Leonarda Boughton is an artist and an educator living in Ashland, WI and Boston, MA. Born in Wisconsin, she spent part of her childhood in Costa Rica. She returned to the U.S. and was educated in Boston, where she attended Boston University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts where she developed her skills as an artist. Initially, working as an illustrator and graphic designer, she later moved to Mexico where she lived for seven years and dedicated herself to painting and exhibiting. The time spent in Latin America has most certainly influenced her work, coloring her sensibility with a love of nature and a bent for fanciful depictions of reality.

Once she returned to the States, she looked for ways to reach out and share these skills and began working as the Artist-in-Residence for the Celebrity Series of Boston. Here, she focused on creating art outreach programs for Boston Public Schools. This sparked her interest in teaching, which has led to many years of offering workshops and classes both in schools and privately, focusing on all levels of development, from beginners to advanced. For her, the thrill of teaching, is in helping to tap into someone's ability to see more deeply and offering them the tools and the confidence to express what they experience through their art.

Today, she continues to focus on her artwork with renewed energy, now that she is spending more time in WI, with its open landscapes and the open time to concentrate. When not painting;  preparing for an exhibit or a commissioned work, she is organizing a workshop, of which she teaches several each year. This year she looks forward to her new association with the Madeline School of the Arts, where she’ll be teaching a Drawing Class in the fall of 2012. 

Sally Brown has taught painting and drawing for 35 years in Minneapolis and St.Paul, Minnesota

She is a founder of the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM) and was recently exhibited at the Weisman Museum of Art, University of Minnesota with early members of that group.

Ms. Brown has done set design with the Red Eye Collaboration, has been exhibited in Chicago, New York and throughout the Midwest and was the McKnight Grant finalist in 1992.

She has been a summer resident on Madeline Island since 1987.

Sally Nystrom is an artist and art teacher who has a private studio and teaching studio at The Casket Arts Building in Northeast Minneapolis.  She graduated with a BA from St. Catherine’s in 1991 and continued her studies at both St. Catherine’s and The College of Art and Design, focusing on her love of art history.  She is also a member of a group known as The Rain Collective which has a web site showing the collectives’ works.

In 1993 she began as a teaching protégé with Sally Brown, a founding member of WARM.  Together they taught in Sally Brown’s Studio School and also for the University of Minnesota adjunct programs.  They have developed curriculum for various art programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Sally’s latest body of work is figurative with a bittersweet view of the past.  She has worked from photographs of her own genealogy and hopes that the viewer will recognize their own family stories in her work.

Frank “Anakwad” Montano, International performer and speaker was born and lives on the Red Cliff Reservation in northern Wisconsin.  At a very young age he developed his love of music.  He mastered the ukulele and then sent away for a harmonica.  In a short time he mastered playing the guitar, which led to several other instruments such as the accordion, mandolin, twelve and six string guitar, banjo, fiddle, key board, and drums.  In his teen years he started playing in bands for several years.  In his thirties, he began making and playing the traditional woodland flute and since has made dozens of recordings. 

He is known as an International Peacemaker, Musician, Speaker, Storyteller, and presenter regarding Native American Traditions and Spirituality.  The music and voice of Anakwad has been heard in the United States and Internationally.  Anakwad has captured audiences in Croatia, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Mexico, as well as the United States. 

Anakwad recently was a guest at the 13^th Annual Native American Music Awards.  Anakwad shares his life experiences through his music, storytelling and poetry.

Greg “Biskakone” Johnson is one of Ojibwe Country’s most influential artists today.    He is a self-taught Native Artist and is known to his friends as Biskakone.  He has carefully studied historical Ojibwe artifacts, and can recreate objects that were first made hundreds of years ago.  His work is currently on display at the George W. Brown Museum, and the Cultural Center located in Lac du Flambeau, WI. 

Biskakone has taught beadwork at the LCO community college in Hayward WI, and is involved with teaching at the Woodland Indian Art Center in Lac du Flambeau, WI.

His work has been published in many newspapers across Indian Country, and is displayed in private collections.  His footwear is worn by people from all over the world.

Biskakone lives a rich cultural life with his wife Krista, his daughter, Wasanodae (northern lights) and son Koen.  You will find him outdoors in spring making maple sugar and in winter, spearing Muskies on northern Wisconsin’s frozen lakes.

nena iigizhiigook (Healing Sky Woman), Sharon Nelis is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, and lives on the Bad River Reservation, in Northern Wisconsin. She grew up in Milwaukee but has always been exposed to the Ojibwe lifestyle by her grandmother, Agnes Smart LaFernier.

Sharon and her late husband, Marvin, raised four sons, including a set of twins, in the traditional lifestyle. Hunting, fishing, making maple syrup and candies, and wild ricing were among the many seasonal tasks they performed on a yearly basis.

She went back to college and has been working at the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission for seventeen years.

Sharon has been an avid beader for 36 years and her work is known throughout Ojibwe country including Canada. She enjoys sharing her artistry and has taught many people of all ages how to bead. She gets her patterns and colors from nature. Sunrises and sunsets give way to her beading styles.

Mary Ann Beckwith is equally a painter and teacher with a passion for both.  She is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society, Allied Artists, Watercolor Honor Society of Watercolor USA, International Society of Experimental Artists (Nautilus Fellow), Society of Layerists in Multimedia, Transparent Watercolor Society of America, and many state and regional societies.

She is the author of Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide and Showcase and her work has been featured numerous books on watercolor.

A professor of art at Michigan Tech University, in the scenic and rugged Upper Peninsula, she brings the arts to engineering and science students.  Mary Ann has twice been the recipient of the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Mary Ann conducts workshops and classes on experimental watercolor techniques and collage.  She has served as a judge in shows around the country.

Cheng-Khee Chee is a very popular workshop instructor whose classes fill up quickly. His breakthroughs in concepts and processes have greatly influenced watermedia painting, and he shares these with his workshop students.

His work has won over 200 honors, including gold and silver medals. He has written and illustrated several books, including The Watercolor World of Cheng-Khee Chee and the children's books Old Turtle, Swing Around the Sun and Noel. He also has a six volume instructional DVD set.

Chee, Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Minnesota, is a Signature member of the American watercolor Society (Dolphin Fellow), National Watercolor Society, and many others, and is a sought-after national show juror.

Chee’s ultimate goal in painting is to achieve the essence of Tao, the state of effortless creation. He hopes to produce paintings that will be neither East nor West, realism nor abstraction, but contain elements that communicate on a universal and timeless level.

Minnesota native, Andy Evansen is a sought-after workshop instructor who paints and teaches internationally. 

He has been painting watercolor landscapes for almost 20 years, after taking workshops early in his career from noted artists Skip Lawrence, Eric Weigardt and Alvaro Castagnet.

