* Dina Angel-Wing is a potter and ceramic sculptor in Berkeley, CA. Her work has been shown throughout the US and Europe and is in several collections, including the Embassy of Luxembourg in Tokyo. Among other honors, she is the recipient of the Association of San Francisco Potters & Glassblowers Award and a purchase award from the Civic Arts Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA. Her commissioned work includes sculptures in Denver, CO, and Bethesda, MD, and articles and images of her work have appeared in The Artful Teapot (Watson Guptill Publications), Ceramics Monthly, The New York Times, and several other publications. More of it can be seen at www.DinaAngelWing.com.

Nicolette Ausschnitt began her art studies at seven with the coursework for the book The Natural Way to Draw. She studied at the Art Students' League, graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York City, received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of Michigan. In more than a half century of being an artist, she has had several solo shows, and participated in numerous juried exhibitions. Her paintings, drawings and masks, which have been shown in many galleries, are representational and often figural, encompassing both cityscapes and landscapes. She says, "There is usually an edginess to my work that springs from my sense of the world today and my place in it as a woman, a mother and an artist." She lives in San Francisco and may be contacted at artnik@marincounty.net.

* Dar Beck purchased her first gourd at a swap meet while on vacation in Oahu and there started a marriage of polymer clay and gourds. She now use silk dyes for surface treatments, and says she calls them "Silks" because "they just look like silk." She lives in Washington state and more of her work can be seen at www.afamilyjournal.com.

* Ken Berman is an architect and painter living in Sebastopol, CA He was inspired to pursue art after a chance meeting with Robert Rauschenberg in 1989. He has participated in more than a dozen group shows and has won awards, from, among other places, Manhattan Arts International and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. His website is www.bermansworld.net.

* Tom Block has an BA in English from Vassar and an MA from the Boston Museum School. He has had a dozen solo shows, from Caceres, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal, to Washington, DC, New York City and Detroit and has participated in more than 50 group shows. He and his work have been featured in articles and interviews in such venues as the Washington Post, Sojourners Magazine, and National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." He is the recipient of several awards, including a Puffin Foundation Grant for the Human Rights Painting Project, which highlights human rights personalities and the work of Amnesty International. His art has been reproduced in publications such as Harvard University's Dudley Review, where one piece was on the cover and two were inside. As a journalist and writer, he has been published in the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Boston Herald, Dallas Morning News, Sufi Magazine, Washington Review, Detroit Jewish News and WildHeart Journal. His art is in several private and public collections, including the Contemporary Art Museum, Montecatini, Italy. He currently lives in Silver Spring, MD, and his web site is www.TomBlock.com.

Frank Born has had solo exhibits in San Francisco and Japan and has participated in group shows at Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ft. Collins, CO; The Gallery at UTA, The University of Texas at Arlington, and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco and may be contacted at fbornarts@sbcglobal.net.

* Holly Boruck has a BFA in architecture (high distinction) from the California College of Arts & Crafts. She is the recipient of a grant from the George Sugarman Foundation and her work has been exhibited in Gallery 825 in Los Angeles and several other venues. It is in private and public collections, including those of the General Accounting Office (Washington, DC), Borgata Casino, (NJ), Harrah's Chicago, UPS Corporate Headquarters, Rutgers University, Ray Romano (private collection) and the TV shows Six Feet Under, Friends, Hidden Hills and others. She is currently represented by galleries in Los Angeles, N. Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Aliso Viejo, CA. Her work can also be seen in the Monarch Collection of the Bellagio Hotel, Van Nuys, CA, and the Veterans Administration in Washington, DC, She lives in Burbank, CA, and her site is www.HollyBoruck.com.

* Susan Bowen lives in Brooklyn, NY, and makes panoramic-style multiple exposures, which she shoots with a plastic camera. She has had recent solo shows at Middle Tennessee State University and in Las Vegas and her work has also been shown at the Brooklyn College of Art and the International Center of Photography School. Her BA in studio art is from Allegheny College, with graduate work at Pratt Institute. More of her work is at www.SusanBowenPhoto.com.

* Courtney Brown is a sculptor working primarily in bronze. Trained as a metalsmith at Wayne State University, she has served apprenticeships with bronze sculptors such as Hank Kaminsky and was artist-in-residence at the Mendicino Art Center. She lives on the Mendocino Coast in California and says she gets inspiration "from the toll the weather takes on everything manmade. Beautiful rust, decay and weather-beaten wood." More of her work can be seen at www.varnishfineart.com; she can be contacted at PO Box 2521, Mendocino, CA, 95460.

