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Born Warrington County, Va. 10/5/52

Primarily self-taught as an artist, he was educated: U of South Carolina/Florida St. 1971-76

Has Lived in Greensboro, NC for over 30 years, w/ lovely wife Pamela and two teenaged sons, Matthew and Brendan.

Background in art direction broadcast television. Painter, designer, sculptor, 30 years, 15 years full-time as a studio artist.

Over 20 one-person shows and numerous collective exhibitions.

Collected by corporations, common folk and celebrities throughout the known universe.

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Born in 1951 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia and raised in Honolulu , Hawaii , Robert’s formal education ended after one year of college. He apprenticed with a professional lampworker for two years in the mid-seventies and then sold his own designs at outdoor craft fairs for ten years. In 1987 he took a class from Paul Stankard that opened his eyes to the possibilities of his medium. In 1989, he stopped doing craft shows and began marketing his work exclusively through galleries. Since then, his career has taken off. He shows his work in some of the finest galleries in the country and participates in prominent exhibitions each year. His work is exhibited in many prominent collections including the Renwick Gallery of American Crafts at the Smithsonian Institution, the Corning Museum of Glass, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Village , and the Pilchuck Glass School .

He has taught extensively at the major glass schools including the Pilchuck Glass School Penland School of Crafts, The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, and The Eugene Glass School. He has filmed and produced two videos on his flameworking process, and he has designed and maintains an elaborate web page dedicated to his own work and the galleries that represent him (www.mickelsenstudios.com). He has published numerous technical and historical articles on flameworked glass. He served for six years on the board of directors of the Glass Art Society and was their treasurer and vice-president.

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Evan Rapoport lives in Kailua, Hawaii and works as a digital media and application specialist. He believes strongly in the power of science, technology, and the arts for promoting social change, particularly for the environment and education. He develops technologies that strive to achieve this vision, and his other passions include reading, photography, the ocean, and enjoying the great outdoors.

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Jim Fuess works with liquid acrylic paint on canvas.  Most of his paintings are abstract, but there are recognizable forms and faces in a number of the abstract paintings.  He is striving for grace and fluidity, movement and balance.  He likes color and believes that beauty can be an artistic goal. There is whimsy, fear, energy, movement, fun and dread in his abstract paintings.  A lot of his abstract paintings are anthropomorphic. The shapes seem familiar. The faces are real. The gestures and movements are recognizable. More of his abstract paintings, both in color and black and white, may be seen at www.jimfuessart.com

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Tiffany Bozic has spent the majority of her life living with and observing the intricacies of nature. Her work has the traditional air of tightly rendered nature illustrations but with a highly emotional range of surreal metaphorical themes. In her paintings and sketches she presents her vision of life’s struggles and triumphs that are largely autobiographical.  Her wide array of subjects are inspired both from her extensive travels to wild places, and the research specimens at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, CA. Over the years, Bozic has developed a complex process of masking and staining so the natural grain can collaborate with each composition using multiple layers of watered down acrylic paint on maple panels of wood.  She has had several solo exhibitions featuring her large-scale paintings and installations. Her work has also been included in numerous group shows across the country, and spoken at international events such as the 2007 Semi Permanent International Arts and Design Conference in Sydney, Australia. She was also the first ‘Artist in Residency’ whereby she collaborated with the California Academy of Sciences, to create the “From the Depths” exhibit on the public floor of the museum, November 2007. Bozic is a self-taught artist living and working in San Francisco, CA. She is currently working on a new body of work that is scheduled to open November 11th 2010 at the Joshua Liner Gallery in NY.

www.joshualinergallery.com

www.tiffanybozic.net

This series uses found materials and discarded paper, and draws on themes of popular culture and the natural environment. In collage created with consumer refuse she uses cultural motifs to create scenes from nature. Their forms and characters are diverse, celebrating the incredible beautiful riotous diversity of nature. The pieces in this series draw our attention to the forgotten players; who stand solemnly and catch us with a steady gaze reminding us of their presence. The bodies of the fish are pieced together mostly from images of objects in beauty magazines, reminding us of the shadow of consumer culture, the refuse and waste from the industrial processes we use to create our objects of beauty that makes it’s way to the ocean, and the vulnerability and strength of the individuals who inhabit this space.

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Jade Herriman was born in Adelaide, Australia and currently lives in Sydney. Her interests span creative and policy responses to ecological issues and she currently works as a sustainability researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS.  Her visual arts practice is a form of enquiry that grows from these same interests, and she is particularly interested in ways to use art to engage with the felt responses to sustainability issues. She also has experience in community engagement on environment using creative methods, for instance, using printmaking as a learning space for threatened species, and incorporating youth art processes as part of consultation in strategic planning.

Inspired by artists’ books, illustration, and art as social process, Jade’s practice involves zine making, intaglio printing, fabric printing, drawing and collage

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Jenny Kendler was born in 1980 in New York City. She graduated summa cum laude with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002, and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. She currently lives and works in Chicago.

Kendler’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Exit Art (NYC), Claremorris Gallery (Ireland), The Yeosu Art Festival (Korea), The Contemporary Artists Center (Massachusetts), Ellen Curlee Gallery (St. Louis), NorthEastern University (Boston), and in Chicago at estudiotres and Columbia College, with solo shows at Kasia Kay Art Projects and the COOP.

She is co-founder of The Endangered Species Print Project, an ongoing art project that raises money for critically endangered species, co-founder of the popular artist website service OtherPeoplesPixels, and a member of the art collective Henbane. She is also the author of a blog on environmental art called Wunderkammer, and a member of the Executive Board at threewalls Gallery.



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Melissa Stang describes herself as a visual artist who is also a reasonably knowledgeable amateur naturalist.  Travel is extremely important to the development of her work.  She’s been on four trips to Mexico and Costa Rica to study sea turtle conservation efforts, and as a consequence, became aware of the effects of plastic garbage, habitat destruction, and over-fishing on the ecosystem and local economy.  Since 2003, Melissa has been developing a body of work that explores issues effecting marine ecosystems.

Most people realize that the clock is ticking on marine environmental issues. Therefore, Melissa wants to use her work to raise awareness and stimulate discussion about how what we buy, eat, use, and throw away all has long range impact on the world around us.  She would love to partner with an ecological organization like Blue Ocean and/or a natural history museum or aquarium.  Melissa would also like to meet artists with similar goals and encourages interested parties to contact her at coroflot.com/melstang.  There, you can see more examples of her work and also send a message.

Melissa would like to extend her appreciation to the following organizations that have generously supported the development of this work:  The Jerome Travel and Study Grant though the Jerome Foundation (St.Paul, MN), The Pollock-Krasner Foundation (New York, NY), and The Puffin Foundation (Teaneck, NJ).