Kim Anderson

Kim Anderson became a fiber artist as the direct result of owning sheep for the past 15 years. She has enjoyed all aspects of raising the sheep and exploring and improving the various techniques from masters associated with the fiber arts. From washing and hand processing the wool, to carding, spinning, dyeing, weaving, wet felting, nuno felting, and needle felting, Kim has continued to learn and teach what she knows. She is the President of the Canton Fiber Arts guild and has been a member for about 6 years. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Union and worked in various school systems for a number of years. Currently, she practices her art, participates in local art shows, gives programs for clubs, and vends at juried shows.  

Tracy Dawn Brewer

Tracy Dawn Brewer is an artist whose journey seamlessly blends passion, creativity, and technology.

Graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and a Master’s in Information and Telecommunication Systems from Ohio University, Tracy discovered the perfect marriage of her artistic talents and technological prowess. Today, she channels her creativity into managing websites, crafting graphics, developing animations, and exploring digital media platforms. In 2019, she created the first Augmented Reality mural in Stark County, found inside Belden Village Mall. This fusion of art and technology has opened up new avenues for expression and community engagement. She is a nationally licensed illustrator, published author, and owns Brewtifully, creative company in Plain Township.

As Tracy continues to spread creativity and support her community, she invites others to join her in making the world a more colorful place, one brushstroke at a time.

Sarah DeBaun

Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, Sarah has been an artist since she was very young. She fell in love with art, and at the age of 13 started taking private lessons in Oil Painting with Jan Murphy at her studio in downtown Canton.

Her Parents supported her passion for the Arts and she continued through high school taking private lessons and eventually assisting her teacher Jan with watercolor classes for adults when she was just 16 years old.

Sarah graduated from Kent State University in the Fall of 2001 with a BA in Art Education K-12. Working in many Medias, she fell in love with pottery when taking a class with professional ceramist Kirk Mangus at the Kent main campus. Sarah knew she would always have to find a way to work with clay, so she started taking pottery classes at the Canton Museum of Art in 2005, working with Bill Shearrow. The mentorship has been amazing.

Sarah has been a member of the Canton Ceramic Artist Guild as of September 2018. She is honored to be a part of a group of artists who share her passion for clay.

Her ceramic style is very eclectic. She loves creating functional wares such as bowls, cups, plates and trays with an array of glazes, decorative techniques and textures, but she is also very in love with the Raku firing technique and has developed her own signature glazing pattern that is very unique to her style.

Amanda Crowe

Amanda Crowe is also Canton Museum of Art's Museum To Go and Community Outreach Coordinator.  She received her BA in Art History from Kent State University and BS in Elementary Education from Thiel College.  Amanda’s previous roles include Family Education Coordinator at Akron Art Museum, Interim Director of Education at Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum, Museum Studies instructor for graduates of Oberlin College’s Art History/docent-training program, YMCA Assistant Director of Activities in Schaumburg, IL, and Early Childhood Art Education Intern at the Kohl Children’s Museum in Wilmette, IL.  

Christy Davis

Christy Davis is the Curator of Exhibitions at the Canton Museum of Art and has been with the museum since 2019. She has exhibited work I juried exhibitions across the state of Ohio since 2004. Christy holds a BFA in Studio Art with a specialization in 2-dimensional design along with BA’s in both psychology and art therapy and a minor in art history from Capital University.

Christy inherited her love of working with wood and woodburning from her grandmother, Wanda Wentling, who taught Christy how to woodburn and who is also the National Hall of Fame for Mountain Artisans inductee and Ward World Woodcarving Championship award winning woodcarver. Christy has sold her work, which typically reflects nature and animal portraiture, to private collections across the United States.

Alex Draven:

Most noted for his Steampunk creations, Draven’s artwork and commissions span an impressive range of genres.  He creates handmade and customized timepieces along with Geeky & fine jewelry.  He has a BFA from Myers School of Art at The University of Akron where he spent most of his time in the metal studio.  He participates in Crafty Mart and has been an active arts vendor since 2003. He also owns his own jewelry business (Exquisite Corpse Boutique) http://www.theexcb.com/contact.html

Draven found success creating products across a wide range of genres for people of all ages. He began building what would become the Exquisite Corpse Boutique line, mixing classic favorites with new ideas, as well as branching out beyond jewelry.

In 2006, concerned by the creativity-stifling atmosphere he witnessed while taking a bench test for a leading jewelry company, Alexander decided to expand the Exquisite Corpse Boutique (ExCB) line independently. He has since nurtured the ExCB into a thriving, full-time business which is also a labor of love. Exquisite Corpse Boutique continues to enjoy healthy growth through word-of-mouth, events, and interviews.