His work gained recognition after winning an international watercolor competition through American Artist magazine, and he has since appeared in multiple issues as well as Watercolor Artist and International Artist magazines. His works have been included on the cover of American Artist's Watercolor magazine, in Watercolor Magic magazine, American Art Collector magazine, and International Artist's book "100 Ways to Paint People and Figures".

He served as President of the Minnesota Watercolor Society from 2004-2006 and his awards include several First Place Honors in their exhibitions. He was one of 4 artists nationwide invited to participate in Coleman Fine Art's 'Wet Paint' plein air event in 2007 in Charleston, SC. He was recently asked to participate in the Plein Air Painters of America (P.A.P.A.) 2011 Exhibition and Sale.

Frank Francese:  NWS, TWSA Master, WHS, WW, SDWS, WFWS, TWS, CWS

Frank Francese was born in Arizona in 1951 but has resided in Colorado for most of his life.  He has been a professional artist since 1976 and achieved the groundwork for his profession while attending Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado.

Watercolors came to the forefront of Francese's artistic work in 1983.  His liquid style is unique and distinctive.  Frank enjoys working on a very wet surface, letting the pure color mix itself on the paper.  His shapes are large and loose, often disregarding fine detail.  Frank uses abrupt color changes of he same value with the while of the watercolor paper to bring his paintings to life.  The subject matter for Francese watercolors is always varied, reflecting his national and international travels as well as local western Colorado scenes.

Marc R. Hanson teaches landscape painting workshops in many locations nationally.  He has shown his work in galleries and museums nationally and internationally since the early 1980's.  He is a Signature Member of The Oil Painters of America (O.P.A.).  Marc has garnered a number of national awards including placing four times in The Pastel Journal's 'Pastel 100' competition, winning an Award of Excellence at the O.P.A. National Exhibit in 2000, 2007, 2009 and 2010.  Recently his work was selected as a Finalist in the International Artist's Magazine's Art Prize Challenge, 3rd Place Landscape in Pastel 100 (2008), the Pastel Award at the Society of Master Impressionist Show at the Sunset Art Gallery in Amarillo, TX, and the Award for Excellence, Landscape at the Oil Painters of America's National Exhibit at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.

Of teaching, Marc notes, "I love working with other painters in their pursuit to better their craft.  My goal is not to have them assimilate my style and technique, but to teach them how to more closely examine the subject and apply the principles that representational painters must follow to become effective visual communicators."

Karlyn Holman has had a studio-gallery for 40 years, and enjoys a full schedule of teaching workshops and painting in her studio.

Karlyn's watercolor paintings reflect a special kind of exuberance for her native area of Lake Superior and her travels around the world. Her paintings could be described as realism based on abstract structure.

She is a popular workshop instructor known for her enthusiastic, innovative and fun teaching techniques. She has illustrated four children's picture books, one illustrated book and four instructional books on watercolor titled Watercolor Fun and Free, Searching for the Artist Within,  Watercolor-The Spirit of Spontaneity and Watercolor Without Boundaries.

Karlyn has led adventurous and instructional tours all over Europe, New Zealand, Central America, Mexico, Ireland, South Africa and on cruises in the Caribbean.

She has an MA in Art from the University of Wisconsin and has taught at the college level for ten years.

Karen Knutson thoroughly loves teaching watercolor and collage, and teaches workshops all over the United States.

Karen is a signature member of Transparent Watercolor Society of America (formerly known as Midwest Watercolor Society), Red River Watercolor Society, the Montana Watercolor Society, and the Northern Plains Watercolor Society, the Minnesota Watercolor Society, the Missouri Watercolor Society, and has had many paintings accepted into many other national shows.  

Her paintings are featured in Splash 6, Watercolor, Fun and Free, and Searching for the Artist Within,  Watercolor- The Spirit of Spontaneity, and the magazine, Watercolor Magic (Aug.’04). Her work can also be seen in 2 new books, The Artistic Touch  3, by Chris Unwin, and Watercolor without Boundaries, by Karlyn Holman. 

American painter, M Kathryn Massey   (b. 1953-  ) is a Signature Member of the Oil Painters of America and Audubon Artists by juried review.  She holds, or has held memberships, with American Academy of Women Artists, American Artists Professional League, Allied Artists of America and the Hoosier Salon among others.

Ms. Massey began to paint in 1994 at age 41. Influenced chiefly by the Dutch and Flemish Masters, she also ascribes to the sensibilities of the 19th and 20th c. Italian and French painters. While these periods most directly inform her painting, she is responsive to Hovsep Pushman, symbolist, Odilon Redon, and artists Michelangelo, Rodin, Bernini and Giacometti.  She is drawn to the Naturalists painters of the 19th c.   Mary is further influenced, but not limited to, the work of 18th c. painter Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, and American painters Eakins, Hopper, and Inness.  Her ideas are influenced through the scrolls, paintings and decorative arts of Asian Cultures (all periods).

A brief listing of publications include: a featured article in American Artist Magazine (March '06) by founding editor Stephen Doherty; Art of the West, May '05;   "Pastel Journal" February '04; the Best of Pastels, '06.   She is included in a new book on painting still life and florals published by International Artist ' 05.

By invitation, Mary is among other American painters in Today's Great Masters, release date early 2010. Her own book Beyond Paint: A Conceptual Guide for Oil Painters is presently being completed. 

Ms. Massey was awarded a 2011 Gold Medal for her piece Vase with Grapes by Audubon Artists, Inc. in New York.

Janet Rogers 

Janet is a popular national watercolor instructor, sharing her flowing and spontaneous painting style together with her energetic and encouraging workshops throughout the United States and Europe.    She is a Signature Member of the American Watercolor Society, as well as Florida Watercolor Society and Member of Excellence in the South Carolina Watercolor Society.  She has also won numerous awards for her portrait/figure paintings in many exhibits and shows.

Four painting DVDs -“Expressive Watercolor Portraits”, “Expressive Watercolor Florals”, “Watercolor Rhythms – With Figures”, and “Expressing the Bouquet in Watercolor”,  have been filmed showing Janet’s intuitive and sharing style of teaching and painting.  They are available through Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff.   She has also been featured in the book “The One Hour Watercolorist” by Patrick Seslar (North Light), and also in an article published in the American Artist Magazine featuring her portraits and figures.

Janet currently resides in Ormond Beach, Florida with watercolorist Steve Rogers, AWS.

Steve Rogers has been teaching workshops in the US and abroad for over 30 years. The Mediterranean—the color, the sense of light and of place—has had a profound impact on the overall direction of his painting. He shares this in his popular workshops, helping beginners and advanced painters alike learn about light and color and the way watercolor behaves.

