MEET THE ARTISTS : Presented in the order that they joined us in helping create a world with plenty for all
JANE TRAINOR: PAINTINGS
Jane Trainor is an Alaskan artist who moved up from the lower 48 in 1975. She studied oil painting at Decorah, Iowa at the South Bear Creek School during the summer of 1976. The method taught was from the old school method out of Europe that utilized eight specific colors.
Jane spent four winters in the bush of Alaska, about 100 miles down river from Eagle, Alaska on the Yukon River up the Kandik River. Besides subsistence living, Jane spent the winter daylight hours painting.
Jane has a back ground in counseling, colonic therapy, bio-resonance therapy, healing, has taught home school, loves to write, and is involved in several extensive service projects. Orion's Light Creations is one of them. (continued)
TAKENYA ROSETTA: PAINTER
Takenya Roseta is uniquely individual as her name, so follows her style of painting. Her supernatural gift of being able to capture emotion gives her work an intensity that is captivating. As a result, people are her only subjects. By using acrylics on canvas and under painting, she builds up transparent layers that help the canvas hold the vividness of the colors, allowing the light to bounce through the pigments giving her paintings a depth you can feel.
At the age of 27 Takenya feels that she has finally embraced her purpose and is doing what she was designed to do. She views her ability to paint as a God given gift. As long as she can remember, her heart has been tied to the arts, and specifically the two-dimensional arts. Years of art classes, from grammer school through college helped develope Takenya's talent. But she credits a junior high school substitute art club teacher, who taught her different water color techniques, as the basis of her painting inspiration. Inspired in high school by photographs of the works of Vermeer and Pollock, she embraces the challenge of mixing photo realism and splatter painting, and still capture the emotion and light quality of human existence.(continued)
MIKE MERTES: CHARCOAL DRAWING AND PRINTS
Mike is on the artist's path. he has worked in wood and metal, paint and print. More importantly, he sees himself as creating his life and assisting his children in creating theirs. (continued)
WILLOW HEATH: PAINTER
Alaskan born, Willow Heath has shown her paintings in galleries, cafes and art studios for twelve years. Each original Willow Heath painting carries an astute attention to details and an air of mystery and with vivid colors and clear depictions. Willow Heath currently lives in Seattle washington where she teaches painting classes, exhibits her work, paints commission portraits and is raising her son. (continued)
JUDIE GUMM
" I draw inspiration from Nature's own wealth of imagery. I am particularly drawn to capture animals and plants that have a whimsical theme or romantic symbolism. This approach often challenges me to find that perfect bead or stone to complement the design in a meaningful way. (continued)
JEAN LESTER: PAINTER AND ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Jean Lester works out of her home and studio in Ester Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks. She studied painting in San Francisco after leaving her native Canada, and has lived and painted in Alaska since 1970. She is well known for her images of flowers, people, and landscapes done in her own intuitive and impressionistic style, and her paintings hang in private collections in the United States, Japan, Switzerland and Canada.
She is also known for her unique oral history books about notable Alaskans in which she presents their life stories, told in their own words along with her sensitive portraits in oils and pastels. (continued)
ELLEN MILLION: FANTASY ARTIST
Ellen has put together a business that has been in operation for 15 years offering a complete source for fantasy stationary products including Dragons, Unicorns, Merfolk, Fairies, Elementals, and other creatures of magic and wonder on stationary, cards, bookmarks, prints, coloring books, mousepads, stickers, T-shirts and magnets. (continued)
AMY CAMERON: ARTIST AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Amy has a graphic design service that donated her talent to put together the logo for Plenty For All Thru Art Orion's Light Creations. (continued)
NEVILLE JACOBS: OIL AND WATER COLOR ARTIST
The powerful beauty and drama of Alaska has been a source of artistic inspiration to Neville Jabcobs since she first came to Anchorage with her parents in 1949, from California. She held her first solo show in 1953, and has been exhibiting regularly in Alaska and other states ever since. Her work hangs in private and public collections throughout the world. (continued)
Logo design courtesy of Amy Cameron www.badwhitedog.com
JANE TRAINOR: PAINTINGS (continued)
This is how she sees herself as an artist and a service worker.
I am primarily a healer by nature. I have always considered my images to be healing images that speak from my soul to others. Seeking to create images that were so real that you could 'hear' the water moving, 'feel' the wind stirring, or 'smell' the air in your mind has brought me tremendous joy. My awe and reverence for nature inspires me to recreate it as close to the creation as I can and so extend appreciation to the Creator. I have also sought to share my inner journey through imagary. My paintings speak from my soul often conveying answers that I have discovered on my path with God. I call my work 'Orion's Light Creations'.
This path has led me into service work to assist myself in knowing who I am in a spiritual context. On this path I watched people go hungry and be desparate without homes. I can relate as I, too, have gone hungry and been a homeless single mother of two children. It is in my nature to use my creative mind to seek ways that I can help my world to be a better place for all people. I believe that we all have something that we love to do that will assist the world in being a better place for all. I asked Creator such a question in regards to the growing homelessness situation in America.
It became clear to me that my paintings could become a means to create funds to help alleviate the homeless situation in my country. The money created can pay for more prints as needed and shipping costs. This would leave the greater portion to create a fund that eventually could be drawn from to assist people into having a home of their own that they could take care of. I imagine that the funds could help with down payments or the cost of land providing that the people could come up with the mortgage costs. Perhaps the funds could assist in the opening of a self-sufficient community that could provide a home for many. The Board of Directors and I are open for input and can be reached through g-mail at janetrainorart@gmail.com I have also seen and felt the need of artists and artisans to feel supported and appreciated. Orion's Light Creations and Plenty For All Thru Art are dedicated in creating cooperation and support between artists in a world that we are creating that sees them as valuable resources for change and values their creations as well.
