Featured Artists

Featured artist Jane Houghton creates delightfully whimsical mixed media images. Enjoy her work and visit her website for more from this artist.

Jane is a Massachusetts artist who has been known in her community for teaching private art lessons to children for eleven years. Her students inspired her to return to her creative roots and begin to make her own art again. Jane is a graduate of Skidmore College with a degree in Studio Art. “The children’s spirit of making art reminded me of why I have loved being creative since I was a small child . . . they make art to please themselves and if someone else sees something special – well, then that is a bonus.” She started showing her work in 2006 and has not looked back since.

The images in Jane’s work often come from subconscious places. The gum-drop shaped hills she is most well known for are reminiscent of the ancient Celtic hill forts of Wales, where Jane did part of her undergraduate studies. Circles, dots and letters have all played parts in her imagination and continue to pop up sometimes in unexpected places in her compositions.  She invites the viewer to take a closer look for details as a way to bring them in and make them feel a deeper connection to the piece beyond the initial glance.

Her technique of layering altered tissue paper on top of acrylic is influenced by her fascination with the encaustic painting technique (painting with a pigment and melted wax mixture.) “I love the layered effects that the wax can lend itself to.” Instead of the translucent beeswax she layers thin layers of tissue paper that she has drawn on with oil stick, colored pencil, ink and or acrylic paint to achieve a similar result. Jane prefers to work on square wood panels.

Jane is currently working on a new series, titled, “Nurture” This series of mixed media paintings features large seed pods in various stages of development. From the meditative and dormant seed to the bursting open of the blossom, the series seeks to address the tension that is inherent as we grow in the roles in our lives (friend, spouse, parent, community member) while maintaining a sense of our core self. The seed pods and bursting plants are metaphors for our souls bursting open and becoming. The majority of these new pieces are larger squares forcing the viewer to be confronted by the delicate process. Recently, the blossoming images have become quite popular and the demand for smaller, more affordable pieces has allowed Jane to develop this theme in a variety of compositions and color relationships.

Jane has an active commission practice creating individualized pieces for children and families. “Commissioned works are a welcome challenge of creating something that a patron’s family will feel connected to and cherish for generations. It is an honor to craft an original piece of art, originating from a parents’ vision, wanting to celebrate their family and child in a tangible and meaningful way.” Jane has developed a multiple panel concept that holds a plan for the changes a family faces when children grow and leave the nest.

These multi-paneled pieces can stand as a group or individually. The center panel depicts the family as a whole and may include imagery that speaks to the family unit and include quotes about the families’ shared experiences or values. The additional side panels represent individual children. The idea is that while the children are living at home the painting remains a unit, but when a child leaves the home their individual panel can be displayed in their new home as an independent piece.

Featured artist Caroline Z. Marcos draws her inspiration from the spirit. Enjoy her portfolio and see more about her work by visiting her website.

I am in love with color and form. I use them to create works about meditation and introspection. For me it is an act of meditation itself to make the work.  I often explore personal narratives, symbols and archetypes, much like the traditional meditative imagery of Mandalas; the ancient Sanskrit word for Circle.  Some of my pieces tell a story, with the archetypal symbols, like birds, and femininity which allude to a memory or a dream, the past and present.

I incorporate text as a pictorial element that sometimes clarifies or convolutes the narrative.  Text is both a visual element and an information tool. Abstracted color and natural forms are overlaid with text, collage material and encaustic wax.  This approach to working in mixed media lends itself to creating a visceral world made with multiple layers, an approach that imbues the work with meaning.  Therefore, it is the layering process that acts as a metaphor for the layering of the soul, the depth of the unconscious which is the well, from which my imagery is extracted.

As an Orthodox Christian born in Egypt, and as an American, two main figures have influenced my life; that of the American artist Georgia O’Keefe and the father of monasticism, St. Anthony the Great.  I especially admire the quiet solitude which both of these figures spent their lives trying to capture.  I believe Georgia O’Keefe couldn’t have brought the world’s attention to seemingly insignificant natural imagery, giving presence to bones, flowers and clouds, without her quiet solitude in the New Mexico desert.  This quiet solitude can take one to a desert within, much like the desert of Egypt, where the first monastic, St. Anthony the Great set foot to venture the same internal terrain.  There he discovered light and dark, deceptions and truth and struggled to hold onto the light and truth.  The inner desert is full of rich unconscious imagery that I’m excited to elucidate everyday.

What are your goals?

My main goal that I am working on within the next 3-5 years is to have solo shows and get gallery representation. In effort to do that I’m working hard to create sold bodies of work and intermittently entering juried exhibitions that are local to where I live. I hope to eventually make a full living form my art. I believe that it’s what I was created to do. I spend much time evading this truth and not believing it for myself but I’m proud to finally own this truth for myself.

What are you working on now?

Currently, I’m working on a series about meditation and introspection, I’m considering using different types of imagery, including representation as well abstract imagery, and mainly acrylic paint with collage. I sometimes use text when it’s relevant to the work (either enhances the concept or brings in a balance in the formal element of the piece). The sources of my text vary from lyrics of inspiring music, poetry to verses from Scripture that mainly focus on praise and meditation.

What inspires you?

A lot of different things inspire me, sometimes unbeknownst to me. Mainly I would hone it down to Music, nature, colors and words and other artists.

Featured Artist Jacqui Hawk creates mixed-media works, including found objects. She is passionate about art and building her career.

When I was a little girl I’d take a red ball of wool and disappear into the forest on my Grandfather’s farm, tying the wool from tree to tree, disappearing into a childhood world of magic and fantasy.

I would look at a tree and see a castle, never settled at what was, rather what could be, my mind crowded with beautiful colorful visions which I now recollect as an adult and which have found their way into my paintings.

I love to paint, everyday, it allows me to process and connect my heart, mind and soul and wrap them all up harmoniously in a way that helps make them understood and validated. I want my art to connect with the viewer in the same way and help unravel within them some of the forgotten memories of the past. I communicate this through the use of mixed media, oil and acrylic paints, glass, textured gesso, found objects from the beach.  I am passionate about texture, almost wanting the viewer to imagine him/herself sitting in one of my paintings to understand its vision and message.

“Childhood Illusions” was one of my earlier collections.  As a child I would look up at the sun and then close my eyes tightly; these paintings show the beauty of pattern and color in my innocent, childlike mind and symbolize the innocence of childhood.

My work is intuitive in nature and very spontaneous and always reflects what is going on inside of me.  During my life I have travelled the world, seen some amazing places, gone through loss, death, divorce, love, hope, promise and each of these chapters finds itself immortalized on canvas.  I am still unraveling my red ball of wool.

As an adult now I am relishing in my new ‘space’ in life.  My latest collection is called  “Holding On and Letting Go” which I began during a week’s vacation on Skaket Beach, Cape Cod, this past Summer.  This was my first vacation without my children in 19 years and I enjoyed reflecting on the many changes in my life.

A recent ‘empty nester’  this collection uses the power and beauty of the ocean to symbolize how we hold on to love, memories, respect, principles and boundaries and “Let Go” of outcomes and attitudes which hold us back from becoming our personal best.

My paintings show the energy and beauty of the sea… as it ebbs and flows….as it delivers, cleanses, enriches, and takes away…. and reminds me how each day of our lives are different, each with their own degree of sadness and happiness and how we must learn to give and take…. some days are peaceful… the gentle sea laps gracefully at the shoreline… some days it roars… crashing cruelly, clawing away the foundations of so many….  it is a circle… a circle we must learn to accept with grace and understanding of the values and treasures to be found in both stormy and calm waters.

I was recently told that my art makes people ‘happy’… there is no greater reward!