Biography

Janice (Jan) Ducharme is a retired Air Force veteran pursuing a passion for art after a military and professional career. She’s taken art education classes at Virginia’s Lorton Workhouse Art Center and Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory Art League and is a member of the Tennessee Watercolor Society, the Potomac Valley Watercolorists (a juried organization), and the Artist Guild of Nolensville. She enjoys workshops and learning new techniques. She has exhibited in two Virginia Watercolor Society Juried Exhibitions, the juried exhibitions of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society’s (MPSGS) of Washington D.C., and several art galleries in Virginia and Tennessee. She is currently exhibiting work in the Tennessee Watercolor Society. Jan displays her art on her website at JaniceDucharme.com.

Artist Statement

Horses and history have been a passion from my earliest years. I enjoy exploring these interests with travel and art. I chose to paint in watercolor for its beauty, versatility, and challenge. I love to learn and apply new techniques to my artwork. 

My piece “Nimes Wonder,” selected for the Tennessee Watercolor Society Biennial juried Exhibition, was painted on torchon paper following the Lee Weiss method.  The mottling of the paper worked well for the ancient structure. Equine art is also a favorite of mine. “Sleighbells are Ringing” was painted from a special memory of a very cold Christmas sleigh ride in Stowe, Vermont. 

Jennifer C. Pierstorff, Visual Artist

Artist Biography 

Jennifer C. Pierstorff’s journey is marked by resilience and profound connection between art and healing.  She confronts multiple invisible disabilities, turning that struggle into fuel for her art.  For her, art is not just a creative process but a purpose that has saved her life.  The immersive state of flow in her artistic practice provides a sanctuary for play, meditation, and joy.  Her belief that Art is Life reflects the transformative power she found in the creative process. 

Jennifer’s art serves as a therapeutic outlet, incorporating color, shapes, texture, and various mediums to address the balance required for healing her mind, body, and soul. She completed her Studio Art degree, at the University of Vermont, with a painting specialty. Her established presence in art exhibitions across multiple states reflects the widespread recognition of her creative endeavors over the past two decades.

Jennifer’s commitment to her art has flourished in the vibrant art scene of Clarksville, TN where she has been steadily building an extensive collection since moving here in July 2019.  Notably, her turtles, figures and wonky world faces have gained popularity. She also does special commissions. She is a member of the Downtown Artist Cooperative Gallery and the Nashville Artist Guild.  Her work is currently in Clarksville at Trazo Meadery, Downtown Artists Cooperative Gallery, Medsource Scripts, in Nashville at Le Purleui Facility Planners, in Franklin at Williamson County Enrichment Center.

Contact information:

Jpiersto@ gmail.com

www.artbyjcp.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcpierstorff/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifercpierstorff.artist

MY STORY

Through her quilt series, Alston weaves together cultural and spiritual meaning, evoking protection, remembrance, and hope. By inviting viewers into a space of comfort and legacy, her work becomes a timeless storyteller—holding the histories of yesterday while offering inspiration for today.

See more of Alston’s work on her Instagram page @alston609gmail.com2

Rosanne Awbrey can barely remember a time when she wasn’t drawing. Art classes in junior high and high school reinforced Rosanne's passion. Rosanne studied art at Baylor University, Utah and Watkins Institute in Nashville, Tennessee. Among Rosanne's inspirations are Gauguin, Redon, Chagall, O’Keefe, Jacob Lawrence, and Greg Ridley, as well as her art teachers over the years. Rosanne Awbrey primarily works in acrylics, pastels, water color ,and mixed media. Rosanne's subjects reflect her delight in the natural world and human interactions; on the other hand, art provides her with a means of processing tragic and painful events. Above all, making art
is a spiritual process, a shamanic means of transformation.

Contact the artist through email or phone:

[email protected]    615-383-4810

Jan Batts is a native Tennessean.  She studied art at Memphis State University and continues to study under prominent Artists throughout the country and abroad.  She is an award-winning Artist who has been painting professionally for over 20 years.  She participates in creative art groups, and is Past President of the TN Art League and TN Watercolor Society.  She, also, is Past President of the Nashville Artist Guild.  She enjoys facilitating Art Salons for other Artists, and teaches art for HAPI (Healing Arts Project for Mental Health).  She owns her own business, Bats Beaux-arts, which promotes the visual arts.

 “My work is primarily representational in an impressionistic often abstract style. I often use a fusion technique blending styles together with various media mixing materials to add texture and create added dimension.  My work is contemporary in nature and regardless of the subject, the mood I try to evoke is one of sensitivity and mystique which stirs a memory and touches the heart.” 

