Participating artists
BY 94920: Celebrating Creativity
Showcasing our own resident artists bringing people and art together.
Come see it at the Library Art Gallery from August 17 through October 22
Julia Baker
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I’m a painter, mostly larger scale abstracts. I paint in acrylics, oils, mixed media, and resin. I’m influenced by my natural surroundings: water, sky, my hikes, and even the weather. I graduated with a BFA in painting from UMass in Amherst, MA. Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg and Nathan Olivera have been the 3 strongest influences on my work.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is based on abstractions of my interpretation of what I see. I start my paintings very simply, add lots of detailed-drawing, writing, then cover with layers of paint and other collected ephemera. I love working with different aspects of nature, and breaking them down to their simplest forms, like figures, trees, branches, and keeping only the elemental aspects.
Ellen Bauch
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ellen Bauch has an enduring passion for exploring new forms in book arts and fine arts, with a focus on written languages. She was a docent at the Asian Art Museum where she served on the board as chair of the Education Committee. An extended residence in Italy, Hong Kong and Taiwan has provided endless inspiration. Since 1981, she has enjoyed raising her daughters and pets in Belvedere with her husband Tom.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I hope to create text-based images which playfully disorient through abstraction and illegibility, thus challenging perceptions. I explore letter forms using calligraphic techniques with diverse materials to create a cross-cultural dialogue, bridging cultures and inspiring fresh perspectives.
Joan Linn Bekins
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I’ve had a camera in my hand since I was a child growing up in Colorado Springs. Successfully pursuing a long career in public relations, marketing, advertising and consumer education in Hawaii and San Francisco, photography was an important part of my work. I married my husband, Don, and retired to raise our two children on our beloved Corinthian Island.
Macro-photography opened a whole new world to me with over 20 solo exhibitions benefitting non-profits.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Joan Linn Bekins’ images bring to mind Georgia O’Keefe’s “up-close-and-personal” look at flowers. Bekins' visual expression of beauty, through contour, shape, and color take form in realism and abstraction. She uses the camera the way an artist uses a paintbrush, evoking detail in the perfection of nature. Her images are an expression of her passion and commitment to the natural world — as a volunteer crusader and filmmaker for Terwilliger nature education.
Joan Bergsund
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Moving to Tiburon in l969, we lived at Seafirth on the bay. Our workshop got all the action. I sewed, my husband carved shorebirds, and the kids puttered with their projects. It was our happy place.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Quilting was all the rage in 1980. My mother and I loved the old fashioned quilts. We cut out squares, pieced them together, creating one quilt after another. I eventually focused on the whole cloth sampler, with a million stitches illustrating quilting designs, all stitched by hand. Machine quilting had yet to become popular.
Annie Bilder
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I create art because I have to. I am self-taught. I have never taken any classes because I am afraid to learn what the rules are. My work has been exhibited nationally and is owned internationally. To see more of my “Piece Pipes” and paintings, please contact me at abildernew at gmail.com. Put Annie’s Art in the subject line.
ARTIST STATEMENT
People say my work makes them happy. If I can make someone smile or give them some peace, I feel I’ve accomplished something important.
I believe, a piece of art either works for you or it doesn’t. I hope my art works for you. If not, I hope someone else's does. We all deserve sundaes for the soul!
Sydne Bortel
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Early “artistic aspiration defeat” occurred in first grade, when the teacher assigned drawing a tree. I did poorly and she decreed that I'd never be an artist. Working around her judgement, I concentrated on safer craft projects.
Having worked as a clinical social worker, I retired in 1993. I created many traditional quilts, indulged my yearning to learn machine quilting, used more deeply saturated color, and concentrated on "art quilts".
ARTIST STATEMENT
Influenced by abstraction and Japanese design, I usually begin with an idea, a photo, or simply with a favorite fabric from my stash, followed by a long process of auditioning or switching fabrics that "work" together. With placement as the focus, I consider shape, line, value and balance. I’ve swapped out much of my machine quilting with larger embroidered stitches, using sashiko thread when possible. Borders may follow, and often facing replaces traditional binding.
