Joseph Becherer is the founding Director and Curator of the Sculpture Program at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition, Joe is Professor of Art History at Aquinas College. He has authored several books and articles, and curated numerous exhibitions on the Modern and Contemporary, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Most recently he has organized exhibitions of Andy Goldsworthy, Mark di Suvero, Henry Moore, George Segal, Richard Hunt, Auguste Rodin, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Anthony Caro. Currently he is chair of the national committee to commission a sculpture of President Gerald R. Ford for the Rotunda of the US Capitol Building. A member of numerous professional organizations, he serves on the executive board of the Midwest Art History Society and the advisory boards for Ox-Bow and the International Sculpture Center. In addition, he authors a monthly column on the visual arts for Grand Rapids Magazine.
Jessica Bohus has her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has taught at Fiasco glass, Saugatuck Center for the Arts, Ox-Bow, and Water Street Glassworks. She has exhibited at Beacon Street Gallery in Chicago; Vesuvius Gallery, MI; Torpedo Factory, MD; Kalamazoo Institute of Art, MI; Albion College, MI; and Lighthouse Glass, LA; Mindscape, IL; Good Goods, MI. You can learn more about Jessica at blueroanstudio.com.
Jeff Blandford is a graduate of Michigan State University with a BFA in Studio Art. For many years he has had a gallery and studio in Saugatuck, MI working as a ceramist and sculptor. Producing a wide range of works from vases and bowls, to lamps, sinks and tables, all Jeff's work is produced on the pottery wheel. Inspiration for his work comes from designers like the Eames, Noguchi, and Nelson, all of which employed clean lines and a sleek look. Jeff has been a TA at the Ox-Bow school of Art for 6 years and continues to show work in 15 cities.
James Brandess is both a figurative and a landscape painter. He is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He maintains his studio in Saugatuck, Michigan.
Brett Colley received both his MA and MFA from the University of Iowa and currently teaches Drawing and Printmaking at Grand Valley State University. Colley has exhibited his work widely, with shows at Latrobe University in Australia; the Belfast Print Workshop Gallery in Ireland; SPACES Gallery in Ohio; the NIU Museum of Art in Illinois; and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI.
Kimberly Meyers-Baas holds a BA in Fine Arts from Loyola University Chicago, a teaching certificate and MA in art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kim is an arts educator who has worked in the public and non-profit sector in both Chicago and on the Mexican/Texas border cultivating youth, community workers and young artists since 1992. Currently, she is a middle school art teacher with Kentwood Public Schools.
Michael Pfleghaar has worked as a fine-artist in oil painting and ceramic sculpture for last twenty years. He has taught at Ox-Bow and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts as well as Artworks youth programs. Pfleghaar received his BFA in painting from Grand Valley State University in 1989.
Jack Ridl is an accomplished poet, living and working in Holland, MI. He is the author and editor of numerous compilations, including Broken Symmetry, which was published in 2006. He has also published over 300 poems in more than sixty literary magazines, and a dozen anthologies, and was awarded the 2001 Chapbook Award by the Center for Book Arts in New York City. He taught for many years at Hope College, where he received both the Hope Award for Outstanding Professor and the Michigan Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation.
Meridith Ridl is an artist and an art teacher. She exhibits her work regularly throughout the Midwest and beyond. Meridith has exhibited her work at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the University of Toledo, the Butler Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Queretaro, Mexico.
Catherine Sky graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 with a BFA in painting and art education. She is a practicing painter and has taught art in the Chicago Public Schools for the past eight years. Her paintings explore the intersection of landscape painting with digital technology and incorporate imagery from travels in Ecuador, Australia, and the Pacific Northwest. She has been part of the Ox-Bow family since her first encounter 1998 and continues to be inspired by Ox-Bow and its magic.
Ellen Sprouls has been involved with a variety of non-profit organizations in Michigan and beyond. She has taught courses in Ox-Bow’s Art in the Meadow program for several seasons. She has years of teaching experience learning from students as she explores the world with them.
Dawn Stafford is a full time artist who lives and paints in West Michigan. In 2005 she opened The Peachbelt Studio and Gallery (www.peachbeltstudiogallery.com) located in an iconic little red schoolhouse, ca 1867, in Fennville MI. Her paintings are an extension of her connection with rural environments and her personal family history. Originally from New York, she received her BFA from Swain School of Design in Massachusetts before moving to Michigan in 1992.
Nick Stockton is the President, Head of Manufacturing, and Head Designer for Teamwork Design, a Grand Rapids based company that makes bags from salvaged sails and tire tubes. A graduate of Kendall College of Art and Design, Nick also founded Fwd.Space Gallery, a contemporary exhibition space. He has taught Screenprinting at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art and was an Artist in Residence at Ox-Bow in the Fall of 2008.
Image: by Nick Stockton, Brutus the Barber, screenprint, 2009.