The group exhibition features artwork of Community Education instructors at Peninsula College. Viewers may be moved and delighted by the creative visions captured in ceramics, beadwork, watercolor, monoprints, and textiles.
Andréa Woods: Nature Journaling with Watercolors
Throughout her life, Andréa has been drawn to nature and making images. She is a contemporary impressionist oil painter living in the Pacific NW where she finds inspiration for her paintings.
Art is a visual language. The artist communicates their concept and feeling, their intent, to the viewer through the painting. A strong foundation in drawing was her first experience with teachers and in workshops. It is the basis for all her artworks. She continues to learn from and study current, and old masters, artists, and currently Russian Impressionism. "We never stop learning, it is a wonderful process of exploration". Although she has worked in many mediums, oil paints are her preferred materials, using rich colors and varying textures to create places where we would all like to go.
Andréa enjoys teaching and sharing her work in exhibits. Whether outside in nature or in the meditative solitude of her studio, art is her passion.
Ariel Zimman: Entrepreneurship for Creatives
Ariel Zimman is a ceramics artist who fell in love with clay at her very first pottery lesson in the third grade. Since then, she has earned her BFA in sculpture and ceramics, and worked at the Portland Art Museum, a small but very profitable Sculpy ornament business, Mudshark Studios—a high volume slip casting production business, where she worked as a studio production ceramicist while starting her first ceramics-based home decor business in 2013. In 2015, Ariel started her second business, Stonedware Company, which specialized in handcrafted porcelain smoking wares and distributed wholesale and retail designs internationally. Ariel has participated in over 50 trade shows/fairs/markets and has had her work featured in Rolling Stone, Dwell, Vogue, Forbes, and more.
Karen Sixkiller: Beading Workshops
As a contemporary Cherokee artist, Karen Sixkiller focuses on sculptural work in various media including ceramic/clay, metal and embroidered or woven beads. Karen's sculptural beadwork won a blue ribbon at the Santa Fe Indian Market Summer 2023. She has taught several beading workshop series through ʔaʔkʷustəŋáw̕txʷ House of Learning, Peninsula College Longhouse and her graduate school the University of Illinois.
Kaylee Cammack: Gel Printing and Handmade Books
Kaylee has been crafting and creating for the last 30 years. A lover of color, she’s been a card maker, a quilter, a mixed media artist and most recently a collage artist. Gelli printing is her newfound passion and provides her with papers and textiles to incorporate into all other artistic endeavors. Kaylee has experience teaching children of all ages as well as adults, and has a Master of Arts in Teaching.
Rachel Anderson: Quilt Studio
Rachel Anderson took her first Quilting Class through Peninsula College’s Community Education during the Winter Quarter of 2004. In the two decades since, Peninsula College’s Health Instructor has made more quilts than she can count and has a strong desire to continue the art and tradition of quilting at the college. All members of the community are welcome.
Sara Deren: Ceramics
Sara Deren is a ceramic artist and educator with a passion for blending technique, intuition, and inspiration from the natural world. As an Artist in Residence at Peninsula College, Sara combines her technical skills and teaching experience to foster a welcoming environment where students can experiment with clay and embrace their creativity. Her work features organic forms and intricate textures, inviting viewers to engage with dynamic, tactile compositions.
Thomas Connery: Ceramics
Thomas Connery is a ceramic artist who takes inspiration from landscapes and ecologies from his upbringing in the southwest region of Arizona to create ceramic sculptures and pottery forms that compose their own sense of familiarity and foreignness.
He received his BFA in ceramics at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff Az in 2018 where he explored the high desert atmosphere and multiple woodfired opportunities the program offers. After graduating he has taken a liking to teaching and educating the public in ceramics. He has pursued opportunities in teaching classes at art centers, community college, residencies such as the University of North Dakota. He has since received his MFA in ceramics at Indiana University Bloomington in 2023 where he developed his sculpture style and was a general assistant to the ceramics area for one year and taught drawing and ceramics classes for four semesters. He is now the current resident artist in the pacific northwest at Peninsula College where he continues to work and teach.