Steve is a Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society, the American Watercolor Society, and the Florida Watercolor Society. He has judged many national, regional, and state exhibitions. He was the 2007 AWS National Invited Juror, and Chairman for the Jury of Awards for the 2010 AWS. Among the hundreds of awards he has received, are the NWS Purchase Award “Best of Show” in 2006 and four awards at AWS International Exhibitions.

Steve’s work was the cover/feature article for the winter 2007 issue of American Artist’s Watercolor Magazine, and he contributed chapters to The One Hour Watercolorist (Northlight, 2000) and Expressing the Visual Language of the Landscape (International Artist/Northlight, 2001). He also has a best-selling DVD, 7 Secrets of Painting Reflections in Watercolor.

Sedona painter and teacher Jan Sitts is internationally known for colorful, richly textured works that have delighted art lovers for over 30 years. Her present surroundings in the Red Rock country of Arizona’a high desert provide inspiration for an energetic and intuitive approach to art.

She was formally trained at the Kansas City Art Institute and received a BA in art from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. As an art instructor and professional painter, she continues to explore and experiment.

Jan travels around the globe teaching painting workshops. She is very selective with her workshops and wants to keep each one varied and special as she strives for a unique essence of the painting experience. Therefore, she teaches only a few workshops per year.

She has received many awards, exhibition honors and art jury assignments. Her work is featured in public, private and corporate collections throughout the world.

She recently published an art book, Texture Color Feeling.

Daryl Urig is an adjunct Professor with the University of Cincinnati for over 10 years and created a 4-year program for the University of Cincinnati as its Academic Coordinator. He has painted all through his career while his work has hung in the Columbus Art Museum and the Toledo Art Museum. He has won major awards all across the United states including the Salmagundi Club in New York City. He is represented by many galleries in the United States including the prestigious Hilligoss Galleries of Chicago Illinois, on the Magnificent Mile. He has won awards with the Portrait Society of America and is the premier painter for the Indian Hill Historic Society in Indian Hill, Ohio. His Blog “The Adventures of an American Oil Painter is read by more than 50,000 viewers annually. His unique painting understanding and ability to teach makes him a worthwhile resource for entry level to professional artist.

Read his blog at http://www.darylurig.com/blog/

Tony van Hasselt teaches plein air watercolor workshops in this country and abroad. His ability to graphically explain problems and solutions as they arise during a workshop demonstration, combined with his energetic and enthusiastic teaching style, have made him a highly popular instructor, appreciated for his empathy with student struggles. In his workshops, van Hasselt concentrates on logical outdoor painting methods and the art of picture-making.

Tony grew up in The Netherlands before settling in the US. He studied under Frank Reilly, and, while organizing and attending workshops, well known watercolorists such as John Pike, Edgar A. Whitney, Robert E. Wood, Tom Hill, Milford Zornes and Rex Brandt became his mentors and friends. His books include A Studio Visit and Outdoor Watercolor Workshop (Watson-Guptill), and he co-wrote Painting with the White of your Paper and The Watercolor Fix-it Book (North Light Books). His works and teaching methods are also the subject of several instructional video presentations. Tony has been featured in magazines such as Southwest Art and American Artist and on the covers of Artist's Magazine and Watercolor Magic.

He is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, has won numerous awards at national, state and regional exhibits and shows, and is often asked to judge at national and international watercolor shows.

Myrna Wacknov is a practicing artist, and workshop instructor specializing in figurative and portrait character studies.  Portraiture has been a lifelong interest for Myrna –she got her start doing commissioned portraits in high school.  Myrna attended Washington University in St. Louis and later finished her degree in Painting and Drawing at the College of San Mateo and San Francisco State University.

She currently resides in California and is a Signature Member in the National Watercolor Society, the California Watercolor Society and the San Diego Watercolor Society.

Her awards include, but are not limited to, First Place in the Society of Western Artists, and First Place in the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society Show.  She was awarded the CFS Medal in the 2008 American Watercolor Society International Exhibition and was a semifinalist in the 2009 Portrait Competition of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian.

The October 2007 issue of Watercolor Magic featured an article on her unique portrait process.  In March of 2008, Artist Magazine highlighted her as an artist over 60.  The October 2008 cover of Palette Magazine also featured Myrna's work.

To see her recent observations, check out her online art journal and blog Creativity Journey. She is represented by the Gallery Concord in Concord, CA.

Craig Blacklock, one of the country's premier landscape photographers, uses Lake Superior to create his unique images. "Water, rock, and atmosphere are the raw elements from which I work my alchemy".

His award-winning books include The Lake Superior Images, A Voice Within—The Lake Superior Nudes, and Minnesota's North Shore. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Minnesota Book Award, and an Independent Publishers book award for the best photography book of 2005. Craig's prints are in numerous collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tweed Museum of Art, Polaroid Collection, and the George Eastman House.

Craig has taught nature photography workshops since 1982. He helps both professional and amateur photographers realize their own vision in color or black and white—while working with flowers, landscapes, wildlife or nudes—both in the field and in Adobe Photoshop. Several of Craig’s students recently have won major awards with images made during his workshops.

Seán Duggan is a fine art photographer, author, educator and an Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert with extensive experience in both the traditional and digital darkroom. Through his writing and teaching, he has been helping photographers master digital photography and digital darkroom techniques for over 15 years.

He is the co-author of Real World Digital Photography, 3rd Edition (Peachpit Press, 2010), The Creative Digital Darkroom (O’Reilly, 2008), and Photoshop Artistry (New Riders, 2006), and is a regular contributor to Photoshop User and other publications.

Seán develops and teaches online Photoshop and Imaging for Photographers courses at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, and leads workshops at venues across the country. He also offers personalized training, consulting and mentoring on digital photography, Photoshop, Lightroom, and digital workflow issues.

John Gregor  graduated from the University of Minnesota in with a degree through University Without Walls, his degree was entitled “Documentary Expression of American Culture Through Photography” a combined degree of Social Sciences and Fine Art Photography.

During his career Gregor has worked on some interesting projects and photographed for some great publications, they include: 2 years as the Official Track Photographer at Canterbury Downs Racetrack, a month long photographic project in Africa documenting the first attempted kayak decent of the Blue Nile from Lake Victoria to Lake Albert, an on-going photography /research project on  horse-mounted military musical bands remaining worldwide with trips to England, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden, funded by the University of St. Thomas,  photography documentation of over 75 Scientific and Natural Areas in Minnesota funded by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Nature Conservancy resulting in numerous publications including Worlds Within A World, Minnesota Bookstore 1999 winner of the Minnesota Book Award. Gregor has four other book projects with title page credit including: Growing Home; Stories of 32 Ethnic Gardeners, UofM Press, 2000 (winner of the 2000 American Horticulture Book of the Year Award), Northland Wildflowers a guide to the Minnesota Region UofM Press, and Northern Treasure, The University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s 100 year commemorative book .

