Animal & Petburbia

Animal & Petburbia

Animal & Petburbia

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Artist Statement

Melissa “Artomel” Black greets every animal she meets. She enjoys color overload. She once danced with a red-tailed hawk.

Born in Duluth, Minnesota to a mustachioed engineer and a multitalented artist, Melissa moved with her parents to Florida at the tender age of three-months-old, where she was promptly adopted by a big black cat.

When the family moved to Kansas their green shag carpet was overrun by three rabbits, two hamsters and innumerable fish.

In fourth grade she attended three different schools while her family moved to Michigan and were followed there by a baby sister and a baby cat.

Eventually the family moved back to Minnesota where Melissa aced every high school art class they offered. Then she worked with the art teacher to create her own independent watercolor class. Also, a well-mannered dog entered the family.

She attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota where she aced every 2D art class they offered. Then she worked with her art professor to create her own independent children’s book illustration class. She holds a BA in Studio Art. She also earned a Bachelor’s degree for English, focussing on writing.

As she honed her craft, she earned enough money for cat food and car payments by selling toys and diamond rings, working a CB radio at an amusement park, flicking the light switches at a theater, spinning in an office chair in a gray cubicle, and singing the alphabet song while stocking bookshelves.

Creating stories through art and language is her lifelong dream, along with working in a studio surrounded by animals. Her illustrations in watercolor, pen, & pencil often feature fun loving, fur covered creatures.

Joe Reinke

Joe Reinke

Joe Reinke

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Artist Statement

Joe is a born artist with a creative passion to paint enticing and inviting landscapes.

Joe loves to bring the beauty of creation onto the canvas. He seeks a better understanding to create visually exciting art, studying the mysteries of visual knowledge from creation. Wrestling with drawing, color, value, edges, composition, he seeks to release a vibrant imagination captured within the craftsmanship of landscape painting.

Joe started his life with a pencil in hand. Growing up in Michigan, he had plenty of city, rural, and wilderness visual material to draw from. He constantly was drawing throughout grade and high school. In 7th grade he started to paint in oil. In the 8th grade, Joe took his first art workshop.

During and after high school, Joe spent a lot of time hiking, fishing, camping, and just enjoying the great outdoors throughout Michigan. Joe started college thinking that he wanted to be an architect, especially after spending three+ years working in an architectural-engineering firms in Troy and Dearborn, Michigan. However Joe’s job opportunities moved him to Indiana, were he completed a Bachelor’s degree in science from Purdue University, taking several art courses as electives.

Joe then moved to Minnesota and worked for several companies in graphic software development, then switched to developing multimedia applications, then advanced into educational application development; working on graphic design, video, audio, and instructional design. All this time he continued to research painting techniques and continued painting landscapes.

Joe wanted to learn more about how to paint better landscapes, so he started attending The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts, in Minneapolis. There he took several evening classes to develop his drawing, proportion, and value relationships. He then sought out various landscape artists throughout the Twin Cities and discovered a group that offers focused training on landscape painting.

Joe has taken classes and workshops offered by these artists:

CeCeile Hartleib

Joe Paquet

Brian Stewart

Scott Lloyd Anderson

Jeffrey Smith

Richard Abraham

Jeffrey T Larson

Nanci Fulmek

Joe focuses on plein-air and studio landscapes in both oil and acrylic. He has traveled around the country and utilizes that experience to draw on material for his landscape work. He just loves how God created such a vast and wide variety of shapes, colors, and values throughout the landscape, and seeks to capture that on canvas. He continues to take landscape classes to improve his skills and talents as a landscape artist.

Kristi Abbott

Kristi Abbott

Kristi Abbott

Below are featured artworks for sale by this artist.

“I Am Imagination”

48 x 48 in – $10,500

Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

“I Am Art”

48 x 48 in – $9,500

Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

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Artist Statement

From early childhood, Kristi has spent her life traveling between Sydney, Australia and Saint Paul, Minnesota.  She was seldom without a book, a Barbie doll and a set of colouring pencils.  She was fascinated by art, travel, culture, and making things with her hands from a very early age and chose to study art, theatre and design throughout school and university.  After a decade in the corporate arena and a graduate degree in Design and an Executive MBA she decided to leave the corporate life for one where she could pursue her true passion – to become a self sustaining artist.

“At first glance, Abbott’s work draws the eye with its vibrant colors and complimentary patterns. Upon closer study, her paper collages reveal their complexity. Built layer upon layer and often containing secondary thematic elements throughout, Abbott depicts beloved icons and landscapes in her vivid collages.

Abbott’s keen compositional eye and her business acumen have allowed her to pursue her dream of earning a living as an artist.”  MN Originals

 

As an artist:

As a collage artist Abbott is fascinated with the use of colour, pattern and texture and tries to combine these elements in her work in an innovative and exciting way using a combination of substrates, adhesives, papers and embellishment materials.

Major influences in her work include pop art and pop culture, Hollywood, music and fashion.   Games from her childhood have also had a major influence in her latest works, which are rich with hidden imagery.  As a child she spent hours hunting through “Where’s Wally” books, examining “Spot the Difference” games and piecing together intricate jigsaw puzzles.

Her technique is still evolving and employs an exploratory and playful process, which can incorporate costuming, set design and lighting, photography, graphic manipulation, image transferring, print making, collage and painting.

Alix Baptiste

Alix Baptiste

Alix Baptiste

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Artist Statement

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Kristi Abbott

Dave Freemore

Dave Freemore

Artist Statement

Dave Freemore began his wood burning (pyrography) with a collection of cedar which his father gathered from the Missouri River shores in Montana.  The collection was the result of seeing Dave’s first work, his wife’s parents’ names burned on a piece of white pine displayed over their garage door of their Lake Comfort retirement home.

Dave soon began collecting pictures to fit the wood slabs, primarily cross-cuts.  The coloring, size, and placements of the knots in the wood intrigued him and drove his selection of pictures to burn.  Giving gifts of his art spurred more work.  Sometimes people wished to purchase pieces to fit their own collections.

After several years of hiatus, retirement and a display in his home has brought curiosity from new friends and neighbors.  A recent trip to Costa Rica has peaked Dave’s interest in renewed wood burning after acquiring chunks of laurel while he was there.

“Our family appreciates artwork immensely,” says his wife, Jan, “since we have family generations before and after us that have created a variety of art expressions.”  Dave and Jan live in the Comfort Lake home where the first piece was originally displayed.

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David Freemore