Erica Emerson

Erica Emerson is the current Education Director at the Canton Museum of Art and has been with the Canton Museum of Art since 2012. Erica graduated from Kent State University with an Art Education degree and has 20 plus years of teaching experience including previously teaching in a public school setting as an art educator for four years. Along with coordinating educational programs, tours, classes, and outreach at the Museum she also teaches a variety of classes and workshops as well as taught a Museum Education course at Walsh University in the Spring of 2020.  

Laura Kolinski-Schultz

Laura Kolinski-Schultz was born in Lakewood, Ohio and grew up in Ohio and Marietta, Georgia. She has had a life-long interest in Art and holds a B.A from Mount Union College and a B.S. in Art Education from Kent State University. In addition, she has many hours of graduate study in Art History and Art Education from KSU. Her specialty area is ceramic art, and she started her business, TerraForms Pottery in 1996.

Currently Laura works with clay and teaches pottery in her home studio in Jackson Township and at The Canton Museum of Art. She has taught art at CMA since 1989, shows her work with the Canton Ceramic Artist's Guild and participates in local art exhibits. Her work may be found at local art shows, online at www.terraki-teaware.com, and in private collections nationwide. Most recently, she has created a new business, TerraKi Tea and Tea Ware.  She offers lectures on the health benefits of tea-drinking and the art of Yixing-style teapots and presents Chinese Tea Ceremonies.  

Lin Luciano Fior

Lin Luciano Fiore quips that with an Italian name, such as hers, she better be a good painter! Joking aside, Lin absolutely adores the paintings of the Renaissance and the Traditional Realists who learned how to paint with simplicity over the years, leading to the Impressionistic era. She has lead workshops all around the country, teaching still life and landscape, and has in the past few years, included International instruction. She has taught in Canada, and in Provence, France, and will soon be adding a workshop in Tuscany, Italy.  You can enjoy her instruction right here at the Museum.  

Ted Lawson

Ted Lawson is a contemporary watercolor artist who started his art career in high school in Phoenix, Arizona.  Even though Ted was good in high school art he chose engineering school over art school.  Through his career in engineering converting crude oil into gasoline and jet fuel he studied with nationally known watercolor instructors Gerald Brommer, Tony Couch and Fred Graff as well as with his mentor, Bette Elliott.  
 
Ted creates art using "the things that people see and use every day" as his inspiration. His ideas involving common everyday scenes or objects spring from his extensive foreign and domestic travels as well as glimpses of New York City. Ted continuously strives to accomplish the goal of creating something that is entertaining and thought provoking for other people to look at and enjoy.  
 
Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Ted resides in Canton, Ohio with his wife Patricia, a former high school Spanish teacher.  Their one daughter, Emily is a theatre attorney.  She and her husband Guy work in the Broadway production niche in Manhattan.   Ted is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, the Ohio Watercolor Society and the Akron Society of Artists.  
 
A friend once remarked to Ted about his two disparate careers, one in art the other in engineering by asking how an engineer became a watercolor artist.  Ted replied, “Consider Leonardo DaVinci”. 

Mallory McCrea

Mallory McCrea is a Northeast Ohio native, a varied artist working in photography, paint, and pencil. Mallory is an entrepreneur, educator, and avid observer of human behavior. A former nomad; traveling all over the Western US, photographing and painting the wilderness, led her to her passion for encouraging individuals to find the connection between creativity, recreation, nature, and their wellbeing.

Mallory works full-time as a wedding and portrait photographer in the Cleveland area and holds a Bachelor of Integrative Studies with a double minor in Studio Art and Psychology from Kent State University. She is currently working towards a Master's from Kent State University in Human Development, Family Studies, and Health Education. Mallory has taught drawing courses at Stark State College and has hosted several photography workshops for wedding and portrait photographers.

Her website is www.malmccrea.com.  

Kit Palencar

Following in his father's footsteps, Kit has undertaken a career as a painter. Graduating from the University of Akron in the spring of 2015, Palencar has been focusing on creating a signature style through the use of atmospheric backgrounds and psychological portraits while exploring photo collaged dreamscapes as a way to create environments that question reality.

Kit has won the top honor scholarship for The Frederic Whitaker and Eileen Monaghan Whitaker Foundation for his watercolors and has also won the top honor underclass scholarship at The Myers School of Art in Akron, Ohio. Appearing in shows in areas such as Akron, Medina, Kent, and Canton, Palencar resides in Ohio and is concentrating on a Master of Fine Arts degree at Kent State University. He teaches portraiture painting at the Canton Museum of Art.