Gregor has taught photographic workshops for over 20 years, including workshops for University of Minnesota Split Rock Arts Program, Great Plains Photographic Workshops, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Compleat Scholar Program and many others.

Gregor currently lives near Two Harbors, Minnesota were he co-owns Waterfront Gallery.

Layne Kennedy's workshops and teaching technique are vibrant, full of energy and reflect not only his skill with the camera, but his personable interaction with students. Trained in fine art photography, he is a nationally recognized magazine photographer, known for work that conveys a strong sense of place.

His assignments take him all around the globe for publications like Smithsonian, National Geographic, Traveler, Islands, Backpacker, Time, Newsweek, Life, Forbes, Sports Illustrated, Nature Conservancy and National Geographic Adventure. He has contributed to dozens of books for several publishers, including the National Geographic Society, NorthWord Press, Lerner, Sterling, Knopf Greystone, McMillan, Discovery, and Voyageur Press. His books include Jewels on the Water—Lake Superior's Apostle Islands, Minnesota—Yesterday & Today, A Hard Water World, and Paddle North—Canoeing the Boundary Water/Quetico Wilderness.

His image files are diverse with collections featuring the Amazon River, the Arctic, Iceland, Greenland, North American fossils, wind power, Great Plains States, North American ecosystems, Lake Superior, Apostle Islands, amber, the Caribbean, Finland, American Prairie, Desert SW, Grand Canyon, white-water rafting, Great Lakes States, Alaska, wolves and wolf research, to name a few.

He is Founder and Director of the Superior/Gunflint Photography Workshops conducting wilderness adventure workshops in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and is a Mentor with Pop Photo’s Worldwide Mentor Photo Treks.

 While shopping with her mother in 1978, Charlotte wandered into a quilt shop and everything changed from there. Educated in fine arts, speech and drama, she brings a variety of talents to class in a most humorous way.

She has been teaching quilting since 1979 because someone asked her to teach them. Her first quilt was sold right after making it and she has sold her quilts ever since. She owned her own quilt shop in Virginia Beach, Va from 1981-1999. She began teaching nationally in 1991 and has taught for many large shows as well as small groups.

Along with her kit business, Quilt Maker's Studio, she now teaches and lectures full time and lives in Conway, SC since 2008.

An accomplished fiber artist, Judith Baker Montano is also a qualified teacher and lecturer. She is comfortable in the embroidery, quilting and fiber arts world. Teaching has taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Classes are varied and include clothing design, crazy quilting, embellishments, silk ribbon embroidery and fiber landscape designs.

Experimenting with materials and sewing machine, Judith created “The Montano Center Piece Method”, a copyright machine method of crazy quilting. This led to teaching classes and her first book on crazy quilting. Over the years she has become the leading expert on Crazy quilting, silk ribbon and embellishments.

Judith’s latest book is “Fibreart Montage, Combining Quilting, Embroidery and Photography With Embellishments” published by Dragon Threads Inc. It is a hardcover, 265 page, spiral bound book  full of beautiful photography and step out instructions. There are nine different subjects, covering crazy quilting, photography, computer skills, watercolor painting, land/seascapes, underwater, cottages,
embroidery and dying fabrics.

This beautiful book has won two prestigious awards for 2010: The Benjamin Franklin Book Award for the most outstand craft and how to book and The International Book Sellers Award, for the most
outstanding how-to-book of the year.

Judith resides in the small town La Veta, Colorado with her husband Ernest Shealy and an ever-growing menagerie of pets.

While pursuing a degree in molecular biology and masters in biomedical illustration, Sue Benner created her vision of the microscopic universe in painted and quilted textile constructions. Her early work propelled her to become a studio artist in 1980, working primarily in the medium which later became known as the Art Quilt.

Sue is an innovator in her field, creating original dyed and painted fabrics which she combines with recycled textiles to form fields of structured pattern, vivid beauty, and riotous variation.

Sue’s artwork is in many private, corporate, and institutional collections. Her work has been juried into Quilt National seven times, and she served as a juror in 2009.

She lectures and teaches workshops nationally and internationally in the fields of surface design, textile collage, fused quilt construction, and artistic inspiration.

Sue lives in Dallas, Texas; however, a part of her heart resides still in her home state of Wisconsin.

An award-winning fabric artist, Susan Carlson has been teaching her technique of fabric collage both nationally and internationally for over two decades. She has written two books, Free Style Quilts and Serendipity Quilts. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. Recently, her quilt Dixie Dingo Dreaming was accepted into the Houston International Quilt Festival's Gallery of Quilt Art.

Hollis Chatelain was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but lived fourteen years of her adult life overseas in Switzerland and in four West African countries. At the end of 1996, she moved back to the United States. Her current studio and home are in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Hollis’ educational background is in design and photography. She has worked in the arts in one form or another since 1976. Hollis started her career as a textile artist in Africa. Her interest was sparked by the richness and beauty of African fabrics which are ever so integrated into the everyday life of Africans. Her distinctive use of colors and imagery, as well as her dye-painted scenes of multicultural life have brought her international recognition. Hollis’ work can be found in public and private collections in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and North America.

In addition to creating her textile art, Hollis lectures and leads workshops on drawing, color, dye painting, quilting, and West African textiles.

Rosalie Dace is a South African studio artist who has been working in the fiber art, quilt and embroidery world since 1975. Her work has been widely exhibited and published nationally and internationally, and she has won several awards. She has taught and lectured in South Africa, America, New Zealand and Germany, which has allowed her to indulge her passion for textiles, travel and meeting people.

Apart from her normal art and teaching commitments she has been involved in programs aimed at training Zulu women embroidery skills for the Durban Manufacturing Advisory Centre and for a trust operating in rural KwaZulu-Natal.  She is also involved in teaching patchwork and quilting to a group at an old-age home in Durban.

Her work, which has won several awards, including Best of Show at the South African National Quilt Festival in 1988 and 1998, is to be found in private collections and in the Durban Art Gallery, and has appeared in national and international publications including  Quilting Arts Magazine, Issue 23, Fall 2006.  Some of her work can also be seen on the Innovative Threads website (www.inno.co.za)

Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer teaches in the Studio School of the Oregon College of Art and Craft and at art conferences in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US. Her work has been  exhibited in the US, Japan, France, Costa Rica, and New Zealand, where she was awarded a residency at the Christchurch Arts Centre in 2007. She is the co-editor of SPEAKING IN CLOTH: 6 Quilters, 6 Voices, and has written for fiber publications in the US, New Zealand, and the UK. Jeannette is the subject of a monograph by art critic Sandra Sider, The Studio Quilt: Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer.

