WBCA INSTRUCTOR BIOS

Marian Alstad is a popular watercolor instructor with over 27 years experience. Marian supports each artist in their own endeavors, while encouraging them to try new techniques and styles of applying pigment. Her works cover many subjects and her emphasis is always on transparency and fresh color, whatever the subject.

Lisa Arnold has been a local performance and visual artist for many years and began making mosaics and working with stained glass only three years ago. Hooked immediately, she’s since been working in her home studio recycling windows, ceramics and glass and combining them with other new and found objects to create one-of-a-kind pieces of art. She draws her inspiration from nature and various other art forms, working organically with a focus on light, shape and color. When not working with glass and tile, Lisa teaches theatre and film at the University of St. Thomas and College of St. Catherine, and advises the slam poetry team at UST.

Kim Bakken-Parr One of my former careers was a high school Chemistry teacher. I was always fascinated with seeing how things worked. Experimenting in the lab was my favorite activity. Now I get to do the same thing with Precious Metal Clay. Keeping my jewelry to one of a kind piece, I keep expanding my creativity. It is through this creativity and self-expression I get to share myself with others. No longer do I stand up in front of a class of 30 high school Chemistry students. But each day I can create something of beauty to share with others I find is just as intrinsically rewarding. Level I & II certified in Precious Metal Clay. www.cahching.com

Mike Blumer is the author of the Young Adult series The Secret Books of Gabendoor. Mike is a long time story teller who finally found time to become a writer thanks to encouragement from his family. Long ago, his children dubbed him an “alternative life form” because of his “creative” parenting techniques, such as making them sing their arguments. Mike lives in Stillwater, Minnesota with his wife Jane, and fond memories of their golden retriever, Nova. More information about The Secret Books of Gabendoor can be found on www.gabendoor.com.

Susan Boeckmann (BFA University of Missouri-Columbia and Studio Art Centers, International) has been an MCAD Continuing Studies Faculty member for four years. She teaches Life Drawing and Art Anatomy there and at many local area art centers. She has been conducting school arts residencies since 1999 as a MSAB Roster Artist, is the Exhibition Chair and a mentor for WARM, and was the 2003-2004 Artist -in-Residence at Banfill-Locke Art Center.

Sally Brown I have always had this compulsion to make things. I see textures, shapes and colors all around me and I want to put them together. As an “undecided” freshman in college I happened to walk past a potter at work and I knew “that’s it, that’s what I want to do”. I got my degree in fine arts from the U of Puget Sound. I set up shop as a production potter, built a wood-burning kiln and lived my dream. I started teaching pottery classes to all the neighborhood kids, which led to teaching a workshop at a local elementary school and to my current position as an instructor at the White Bear Center for the Arts. At the WBCA I was introduced to silver clay and again I knew “this is it”. I took certification training in silver clay jewelry making and now combine my expertise mixing textures, shapes and colors into clay and silver vessels, jewelry and who knows what will be next. www.sal-pal.com

John Caddy is a poet and naturalist whose books include Morning Earth: Field Notes in Poetry, Eating the Sting, and The Color of Mesabi Bones. A Bush Artist Fellow, John’s honors include the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Sally Award for teaching arts. He has taught poetry in many venues for 35 years.

Jan Chamberlin has over thirty years of experience in dance. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, magna cum laude, in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. She studied ballet, modern and jazz with teachers from the dance companies of New York City Ballet, Ballet Russe, Joffrey Ballet, Martha Graham, Lar Lubovitch, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon and various jazz masters including Luigi and Frank Hatchett. She performed and choreographed for various dance companies and regional theaters throughout New York and was an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College.

Linden Dahlstrom has painted in the North Country for many years, primarily in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He has shown in numerous shows and his paintings are in many private and corporate collections. The major theme of his work is the transient and tentative existence of human endeavor within the natural environment. His professional career includes a lifelong involvement in Design as an interior designer, retailer, technical college instructor and elementary Art specialist.

Estela DePaola Lerma When creating art all the surrounding environment becomes the subject matter to be transformed in new creatures. Lines, form, shape and volume generate a new style to represent reality, connecting the public with the artistic expression. My sculptures are based on everyday situations, raging from pure nature to human related activities. The viewer projects his or her own interpretation to each piece of artwork, sometimes physically interacting with it or just observing it. A different perception of life arises to give place to many voices with multiple perspectives. www.mnartists.org/DE_PAOLA__de_LERMA

Kathleeen Felsheim has a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and has taught art classes for adults and childrenfor many years. Her paper mache work is sold at the Uno Carina Tre Boutique at The Chocolate Spoon Cafe in White Bear Lake.

