promote social change, peace, and hope for a better world.

Bridget Pemberton-Smith
Oil on Canvas

I often describe myself as a wearer of many hats: I am an artist. I am a gallery owner. I am an art therapist. (And those are are just my “professional hats!) Obviously, art plays a very important role in my life and has for a very long time. Not long after graduating from Guilford College with a BS in studio art, I was diagnosed with a chronic physical illness called scleroderma. I soon discovered that art was my most important healing modality and so I worked to surround myself with art by working in galleries and creating art myself. Soon I discovered the field of art therapy which not only validates my belief that I stay sane and healthy through art but also affords me the opportunity to share my experience with others. Becoming an art therapist has helped me a great deal as an artist. My own art has evolved as I have learned how to follow my heart as I paint as opposed to listening to the ever present critic in my head. I am taking more risks, trying new techniques and generally having more fun than ever.

Setting up a painting studio in Saxapahaw has been a dream come true for me. Its afforded me the opportunity to pursue oil painting once again as well as the chance to do art with some great kids in an after school program.The beautiful countryside around Saxapahaw also inspires me and though I have never been a landscape painter, that is what I find myself painting. And so I am trusting the process and letting the images flow from me.

Coy Quakenbush
Pottery

I am a native North Carolinian, born in 1949. I grew up and was educated in Alamance County, N.C. Saxapahaw and the surrounding area has been my home for most all of these years.

For about twelve years, I have been designing Native American style handcrafts, wall hangings, and wood carvings. I work in a number of different media. The materials I use today to complete my pieces were first experienced as a little boy growing up in the country with woods, river, creeks, fields, and animals. I think back and see that little boy climbing trees, watching birds fly, finding treasures, and forever getting muddy in the river and creeks. Mud/Clay is still my favorite medium. My obsession with clay may stem from my Native American heritage. I feel that my heritage is a strong influence in my creations and is entwined in my designs. My desire is to create pottery with Mimbres/Casa Grande designs as possibly my ancestors did. I also want to teach what I have learned to others. Not just what can be done with their hands, but also the peace of mind and the excitement, as there is a part of ones self in each piece, as each idea evolves into reality.

Rose Rosely
Paint on Tin

Before jumping ship from the rat race, she worked in Los Angeles for Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers in the television animation biz as a storyboard artist. She has been making wacky art her whole life and her work has been bought by folks all over the place over the years.

The last five years she spent out of country...first in Ghana,West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer and then in Honduras, Central America where she taught school to third and fourth graders.

She's back now making art, starting a business and planning her next adventure south of the border to collect more things for the dirt road gallery...a barn full of arts and crafts from around the world.

David Schaeffer
Blown Glass

David was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in Miami, Florida where he received a B.A. in Liberal Studies and a B.F.A. in Sculpture, from Floridia International University. David then received an M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Cincinnati, and a second M.F.A. in Glass from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

David has exhibited both regionally and nationally including several solo shows and has work in private collections around the country. Currently David is teaching Glassblowing at Resnik Thermal Lab in Chapel Hill, and he teaches a Winter Term Course in Digital Art at Elon University,

Nancy Talbot
Colored Pencil,Graphite and Oil Crayon on Paper

After living in the Netherlands for 25 years and returning to the U.S. with a young son 11 years ago, a favorite friend/professor advised,"don't worry about gallery searches: just keep working."  On view are drawings that bear witness to some of the work done in the last decade. Using objects as symbols of emotions and character traits in order to compose still life/portraits of life phases and experiences.