Gail Garber was introduced to quilt making 30 years ago and immediately fell in love with this textile art form.   She began designed her own quilts soon afterward, and began publishing in magazines as well as creating a line of quilting patterns by the late 1980s.   Today, her work is internationally recognized and she is highly regarded for her design workshops and entertaining lectures.   Her third book, Flying Colors, was published in 2010 by C&T Publications of California.  In this book, she has re-designed the free-form flying goose that has become her signature mark on her quilts.  The book introduces 14 different alternate designs to fill the flowing curved shapes that form her unique style as well a the brilliant use of color, strongly influenced by her 37 years in New Mexico.

In her other life, Garber is the Executive Director for Hawks Aloft, a New Mexico conservation organization, founded by Gail and others in February 1994.  The group conducts education and research programs to conserve indigenous wild birds through avian research, conservation education and cooperation with others to monitor and protect raptors and other neotropical migratory birds.  Gail may be found working with schools and various interest groups in the community, promoting raptor and conservation awareness, flying in a small aircraft locating nests of large raptors and eagles, or conducting surveys on foot in remote, back-country areas of New Mexico. Several non-releasable, permanently injured education raptors are housed in outdoor flight cages at her Albuquerque home.

Patty Hawkins was raised in Louisiana in the 50’s.  Her mother—a marvelous seamstress—taught her the value of color and intricacies of sewing.  Her mother was known to say “people say green and blue don’t work well together…” but did so anyway, which speaks to the beauty of nature’s color combinations.

Patty also has a background in watercolor painting.  In 1987 the Denver Art Museum exhibited Craft: Poetry of the Physical in l987, which included work of Nancy Crow, Michael James, Pam Studstill and Rise Nagin (contemporary quilt artists).  This exhibition made Patty realize quilting could be a much larger canvas on which to play with color.

Patty has been juried into numerous local and regional art quilt exhibitions, including Quilt Nationals and Quilt Visions.  Honors include the award of the Quilt Japan Prize in 2006.  

Her teaching has been extensive, around the country, including Art Quilt Tahoe, QSDS, Quilting By the Lake, Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival, Empty Spools at Asilmor, and

MISA (Wisconsin’s Madeline Island School/Arts).

Deb Karasik started her real quilting passion in November of 2000, when she got a call from one of her daughters, advising Deb that she (the daughter...not Deb!) was pregnant with triplets. She picked up the quilting bug with a passion and joined her local quilt guild (the San Francisco Quilters Guild).

It was at the SFQG that she met Janet Mednick who, with Deb, would later co-author a book for the American Quilters Society, called 'Quilt Mavens Perfect Paper Piecing'.

She has since written 'Quilts With Attitude', also published by AQS, and is currently working on her next book.

Now Deb is quilting, lecturing, and writing professionally; her travels take her worldwide teaching her techniques and meeting new friends.  She is committed to sharing her passion and knowledge of contemporary quilting. 

Deb has lectured and taught at guilds around the USA, Canada, and Europe.  She has been on the teaching staff at venues such as AQS in Paducah, Knoxville, and Des Moines, International Quilt Festival in Houston and Long Beach, Asilomar, Quilt Camp in the Pines, and others

Gloria Loughman lives by the sea, on the beautiful Bellarine Peninsula, in Victoria.  Married with three daughters, she is a trained secondary teacher having worked mainly in the literacy and special education faculties.  Her initiation into the world of patchwork occurred approximately 20 years ago when she was recovering from a course of chemotherapy.

Over the years she has dabbled in many areas including strip piecing, bargello, colourwash, fabric dyeing and painting, and machine embroidery.  After completing some studies in design and color as part of a Diploma of Art in 1996, she began to make large vivid landscape quilts depicting the Australian bush.  Having the opportunity to travel to many unique and fascinating parts locations, she is continually challenged to reproduce these images in fabric.  Most of the textiles used have been hand dyed or painted and feature extensive machine embroidery.  These quilts have won many major awards in Australia, Europe, Japan and the United States.  Gloria’s quilt “Kimberly Mystique’ was the winner of Australia’s most prestigious national quilting award in 2003.

Gloria has been teaching patchwork classes for many years and enjoys sharing her knowledge and skills with others.  She likes to challenge her students to design their own quilts but is also happy to provide patterns for those less confident.  Gloria’s classes have proved to be very popular with lots of students coming back for a second or third class.  Gloria has traveled to many states in Australia running workshops for small groups of country quilters as well as teaching classes for larger guilds in the major cities.  She has also traveled extensively overseas teaching classes in New Zealand, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa and Japan.

As well as being in demand as a teacher, Gloria has curated seven exhibitions of Australian quilts to the United States and have had the privilege of judging at many major shows.  She has had a number of solo exhibitions, including an invitation to exhibit at the prestigious NEC Show in Birmingham, UK.  Her book, Luminous Landscapes, was released by C&T in January 2007 and is proving very popular.

What began as a therapy has developed into a passion and has given Gloria the opportunity to travel the world exhibiting her quilts, teaching classes and meeting lots of wonderful people

Sue Nickels has been quilting for 32 years, starting by hand and gradually focusing on machine work. Sue has been teaching machine techniques for the past 20 years. Sue has taught and lectured nationally for shops, guilds and major conferences, including AQS, IQA and NQA. She has also taught internationally in England, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

Sue’s major awards include 1998 AQS Best of Show for “The Beatles Quilt” made by Sue and her sister, Pat Holly. Their quilt, “The Space Quilt” won the 2003 IQA Master of Machine Artistry Award and the 2004 AQS Machine Workmanship Award.

Most recently, Sue and Pat’s quilt “Tea at Tenby” won 2009 Best of Show at the Birmingham Festival of Quilts in England.

Sue’s current books are “Machine Quilting: A Primer of Techniques” and “Stitched Raw Edge Appliqué” co-authored with Pat. Sue has also been a judge for many quilt shows, most recently part of the team judging the 2009 IQA Show. Sue’s priority in the workshops she teaches is to provide a relaxed environment for students to learn machine techniques that are timesaving. Sue emphasizes the best quality workmanship, never compromising quality for speed!

For nearly 30 years Katie Pasquini Masopust has produced high quality contemporary art quilts that have been coveted and collected by a broad range of admirers. From her early beginnings as a painter dabbling in traditional quilt making, her work has evolved from structured Mandalas and mind-blowing dimensional pieces to very painterly landscapes executed with the finest fabrics and most creative stitching techniques.

Katies easy, energetic manner has made her a very popular teacher and lecturer.  When not in residence at her studio in Santa Fe she travels the world presenting her contemporary quilting theories and techniques to classes; not only in North America, but in Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand.

Awards and accolades have been numerous for Katie, culminating with her 2005 induction into a very select group of art quilt professionals who have earned the Silver Star Award presented by Houston Quilt Festival.