* Mernie Buchanan lives in Benicia, CA, and has been painting professionally for 25 years. She received a BA in Art from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with continued studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Her work is in collections in Oakland, CA, Newport, RI, Paris and elsewhere. She designs and paints stage sets for many Bay Area theaters and has worked as lead scenic artist for Woodminster Amphitheater in Oakland since 1999. She has recently painted murals at the San Francisco Zoo and the Concord Youth Center for the Hofmann Foundation. More of her work is at www.mernie.com

* Barbara Burghart-Perreault received a BA in Drawing and Painting from the Dominican University in River Forest, IL, and studied at the Chicago Art Institute. She has done postgraduate work at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. She has had five solo shows since March 2002 and her drawings are included in the Dee Roy and Mary E. Jones Collection of the Kellogg Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA, and in private collections in France, Italy, Germany, Indonesia, Canada, and throughout the US. She lives in Fairfax, CA, and can be contacted through bbperreault@yahoo.com.       

* L J Douglas is Assistant Professor in Painting and Drawing at Illinois State University. Previously, she taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, University of Illinois at Chicago, and was a visiting artist at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She has exhibited installations, drawings, paintings, and artist's books. She and another artist executed the first public commission in the city of Evanston, IL. Her work is in the following major collections: Nathan Cummings Foundation; Museum of Modern Art, Artist Book Collection, New York; National Gallery of Art, Artist Book Collection, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Ford Foundation, Johan Deumens Archive, Heemsteede, the Nederlands; and Garage Moderne, Paris, France. Also a writer, her art criticism has been published in the New Examiner and Dialogue Magazine. She lives in Bloomington, IL, and can be contacted at ljdoug@ilstu.edu.

* Beth Yarnelle Edwards showed her series, "Rêves de Banlieue (Suburban Dreams)," at Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi, Belgium, Dec. 2003 - Feb. 04, then had work at AIPAD: The Photography Show (Robert Klein Gallery) New York City. She has also had solo shows at Chateau d'Eau, Toulouse, France, the oldest photography museum in Europe, and at more than 15 other places, and participated in over 50 group exhibitions. Her work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Harpers, Adbusters, Portfolio and European Photography. She is a recipient of The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Visual Arts Award and several other honors including grand prix of the Salon International de la Recherche Photographique de Royan, France. Her work is in many collections including SFMOMA, the Oakland Museum of California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She lives in San Francisco and is represented by the Robert Klein Gallery (38 Newbury St 4th Fl, Boston, MA, 02116. 617-267-7997; Inquiry@RobertKleinGallery.com; www.RobertKleinGallery.com) and may be contacted through them or at BYEdwards@aol.com.

* Samuel Gana currently lives in Port Washington, NY. He studied sculpture, painting and drawing at the University of Chile. He worked for years with top advertising agencies such as B&B in New York and later with Disney Studios. His fine art work has been shown in Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Italy, Spain, Uruguay and the US. More of it can be seen at www.SamGana.com.

* Larry Gregson is a painter living in Mason City, IA. He says his formal art education "began when I was 12 and was guild-like in the disciplined manner in which the basics were imparted. My first art instructor was a master printmaker and teacher. At an early age, I was privileged to experience the magic, craft, and drudgery of creativity." He has taught in Australia and at a community college in the US, and can be contacted at lgregson@netconx.net.

* Edith Hillinger is a German-born painter living in Berkeley, CA. She Has a four-year certificate in painting from the Cooper Union School of Art and a BA in painting from NYU. She has been an artist-in-residence at the McDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, and at the Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, CA. Her work has been shown in nine solo shows, including ones in New York, Munich and San Francisco and is in the Minnesota Museum of Art and several other public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. She is currently represented by the SFMOMA Artists Gallery in San Francisco, Butters Gallery in Portland, OR, and Robin Ficara Fine Arts in Beverly Hills, CA. She can be contacted at ehillinger@earthlink.net.

* Linden received a BFA in sculpture from the Pacific Northwest College of Art but now concentrates on painting in her Benicia, CA, studio. During the last year, she completed several dozen abstractions based on original sketches and photographs of boatyards in Benicia and Astoria, OR. She is currently working on a series of abstractions based on the inside of a freight elevator. Her work has been shown in California, Oregon and South Africa. More of it can be seen at www.linden-studio.com.

Evan Lindquist is a printmaker specializing in burin engraving for intaglio printing, but also works in etching, drypoint, woodcut and wood engraving. Emeritus professor of art, Arkansas State University, he is the recipient of the Arkansas Arts Council's 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award and the Emporia State University 2004 Distinguished Alumni Award. He has had more than 50 solo exhibitions and participated in 100 invitational group shows, 200 juried exhibitions and has received more than 60 awards, including those from: Boston Printmakers, San Diego State, Hunterdon Art Center and the Silvermine Guild of Artists. His work is in the permanent collections of public institutions such as The Albertina, Vienna; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; The Art Institute of Chicago; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; ería degli Uffizi, Florence; Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Reina Sophía, Madrid; Portland Art Museum; San Francisco Art Museum, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; St. Louis Art Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. More of his work is at www.clt.astate.edu/elind.