Kyle Frederickson earned a B.F.A. from the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. He has extensive experience in publication design as a Senior Designer and Art Director for several local magazine publications. Currently Kyle focuses painting and exhibiting of urban landscapes and teaching and illustrating in the children’s arena. Kyle has taught art to kids in various schools, art centers, community centers and churches. Additionally, Kyle has illustrated children’s publications, created children’s murals and is an instructor with the White Bear Center for the Arts. Kyle is currently serving on the White Bear Center for the Arts Board of Directors.

Tina Marie Ferguson is a residential architect working in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She extends her professional career by incorporating art collage as a means of communicating and describing her perceptions of life, love, friends and family. She has developed over 70 pieces of work inspired by important themes of life, love, family, friends, travel, art, architecture, sex, femininity, wine and food, traditions, ancestry, and much more. Her work has been featured at Charlene’s Gallery 10 in Door County, WI and the Red hot Art show in Minneapolis, MN. These collages have been admired and critiqued personally by the well known collage artist Jonothan Talbot.

Sue Filbin regularly demonstrates and teaches nature printing in the Metro area. She is a member of the Nature Printing Society and Colleagues of Calligraphy, and works as a graphic designer. Her website is web.mac.com/suzannefilbin

Richard Graves Raised in west central Minnesota, educated at North Dakota State University, B. Arch, Spent early adulthood in New Ulm raising 4 kids and designing and building homes. Finally realized that life was too short, and took up painting. Now painting and teaching art full time, living in Roseville, with wife Mary, a health worker and fiber artist. www.richardgraveswatercolors.com

Mary Johnson received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin at Eau-Claire, and her MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her work has been shown regionally, nationally, and internationally. She works in iron, bronze, and non-traditional materials, including found objects.

Neil Johnston Johnston’s work has often used images gathered from multiple viewpoints and places. In this new work, he is particularly interested in how contemporary physics theories of reality are redefining terms used in image making such as “reality”, “perception”, “familiarity”, “space” and “multiplicity”. Johnston uses combinations of patterns, photographs, maps, layering in resin and Plexiglas and transparency and opacity, to explore these new definitions as they inform his painting. Neil received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a MFA in painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis, MN. He currently teaches Painting, Drawing, Art History and Design Fundamentals at Century College in White Bear Lake, MN. Neil has been commissioned by private collectors and corporations for many paintings and local murals. His work is collected by local corporations such as Medtronic Inc. and Hines International. www.paintstew.com

Sue Kapsner My personal focus as an artist is in ceramic and fiber arts. Specifically, I enjoy experimenting with pit firing pottery treated with terra sigillata and combining the pottery with natural fibers. I find the tactile nature of clay and fibers appealing as well as working with renewable resources and ancient craft. I have received awards for work accepted in annual juried student exhibitions and have displayed work in juried art shows and auctions. I currently teach art classes for children and adults at the White Bear Center for the Arts and the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, WI. Art has something for everyone. I am not an art educator because I am a great artist. I love to teach art because I believe art connects us to our past, mirrors our history, begs us to think critically and respond creatively.

Lin Lacy has a BFA in design from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has also studied design at Reitveld Academy in Amsterdam. Most of her career has been spent doing window display for Daytons and Marshall Fields and working in fiber. Lin has exhibited fiber pieces and her books in galleries around the country. She has also worked on tapestry conservation at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and sewn costumes for the Minnesota Opera. Lin currently teaches bookbinding, papermaking and printing to children at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She also taught photo transfer at the Minnesota History Center and the White Bear Center for the Arts. She has fiber pieces in the permanent collections of the History Center and the State Lottery.

Jeanne Larson has taught ongoing classes and workshops in traditional watercolor for 10 years and has been represented by several fine galleries for over 20 years. She has exhibited and won awards in many regional shows and expanded her teaching to include mixed water media and acrylic workshops. Although she has studied with many nationally known and regional painters, she considers herself primarily self-taught and loves the idea of being a perennial student of art. Her philosophy of teaching is to give her students "roots and wings" by presenting the foundational principles of design, color and content and then freeing the student to explore their own path.

