VERO BEACH — This year’s Vero Beach Art Club Art Trail event will be held on Saturday Dec. 3 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring 12 artists in 10 studios around Vero Beach.
This tour is an intimate look at the artists and how they work in their home studios. Artists are encouraged to set up a refreshment and light snack area along the way.
All proceeds will go to the Vero Beach Art Club Scholarship Fund for graduating high school seniors. Event Chairs are Eileen Farrell, Dorate Muller and Jane Kreizman.
Artists chosen for this year’s tour of ten artist studios/homes are:
Deborah Gooch, Acrylic/Oil
Deborah Gooch studied painting at the Maryland Institute of Art as a Fine Arts major. Her work has been collected and displayed in galleries and homes throughout the United States. Deborah enjoys working from candid photographs that depict the comedy of everyday life.
Her composition is simple and color is strong. Her works are illustrative, bold, edgy and they reflect an intuitive style. Gooch owns and operates Winter Beach Farm, a seasonal house boarding facility, specializing in the “equestrian art” of dressage.
The dogs, horses, and people that surround her in this environment provide a constant source of inspiration for her paintings. She currently teaches at the Vero Beach Museum of Art and she conducts painting and drawing workshops at Jill Pease Gallery and Teaching Studio. She is represented in Vero Beach by Intrepid Gallery.
“My goal in producing art is to explore my reactions to the subject and to the medium. Ideally, others will enjoy and participate in the exploration.”
Al Gustave, Wood
Educated in architectural design in Southern California focusing on interior and furnishing design. In my twenties after working for other design firms I decided to establish my own firm and in the early 1960’s moved to the Phoenix Arizona area.
Since then till my retirement in 2000 I have always been self-employed, creating the interiors and furnishings for hotels, banks, restaurants and residents throughout the SW.
Most recently in the 12 years before selling my firm and retiring I had a very successful manufacturing firm focusing on designs I created inspired by SW Indian motifs. I made gifts, decorative accessories and furnishings for the wholesale gift market. We sold to department stores, mail order catalogs and gift stores through wholesale gift markets across the US.
One of my most interesting projects was the remodel of the inns and restaurants at the Grand Canyon. In addition to the design of the interiors I designed and made all the furnishings and fixtures. Most recent was the making of the gift shop fixtures for leading gift shops in major Arizona cities.
Since retiring I have focused my creative activities in wood, creating sculpture and items of beautiful exotic and rare woods. Most recently making turned bowls and vases with geometric designs. Just recently finished a sculptured cherry rocking chair that was a design that is in the leading museums created by Famous wood worker San Maloof.
I have sold my creations at juried shows and galleries in Arizona, Virginia and North Carolina. Now retired I look forward to be showing and selling my creations in our beautiful Florida.
Marie Morrow, Gourds
At a very early age, she found her strengths in her creativity. Gravitating toward almost anything related to the art world. She taught herself how to draw by copying the old masters using tracing paper.
She was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and graduated in Fine Art from The Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts and then continued with subsequent courses in this field. From 1993 thru 1995 she is in the Who’s Who amongst Students in American Colleges.
She is a recipient of two Edwards John Memorial scholarships and has won many competitions for her talent. Her works include but are not limited to a variety of different mediums including sculpting, watercolor, oil painting, interior and textile design just to name a few.
She has been teaching art in the public schools and gives private lessons in a variety of different mediums. At the present time she is working with natural materials including a wonder of nature, gourds as she manipulating its form to create beautiful and usable objects.
Tim Sanchez, Acrylic/Oil/MM
Tim Sanchez-A regular visitor to Vero Beach since 1980, Mr. Sanchez has lived, painted & exhibited in New York City and Vero Beach.
His large canvases evoke an energized feeling of action handled with fluid brushstrokes in a controlled & skilled manner which translates intangible fleeting phenomena into concrete form.
His work merges paintings with collages of his collected items. He holds a BS, MS, MA and MFA and professional diploma in academic administration.
Sean & Sharon Sexton, Oil/Clay/MM/Printmaking/Ceramics/Drawing & Writing
Sean Sexton grew up on Treasure Hammock Ranch where he lives with his wife, the Artist, Sharon Sexton. He works daily on the ranch taking care of 300 cows, painting, writing and drawing in his sketch journals he’s kept for over 35 years.
He has recently published a volume of poetry “Blood Writing,” and was awarded an Individual Artists Fellowship from the State in 2000-2001. He is a painter, printmaker, poet and keeps sketch journals in which he records daily impressions, events and ideas both in words and drawings since 1973.
The journal now exceeds 100 volumes. He has exhibited locally and nationally, and is represented in collections around Florida and the US. He recently read at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering where he also mounted an exhibition of his sketch journals at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. He was awarded a 2000-2001 Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the State of Florida.
Sharon Sexton is married to artist Sean Sexton for the past 30 years. Sharon is an oil painter and a clay sculptor. She has work in private collections though out the United States.