A prolific author, Katie shares her enthusiasm for the art of creative quilting through her numerous books, her many classes, and now as executive director of Alegre Retreat held at Gateway Canyons Resort in Colorado - a destination resort for quilting enthusiasts and fiber artists.

Jane A. Sassaman worked in many design mediums before discovering quilting.  After graduating as an art major at Iowa State University, she worked as a window dresser, a sign maker, an illustrator and as a designer of decorative accessories. 

All of these talents came into play when Jane began to quilt in 1980. Since then her exuberant quilts and fabric designs have attracted worldwide recognition. Under the influence of 19th century Arts and Crafts designers, her work is abstracted from nature, but her signature graphic style is totally contemporary. 

As an art quilter, Jane’s designs are always recognizable for their bold color and graphic style. In fact, her quilt, “Willow” was named as one of the hundred best American quilts of the 20th century.  

Jane notes “I try to express the energy and mystery of our amazing universe - from the miraculous beauty of a single blossom to the complicated powers of the soul. I believe that a well designed object can make's a positive statement about it's owner." 

Today she is translating her unique vision into exciting fabrics for FreeSpirit. Like her quilts, Jane’s fabrics are nature inspired, large scaled and colorfully enthusiastic. They have been lovingly referred to as “William Morris on anti-depressants”!

When she isn’t fondling and designing fabric in the studio, she is on the road teaching quilt classes, sketching in the garden or browsing through her wonderful library of design books. She is also the author of “The Quilted Garden” which includes twenty years of her work and exercises for making nature-inspired quilts. 

Sue Spargo was born in Zambia, educated in South Africa, and later lived in England. The stark contrasts between the arid beige-browns of the African bushveld and the lush greens of the rolling hills of Southern England inspired many of her designs and continue to be a rich source of ideas. The energy and color of traditional African designs stirred her love of “primitive” arts and crafts, and grew into her focus on folk-art. In 1989 she moved to the United States, and has lived in Connecticut, Tennessee, Utah and Ohio. Each new State presented sharp contrasts and stirred new ideas.

Sue designs quilted items using textural fabrics and embellishments. She creates and sells books, patterns and CD's for these designs, and she and her sister Wendy produce hand-dyed wool and wool plaids designed specifically for quilt makers.

Sue teaches workshops all over the United States.

Carol Taylor, an internationally known, award-winning quilt artist, approaches her quilt making with intensity and seemingly boundless energy. Vibrant colors, striking contrasts and machine quilting distinguish the over 500 quilts she has created since she began in 1993. Carol delights in using hand-dyed fabrics in her abstract, motif-driven designs accented by the use of value.

Carol has won six "Best of Show" awards in her career with SIX different quilts! She exhibits nationally and has won a myriad of awards at quilt and mixed media shows and galleries over the years, with an amazing 37 major prizes in 2005-2006 alone. She has been included in Visions 2004 and Quilt National 1999 and 2001, and the Museum of Art and Design in NYC has one of Carol's quilts in their permanent collection.

A teacher by degree, and outgoing by nature, her quilting classes are said to be "fun, motivational, and non-threatening".

David Taylor, whose first quilt design was in 1999, is now a highly popular full-time quilt teacher and speaker.

His obsession with fabric began at an early age, salvaging tiny scraps from his mother's sewing area trash bin. This began his love and appreciation for fabric, though not a love for quilting. "Who would ever want to cut up their beautiful fabrics into tiny pieces?" During his 20-year career as a graphic designer, David received more than 100 regional and national awards for newspaper editorial layout and advertising design.

But that first quilt design in 1999, a fundraiser collaboration with Madeleine Vail for Strings Music Festival in Steamboat, began to change his early obsession for fabric into an obsession for quilting as art. In 2006, David discovered a love for hand-applique, and all of his works since then have been stitched together by hand. Now, a decade into his quilting journey, he has exhibited his work internationally and teaches at numerous venues throughout the year.

David Taylor has been the recipient of the Fairfield Master Award for Contemporary Quilting from the International Quilt Association (2006), the Brother Wall Machine Workmanship Award from the American Quilters Society (Paducah, 2008), and a two-time Best of Show winner at the IQA's Spring Festival in Chicago (2007, 2008).

 Laura Wasilowski is both contemporary quilt maker and creator of hand-dyed fabrics and threads. Her pictorial art quilts, made from fused fabrics and hand embroidered or machine quilted, are collected and exhibited internationally.

Wasilowski’s narrative quilts begin with her unique hand-dyed fabrics and are inspired by stories of family, friends, and home. The whimsical wall pieces often chronicle her life.

Owner of the dye shop, Artfabrik, Laura is also a lecturer, surface designer, quilt instructor, pattern designer, and author of Fusing Fun, and Fuse-and-Tell.

Mary Lou Weidman has traveled the world teaching workshops that share her happy, whimsical quilting style. Her goal is to get each quilter to do a Story quilt about themselves, and who and what they love. It is her belief that future generations will learn about quilter's lives from Story quilts, and that Story quilts will be researched and valuable.

Mary Lou began quilting at her Grandmother's knee. She first learned to do yoyos and then to piece nine patches, half square triangles and Grandmother's Flower garden blocks (her favorite pattern). While she was growing up, Mary Lou's father Ted, an artist, encouraged her to paint and draw. Later they shared a studio where they painted and sold fine art paintings. After Mary Lou got married and had children, she did advertising and layout work. When her son was being treated for childhood leukemia, and she spent a lot of time sitting in the hospital with him, she was drawn back into quilting. After her son was well, she started doing Story quilts in a folk art style that took the fancy of Museums and Galleries.

She has written four large books Whimsies and Whynots, Everyday Angels, Quilted Memories and Out of the Box, and she also owns a pattern company. Her technique books Hoochy Mama Quilts and Flower Power are popular with her students when she travels and teaches workshops on her style.

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is the author of the spiritual memoir, Swinging on the Garden Gate (Skinner House Books), a collection of personal essays called On the Threshold:  Home, Hardwood, and Holiness (Westview Press), and Writing the Sacred Journey:  The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir (Skinner House Books). Her work is also anthologized in Views from the Loft (Milkweed Editions), My Red Couch and Other Stories on Seeking a Feminist Faith (Pilgrim Press), Riding Shotgun:  Women Write About Their Mothers (Minnesota Historical Society Press), Blessed Bi Spirit (Continuum), and appears in various literary and religious journals.  She is a recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board artists’ fellowship, the Loft Career Initiative Grant, and is a Minnesota Book Awards finalist.  

Paulette Bates Alden is the author of two critically acclaimed books: Feeding the Eagles, a collection of short stories published by Graywolf Press; and Crossing the Moon, a memoir published by Penguin. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, Mississippi Review, The Antioch Review, and elsewhere. Her story about her father’s death, “Swimming, Snow,” was published by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts as their 1993 Winter Book. She has recently completed a novel entitled The Answer to Your Question.