Contact Jan through her website:  janbatts.com or below:

[email protected]      615-516-4490

Barbara Blanks Bullard received her BS in Art Education/Fine Art, with Honors, from the University of Tennessee.  She was an Art Educator in public and private schools for 26 years, recently retiring to pursue a career as a studio artist.   Ms. Bullard is a member of the Nashville Artist Guild, the Transparent Watercolor Society of America , the Tennessee Watercolor Society, and other organizations that support Artists and the Arts.  Ms. Bullard served on the Board of Directors for the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for many years where she was the Vice-Chair of the Board.  Bullard has exhibited in juried exhibitions at the local, regional, and national level, receiving awards for drawing, painting, and mixed media. She was named a National Woman in the Arts by the NSDAR in 2019, was a Featured Artist of the Arts and Business Council of Nashville in 2021, and was a featured Tennessee Artist at the Nashville International Airport in 2024-25. 

 bbullardfineart.com

Mitchell Chamberlain has directed his artistic efforts to portraying nature in its many colors, textures, and moods. Nature as an artistic subject is neither passé or irrelevant. The Land is our home, yet our post-industrial, computerized society is disconnected from it and too often ignores its lessons.  Nature does not need humanity, but humanity absolutely depends on nature.  The environment is tough and resilient, yet fragile, and is most effective when humans are least intrusive.

The drama that humans so readily identify in their own lives occurs daily in nature.  Even the casual observer can see the activities of birth, death, struggle with the elements, and competition for survival.  Likewise, nature acts with both dramatic and subtle force. A hurricane can rip trees from the ground, while a gentler, but unrelenting wind can mold trees into expressive forms.  Water, in torrents, can change the course of a river, or by drips or flow, can sculpt an arch or a cave. 

Look closely at nature and you will find an endless array of patterns and textures that have been formed by the erosive affects of wind and water.  These patterns can be found in a rock sculpted by wind or water, an unusual deposit of pebbles and sticks, or fallen leaves that have settled on the ground.  Chamberlain is endeavoring to integrate these elements of form and texture into works of art that will encourage viewers to connect with the world around them.  Observing nature from a few feet or even a few inches can provide a profound understanding of our world.

Click here for more images on Mitchell's Flicker Page

Glenna Roberts Cook           

 A painter and a sculptor, Glenna Roberts Cook holds a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  Cook works in pen/ink, watercolors, acrylics, clay and mixed media and holds membership in the Nashville Artist Guild and the Southern Watercolor Society.  Cook is a Signature Member of The  Tennessee Watercolor Society and the Central South National Exhibit.  Cook is also a charter Docent Emeritus at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts with over 1,000 hours of service.

Glenna Roberts Cook enjoys working in both traditional and more innovative styles and hopes to inspire the viewer to stop and contemplate the work and decide for themselves what it means to them. It is her desire that viewers are blessed by her efforts. Texture and color dominate Cook's works and Cook has received numerous awards for both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional works in local, regional, and national exhibits. Visit the artist's website https://www.glennacookart.com 

A wash of places around the world lend their color to the life and works of watercolorist Chuck Creasy...beginning with the place of his birth in rural Tennessee during the ‘50s.
 
Chuck was born in the small Sumner County town of Westmoreland, Tennessee. And, although he’s ventured far from his rural roots — traveling from the parched wilds of Ethiopia to the jungles of Honduras, he’s never strayed from his simple country upbringing that looked on life with a sense of honesty and a childlike curiosity. Chuck approaches his work in advertising and watercolor with the same straightforward insight and economy of style, saying a lot with very little.
 
“I believe great art and great ads draw from the same basic principles of human interaction I learned growing up in a small town,” says Creasy. “I was taught to never talk down to people. Always tell the truth and try your best to focus your attention on one person, instead of trying to shout to the whole room.”
 
Chuck’s training in art preceded his career in advertising. Following a tour of duty as an Army officer in Vietnam, Chuck spent the summer of 1970 studying with renowned American watercolorist John Pike in Woodstock, New York and Norman Rockwell in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

“I’ve never completely recovered from the thrill of applying that first big wet wash and creating a three-dimensional illusion with nothing more than pigment and paper,” Creasy remembers.

“And while my career in advertising physically removed me from my painting, it put me in touch with a much broader world and gave me the chance to capture a rich catalog of experiences which are now finding their way to paper.”
 
For more than 20 years, traveling the world as an award-winning advertising creative director, Chuck stole fleeting moments between photo shoots and creative meetings to sketch the places he encountered. Now he’s interpreting those experiences into watercolors that are earning attention in circles throughout the Southeast.
 
From the pristine Bay Islands of Honduras to the hidden backroads of rural Tennessee, Chuck’s subject matter reflects the road map of his career travels as well as an adman’s insatiable curiosity about how things work in real life — the mystery of a forgotten dugout canoe that once served as a means of making a

living for a family on the island of Guanaja, the way late afternoon light wraps around a weather-worn lighthouse on the Aruba coast, the humble dignity of conch divers waiting for low tide off the coast of Belize, or the simple wonder of a giant oak framing an abandoned farm house in Sumner County.

