Featured Artists

Artsy Shark presents painter Donna Howard as Featured Artist. Enjoy her intriguing portfolio, and see more of her work by visiting her website.

I was born into the Witness Protection Program so the details of my childhood have been kept from me for my own safety. I was released when it was discovered that I was never in any real danger at all. I was turned out into the street with a written apology, a pat on the head and a detailed invoice payable to the FBI for all that protection I never even needed. Talk about being behind before you even begin.

Actually, I was recently paroled from a 15-year sentence in an office cube. It was a fortunate occurrence if you consider all the time I wasted wishing the window directly behind me could open. I grieved for about 5 seconds before going to my attic to find the paintbrushes I remember being so fond of in college. They were a tad dusty and a little more than “slightly miffed” due to my neglect. It seems they forgave me after I introduced them to the shiny new tubes of paint I had purchased just for them. Now our days are spent in joyful anticipation of the challenges each new blank canvas presents.

Except for the part about having a sketchy childhood, the first bit was a complete fabrication. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

This is the bio I used because it’s funny. I’ve read hundreds of artists’ statements trying to get a feel for how I should introduce myself to the world. I chose to try laughter and intrigue – let everyone in on enough of the joke that they want more. I’m a little quirky, I laugh inappropriately, I never suffered for my art. I pretty much avoid suffering if at all possible.

I paint because it makes me happy – and because I don’t have to, I need to. Most of my early work (listen to me, I’ve been painting for all of 5 minutes) are stories I remember from my childhood. Crazy little vignettes, short stories that remain in my memory allowing me to go back and reexamine them at my leisure. Horribly painful memories that turned out to be just benign and ridiculous stories about life.

Like the time I was forced to take ballet with my more lithe, braver, much more coordinated older sister. She danced like a butterfly while I flopped around like a manatee stuffed in a tutu. 128 Wilmington Rd is a memory of my sister telling all the neighborhood kids not to play with me. Looking back, I WAS the little tagalong that big sisters are supposed to bully. A painting is finished when it makes me smile or laugh out loud because I know the whole joke.

I want my art to make people happy. There is just too much unhappiness on this earth and if I can leave someone with a smile, I win. I want to be a recognizable artist, but I don’t want to be pigeonholed. I need to be able to follow my instincts, my brushes and my life.

Donna Howard's work will be presented in a solo exhibition at Brew'd Awakenings Coffeehaus in Lowell, Massachusetts from June 25 through mid-July.

Artsy Shark presents Australian artist Jenny Davis.  Her mixed media work uses recycled and reclaimed materials. Enjoy her portfolio and see more about Jenny here.

Jenny Davis is an Australian artist, working from studios in Victoria, Australia and Paris, France, where she sometimes lives. As an artist, she enjoys working in many disciplines including: painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, collage, recycled design, sound and virtual worlds. Jenny has shown her work in many countries, including Australia, Germany, Spain, France and USA. Her work is in private and public collections across Australia, UK, Europe and the U.S.A.

Starting out primarily as an abstract painter and sculptor, Jenny’s arts practice has evolved and crosses over into many areas and disciplines. Recycling and reusing items in her work is very important. Stuff that usually goes into landfills and gleaned from the streets of Melbourne and Paris, or wherever she travels. Street litter, food packaging, advertising materials, and all kind of paper ephemera are collected and saved for this purpose.

“All this wonderful stuff I reclaim and use in my collage and sculpture.”

“My source of creativity is spontaneous. It can mean spending days even weeks in the studio and strange places contemplating and “collecting energy”. Once I focus and sit with that energy it can take off in all areas. I then definitely need to put down a feeling or emotion, with colour, marks, words, assembled objects, or digital images still and moving. Whatever it takes to get it out! I use various techniques, materials and tools to realize my ideas.

The same goes with my photography. It’s spontaneous and unrehearsed. I like to tell strange stories with my photography and will put myself in uncomfortable spaces to achieve this. I have a wonderful space I found in Paris, I call the dungeon. I can spend hours down there waiting for something to take off. “

At the moment, I am fascinated by the narrative we tell ourselves, when placed in unfamiliar situations. Our mind seems to fly into “spontaneous imagination” and not focus in the moment. I want to seize those imaginary stories and create something with it.