Paulette was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969. She was a Stegner Fellow (1969-70) at Stanford University, where she received her M.A. in Creative Writing and where she taught for three years as a Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing. For many years she taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in memoir and fiction writing as an Edelstein-Keller Writer-in-Residence at the University of Minnesota, receiving a University College Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991. She has also taught creative writing at Carleton College as a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor and at St. Olaf College. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Bush Foundation Fellowship, a Loft-McKnight Award, and several Minnesota State Arts Board grants. She often teaches workshops for the Split Rock Arts Program and the Key West Literary Seminar. For the past nine years she has worked with many individual writers on their novels, short stories and memoirs. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Jeff.

Todd Boss's award-winning debut poetry collection, Yellowrocket (Norton, 2008) has enjoyed widespread critical and popular acclaim.

His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Best American Poetry, New England Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, which awarded him the Emily Clark Balch Prize in 2009.

His MFA is from the University of Alaska-Anchorage.

He teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program.

Lisa Bullard is the award-winning author of more than sixty books for children, including Trick-or-Treat on Milton Street and You Can Write a Story: A Story-Writing Recipe for Kids. Her published work includes picture books, chapter books, and nonfiction titles for a range of ages. Her books have won several honors, including a Children’s Choice Award, a Teacher’s Choice Award, a National Parenting Publications Children's Resources Silver Award, and a Storytelling World Awards Honor Title.

For over ten years, Lisa has also taught writing classes for adults and young people at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and in a variety of other settings. Along with her writing and teaching background, she brings an insider’s view of the book industry from over 16 years of working as a publishing professional.

Heid Erdrich regularly travels to guest teach at colleges, universities and schools. A long-time college teacher, Heid was tenured in English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul where she taught both graduate and undergraduate literature and writing classes until 2007. Published as a poet, non-fiction and fiction author, Heid teaches writing workshops in multiple genres. Heid also lectures in Native American studies.

Recent visiting writer residencies and lectures include: the ACTC Writer-in-Residence at Augsburg College, Minneapolis; the Ethnic Voices series sponsored by Park College in Kansas City; Haskell Indian Nations University; the Institute of American Indian Arts, Dartmouth College, Canisius College, and dozens of other libraries and institutions.

Winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Award, Heid has authored three books of poetry: Fishing for Myth (New Rivers Press), The Mother’s Tongue (Salt Publishing), National Monuments (Michigan State University Press). She also co-edited Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community (Minnesota Historical Society Press). Heid has received two Minnesota State Arts Board fellowships, and awards from The Loft Literary Center and Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers.

Her degrees are from Dartmouth College and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibway, Heid grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota.

 Kathryn Kysar is the author of two books of poetry, Dark Lake and the best-selling Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun:  Women Write About Their Mothers.  She has received fellowships and residencies from Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.

Her poetry has been heard on A Writer’s Almanac and published widely, and she received a Minnesota Women’s Press Changemakers award for her editing work. Kysar recently served on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Loft Literary Center.

Katherine Lanpher is an OpEd Project Mentor-Editor and award-winning print and broadcast journalist. She was the host of Minnesota Public Radio’s “Midmorning’’ weekday call-in show and the founding host of “Talking Volumes’’ before leaving Minnesota for Manhattan, where she co-hosted  “The Al Franken Show’’ on Air America radio and the Sundance Channel.

She is currently a contributing editor at More magazine and Reader's Digest. Her short essays have been published in The New York Times op-ed page and Slate.com; one of those pieces turned into her memoir, "Leap Days," published in 2006 by Springboard Press. In 2008, she won a Gracie from American Women in Radio and Television for her weekly show "More Time," a radio companion to More magazine that aired on XM Satellite Radio and she is the former host of a weekly podcast on the economy for TIME.com.

As an instructor for The OpEd Project, Katherine has taught at Yale and Barnard and holds a weekly workshop for OpEd students in Manhattan. Her students have placed opeds in The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and the website for the PBS show “Need to Know.’’

Brian Malloy’s three novels are The Year of Ice (St. Martin’s Press, 2002), Brendan Wolf (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), and Twelve Long Months (Scholastic, 2008). His books have been a Book Sense pick, a New York Times New and Notable title, and a Booklist editors’ choice for the best of 2002. Honors include grants from the Vermont Studio Center, Jerome Foundation, the 2003 American Library Association Alex Award, and a 2009 Minnesota Book Award. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and previously taught fiction writing at Emerson College (Boston).

Mary Carroll Moore, M.A., MFAW, has been writing, teaching, and publishing since the 1970s. Her thirteen published books include the novel Qualities of Light (Spinsters Ink, 2009) which was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award; Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book, based on her "How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book" writing workshops (Riverbed Press, 2010); the memoir/self-help book How to Master Change in Your Life: Sixty-seven Ways to Handle Life’s Toughest Moments  (Eckankar Publications, 1999); and many titles in the health and food genres including Cholesterol Cures (Rodale Press) and the IACP/Seagrams (Julia Child) award-winning Healthy Cooking (Ortho Publications).

Mary's work has been featured in national and international press, including the New York Times, USA Today, and on WNPR.

She teaches workshops and weekly writing classes both online and in person at writing schools around the U.S. and abroad, including the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center near New York City, Madeline Island School for the Arts on Madeline Island in Lake Superior, the New Hampshire Writers' Project in Manchester, Grub Street Writing School in Boston, and other locations.

A former nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, over 200 of Mary’s essays, short stories, articles, and poetry have appeared in literary journals, magazines, and newspapers around the U.S. and have won awards with the McKnight Awards for Creative Prose, Glimmer Train Press, the Loft Mentor Series, and other writing competitions.

She lives with her family in rural New Hampshire and writes a weekly blog for book writers at http://HowtoPlanWriteandDevelopaBook.blogspot.com.   She's currently working on her next novel, the sequel to Qualities of Light.

Jude Nutter was born North Yorkshire, England, and grew up in northern Germany. Her poems have appeared in numerous national and international journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, Marlboro Review, MARGIE, Missouri Review, Nimrod International Journal, Notre Dame Review, Southern Poetry Review, Stand (UK), Sycamore Review and Words and Images.

Her books include Pictures of the Afterlife (Salmon Poetry, Ireland),The Curator of Silence (University of Notre Dame Press, winner of the Ernest Sandeen Prize and the 2007 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry), and I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman (University of Notre Dame Press, winner of the 2010 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry and voted Poetry Book of the Year by ForeWord Reviews).

She is the recipient of several awards and grants including two Minnesota State Arts Grants, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, a McKnight Fellowship, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, the Listowel Prize (Ireland), the Larry Levis Prize, the International War Poetry Award, The Marjorie J. Wilson Award for Excellence in Poetry, the Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, and the Missouri Review Editors' Prize. In 2004/2005 she spent two months in Antarctica as a participant in the National Science Foundation's Writers and Artists Program.

