About the Artist: Jessica M. Gutiérrez is a self-taught Nicaraguan-American Watercolor and Mixed Media Artist
residing in Madison, WI. Jessica’s work is enchanting, magical and vibrant. Her bold use of color, intuitive linework and flower-adorned subjects, creates an energetic, emotional and authentic composition. She is captivated by the pain and beauty that comes with the human experience, the wonder of creation in all of its manifestations, the importance of our ancestral stories and
the resilience of the human spirit. Jessica tells visual stories of her healing journey and utilizes the creative process as a deeply personal healing practice.

About the Artwork:
I’m an artist and graphic designer with a love for typography, letterpress and relief printing. Step into my studio and take a step back in time. I create my work on hand operated presses, the oldest from the late 1800s. My collection of early to mid-twentieth century ephemera inspires me, as does nature, my faith and the people I meet.
From an early age I gravitated to both artistic expression and letterforms. I find great satisfaction in using my hands to create: hand typesetting, carving images from linoleum and printing ink to paper. I also enjoy creating art that features the natural beauty I encounter in my home state of Wisconsin. 
In 1991 I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Stout with a Concentration in Graphic Design, and a Minor in Journalism.

About the Artwork: 
Jessica M. Gutiérrez is a self-taught Nicaraguan-American Watercolor and Mixed Media Artist residing in Madison, WI. Jessica’s work is enchanting, magical and vibrant. Her bold use of color, intuitive linework and flower-adorned subjects, creates an energetic, emotional and authentic composition. She is captivated by the pain and beauty that comes with the human experience, the wonder of creation in all of its manifestations, the importance of our ancestral stories and the resilience of the human spirit. Jessica tells visual stories of her healing journey and utilizes the creative process as a deeply personal healing practice.

About the Artwork: 
Kati is a children’s illustrator and artist and the founder of Coyote Fire Arts (Nature+Art Outdoor Studio). She has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a background in Nature Connection mentoring, outdoor and arts programming for people across the lifespan, as well as a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kati enjoys working with gouache, watercolor, colored pencils, ink, and digital tools to create pictures that include diversity, nature, food, faith
and wonder. If she’s not painting or drinking coffee, she’s tracking animals with her family at the pond behind their home on occupied Ho-Chunk land.

About the Artwork: 
When people see this work in my home they always ask, "Is that real?" The mix of embroidery floss and natural elements of wool and wood make for a curious intersection of nature and art. People always ask if they can touch it. It draws the viewer in to look deeper into the craggy corners of the wood and figure out where the wood ends and the moss begins.
I harvest small pieces from the ground in my neighborhood (I just happen to live in the Arboretum). I love  neighborhood and I love that a little bit of the Arboretum will always be in my art. When I teach moss embroidery I encourage participants to go into a woods that is meaningful to them and find a small piece that wants to be featured in their art. 

About the Artwork:
As a local artist, I love to draw inspiration from nature and landscapes around me. I find beauty in bright colors and unique color combinations. When I create work, I hope the viewer first notices my color palette, and then images secondary. I enjoy finding balance, using different colors and patterns to keep the viewers eyes flowing throughout my paintings. 

About the Artwork: 
Briana Richardson is an artist, educator, and entrepreneur. Briana works full time as a painter, and as the owner of Briana’s Bright Meditation. Briana has led artist residencies in the schools, taught workshops on printmaking and other techniques, given lectures, participated in panels at conferences, worked as an artist mentor, and most recently participated in group and solo gallery shows around the Madison area. You can contact Briana at brianarichardson83@gmail.com. Briana also has original artwork and products
for sale at artworking.org/briana-richardson 

About the Artwork: 
Whether it’s vegetables and flowers grown in my garden, familiar domestic objects, or landscapes I’m immersed in, I’m especially interested in capturing my
place in time through the medium of paint as I explore these timeless images in both Plein air and a la prima approaches. Working in my home studio, I enjoy exploring the grisaille technique which is a method of applying colored glazes of oil paint over a black and white under painting. This method requires several days of drying time between layers and I find the winter best suits this practice for me. As I paint in oils, watercolor, acrylic, and gouache, my intention is to convey a sense of solace, wonder, and peaceful contemplation born from my direct
interaction with Creation and natural light.

About the Artwork: 
I’ve had a lifelong interest in creating art, but life and the need to make a living got in the way. Since retiring from the Department of Natural Resources, I now have the opportunity to paint!
My work is focused on landscapes. Working in oils, oil pastels and gouache, I use color and texture to convey movement and light. There is often a tension between a creative attempt to lay down a more abstract impression of what I’m seeing, with an underlying
need to more closely “follow the rules” to create a more technically accurate
representation. I’ve participated in the Wisconsin Regional Arts Program - receiving honorable mentions and a statewide award for my paintings. I’ve also shown my work at a number of shows at the Hardy Gallery in Ephraim Wisconsin, and at the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek Wisconsin.

About the Artwork: 
Charlotte Easterling is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and she’s also Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) by descent. Her design and illustration style are informed by her heritage as well as a wide range of interests and a habit of becoming fascinated by various subjects and exploring them exhaustively. Her work is about nature and our place in the world.

Charlotte seeks to invoke curiosity and wonder with her work. She does this through images that convey the many shared experiences that can help us feel like part of the bigger whole: visions of beauty, witnessing the turning seasons, or perhaps a moment of affinity with a wild animal or a nighttime sky.

About the Artwork: 
I'm a mixed-media encaustic painter - painting with beeswax, tree resin & pigments - who incorporates photography, printmaking, and found objects in my art. Originally from Canada and now living in Madison, WI, I studied and worked as a biologist in British Columbia and New Zealand before working as an artist. On a general level, nature themes are interwoven
throughout my work, often incorporating local flora and fauna, or that of places I've lived or visited. In a broader sense, I like to explore a few different themes including a sense of belonging to a certain place, moments of change, patterns, the weathering of time, and the idea of impermanence. I’ve been working with encaustic for the past 6-7 years and enjoy the versatility of the medium and the ability to bring different processes into the making of each piece.

About the Artwork:
I’ve always been curious and in constant need of expressing myself though music and art. Whether be it through an art song, opera aria, oratorio solo or now as my voice ages out, a watercolor painting. My artwork reflects the thoughts I have of these special
moments in time and while painting these moments I come alive again and I hope my viewers will see something special and inviting in them.

About the Artwork:
Sara Meredith, AKA Smere Tactics, creates bold interdisciplinary artwork including small mixed media accessories, large scale painted relief cut wood panels and prints, and larger immersive art installations that invite exploration.
Curiosity drives her work, and open ended questions play an integral role in that process. Here are a couple:
?  How can we restore balance and practice reciprocal relationships with the ecosystems in which we live?
? How do we support and care for each other (including all the organisms we share this world with)?

To explore these questions, Sara’s creative research investigates the intersections between ecology, social justice, environmental advocacy, culture and psychology. It’s important that the
resulting works create space for open exploration and understanding to take root. Pieces are constructed through a combination of relief cutting, printmaking, risograph printing, painting,
drawing, collage, and assemblage using sustainable or repurposed media and materials.