A native of Oklahoma who was raised in eastern Nebraska, Jim Cantrell earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1958 and his Master of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley in 1965 with a double emphasis in ceramics & painting. He began his distinguished career as a teacher. In 1971 he established himself as an independent studio artist in Bardstown, Kentucky where he continues to work.

Cantrell’s paintings can be seen in major public and private collections. Participating in over 200 solo, group, and juried exhibitions, he has been the recipient of many awards, including two fellowship grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and from the Southern Arts Federation. He was named Alumna of the Year for Creative Achievement at the University of Northern Colorado in 2000. In 2005 he was awarded a $7500 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.           

Laura Eklund, Olive Hill (Carter County)

Laura Eklund graduated from Morehead State University with a Master’s Degree in painting in 2006. She was raised on a tobacco farm in Olive Hill, Kentucky.  Throughout her childhood, her parents encouraged her “artsy and creative self” with literature and music. In high school and at county art fairs her paintings received awards, and when she was nineteen she sold her first painting. She went on to pursue her love of art and poetry in college, sometimes incorporating poems and words into her abstract paintings.

She has studied extensively with David Bartlett, Janena Reynolds, Gary Mesa-Gaido, Doug Adams, Larry Carroll, Bob Franzini, Jerry Ulesmann, and Greg Penner. Her paintings are primarily abstract and non-objective in nature, relying on harmony, unity, and the elements of art verses, drawing objects from a discernible reality. She is represented by Local Color Gallery of Nashville, Tennessee.  Her paintings have won honorable mention and first place awards in juried shows, and she received a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 2005.  Laura’s works reside in several private and corporate collections across the nation, including Classic Art Gallery of Carmel, California, and Paragon Music of Columbus, Ohio. 

She is married to poet George Eklund and enjoys spending time with her family and cats when she isn’t painting in her new studio.

Warren Farr, Paducah (McCracken County)

Warren Farr's work has been shown in regional and national exhibitions, including the 1995 New Orleans Triennial at the New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans, Louisiana; the 41st Biennial Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and The Kentuckians: 1987 at the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art.

Also, Warren has participated in the Southeastern Triennial Exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama; the Cheekwood Nationals at the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee; the Water Tower Annual in Louisville, Kentucky; and Common Ground at the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.

He has received several grants, including a Southern Arts Federation Fellowship and a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

Linda Fugate-Blumer, Lexington (Fayette County)

I am a third generation Kentuckian with a passion for photography.  I live in Lexington, Kentucky with my husband Ralph and our two Yorkies.   I feel privileged to have been born and raised in Eastern Kentucky.  Growing up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Perry County, I developed a love for the outdoors and a deep appreciation for the people and land.   This gave rise to my desire to photograph the beauty of my surroundings and I purchased my first 35mm camera in 1979.  After attending the Ohio Institute of Photography in Dayton, Ohio, I became a full time professional portrait photographer.  I soon began to study landscape and macro photography, allowing me to create unique portrayals of wildflowers, waterfalls, and landscapes for which I have received numerous awards and recognition.

New developments in technology have allowed me to expand my vision.  I now photograph subjects that appeal to me, and through the use of the digital darkroom, I create one of a kind art pieces that nourish my creative spirit.  My journey has taken me from traditional photography to the world of fine art.

Elsie Kay Harris, Lexington (Fayette County)

Born and raised in the folds of West Virginia Appalachia, I have always been drawn to the deep creviced mountains of my early years and then to the soft hills and ridges of my later Kentucky years. Even when I travel I make brief pencil sketches of these scenes. These sites, which are the sources of my work, are where I feel an ethereal affection, a simple connectiveness to the land.

The paintings on canvas come from these sketches as I work in my studio in Lexington, now set in a different context. Here I take the liberty of using expressive brush strokes, forms and colors looking to communicate the feeling of the site; the emotion first perceived from the pencil sketch. All of my paintings are one of a kind work, never duplicated.

Rebecca Cathleen “Cathy" Hill, Louisville (Jefferson County)

Cathy is a juried member of the Kentucky Crafted and Visual Arts at the market programs, a painter, sculptor, mixed media artist, textile artist and printmaker. Her most recent venture has been a series of miniature landscapes. Cathy and her husband Chris have a small freelance art business, Hills of Kentucky, and live and work in south Louisville. 

Presently, Cathy is illustrating a children’s book titled Red, a variation on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  The first draft of the book will be on display in her booth at Kentucky Crafted: The Market in March.

Emmy Houweling, New Castle (Henry County)

A New Castle, Kentucky resident with an art studio in her circa 1820 historic home, Emmy is a self taught painter who was inspired by an itinerant 18^th century Dutch folk artist who drew pictures, cut them out and pasted them on colored paper, then sold them to make a living.

A black background has characterized her style quite definitely as her own, and she signs all her work simply with ‘Emmy.’ Often one will find a barn or building in her paintings laying sideways, she sees this (with a sense of humor), because in reality the person walking to that building is facing it in that manner.

Acrylic on canvas is her preference as a medium and she mostly works on small to medium size canvas, framed in rustic weathered barn wood.  Many of her creations have traveled across the United States and to England, France, The Netherlands, Romania, Greece, and Germany.

