Paula Stebbins Becker 

Paula Stebbins Becker is an artist and textile designer residing in Tiverton, RI, with her husband and daughter.  She received her BFA in Textile Design/Fibers from UMass Dartmouth and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Paula divides her time between creating artwork in her home studio and designing woven and printed fabrics for the decorative home furnishings textile trade. Her art work has been exhibited in group shows & galleries nationally, including; the Fuller Craft Museum, the Imago Gallery, the Narrows, the Attleboro Museum, the Reading Public Museum, the RISD Museum and the Cranbrook Art Museum. Her work is in the collection of the American craft collector Robert L. Pfannebecker, the Cranbrook Art Museum and Saarinen House. Paula’s textile designs have been manufactured by various American and Chinese mills and have been purchased by decorative jobbers; such as, Kravet, Robert Allen and Duralee, as well as Furniture companies, Century, Henredon and many others. In November 2015, Paula was a visiting artist at the Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan, where she taught a “Memory and Memorabilia” workshop and had a solo exhibition of her work. She has also taught as an adjunct professor in the textile departments at UMass Dartmouth, RISD and Philadelphia University.

To read Paula Stebbins Becker's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Paula Stebbins Becker's CV, Click Here.

Jeanne Heifetz

Jeanne Heifetz is an artist and curator based in Brooklyn, NY. She has had solo and two-person shows at galleries, art centers, and universities in California, Connecticut, Idaho, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon. Her work has also been included in group shows at galleries, universities, and museums across the United States as well as in Italy and Israel. Her drawings have been included in the International Drawing Annual and in the curated registry of The Drawing Center. Heifetz holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a graduate degree from NYU. 

To read Jeanne Heifetz's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Jeanne Heifetz's CV, Click Here.

Tayo Heuser

Tayo Heuser was born in Washington D.C., and grew up in Africa and Europe. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI and Masters degree from Vermont College in Montpelier, VT. Currently, she lives and works in Providence, RI and Brooklyn NY. Heuser’s most recent work was included in group shows at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC, the Newport Art Museum in Newport Rhode Island, Cade Tompkins Projects in Providence, Rhode Island, the Chateau de Fernelmont in Fernelmont, Belgium and Cynthia Reeves-New England in Hanover, New Hampshire. Heuser's recent sculpture and drawings were featured in her solo exhibition at Cade Tompkins Projects in 2011 in Providence R.I. In 2009-2010 her sculptural drawings were featured at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. for a year long solo exhibition. Heuser has also exhibited at the Exhibition Gallery at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, as well as at the Cynthia Reeves gallery in NYC, the Center for Contemporary Non-objective Art and the H29 gallery in Brussels, Belgium, the Margarete Roeder Gallery in NYC, the Dorsky Gallery in Brooklyn, NY and the Chazan Gallery in Providence, RI.

Previously, her work has been shown throughout the US, including the David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, RI; the Elvehejem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI; Margarete Roeder Gallery and Josee Bienvenue gallery in New York, NY; Bernard Toale gallery in Boston, MA; the University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach, CA and the Weatherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC. Heuser's work is also included in numerous public and corporate collections including the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, R. I.,Brown University David Winton Bell Gallery Collection, American Embassy Jeddah Saudi Arabia, the Leeds Foundation in Philadelphia PA,the Werner Kramarsky Collection in New York, NY, the Progressive Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, the Sanyo Corporation in New York, NY, the Lerner Corporation in Washington D.C., Blue Cross Blue Shield Providence, RI, Duke Energy in North Carolina, Fidelity Investments in Smithfield, RI and Cooley LLP in Washington D.C. amongst many others. 

To read Tayo Heuser's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Tayo Heuser's CV, Click Here.

Heather Knight

Heather Knight opened Element Clay Studio in Asheville, NC in the summer of 2007 as a way to supplement her income in between teaching sessions at the local museum. Interior Design magazine contacted her late that year, and by May 2008, she resigned from her teaching position to pursue Element Clay Studio full time. Her shop now occupies a large storefront studio in the Asheville River Arts District; an eclectic neighborhood that houses almost 200 artists and craftsmen, and produces work for stores, galleries, designers and consultants all over the world.

Though the business has grown greatly in the last eight years, the backbone of the studio has remained the same. Heather is committed to remaining a craft based business, and all of the porcelain dishes, tiles, vases and decorative objects are 100% handmade and don't use any means of mass production. Adhering to these values allows Element Clay Studio to continue to produce only the finest, heirloom quality work.

As a small, family run company, we pride ourselves in providing you with not only handmade, gallery quality work, but excellent customer service that exceeds your expectations. We hope to bring a little luxury to your life, and provide you with things you will love and cherish for a lifetime.

To read Heather Knight's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Heather Knight's CV, Click Here.

Marja Lianko

Marja grew up in Helsinki, Finland at a home where paintings covered every wall. Her father was a collector of Finnish art, who in his later years created several large scale outdoor sculptures using reinforced concrete. Marja’s work reflects both the sensibilities of the Nordic landscape and the varied influences of her adopted country. Personal symbolism and childhood memories continue appearing in her paintings and sculpture. She received her art education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she taught printmaking and mixed media for 23 years. Marja’s work has been exhibited in a number of local museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Fogg Museum, De Cordova Museum, Rose Museum, Fuller Museum andArt Complex Museum. Her work has also been shown at the Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, Wyoming and at Albany Institute of History and Art in Albany, N.Y. Marja has received grants and fellowships from the National endowment for the Arts, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Artists Foundation and Mellon Foundation. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, De Cordova Museum, Fogg Museum and numerous corporate and private collections.

