Elisha makes mixed-media art at Front Street, in her studio on the first floor of the 100 Building that she shares with Kate Santucci. The first time I met Elisha she wasn’t making visual art. She was singing with the Blue Heron Trio. The group has been on hiatus since 2022 but you can still hear Elisha sing online. I asked about her shift from making music to making her multi-media art.
Continue readingKate Huser Santucci, encaustic painter
I’ve been admiring Kate’s encaustic paintings online (https://www.katehusersantucci.com/) for quite a while but only met her last summer. She works at Front Street, in the first floor of the 100 Building, where she shares space with Elisha Frontz.
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I visited Tracy McElfresh of https://www.tracyssewingstudio.com/ recently. I know Tracy spends a lot of time teaching people to sew. I asked her how she learned.
“My grandmother came from Puerto Rico to New York City and sewed in the garment district there. She would bring fabric remnants from work and use them to make all of my mother’s clothes. So as I was growing up my mother didn’t want to just go to a store and buy my clothes. She taught me how to make clothes by deconstructing old clothes. I would go to thrift stores and buy things that were very inexpensive, take them apart, and reassemble them into clothes that I loved.”
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I first met artist Caitlin Cartwright at Dayton’s Front Street Buildings, on a night when more than three dozen studios and galleries were open to the public. Caitlin was the featured artist in the Color of Energy Gallery, and her vibrant painting-drawing-collages were creating quite a stir.
Caitlin explained that there was a narrative underlying each of her works, and I asked her to tell me a bit about some of them. Continue reading
I visited Jeremy Long in his studio in the Creative Arts Center at Wright State University. Continue reading
Mohammad Hanif is a refugee from Afghanistan who has landed in Dayton. I first met him about six weeks ago. Continue reading
Rebecca Sargent spends her days at K12 Gallery & TEJAS, Dayton’s leading arts education organization, which is in Dayton’s most colorful building. Continue reading
Ann B. Kim is an accomplished artist and an active member of the Dayton arts community, but I didn’t reach out to meet her until I learned she was participating in a two-person exhibition in the Dutoit Gallery this September with my friend Rebecca Sargent.
Ann’s studio is in one of Dayton’s Front Street buildings. Continue reading
I have seen the work of MB Hopkins for years but I only met her last February. MB uses her art to support causes that are important to her, and in February she was at a Courthouse Square immigration event. MB had created a beautiful art work and was giving prints to people in exchange for their contribution to the local Unitarian Fellowship for World Peace. This organization provides no-fee mental health services in several languages to refugees and immigrants. Continue reading
I first saw the paintings of Stephanie McGuinness at the Dayton Visual Arts Center. Stephanie was one of three artists featured in an exhibit called “The Secrets We Keep.” The other two were Ashley Jonas and Zoe Hawk. Continue reading
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