French-born and now living in Minnesota, Michelle Yates is a contemporary painter whose work is steeped in color and texture. She studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and has been studying in the Creative Visionary Program led by Art2Life’s Nicholas Wilton. Michele’s paintings are a response to her immediate surroundings and to memories around her birthplace. “My work is grounded in sensorial moments, nostalgia, and memories.  I seek to express the essence of an experience or moment, chasing wonder in the magnificent and in the everyday.”

Doug Peterson started teaching art immediately after graduating from Augustana College. In addition to being an artist, teacher and coach, Doug was a family farmer and a Minnesota House Representative from 1990-2002. His artwork has included not only painting, but printmaking, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, stained glass and silkscreen.  “Artists have an innate need to create and expand their boundaries.”

Through Gena Cohen’s exploration of themes of love, loss and resilience, she  interprets her experience of life through art. As an abstract expressionist, Cohen is highly intuitive in her process and plays with both vibrant colors and tactile textures.

Emily Jamison works in a variety of mediums including acrylic, oil, graphite and pastel. Her work bounces between colorful expressionistic abstracts and shape centered mixed media collages. The process of creating art is her attempt to make sense of the relationships, hardships, and beauty in her life. “I enjoy being able to capture intangible feelings, a range of emotions, personal narratives, embedded memories, and a sense of place through brush strokes, mark making, and color palettes.”

Don Pohlman took up woodturning after a long career in exhibits and museum planning that began at the Science Museum of Minnesota. At his Minneapolis studio in the Q.arma Building, he produces hollow vessels and other original pieces in a variety of local woods. His work combines precise machining with open exploration of a natural material shaped by evolution, climate, gravity and encounters with other species. He is especially interested in the distortion produced by rapid drying of green wood and the defects introduced by organisms that reach the tree before the turner.

Several pieces of glass art will be available to view and purchase from glass artist Shosana Englard-Falconer’s estate.