Aia Bower
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I grew up in Mill Valley, California and majored in art history and French language at Mills College and La Sorbonne, Paris IV. I moved back to Tiburon in 2013 after spending ten years in Italy and France. I was fortunate to study painting under the esteemed artist and professor, Chester Arnold. I enjoy creating compositions that are ethereal, expressive, gestural and musical.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are modern interpretations of nature's wonders blended with my intimate personal journey and embrace varying levels of abstraction, patterns and imagery. Each piece is an expression, an emotion, a dance or a melody conveyed in an entirely non-objective way while expressing rhythmic poetry or the ephemeral nature of life without a described reality.
Dawn Carlson
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I am enamored with beauty and serenity, (consequently I'm the founder/interior designer at MAS Design in Tiburon). I moved from a city environment prior to the pandemic and felt privileged to enjoy Marin's creative people and unmatched landscapes in an uncertain time. I began photographing my "awe", and with passionate encouragement from incredible friends, "Good Life Moxie" began, celebrating authentic moments and raw beauty in my signature documentary style.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“Adjust your focus!” With Good Life Moxie, I hope to redefine glamour through soulful, documentary style storytelling. Showcasing authentic connections and raw beauty (often perfectly imperfect), "Moxie" is unique in following that perspective in its application of minimal artificial lighting or editing, if any. My passion lies in human connections and quiet moments in nature versus highly technical photography, (like this surprising capture atop a camel in the Moroccan Sahara!)
Jeanette Carr
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I have always been attracted to fiber as a vehicle of expression, first explored by making quilts and quilted wall hangings.
In the 1990s a pop up show in Corte Madera created by students of Carol Beadle’s class at the College of Marin inspired me to further explore fabric and nurture my creativity. As a member of f/Dimensions and Edge Art Group I have shown my work for the past 30 years in many Bay Area venues.
Some of my work may be seen at fiberDIMENSIONS.
Jaleh Etemad
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Iran, educated in England, with BS and MS degrees in Advance Medical Laboratory Technology. Worked in Cancer Research for eight years including 3 years assisting in research at Tehran Cancer Institute. Jaleh is multi-media collage artist. She came to the US in 1970 and got her art degree from CSUN. She has shown in US, France, Scandinavia, Italy and China. She has many awards and is published in several art books.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I grow with my art, keeping my horizons open and exciting, challenging my creativity. My purpose and aim are to be able to have a visual language interaction with the viewer, capturing their lingering thoughts. It is my hope that this spark of life “WITHIN” the created forms will provoke inquiry into the realms of emotion and intellect." What matters to her, “it is not how you paint, it is how you feel when you paint.”
Gary Fiedel
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gary Fiedel retired in December, 2022, after 50 years as a tax accountant and financial advisor. In 2000, he co-founded grateful.org, a website devoted to grateful living. Primarily self-taught, he started painting when he was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn. He enjoys listening to classical music while painting which influences his work and experience.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint with oil on canvas and I enjoy playing with combinations of colors and free-flowing shapes that seem ethereal and dreamlike. I do not usually start with an idea but wait until something stimulates me. Then I pick out a paint color, choose a brush size, and begin. It is often surprising when different forms appear from my brushstrokes.
Jennifer Francis Fearon
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jennifer Fearon lives and works in Belvedere. Her paintings have been shown at Arts Benicia, Santa Cruz Art League, Palo Alto Art Center, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sausalito Art Center, O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and published in Still Point Arts Quarterly.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make art slowly and with clear attention as an antidote to short focus culture. I am sustained by deep connection to place and love the interaction of light with water in our coastal atmosphere. My work is an effort to capture what feel like the moments of grace that tell us we are part of the natural world, not separate from it.
