Joyce Bell received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art education from Towson University. She taught art in Baltimore County for 30 years. In 1996, she became an artist member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society and later served on the board for six years. She has won various awards for her watercolors in shows throughout Maryland. Her work is currently represented through the Artists’ Gallery in Historic Ellicott City.
Patrick Bell is a sculptor born in Reisterstown, Maryland. Patrick grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received his BFA in Ceramics with a Minor in Printmaking from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2016. Subsequently he spent two years studying Ceramics at Wichita State University in Kansas and after completing his MFA in Ceramics at Kent State University Patrick moved to Baltimore to accept a Long-Term Residency at Baltimore Clayworks. Patrick teaches at Baltimore Clayworks, MICA, the Community College of Baltimore County, Howard Community College, Columbia Art Center and a number of elementary schools in Baltimore City. His latest works raise questions about the body and destructive self-soothing strategies which you can see at www.patrickryanbell.com or www.instagram.com/patbellart
Thais Cassel is a Brazilian artist with degrees in fashion marketing and advertising, and a lifetime passion for visual arts. She has led painting classes for adults and children for more than a decade, savoring each opportunity for sharing her love of colors and shapes. Her restless spirit makes her art inventive and universal, navigating across a multitude of themes and techniques with ease and maturity. Her imagination has been shaped by an international life story that started in her hometown of Porto Alegre in Brazil, opened to the world in Montreal, passed by the little known Passo Fundo in Brazil, matured in the ancient Uppsala in Sweden and is settling happily in the suburbs of Annapolis. Thais has changed environments, met all kinds of people, adapted to different cultures and fundamentally reinvented her life so many times, creating a bag of resources that she uses with no restraints to personalize her art.
Robert “Bob” Coe is a graphic designer working primarily on websites and applications. An artist member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, Bob studied watercolor with Morris Green and has been teaching at Columbia Art Center since 1991. He has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibits throughout the area.
Donna Darcy has been creating with glass for 27 years. She has taught stained and fused glass at Montpelier Arts Center, Anne Arundel Community College, and The Community College of Baltimore County. Donna owned and operated a popular glass studio and retail store for more than years. She loves teaching glass to all ages and empowering students with the knowledge and confidence to be able to create their own works Donna teaches a variety of programs for all experience levels at Columbia Art Center. Her glass art has been exhibited in local galleries, shops, and Columbia Art Center Galleries.
Sharon Fuller began her career as a watercolor artist in 2015 after working as a landscape architect designing parks and gardens in Texas for 20 years. She has a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. After studying painting, she became a signature artist of the Baltimore Watercolor Society (BWS) in 2019. Her paintings have been show in many juried and invitational shows. The small details and transitory beauty of natural settings are what she tries to capture in her paintings.
Kathie Grove holds a bachelor’s degree in art education, a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, and a master’s degree in ceramics and sculpture. She is a potter and teacher with 30 years of teaching experience. Kathie teaches different levels of classes and workshops at Columbia Art Center! She loves watching her students as they develop skills, confidence with clay.
Yolanda Koh holds a bachelor’s degree in fine and applied arts from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is a professional Architect for over 30 years. She became a signature artist of the Baltimore Watercolor Society (BWS) in 2004 and was awarded BWS-WM status (Master of water-media in 2023) She has been teaching watercolor and Chinese Brush painting for over 25 years and enjoys developing her student’s passion and skills.
Natalia Kormeluk is an experienced potter and teacher, having taught pottery and sculpture full-time for 40 years at The Field School in Washington, DC.. She is currently an instructor for the Graduate Ceramics program at Hood College. Natalia has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo shows and group juried exhibits. Her work is in private collections, at the University of Pittsburgh, the Heritage Center at Manor College in Pennsylvania, and the National Museum of Ukrainian Pottery in Ukraine. She recently completed two pottery residencies in Ukraine, instructed an international group of potters, and was a juror for the 2018 & 2019 International Clay Sculpture Symposiums. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1982 from Antioch University in Columbia Maryland.
Nancy Ziegenfus McIntosh has been teaching at Columbia Art Center in Long Reach since 1990. Nancy was hired to teach beginner to advanced wheel classes as well as stack and fire the kilns. She has taught a variety of night classes and topics, from beginner wheel, soda and Raku firing to advanced wheel over the years, all while teaching full-time high school ceramics classes and doing her own work and shows. She has always exhibited regionally (including New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, among others) both in craft shows and juried gallery exhibitions. Nancy has a passion for pottery and loves teaching.