To read Marja Lianko's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Marja Lianko's CV, Click Here.

Sharon Portelance

Sharon Portelance is a studio jeweler and has been a professor and Chair of the Jewelry and Metalsmithing department at Maine College of Art since 1999. She has exhibited and lectured both nationally and internationally and has been featured in a number of publications that include Ornament and Metalsmith magazines. Sharon lives in South Portland, Maine where she is currently developing a new body of work that explores the relationship of the interior of the body to the exterior of the body, while continuing her ongoing investigation into the nature of jewelry and how it can operate both privately and publicly. 

To read Sharon Portelance's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

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Debra Weisberg

Debra Weisberg has exhibited nationally and internationally: Paper Biennial in the Netherlands, Duxbury Museum,VanDernoot Gallery at Lesley University, Danforth Museum, Art in General in NYC, the DeCordova Museum, Mills Gallery and Rose Museum, East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art. Her forty-foot high installation at the DeCordova Museum entitled,‘(Sub) Surface’ won a prize for best museum installation from the Boston Art Critics Association. In 2008 Weisberg was a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship winner in drawing.  She twice attended the MacDowell Colony and was awarded an art residency in CanSerrat outside of Barcelona for June 2009. She was Somerville Arts Lottery winner in 2015, 2008, 2004 and 2001. Weisberg’s works are in numerous collections including the Sonesta Hotel, General Hardware Manufacturing Company in NYC, Simmons College, and Meditech. She has also done private commissions in Mass Power and Electric and in private homes. As part of her studio practice Weisberg collaborates with students on large scale dimensional drawing installations. The most recent, Somatic (e) SCAPES was done at Milton Academy.

In addition to her teaching at Boston College and New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, she also conducts creativity workshops for businesses and delivered a lecture entitled, Material Drawing:  Exploration and Connectivity at MIT’s Graduate School of Design as part of their computational lecture series. This paper which examined the material of making, intuition and accidents in the digital age was presented in 2014 at London University College. A graduate of Temple University Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, she currently resides at Brickbottom Artist Building in Somerville. 

To read Debra Weisberg's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Debra Weisberg's CV, Click Here.

Melita Westerlund

I grew up in Helsinki, Finland, a country that has provided significant support for artists. This was nota conscious inspiration but rather an atmosphere that made it OK to pursue art. My early studies were at L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Tunisia, then back to Helsinki and the Free Art School and finally, for my undergraduate degree, at the Industrial Arts University. Moving from Finland, I spent a couple of years in London then to Kenya with my family and worked in batik and had a major mural commission for the National Bank of Kenya. I also taught figure drawing in the Architecture Department at the University of Nairobi. After Kenya a year was spent back in Finland. We then moved to the USA where I studied for my Masters Degree in Sculpture at SUNY Buffalo. My early focus was figurative. Having access to a foundry meant that much of my work was cast in bronze. During this period my figurative work began to evolve into something between the literal and the abstract. Human forms grew into Baobab trees in my drawings, plasters and bronzes. The bronze medium did not lend itself to much color which seemed to explode out of my work after my move to Bar Harbor.

Steel was bent and shaped into complex forms and were vibrantly polychromatic. This work has been selected for commissioned pieces for a number of schools throughout Maine. As my sculpture evolved from steel to aluminum, polished surfaces were added to the pigmented ones. Throughout much of my time in Maine I have made cast paper compositions in parallel with my sculpture. Working with pigmented paper pulp must have been a precursor to my newest work. The medium I developed utilizes cotton waste placed over an armature of metal and mesh to form “coral like” objects. This sculpture is dedicated, in part, to increasing the awareness of the destruction of the coral reefs as the forms and texture have a similarity to those of the coral. However, my work deviates from literally representing the coral to being a jumping off point in both form and color.  

To read Melita Westerlund's Artist's Statement, Click Here.

To view Melita Westerlund's CV, Click Here.

Anna Kristina Goransson

Kristina spent her childhood in northern Sweden before moving to the United States in 1985. Art has always been a significant part of her life, helping her through not knowing English when she arrived in Atlanta, GA. Kristina entered more structured art making as an undergraduate at Rhode Island School of Design in 1994 where she received her BFA in Furniture. After graduating she spent two seasons at Anderson Ranch Arts Center assisting classes in the wood program before moving back to the East Coast.

Feeling ready for change, Kristina eventually went back to school for Fiber Arts at the University of Massachusetts and received her MFA in 2008. During graduate school, Kristina spent the first year exploring the different textile techniques until she found felt. Discovering the possibilities that felting had to offer, she spent the rest of her time in graduate school creating felted sculpture.

She continued her felted work as an artist-in-residence at Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2009. Kristina maintains her love for felting and continues to explore wool’s possibilities, finding new ways to push the limits of the material. She teaches workshops to educate others about the incredible versatility of wool along with other fiber processes. Kristina continues her work as a maker, creating art influenced by the beauty of form and pattern in nature. 

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