Linda Lee The mission of my work is to illuminate and preserve, through the art of photography, a tangible image of Divine Spirit as manifested through my relationships with ordinary persons, places and things. I have over twenty years of experience as a photographer to support the gift of vision with which I've been blessed. I’m the artist/owner of Real Life Photography where I specialize in fine portraiture of children, pets, families and individuals to be displayed as art in your home. I provide artistic photographic story-telling coverage for a select number of weddings and events each year. As more and more people are exploring their own creative self-expression using photography, I’m enjoying increasing opportunities to share my knowledge and perspective by presenting classes and lectures, such as those at White Bear Center for the Arts. www.dangerouslinda.com

Paula Lundquist has a bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in drawing and painting from the University of Minnesota. Her art work has been shown at various art galleries throughout the state. Recently she has been working on projects from Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania from multiple visits to the gypsy villages of Eastern Europe.

Liz Marson I began creating stained glass art in 1999, as a way to take my mind off the death of my father. I find freedom in the ability to use different media to create simple stained glass patterns to more complex, detailed pieces of art. Vibrant, rich colors are a constant throughout my creations—a river reflecting a mountain in the background or a bear traveling with the Northern Lights. Before creating a piece, I envision how color can be used to create a beautiful work of which I can be proud.

Cassandra Monson is a professional artist with a BFA from the College of Visual Arts. She is a freelance art teacher and facilitates community based collaborative public art projects and artist residences in public and private schools. Her drawings, paintings and collages depict abstract, fluid, figural shapes in various poses. These figural shapes are abstracted from her earlier paintings of the uterus, used as a symbol for equality-the place we all come from, the one thing we all have in common.

Heidi Nelson I am going through a transition with my art and am very excited about the direction I am going. Getting out my oil paints and refining my digital photography skills, yet finding I am still obsessed with the way watercolor flows and settles, granulates and blooms. Having once again decided to move beyond merely creating a pleasing realistic scene, I have begun working in a more abstract format, utilizing random elements to facilitate creativity. Drawing from the past, my love of pattern, both in rhythmic repetitions of simple shapes and in formal patterns of textiles and pottery; I am adding it to my signature technique of building-up luminous, oil-like watercolor glazes to create faces that seem to pulse with life. Working with a more earthy pallet, I am creating pieces that whisper of origins, oneness and hope. www.heidisite.com

Sue Rutford Mom, wife, sister, daughter, artist, Software company researcher, Medical Technologist, Biology Teacher, Food Shelf Manager, Education Coordinator. Born in California Transplanted to Minnesota Never want to go back! Cat owner, fabric lover, tiara-wearer. My favorite color is orangish.

Susan Fryer Voigt My “artistic” goal is to explore the strengths and limitations of art materials while showing my personal view of the world. Art materials can be mixed and co-mingled to create dazzling effects, a landscape’s subtle colors can be transformed into vibrant hues, and simple still life forms pushed into new shapes and colors. The dull can blossom into beauty through artistic vision, innovation, and creativity. When asked what I paint, the answer is: shapes, colors, line and light. My “instructor” goal is to explore history, trends and new innovations in fine art with you. Together, we can explore how I use my digital camera to capture realism and (then learn how to) transform the ordinary into fine art that speaks to the present. I hope to encourage one and all to express their unique creativity and emotion through art. www.susanfryervoigt.com

Jennifer Wolcott Many artists’ statements are made of lofty sentiments and sensitivities reaching even to the meaning of the universe. Mine is much simpler. I am driven by curiosity. I respond to the colors and forms of the world and try to figure out “how do you do that?”.. whatever “that” is. Part of the answer is technical but it is also psychological. Cause and effect. I spent more than twenty years as an engineer in industry happily figuring out how to make printed circuits better-faster-smaller-tougher-more and figuring out what went wrong when they failed. At the same time I was studying Art, any and all Art; two dimensional, three dimensional, time dimensional, highbrow and lowbrow and the underlying psychology. Not in an organized progression, although I did finally complete my degree, but following my nose and taking advantage of opportunities. www.wolcottart.com

Frank Zeller has a masters degree in art education and the fine arts, He has taken awards in local, state and national fine arts exhibitions and judged the State Fair Arts Exhibitions. He has taught watercolor workshops in the US, Italy and Spain. He has been an active part of the White Bear Center for the Arts for many years serving on the board as well as teaching.