Her public work include painted murals in the old Vero Beach Library, Tile murals for the city of Vero Beach, Royal Palm Point Park columns, donor wall Temple Beth Shalom, donor wall Hospice House and Royal Palm Point Condominiums.
Sharon began painting murals at the age of 18, working in south Florida. She is a self-taught painter. She is a founding member of Tiger Lily Gallery and Studio’s for the past 20 years.
She married artist, writer Sean Sexton in 1981, they have two children, and live in a house they built with their own hands on Treasure Hammock Ranch. It is a place where life and art spill into one another.
Sara Shankland, Jewelry
My custom designs combine the playful malleability of clay with the priceless durability of pure silver and 24 kt. gold, creating sophisticated and unique wearable art.
Pieces incorporate such gems as cultured pearls, sea coral and semi-precious stones to create heirloom quality jewelry destined to be enjoyed for a lifetime.
Shankland’s career in the fine arts has spanned several decades beginning with bachelor degrees in fine art and science in education, culminating in a successful venture in fine jewelry craftsmanship. Having spent her early years teaching art to secondary school and adult students, Shankland continued to create highly regarded pieces through a variety of media, including drawing, print making, sculpture and painting in oils. In recent years, she was introduced to Precious Metal Clay, a unique art material which has unlimited creative potential and which inspires her and allows her designing process to evolve. With it, she is using new materials and creating new looks.
Maria Sparsis, Pottery
Born on the island of Cyprus to a Cypriot father and a British mother Maria Sparsis has also lived and worked in Wales, Scotland, New England and, for the last 17 years, Florida.
A Marine Biologist by training and a scientist by inclination Maria is a certified diver and has a deep commitment to, and love of, nature in all its forms. Although Maria still maintains her ties with the world of science and biology she is currently part owner of “Tea and Chi”, a premium, loose-leaf tea company.
Her love of tea and her collection of teapots was what initially brought her to the world of ceramics. Much of Maria’s artwork is inspired by both her love and knowledge of nature and her sense of humor and fondness for the absurd which she has inherited from her father.
Currently Maria creates ceramic work at the Vero Beach Museum of art and at her home studio. Maria is currently represented by Fishhouse Art Gallery in Stuart as well as Flametree Clay Art Gallery in Vero Beach.
Maria has studied ceramics with Sean Clinton, Nancy Blair, Glenda Tailor and Charlie Riggs and Walford Campbell.
Kathleen Staiger, Oil
Kathleen Staiger has had a long career as a professional artist and teacher of art. Her work ranges from murals painted on the exterior walls to oil portraits, fantasy paintings, seascapes, and large abstracts (her current interest.
Her work hangs in private, corporate, and municipal collections around the country. Her murals of the ecosystems of Indian River County for the city of Vero Beach are on permanent loan to the county and hang in the main library.
In 2003, at the urging of her students, she undertook to write a book based on her successful teaching methods. The book, The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted, was published world-wide by Watson-Guptill in 2006 and has been consistently in the top sellers in its field since publication.
Kathleen’s paintings are bright and full of movement. She describes them as being “about layers of motion and energy”. Some feature transparent veils of color and some are painted opaquely with calligraphic strokes of pure color that seem to dance across the surface. They all convey a sense of joy.
Ginny Piech Street, Collage, Sculpture, MM
Originally from Indiana, Ginny studied at Murray State Univ. and received a BFA in studio art. She is primarily a collage artist who paints paper which she cuts and arranges for her designs. Also produces whimsical sculptures of animals in vivid colors. You may view her work at www.ginnypiechstreet.com
Awards: Best of Show A.E. Backus Gallery; Outstanding Local Artist, Beaufort, SC; President’s Award, Murray State University; WOWII Show, Ft Pierce, FL; The Partnership Public Art, St Lucie, FL
Barbara Krupp & Allan Teger Acrylic/ Photo
The beginning of each painting is different. Sometimes I start with a small part of reality and I give it a magical tilt. Some I start with pure abstraction and they end abstract. From these simple beginnings, each painting becomes a unique piece. My viewers often comment about the movement that takes place in each piece. I paint acrylic on stretched canvas and I have been painting for 37 years.
Allan Teger Photography/Digital Art
Allan Teger’s photography has been displayed and sold for over 35 years.
The Bodyscapes are b&w images of small toys placed on a nude body. The resulting image gives the illusion of landscape.
This work grew out of Teger’s earlier career as a professor of psychology. He was teaching psychology of consciousness – and how multiple realities, and multiple interpretations might co-exist. These images are about the surprise that the viewer experiences as they discover the body in what is originally seen as a landscape photograph.
His other work consists of hand painted b&w photos. These images include scenes of Europe and images of vanishing Americana – old diners, old theaters etc. There are also a number of images from the Vero Beach area.
Tickets are $25 each and may be purchased by cash or check at the Vero Beach Art Club in the Vero Beach Museum of Art, 3001 Riverside Park Drive and the Artist Guild, 1974 14th Avenue, beginning Nov. 1.
For more information or to sponsor, call 772-231-0303 or visit www.VeroBeachArtClub.org.