Anita Alano grew up in Rochester, NY and moved to Pittsburgh thirty years ago. Her medium of choice is watercolor, although she sometimes works in acrylic or oil. Favorite subjects are natural objects, landscapes and wildlife, realistically portrayed, but sometimes rendered with a feeling of fantasy as in a storybook setting.
Pat Babcock has always been intrigued by Chinese brushpainting. While living in California she had an opportunity to study traditional painting at the Pacific-Asia Museum and has been a student of this artform ever since. Using authentic ink, paper, colors, brushes and techniques she paints birds, flowers, and landscapes in the "gong-bi" or fine-line style.
Margo Barraclough is a native Pittsburgher, who loves to paint the local scene, but also occasionally records her travels. She spent many years teaching Middle School in the Bethel Park Unified Arts Art program. Because of that experience, the medium Margo uses tends to change with the subject.
After graduating from the Cleveland Art Institute of Art in the 1960s, Stan Bookser spent 30 years learning the art business. He worked for ad agencies, large corporations, and as a staff photographer for Columbia Gas. When the commercial art industry dried up, he worked in the Security business for a while, but soon realized it was time to do what he loved best. He bought a new camera, and started over.
Ann Bregman (Rascoe) is a graduate of Hunter College in New York City. She studied with Robert Motherwell and Doug Kingman Ann has had seven one-person shows and has had her work displayed in many juried shows, taking several awards.
Ann works in watercolor, pastel, and collage. She has done pen and ink illustrations for private clients and the media.
Bill Ceriani is a self-taught artist working in oil, acrylic, and pastel. He paints still life, figures, and the western Pennsylvania landscape. He has been influenced by many artists, especially Caravaggio, La Tour, the Flemish Primitives, and the Impressionists. He seeks to create a specific mood and a personal perspective in each painting through color, texture, rhythmic pattern, and a sense of light. With a background in mathematics, he is also a classical musician.
Lynn is a self-taught acrylic painter recording the flow of life and how it reflects the aura of musical color that surrounds us. He started in 1999 on a whim and became more serious a few years ago when his work was surprisingly accepted in his first screening for a juried show. Since then his work has been in many shows in the Pittsburgh area. Member of SHAL, PSA, and AAP.
Cheryl Kelly has been a working artist in the Pittsburgh area for the past 18 years. She has worked in mixed media and photography, but has dedicated the past two years to pastel pet portrait art. Working with different domestic animals has given Cheryl great pleasure, both as a person and as an artist.
Judith Lauso was born in Pittsburgh, PA. and has always known that she wanted to be an artist from a very early age. She received her art education and graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh. Judith presently works mainly in watercolor, pen and ink doing landscapes, figure, and still life renderings. She is a member of SHAL, Pittsburgh Watercolor Society, PSA, and Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators.
Frances Marze is a retired teacher, and a member of several local art leagues. Although she works in many different media, her favorites are pastel, watercolor, and mixed media. Fran has been working on a series of paintings using her mother's poetry and themes such as friendship and weeping women. She also enjoys painting in outdoors with the Plein-air Painters of Western Pennsylvania. In May of 2006 she had a collaborative exhibition at Boxheart Gallery ("Plein-air, a chair and more") with fellow SHAL artist Carol Donnelly. Her work volunteering as a docent at the Carnegie Museum of Art keeps her in close contact with the work of the masters, which is such a joy.
After attending four years of commercial art school, Patsy Olsen Benincasa follows her interest in art by doing pastel and oil portraits, murals, watercolors, and ceramic tile painting. While living in New York for ten years, she hand-painted clothing and worked in the art department of book publishing company doing line drawings.