Candice Fuhrman
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Candice Fuhrman recently retired from a 50-year career in book publishing working as an editor, writer and literary agent. A lifelong appreciator and student of art, she began painting about six years ago by taking lessons at the Ranch in Tiburon from Graciela Placak. Her series of cloud paintings was exhibited at Foodniks in Tiburon and Book Passage By-The-Bay in Sausalito. She also writes the Art Corner column for Belvedere-Tiburon 94920.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I like to experiment with unconventional materials and techniques. I’m currently working with honeycomb cardboard, fascinated by the texture and malleability of the material. I've variously cut, torn, pasted, and painted it. I've added nails, eucalyptus seeds, packing paper and paper plates. I've set it on fire. The pieces explore the nature of permanence and loss. The joy of doing is what drives me.
Marilyn Geary
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marilyn L. Geary is a native Californian born in the once orchard-carpeted Santa Clara Valley. In the 1970s, she first sat at the loom in a Noe Valley studio to learn from a Swedish weaver. Ever since, she has gathered and twined the multi-colored, textured threads of her life—the author, oral historian, Italophile and fiber artist—into a tapestry whose design is still emerging.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I usually create fiber art from organic materials and natural dyes, but for this piece I chose materials from the streets, including scraps of a San Francisco newspaper containing an article aimed at the ‘unhoused’ problem. As a young child, none of us imagines a future sleeping on the streets, yet with a quick flick of fortune’s wheel, this person could be you or me, your son, your daughter, or mine.
Diane Green
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I studied art history in college then worked at the National Gallery of Art. Following an M.A., a career consulting, and a family, art got short shrift until retirement. I then most happily took studio art classes and formed a local art study group. In addition to “By”, my art has been seen at MarinMOCA, Bartolini Gallery, Marin Society of Artists, and the Marin County Fair this year alone.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Lift Me Back Up Again is a painting in a series that speaks to the quality of resilience. Painted as the pandemic was easing, the piece is visually emblematic of being thwarted yet persevering. This oil on canvas portrays our ability to bounce back and recover, often with someone’s help. It’s about getting through -- together.
Devin Hunsinger
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Devin Hunsinger is an 18-year-old artist who was born and raised in Tiburon. She recently graduated from Marin Academy and will be attending Colorado College in the fall. She hopes to major in art in college as well as pursue a career in the arts.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Art is my biggest passion and I have been creating art for as long as I can remember. I love being able to express myself and use art as a creative outlet. My piece, “Beliefs Diptych”, was inspired by themes of religion and suffering, especially taking inspiration from the original religious diptychs of history.
Cynthia Jensen
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cynthia Jensen is a San Francisco Bay artist whose work explores the tenuous balance between civilization and nature. She has a degree/teaching credential in education and studied art for many years at College of Marin and California College of the Arts in Oakland. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and other art venues for the past 35 years. In 2019, Jensen opened a non-profit gallery in San Rafael entitled the Unnatural History Museum.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is about the impact of human activity on our environment. I use a variety of materials in creating sculpture, assemblage and two-dimensional work including clay, plaster, metal, wire, wood, paper, textiles, and recycled manufactured items. I print, paint, dye, photograph, weld, stitch, tie, cast, mold, nail and screw my pieces together in the process of creating my finished pieces.
I create contemporary artifacts illustrating the effects of our actions on our fragile ecosystems.
John Kunzweiler
ABOUT THE ARTIST
John Kunzweiler is a Marin County-based photographer and oil painter. John’s creative journey started with art in college but detoured into an MBA which led to a career in international management consulting. For the next 30 years, extensive travel took John to every corner of the world, but always with a camera and a sketch book.
Artist Statement
I love to encourage the viewer to see beyond the painted image –absorb the light, dive into the color, hear the sounds, feel temperature, recognize the setting, and see complexity hidden under simplicity. I think of my work as Expressionistic with subjects ranging from familiar mountains, empty rooms, imaginary flowers and still life. I use strong color, line, light and form to (re)create a mood, a sense of place…a story.
Hadley Meek Purdy
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Living in Tiburon and my love of animals inspires my paintings. Music and art play a big role in my life. I am a student at Reed School going into 1st grade. I’m a graduate of the Belvedere Nursery School art program. You might see me looking for crabs by the Railroad Museum or painting along the bike path with my dad.