Jude has an MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon.

Stella Pope Duarte is a critically acclaimed author, college professor, and human rights advocate. Critics have described her as a major new literary voice in America. Her works include: Fragile Night, Let Their Spirits Dance, If I Die in Juárez and Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Stories. Ms. Duarte has won honors and awards nationwide, including a 2009 American Book Award, Southwest Book of the Year Award, Arizona Book of the Year Award, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Most recently, she received the prestigious, “Women in American History Award,” from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

A prophetic dream of her father in 1995 set her writing life in motion. One year after the dream Ms. Duarte signed her first book contract and four years later, HarperCollins of New York City bought world rights for her novel, Let Their Spirits Dance. Jacquelyn Mitchard describes her as “a magical weaver with a sure hand and a pure heart,” and Ursula K. Leguin, states that she is a writer who “will enlarge humanity.” Ms. Duarte’s inspirational classes reach into the heart of story as she explores the world of dreams, revelations, visions, and invisible links that lead to the creation of stories that stand the test of time. Welcome Ms. Duarte to the artist community at Madeline Island!

Richard Terrill is the author of two books of creative nonfiction: Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz and Saturday Night in Baoding: A China Memoir, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Nonfiction.

His collections of poems are Almost Dark and Coming Late to Rachmaninoff, winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wisconsin and Minnesota State Arts Boards, the Jerome Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, along with three Fulbright Fellowships, to China, Korea, and Poland.

 He has served as a Nonfiction Mentor at the Loft Literary Center, and taught for the Split Rock Arts Program, University of Minnesota Extension and the Chautauqua Writers’ Center and the Rhinelander School of the Arts. His work has appeared widely in journals such as Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The North American Review, Nimrod, The Iowa Review, New Letters, and The Writer’s Chronicle.

He teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State, Mankato, where he is a Distinguished Faculty Scholar, and for the Antioch University Low Residency MFA Program.   He works as a jazz saxophonist with the Larry McDonough Quartet. He lives in Minneapolis Minnesota.

Catherine Watson is a travel writer, photographer and writing instructor and the author of two collections of travel essays, Home on the Road (Syren, 2007) and Roads Less Traveled,  (Syren, 2005). Both were Minnesota Book Awards finalists.   

Watson was the first Travel Editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and remained its chief travel writer and photographer from 1978 to 2004.

Her writing has appeared in 12 anthologies, including Traveler’s Tales “Best Travel Writing’’ collections for 2008 and 2010 and Houghton Mifflin’s “Best American Travel Writing 2008.’’

Her national awards include the top two in her field: The Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Photographer of the Year.       

Watson teaches literary travel writing and memoir in university-level workshops in the United States and abroad.  She divides her at-home time between a 1926 cottage in Minneapolis and an 1869 farmhouse in historic Galena, Illinois.

Billie Jo Joy, Ed.M., R.Y.T.,was born in Flint, Michigan. She is co-founder, and co–manager of Art & Soul, a studio in Cambridge, MA dedicated to the contemplative and expressive arts now in it’s 11^th year. She is an Iyengar trained, Kripalu certified yoga instructor who has been studying for 20 years, primarily with Zoe Stewart, and teaching for over 15 years.  Her instruction is ornamented with yogic philosophy, experiential anatomy, and poetry.  She offers a safe and friendly place for practice that balances strength, flexibility, reflection, and spiritual upliftment.

Billie Jo is also an accomplished theater/film artist who has recently been creating visual art, having had her first piece in a show in May 2011.  She has been performing and directing in the Boston area since 1989. Credits include: International Action Theater Ensemble (Santa Fe, May 2010),  Dust to Dust (2006); Venus De Mini Van, Mothers in the Breakdown Lane (2002) which became the off–broadway play Eve–olution (2004); two highly acclaimed productions of The Vagina Monologues at Harvard University (2000) and Boston V–Day (2004); Spiderman 2 (July 2004); Homeward Bound (2002); Small White Woman Impersonating Martin Luther King, (1999). She toured internationally, as a dancer, with Paula Josa–Jones Performance Works from 1990–1994. She is a certified teacher of Action Theater improvisation, and has studied extensively with the Roy Hart Voice Theater in France. She is a member of the Screen Actor's Guild.Currently, she performs with the East Coast Action Theater Ensemble. She has a master's degree in education from Harvard University where she also studied trance dance and healing practices through ethnographic film making and then worked there in the fields of international education and mind–body medicine. This work involved her in research projects with the Dalai Lama in India and Qi masters in China. The research confirmed her initial belief in the potential of the contemplative and expressive arts to improve health, raise consciousness, solve problems, and deepen joy. Billie Jo has taught at Salem State College, Emerson College and The Boston Conservatory. Students have called her an "exceptional and knowledgeable teacher."

Kat Van Hammen is a sculptor and painter and holds a Masters degree in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.  She currently lives in Michigan and is on the faculty at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art as well as working with Very Special Arts, Grand Rapids and Circle Pines Center.

Kat has 20 years experience teaching and presenting workshops for all ages and abilities in a wide range of venues. She has collaborated with many other artists, dancers, yogis and performers to offer programs that promote community and self- expression. Much of her work is rooted in a deep love of nature and strives to connect people with nature, one another and their own truth. From creating Fairy Night at the Community Growing Center to the Mystical Fish Parade in Somerville, MA, doing props and performing with the ABYDOS Dance Co. and the Boston Rock Opera and teaching Art, Body and Soul Workshops and Art as a Meditative Expression, Kat shows a love and joy for her work. 

Kat is committed to including everyone in enjoying the arts and has worked for many years with people with mental illness and developmental disabilities with such organizations as VSA, Walnut Street Center, Cambridge Somerville Social Club and Access to Theatre.

Craig Wilson started flying kites in 1983. Over the next several years he built copies of kites he saw in books and magazines. As his collection of kites grew so did his interest in the history and culture of kites. He travelled the world to participate in kite festival events. Aerial photography with his larger kites led to commercial applications but equally, provided unique views from the combination of his kites and cameras. Craig's aerial images are published in travel brochures and magazines such as Outside, Sail, Air and Space, Wisconsin Trails, Popular Photography, and Kiting.

His photos have been exhibited in galleries at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio, Air-Venture Museum in Oshkosh, and art museums in Japan, France, Belgium, and the U.S.

Craig's first book titled Hanging By A Thread has just been published.

Spark your children's imagination and creativity. Several times during the summer, MISA offers, Young Adult Classes ("YAC") ages 8 to 17. They will work with clay, paint, paper, papier-mâché, felt, film and more. Visual arts projects develop cooperation, teamwork and physical skills. Youth art education is an important building block for their future.