* Biganess Livingstone is professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, where she taught drawing and painting for seventeen years. During that period she was awarded three painting grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board and exhibited at the David Bamett Gallery, Milwaukee, and the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL. Her work is in fourteen public collections, including the Chase Manhattan Bank, NYC; the Engineering Building, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Goldberg Moser O'Neill advertising, San Francisco; and in the Office of the President, Massachusetts College of Art. She is listed in Who's Who in American Art, 2003, and received a 2004 grant from the George Sugarman Foundation. Her work has been shown the Claudia Chapline Gallery in California and the allen/thomas Gallery, Neenah, WI, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Benicia, CA. Her website is www.biganess.com.

* Raymond St. Arnaud studied photography at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and has a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Alberta. He has been involved with photography since 1968 and has exhibited in group and one person shows since 1969. He has also exhibited paintings and in 1999 he began showing digital art. The basis of his current imagery is photographing a found object or incident, often observing contrast of organic shapes against structures, geometrics, denial of depth, the isolated individual, scientific theories, the power of TV as an authenticating force and abstraction. He believes "the release of an archival ink and paper combination for an affordable printer will be perceived as an historical landmark in the development of the visual, print and photographic arts." He lives in Victoria, BC, Canada, and more of his work can be seen at www.worldprintmakers.com/shows/arnaud/starnaud.htm.

* Gwen Mayer Samuels received her BFA from Syracuse University, with additional studies at the Haystack School and other workshops. She uses fiber and non-traditional materials in ways that she believes challenge boundaries. Her work has been shown from Maine to Seattle and she says, "I'm interested in altering a familiar piece of clothing that provides warmth, shelter and covering. Clothing captures our imagination, allows us to explore alternatives and opens a space for invention…" She lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at gwensamuels@mac.com.

* Jan Stevenson lives in San Francisco, having recently moved from gold mining country. She has had solo shows in Sacramento, Sutter Creek and Calaveras County, and participated in dozens of group shows from Bakersfield to Santa Fe, NM, and New York City. More of her work can be seen at www.JanStevenson.com.

Othmar Tobisch of Oakland, CA, works in monotype, acrylic and mixed media painting, large format digital prints and Iris prints. He has a Ph.D from the University of London, in structural geometry and an MFA in studio arts from John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, CA. His work has been shown at San Francisco MOMA Artist's Gallery, Kellogg University Art Gallery, Cal Poly, Pomona, CA, Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, UC Santa Cruz and elsewhere. His work is in collections at UC Santa Cruz and Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, and in New York, Zurich and elsewhere. His website is www.otobisch-art.com.

* Riccardo Toronto calls himself a "fine art photographer living one paycheck away from the projects in Vallejo, CA." You can see more of his work at www.softcom.net/users/vtown/torontofoto.html along with what he claims is "an alleged artist statement that probably makes sense only to me and other like-minded schizophrenics." 

Nicholas van Krijdt is a sculptor living in Petaluma, CA. His work has been shown at numerous exhibitions in California, Michigan and elsewhere and he has installed commissioned work in such places as Vineyard Creek in Santa Rosa, CA, the Petaluma Rotary Club, the Field Museum, Chicago, and several private homes and businesses. He defines his work as "elemental and responsive," using simple materials, primarily zinc, steel, wood and beeswax. He can be contacted at 949 B St., Petaluma, CA, 94952.

* Yeqiang Wang is a painter born in China and currently living in Windsor, Canada, where he is an art instructor at Mackenzie Hall and the Art Gallery of Windsor. He became an English teacher in a high school at age 17 but abandoned that four years later to enter Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts, Chongqing, China, where he received systematic training in realism. From 1991 to 1998 he had a special interest in watercolor and won many prizes in Chinese national watercolor competitions. In 1998 he moved to Canada to attend the MFA program at the University of Windsor's School of Visual Arts. In his most recent work, he depicts "a fragmented impression of the new culture" he was suddenly immersed in, "and slams it against the closed cultural circle" of his traditional Chinese background. He may be contacted at yeqiangwang@yahoo.ca.

* Holly Wong is a San Francisco based artist who works with human rights issues. She has a BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She was designated as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and has received a Puffin Foundation Visual Artists grant and a Gerbode Foundation Purchase Award. Her work has been shown at the Smithsonian Institute, the University Art Museum, Berkeley, the University of San Francisco, the University of Ohio at Mansfield, the University of Idaho at Boise, SOHO20 Gallery in New York and WomenMade Gallery in Chicago. She can be contacted at redfan94103@yahoo.com.  

* Tamara Wyndham was born and raised in Los Angeles. She studied traditional drawing and painting at Cal. State University, Long Beach, and more experimental drawing, book works and performance at UC, Irvine. In 1979 she moved to New York City, where she continued to explore different methods of art making. Her extensive travels and painting in Mexico and Central America, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey and Spain have informed her art. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Henry Street Settlement, the Kate Millett Art Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Mariz Ceramic Workshop in the Czech Republic, Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, and a fellowship from Earthwatch to work in Orce, Spain. She can be contacted at tamaratornado@yahoo.com. 

* Denotes Art Opportunities Monthly subscriber. Other artists contributed as subscribers to studioNOTES.