Kit explains his artistic process: “Through the use of atmospheric backgrounds and the absence of a setting, the eye is quickly drawn to the portrait and the recognizable form of a face. Whether it is completely covered with a sheet or manipulated through the process of screen printing with oil paint, the figure is still prominent in terms of being a vehicle for displaying a psychological state of intensity, calmness, or mood. The cessation of the figures identity becomes less important as the paint itself describes the person itself."

Amy Pepperney

Amy Pepperney is a passionately curious visual artist/teacher who currently works in her home studio primarily with kiln formed glass. After 30+ years teaching art for Akron Public Schools she began a more serious study of oil painting that evolved into painting with layers of kiln formed glass. She now devotes her time to experimenting with glass design and technique.

“I begin each work with sketches or paintings, often inspired by colors, patterns and textures in the surrounding landscape. Then I compose with different types of glass and kiln temperatures to reflect my vision. I am intrigued by the interplay of light and glass and the diverse applications in the kiln to achieve varying results. The changing seasons cause me to reflect anew on my surrounding landscape. Like a kid, I’m excited by the first snowfall, a wild thunderstorm or a gorgeous evening sunset. I’m always trying to capture that mood and feeling in paint or glass. I love exploring and working with glass because of the play of color, interesting processes, and endless possibilities.”

Amy’s work can be found at the Artisan Boutique at the Canton Art Museum. You can follow her work and/or contact her through Instagram, PepperneyGlassworks.

Amy has a BFA in Ceramics and MA in Education from the University of Akron.  

Alyssa Reed

Alyssa Reed was raised in Canal Fulton, Ohio and always wanted to share her passion for art. She quickly realized she wanted to become an art teacher from a very young age.  Alyssa pursued a Bachelor's degree in Art Education at the University of Akron, where she focused primarily in ceramics and three-dimensional art. She became a full-time elementary art teacher in Cleveland, dedicating two years to fostering the artistic talents of the next generation. In addition to her role as an elementary art teacher, she has also had the privilege of instructing after-school art and science programs at Akron Public Schools. Alyssa is thrilled to continue inspiring creativity and nurturing the artist within each student here at the Canton Museum of Art!  

William A. Shearrow

William teaches pottery classes here at the Canton Museum of Art. He was born and raised in Canton, and his work has been so well-received that he has been making a living as a ceramic artist since he graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1982. He says:

“As far back as I can remember, I have wanted to be an artist. Clay is the most interesting expression of art that I can imagine. Taking a material as humble as clay and transforming it with hand and fire into a work of art never fails to thrill me. I believe every pot holds its own unique personality, yet still reflects the artist who first gave it life.”

William’s work can be found in many private and public collections throughout the world. He exhibits his work at galleries, museums, and art festivals, and has won many awards.

Sarah Shumaker

Sarah Winther Shumaker is a mixed-media artist from North Canton, Ohio.  Shumaker began exhibiting her work in 2005. She won three first place awards in the North Canton May Show and an honorable mention in the Stark County Artist Exhibition at the Massillon Museum. Her work has been in other juried and invitational shows - including Sensory Feast, Blind Date, Fibernation, 28 Variations, The Exquisite Corpse, Women Eclectic, Seuss-talation and more. Sarah also is included in the publication, Stark ARThology. She has earned the Masters in Education, taught regular classroom elementary school, and worked as outreach coordinator for Arts in Stark (coordinating First Friday and the SmARTS arts integration grant programs in Stark County). Sarah now teaches kindergarten through fourth grade art for Plain Local Schools and continues to freelance art instruction and workshops for all ages. She was selected to be the Ohio Art Education Association Elementary Teacher division 2020 award winner.  

Laurie Turner

Laurie Turner is a self-taught glass artisan. As an electrical engineer, she craved a more creative outlet to provide balance to her technical career. The beautiful possibilities that glass presented started her journey to learn all she could about stained glass techniques and processes. For the past 20 years she has continued to pursue her glass interests to include fused glass and upcycled glass as well as providing her expertise as a glass instructor. She enjoys designing stained glass projects that a student (beginner to more experienced alike) will find enjoyable to construct and proud of the completed project. As a self-taught artist she is familiar with the challenges of working with glass and provides the methods and information to allow the student to overcome any issues and learn new skills.  

Lindsey Wenck

Lindsey Wenck is an accomplished artist, and educator with a Bachelor of Arts in Art Education and a minor in Art History from Kent State University. With a passion for teaching and the arts, Lindsey currently teaches children's classes at CMA and works with young children at a local preschool. She has expertise in multiple mediums, including printmaking, color, and mixed media. Lindsey's talent and enthusiasm for teaching have made her a beloved figure in the classroom, inspiring her students to explore their own creativity and develop a lifelong love for the arts.