Chuck and his wife, Marnie, are avid scuba divers and aficionados of ancient Mayan culture. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Scouting Museum, the Nashville Advertising Federation, Watkins School of Art, and the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee. He i has received hundreds of local, regional, national and international awards for creative excellence.

Chuck and Marnie moved to St. Joe Beach, FL where he pursued his dream of painting and continued to work on creative projects for several national advertising accounts. He moved back to  Nashville where he was Vice President, Creative Director at the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp leading the highly successful branding efforts for the city for the last 11 years. Chuck is painting, traveling and consulting on creative projects now since retiring in 2017.

Contact Artist Info:  https://chuck-creasy.pixels.com

MARILYNN DERWENSKUS

Seeing

Noticing the Unnoticed

Unique

Discover, Explore, Translate, Format

These words are the basis for the images I paint and my creative process. My paintings address the four parts of Art: subject, content, form, and technique. Though  I consider my painting experimental abstraction, my images develop from what I see and experience. I received an MFA from the University of Chicago and continued my creative research at art residencies, and in my personal studio, with grant funding. For nearly 50 years, I passionately juggled studio work and teaching, both workshops and university. I retired as Painting Professor Emeritus from Ball State University.

To see more of my work, please go to my website.

Through the act of painting, the painting itself happens. The process of unfolding and reckoning the relational and emotional structure of a painting is at the heart of my work. Because my paintings develop organically, each one is a journey. Each one teaches me something. Along the way I learn, feel, destroy, remember, discover, lose something. I have taken a risk, resolved a problem. What remains is the visual record of that experience. This meditative practice of balancing the visual space of a canvas with the emotional expression of a moment opens my heart and invites dialogue that goes beyond words.

Contact the artist:  www.jessicaeichman.com

Named one of America’s “Artists to Watch” by Southwest Art magazine 2014 and Fine Art Connoisseur magazine 2010, oil painter, Camille Engel, is internationally acclaimed, published, and awarded. You’ll find her paintings in national and international magazines: Fine Art Connoisseur, American Art Collector, Western Art Collector, Southwest Art, The Artist’s Magazine, American Artist and International Artist.

Artist Janet Felts has been driven by her love of "all things art" from childhood.  She has worked in art related fields from mentoring mentally ill patients using art, working in the printing industry as a "stripper", working for the State of Tennessee as a graphic artist to her years of experience as an art teacher in Georgia and Tennessee.  Although she has made her career in art, she was always unable to pursue and develop her own artistic creativity.  Since her retirement from the school system she has sought to create her original artworks in her studio in Atlanta and now works from her studio located in Erin, Tennessee.  Her love of nature is a driving force in most of her art works.

Janet earned her Associate Degree in Advertising Art and her BFA in Art Education from Austin Peay State University.  She earned her Master’s Degree in Art Education from Georgia State University. She has had her work juried into shows throughout the southeast and is an award winning artist. Janet continues to educate the public on the values, skills and love of art.

Stephanie Helmey is a native of Nashville, Tennessee, and has been creating art since the age of 8. At 16, she won a state-wide competition for young artists and received a scholarship to George Peabody College in Nashville. She attended school there, majoring in art for several years and left to work in the telecommunications industry. For the last 17 years, she has worked solely as an artist in her Nashville Studio. Painting primarily in oils, she also loves graphite, watercolor and pen and ink.

Her juried exhibitions include the Central South Art Exhibition, (Signature member), the Mississippi Watercolor Society, the Women Painters of the Southeast and the Tennessee Art League. She has paintings in the Tennessee State Museum’s collection, the Williamson County Medical Center’s collection, and private collections. Her work has been exhibited in the Tennessee Art League, the University Club at Vanderbilt, the Monthaven Gallery, the Gordon Jewish Community Center, the Double Tree Hotel and many other venues around the city.

Stephanie is a member of the Portrait Society of America, the Cecilia Beaux Forum, the National Oil Painters of America, the Women Painters of the Southeast, Art Seen, the Nashville Artist Guild, the Chestnut Group and the Tennessee Art League.

Stephanie's work can also be found on her Facebook Studio Page, Stephanie Helmey Studio and on her website;  slhelmey.com

Mildred Jarrett's work is firmly anchored in non-objective expressionism, an ongoing process of exploration. This experimental search follows spontaneous intuitions without the distraction of subject matter or narrative. Personal statements, such as these, balance between intuition (spontaneity) and the deliberate (functional resolutions), to provide an honest communication with the viewer. Transformations occur as the sensual surfaces of sanding, glazing, scraping are combined with the emotional energy. Jarrett is intrigued with what lies beneath the surface and between layers. Fully submerged in the process of painting and unable to predict an outcome, she explores many decisions and contradictions, pulling and pushing, simplifying and editing, while striving toward balance and harmony.

It takes courage to trust the intuition. The discovery and diversity are challenging, yet exciting, as they are the opposite of monotony and tiresome uniformity.

Please contact the artist through her website for pricing information: https://www.mildredjarrettart.com/