Michael Thomas McCardwell, Shelbyville (Shelby County)

I was born in Shelbyville in 1949 and have lived in different parts of Kentucky and Virginia.  I have been married for thirty-one years and have one child who recently graduated from Oberlin College.  I received degrees from Murray State University, Morehead State University and a teaching certificate from University of Louisville.  I have been fortunate enough to be included in several fellowship opportunities including two with the National Endowment for the Humanities.  I taught at Henry County High School for twenty-seven years, and I have been privileged to continue teaching at Lindsey Wilson College (Shelbyville branch), Spalding University, KCTCS in Shelbyville, and in the LaGrange Reformatory.  In addition to teaching, I have worked in a stained glass studio and have done freelance illustration.

I am a member of Shelby Artists on Main, a co-op gallery in Shelbyville.  My work has been juried into shows in California, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky. My work is represented in collections in the US, Japan and Europe.  I am always grateful to the Kentucky Art Council for the assistance they have given me. I credit them with opportunities like my inclusion in the slide registry for SouthernArtisty.org, a juried slide register for artists in the southeast. 

Dan McGrath, Lexington (Fayette County)

Dan McGrath has lived in Lexington, Kentucky over 30 years. He retired from business in 2001 to pursue a lifelong interest in art. Twentieth century British and American landscape painters have been a great inspiration, especially Jay Moore, Michael Alexander, Edward Seago, Matt Smith and Landford Monroe. He works in oil and pastel. He has studied under Yvonne Todd, Mary Neely, Booth Malone, Larry Wheeler and Jay Moore.

He is interested in depicting the streams, gorges and fields of Kentucky in order to convey the solitude, peace, and contentment he feels when painting plein aire. He sees beauty all around him in every season and weather and he works to convey this in paintings, where the result is hopefully a painterly realism.

Gary Mesa-Gaido, Morehead (Rowan County)

Gary Mesa-Gaido received his M.F.A. from Ohio University in 1992.  Over the last decade, he exhibited his work in over eighty solo, small group, and large group international, national and regional juried exhibitions from New York City to San Francisco.

Mesa-Gaido’s artwork has been supported through various grants and awards, including two Kentucky Arts Council grants. In addition, his pieces are held in the permanent collections of individuals, as well as, organizations including the Pittsburgh Plate and Glass in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Avampato Discovery Museum in Charleston, West Virginia. Gary Mesa-Gaido is a tenured associate Professor of Art at Morehead State University in Kentucky.

Kevin Muente, Erlanger (Kenton)

Kevin Muente received his BFA in drawing and painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1994 and his MFA in painting from the University of Cincinnati in 1999. While working for nationally-known mural artist Timothy Haglund, he assisted in the production of murals at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee; the Johnson Wax Worldwide Headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin; and at several private residences. He has exhibited his paintings in various national juried competitions and is currently represented by Heike Pickett Gallery in Versailles, Kentucky. He has garnered several awards and honors including Outstanding Graduating Graduate Student in Fine Arts, Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship, and most recently Artist in Residence at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.  Muente has previously taught at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Missouri Western State College, and is currently Associate Professor of painting at Northern Kentucky University.

Kathleen O’Brien, Harrodsburg (Mercer County)

My father was an Army officer, so my early years were lived in many places around the world. The Italian culture was especially influential. My artistic family nurtured me: my father was a pianist, my mother a fabulous cook, my grandfather a painter.

Boulder, Colorado was my home for 30 years. There I raised my children and continued my art career as a painter and teacher that began in 1968. Through the years I painted portraits, cloudscapes, and petroglyphs and created with many craft forms. Now I focus on mixed-media collages. Consistent with all these expressions is a fascination with transparency. My work has been featured in 150 shows nationally, 12 of them were solo shows. I serve as a board member of the society of Layerists in Multi-Media. Last year, I was the show coordinator for a national SLMM show, “Connections; we are all one” in Lexington. 

Letitia Quesenberry, Louisville (Jefferson County)

Letitia Quesenberry graduated with a BFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1993.  She has received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Pace Trust and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.  Her work has been published in New American Paintings and Pitch Magazine and is represented by Zephyr Gallery in Louisville, KY and Morpeth Gallery in New Jersey.  She lives and works in Jefferson County, Kentucky.

Sandy Miller Sasso, Almo (Calloway County)

Sandy Miller Sasso lives in Almo, Kentucky, near Murray.  Born and raised in North Carolina, she moved to Kentucky in 1980 to obtain a MA in painting from Murray State University.  Sasso has taught art at North Calloway Elementary School since 1994. 

Sasso is past recipient of the Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship.  She has also received past fellowships from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. In April 2006 Sasso received the Sara Shallenberger Brown Foundation Fellowship to attend the 2006 Teacher Institute on Dutch Art in the Golden Age at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  She also received the Faurest Art Educators’ Residency Fellowship to be a resident artist at the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts in New Albany, Indiana.  In 2001, her work was included in Kentucky Women Artists: 1850-2000 at the Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts and most recently in the 53^rd Mid-States Art Exhibition at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science.  Her work can be seen at the Mark Palmer Gallery in Paducah, Kentucky.