I love spaces underground. There’s a life underneath the earth, and people don’t know about it, but it’s very busy and living, I have taken photos of the Eiffel Tower but I go under it, and look at closer fragments. I’m inspired by many things: Creative minds, Science as art, varies art movements and artists, Ernst, Miro, Tapies, Surrealism, Dada, Abstract Expressionists’, Natural history, Psychology, de-construction , Chaos theory, collecting found- objects and street litter, graffiti, street art, books, vintage and antique, travel and more.

Artsy Shark is pleased to present Featured Artist Leisa Rich, whose work in fiber can been seen by visiting her website or blog. Enjoy!

Leisa Rich is an artist working in conceptual and Neo-Surrealist 2D, sculptural and installation format, using thread and free motion stitching as her primary medium and method.

Illnesses have been the motivators in her life-long passion for all things fiber and nature the catalyst for subject matter. As a baby, Leisa had a satin-trimmed blanket; the only way she could fall asleep was by working her fingers from one end to the other. At age four, while in the hospital for deafness, her mother made clothes for her Barbie. One particular dress, made of a fiery red satin and lace, provoked her tactile infatuation.

At age 15, while attending Interlochen Arts Academy for piano and dance, Leisa developed thyroid complications from Mononeucleosis, causing weight gain and getting kicked out of the dance department until she lost the weight. A friend suggested she take weaving (“an easy “A”, man!”) Leisa LOVED it and switched her major to art. 36 years later she is still hooked!

Growing up in Canada surrounded by lovely, wide-open spaces–the land mass of Canada exceeds the United States’, yet it has less population than the state of California–fabulous lakes, mountains and a very low human population, Leisa feels most at peace in the natural world. Leisa spent her childhood communing with nature; ice skating outdoors on natural creeks and days spent alone sifting the sand on the beach of Lake Huron in quest of a perfect fossil.

Recent work has involved the continuous exploration and development of the ways which man-made materials can be formed into art that references nature or natural systems and how, when Leisa magnifies these human-made “systems”, they form a new reality. This attempt is in response to her dissatisfaction with the impact of human behavior on the natural world. Leisa is seeking to create a unique world of her own design, made from that she shuns and that she embraces.

In her 3 dimensional and installation works, Leisa addresses this by looking at items usually ignored: a small stone kicked aside while walking, a bit of broken glass, a fossil, a shard of twisted metal, a shell, leftover plastic, a microscopic cell. Leisa transforms those simple, ordinary objects into extraordinary environments in order to give them greater significance. Using the power of scale—from miniscule to gargantuan—she portrays and brings to notice an important essence she sees.

The 2 dimensional, Neo-Surrealist pieces Leisa creates interject personal storytelling into a broad visual commentary on that dysfunctional society. Her wall works at first glance might be likened to that of a painting – an initial impression of color and form -but the viewer is usually confused by a texture unlike that in painting and is then sucked in for a closer look. Leisa wants that element of hidden surprise (“that’s done with THREAD?!) to grab, so that viewers are drawn in to her story.

Leisa’s recent works have invited humans back into her world. They are completely participatory and viewer interactive. Movable elements that viewers can take off/add on open up visual dialogue, creating new stories each time the components are rearranged. Leisa is presently working on a viewer interactive commission for a major U.S. art museum that will appeal to adults and children alike.

In addition to her conceptual, non-functional works, Leisa also makes unique items for body and home for her Etsy shop, stores and gallery shops. She teaches at arts centers, runs the after school art program at a private school in Atlanta and conducts workshops and arts events.

Leisa was featured on the PBS artist special “IN CONTEXT”; in upcoming books “NOPLACENESS- Art in the Post-Urban Landscape” “Studio Quilt: No. 6” and “Modern Sculpture”; in the published books, “Hand to Hand: 195 Artists Witness the Iraq War” “The Best of America Sculpture Artists and Artisans” and “Quilt National 2009” and exhibits locally, nationally and internationally.

Leisa holds MFA and BFA degrees in Fibers and a Bachelor of Education in Art. She is also on the Board of Directors of South East Fiber Art Alliance.