Trinette Reed and Chris Gramly
ABOUT THE ARTIST
We have been commercial advertising photographers and directors for 25 years. We started our careers in fine art and are now circling back to making art after many years of focusing on commercial work. We have always had a deep love for art, architecture, and interior design. It is our belief that art in a living space has the power to engage your senses and enhance your well being.
ARTIST STATEMENT
We create fine art photography as well as AI art. These pieces are created using a process we call collaborative AI. We create the initial image in AI software curating with words and images, editing, and collaborating with the software, then we often make additional changes in photoshop. These images were inspired by the idea of sensory design which is design that engages the senses.
Joan Stracquadanio
ABOUT THE ARTIST
She has been involved in many aspects of the art world throughout her life. Her inaugural exhibition was Marin Open Studios May 2023. An abbreviated list of past art associations include 1999 to Present, Founder/President: Cobaltarts Art Brokering, Healdburg Art, Food and Wine, Art Walks including the San Francisco Union Street, San Francisco Union Square, and Healdsburg Palate to Palette. SFMOMA Modern Art Council.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a contemporary abstract and multimedia artist, I create works that radiate energy through rich colors and textures. One sees something different in each viewing regardless of the work’s simplicity or complexity. My paintings are often colorful, bright, and bold with many varying styles. Daily I wait to see what comes through me onto my canvas. My motto: let go and flow.
Marine Strage
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Brittany France, Marine studied Art in London at Central St. Martin’s and has lived in Belvedere since 2013, working out of her Sausalito ICB studio. Her work is collected all over the US and Europe. Selected for the 2019 Crocker Kingsley juried show, she is published in the 2021 Artists of the Bay Area book, in the Art Folio Annual 2021 and 2022 and in the American ArtWork 2024 book.
ARTIST STATEMENT
This abstract painting is an homage to the California lifestyle. Its free spirit and abundant nature is in contrast with the highly technological land it has become. I am interested in treating the visual conflict between these two landscapes. I chose a composition using geometric shapes that reminds us of the technological language on which free gestural marks and stylized flowers float on top to illustrate this dichotomy.
Jett Walker
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Colorado and raised in Long Beach, CA. She graduated from UCLB. Followed many classes in SF’s Academy of Art and Art Institute, Univ. of Colorado in Aspen, Univ. of MD, College of Marin, and Institute of Art in San Miguel Allende, Mexico.
She apprenticed in a professor’s etching studio, paints in all mediums, ran sculpture workshops, designed theater sets for Children’s Musical Theater, and was President of MSA.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am always asked what kind of artist are you? I have to answer depends on the day. I keep exploring new areas. Something catches my eye in nature that calls to me to record it. This love of life and nature has led to travels on many continents, scenes of which are reflected in my art. Revolving Reflections came from watching water streams in Yosemite.
Sandra Wolfson
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sandra spent her childhood in National Parks. She’s been fortunate to live in many beautiful areas. Sandra has an MFA and BFA in Painting. She studied in Italy under a Ford Foundation Grant. She’s an NEA artist and worked at SFMOMA. She’s taught at Community Colleges and currently teaches with COM. Sandra was an AIR in Ireland in 2022 with a solo exhibit at O’Hanlon Center. She exhibits widely.
ARTIST STATEMENT
In 2017, the sky filled with smoke from the fires raging just north of us. In the efforts to contain it, we saw less and less blue sky. I started cutting out news articles and collaging them onto wooden panels, adding layers of paint. I finished this work by painting with fire. The rich black carbon black pulls the work together. The reds and blues help create a dynamic juxtaposition.
Erika Zhang
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Erika Zhang, age seventeen, was born in Boston and moved to Tiburon when she was five. This year, Erika graduated from Marin Academy, and she will be studying at New York University’s Stern School of Business this fall. She enjoys spending time with friends, skiing, and traveling.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I picked up visual art in class during elementary school, and I have stuck with it ever since, taking classes inside and out of school. I draw and paint as a hobby, and I sell my work when opportunities arrive. I love the story-telling ability of art, and I want to explore concept art. Though I enjoy watercolor, pencil, digital, and acrylic, my favorite medium is oil paint by far.
Get in touch
Art Gallery