Jean Marie Mettee pursued a glass-exclusive career beginning in 1991 after taking her first glass class at Columbia Art Center. She currently creates commission and gallery pieces in fused, stained and carved glass at her own studio. Jean Marie has trained at many glass centers in California, Nevada and New York. She teaches glass at several studios and exhibits in numerous galleries.
Alexis Merriman has been drawing since childhood and has always had an interest in cartoons, comics, anime, and manga. Her favorite subjects to draw are cute monsters and cartoon-style self-portraits. She has been teaching and assisting with kids’ art classes and camps since 2017. She is passionate about teaching kids because they usually have something to teach her in return, and they always make her laugh.
Amanda Millner received her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, MD. She has studied abroad at Studio Art Centers International (SACI) in Florence, Italy and is an active member in her local art community. Currently, she is a member of The Mid Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association (MAPAPA), Working Artists Forum (WAF of the Eastern Shore), and a member of the local artists collective; Artists’ Gallery in Historic Ellicott City. She loves to paint outdoors and participates in juried, regional plein air painting competitions every year. Amanda mainly paints in a representational style and from life. Her favorite subjects include the figure, landscape, and still life. Amanda works from her home studio outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
Constance “Connie” Rankin has a degree in Illustration and Design from Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia. She has made a career working for museums including The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, The Natural History Museum in Washington DC and New York and finally the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons Island, MD. She also has work in MD Science Center, Ohio Wilderness Center and the Museum of the Rockies. Connie creates functional and sculptural pottery. Her work is memories, thoughts and feelings finding physical form in the clay medium. To express them accurately requires several techniques. The wheel provides structure, while hand building and sculpture allows her to work in detail.
Christine “Crissy” Simpson was introduced to ceramics at Towson University in the early 1990s and went on to study ceramics in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County. She began taking classes at Columbia Art Center in 1999. As a student, one of the highlights for her was demonstrating wheel-throwing at the Columbia Festival of the Arts Lakefest held annually at Lake Kittamaqundi. Crissy has progressed in her pottery through the years and now teaches clay classes for youth, tweens and teens at Columbia Art Center. Crissy’s enthusiastic attitude, passion for ceramics, and love of community arts have made her a wonderful ambassador for Columbia Art Center at community outreach events.
Barbara Talbott has been making things all her life. She spent 20 years as a make-up artist, art director, producer and commercial photographer working with such clients as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Baltimore Magazine, and the Baltimore Sun. She incorporated her love of art and passion for technology into a career as a computer illustrator and graphic designer for Johns Hopkins Applied Research Labs and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to bring Scientists and Engineers visions into life with her illustrations. During her working career, Barbara was a resident artist at Montpelier Art Center. She explored several mediums: Printmaking, Fine Art Photography, and Encaustic Painting. She found her niche with encaustics and can incorporate her experiences with all mediums into those works. Exploration is the driving force behind her art and encaustic gives her the opportunity to expand and grow as a painter.
Shelby Willis has been working in clay since the beginning of her college career at Towson University. She earned a B.S. in Art & Design with a concentration in Ceramics in 2019. Since then, she has primarily been creating work out of her small home studio in Baltimore. Shelby has also worked at Clayworks Supplies since 2016, helping guide many people through the clay making process by answering technical questions and finding solutions for problems dealing with clay, glaze or materials. She has experience with different firing methods such as wood-firing and Raku. Shelby has participated in numerous markets and shows throughout Maryland and Virginia. She believes in slowing down, taking time with the details, and admiring the little things. Her work demonstrates this by allowing people to admire small works of art alongside the functionality within their everyday lives.
Marcie Wolf-Hubbard received her bachelor’s degree in studio art from the University of Maryland and studied fine art and illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her paintings have been shown in more than 50 exhibitions during the last 30 years, and she has illustrated for magazines and books, as well as worked as a courtroom illustrator. Marcie is an instructor at Glen Echo Park, Yellow Barn Studios and the Smithsonian, and teaches art in her studio for children and adults. She has always loved to draw as a connection to the world. Marcie uses encaustic painting to highlight her drawing. Texture, luminosity, layers, and dimension all help in her construction or building her artwork. She adds and takes away, sometimes making the painting more of a sculptural form. The back and forth nature of collage lends itself well to encaustic painting. She teaches guest artist workshops for Columbia Art Center.