TAKENYA ROSETTA FORD: PAINTINGS (continued)
Takenya Roseta is uniquely individual as her name, so follows her style of painting. Her supernatural gift of being able to capture emotion gives her work an intensity that is captivating. As a result, people are her only subjects. By using acrylics on canvas and under painting, she builds up transparent layers that help the canvas hold the vividness of the colors, allowing the light to bounce through the pigments giving her paintings a depth you can feel.
At the age of 27 Takenya feels that she has finally embraced her purpose and is doing what she was designed to do. She views her ability to paint as a God given gift. As long as she can remember, her heart has been tied to the arts, and specifically the two-dimensional arts. Years of art classes, from grammer school through college helped develope Takenya's talent. But she credits a junior high school substitute art club teacher, who taught her different water color techniques, as the basis of her painting inspiration. Inspired in high school by photographs of the works of Vermeer and Pollock, she embraces the challenge of mixing photo realism and splatter painting, and still capture the emotion and light quality of human existence.
This is what she says about her work:
Painting is where I find my greatest sense of self and my greatest sense of belonging. What my work means to me is that it is the means by which I find a voice when mine falls silent. Each piece is somehow a snapshot of who I am and who we are as human beings.
MICHAEL MERTES: CHARCOAL DRAWINGS AND PRINTS (continued)
Mike is on the artist's path. he has worked in wood and metal, paint and print. More importantly, he sees himself as creating his life and assisting his children in creating theirs.
These are his words about his life as an artist.
I've always been an artist. To create is to live. The people in my world, especailly the women, have always been fascinating, drawing smiles from the world as I walk through it. It's like standing in the sun.
WILLOW HEATH: PAINTING (continued)
Alaskan born, Willow Heath has shown her paintings in galleries, cafes and art studios for twelve years. Each original Willow Heath painting carries an astute attention to details and an air of mystery and with vivid colors and clear depictions. Willow Heath currently lives in Seattle washington where she teaches painting classes, exhibits her work, paints commission portraits and is raising her son.
Willow uses acrylics and water soluble oil paints in each of her pieces using the three basic primary colors and white. She feels that by mixing her own colors she can more accurately express her inspiration. Willow's class, 'Meditative Painting' is reflective of the artist's personality. This class was designed to offer beginning artists as well as the experienced painters an outlet for developing their personal technique, their eye for color and their artistic intuition. She encourages her students to love the process as much as the outcome.
Willow spent the first many years of her childhood in the remote wilderness of the Alaskan frontier where her family homesteaded. She spent the later part of her childhood traveling and living a nomadic lifestyle immersed in the arts. Willow feels that these experiences have helped to shape her artistic vision and allowed herself a platform to express herself unabridged.
JUDIE GUMM: JEWELRY (continued)
" I draw inspiration from Nature's own wealth of imagery. I am particularly drawn to capture animals and plants that have a whimsical theme or romantic symbolism. This approach often challenges me to find that perfect bead or stone to complement the design in a meaningful way. As a craft, jewelry should be well made, durable, and above all else, wearable. But it also can be an art form that enchants the wearer with beauty."
JEAN LESTER: PAINTINGS AND ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (continued)
Jean Lester works out of her home and studio in Ester Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks. She studied painting in San Francisco after leaving her native Canada, and has lived and painted in Alaska since 1970. She is well known for her images of flowers, people, and landscapes done in her own intuitive and impressionistic style, and her paintings hang in private collections in the United States, Japan, Switzerland and Canada.
She is also known for her unique oral history books about notable Alaskans in which she presents their life stories, told in their own words along with her sensitive portraits in oils and pastels.
This is her own statement:
I've painted off and on my whole life. It is what I do, not what I talk about. Every time I start a painting it turns out differently than what I had intended, sometimes for the better. In the last few years I've started seeing flowers and landscapes as just form, patches of color and light, movement and balance. To paraphrase Proust, 'There are no new landscapes, only new perspectives.'
I like to see my artistic skill morph as I try to look at everything I see from a different perspective and accept the validity of that vision.
ELLEN MILLION: FANTASY ARTIST (continued)
Ellen has put together a business that has been in operation for 15 years offering a complete source for fantasy stationary products including Dragons, Unicorns, Merfolk, Fairies, Elementals, and other creatures of magic and wonder on stationary, cards, bookmarks, prints, coloring books, mousepads, stickers, T-shirts and magnets. She has brought together artists that offer these themes in their work. In her words, "I believe wholeheartedly in treating people right and that is my first and foremost goal. I hope to provide a wide variety of beautiful and useful products to brighten your home. I wish to support some amazing new and established artists. I aim for high quality but affordable products with profits going principally to the artist and secondarily to improving the service and selection of products available."
AMY CAMERON: ARTIST AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER (continued)
Amy describes her business as doing graphic designer services and astistic endeavors. She describes herself as an anthropologist and potter turned designer.
NEVILLE JACOBS: OIL AND WATER COLOR ARTIST (continued)
Neville began her career as an artist "unofficially" as a little girl. Her grandmother studied art informally, but thoughtfully, and painted well. She painted subjects with her granddaughter on the many trips the family took together in California and other parts of the west. Neville says,"I've always been attracted to the landscape and the natural world."
Her work as a serious artist came after the family moved to Alaska. Neville says "The dynamic power of the landscape was compelling. I felt I was bursting with energy, with the emotion aroused from the beauty I saw. Naturally it came out through painting. I used all media, pastels, colored pencils, oils, acrylics, and watercolors. Primarily I worked in oils, however, I used watercolor for sketching. It was not until 1980 that I turned to watercolor as my major medium. Now, recently I am working in oils, again. I need to express some of my feelings through oil. It's simply different, and I love the characteristics of both media."