“It’s that special time of year…all bundled head to toe” (Michael Buble’)
Santa and the elves are busy in their workshop and a half dozen or so artists I know are hard at work in their home studios putting their signature touches on art gifts perfect for the holidays. No matter which one you celebrate be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Festivus (“Seinfeld” anyone?) this special group has gifts to go. Happy holidays to all.
The very first artist I ever profiled was Millworks Kelly McGee Curran, she of the ringlet tresses cascading down upon her. Hippie generation of the late ‘60s immediately came to mind. I thought here is the quintessential flower child. With Kelly’s ethereal dream like paintings silently and reverently espousing a simple, yet profound truth, that we are all connected to our Maker and to all that He has created. The rivers, the mountains, the fish that swim in the sea, and the animals that walk this earth, everything of meaning is intertwined. Of Native American lineage, a commonality we share, her art embraces ancient wisdom handed down from generation to generation. Kelly is one with nature and is guided by its spiritual thread that forms a perfect circle of love branching out from her New Cumberland studio. Her 6-year-old daughter has taken up paint and canvas following in mom’s brush strokes. Kelly recently reflected, “I now know one can make art anywhere at any time…even with a little one running around. One easel in the room has now joyously become two and any room will do dependent on the light. Our large picture window opens to a world outside full of inspiration. My younger self that stands before me is painting rainbows, still lifes and spider suns.” Kelly summed it up quoting Wilco: “Just paint what you feel, don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.” Contact [email protected].
We had the distinct pleasure of attending Pamela Black’s opening night reception for her one woman show at Cafe 1500 in its spacious layout years ago. Filling the restaurants many walls, it was obvious that here was an artist fully assured delivering her signature style as a five-course meal. To grow as an artist, one must break away from the walls of restraint and explore new paths seeing where those take them. For Pamela Black, her light-filled studio in her Carlisle home gives her a newfound zeal for painting and creating worlds of enchantment that have become her calling card. Equally recognized as a muralist of grand proportion, her outsized works have adorned businesses and public spaces throughout the region. Once a Millworks mainstay, she finds peace and serenity in her happy place. Always true to her beatific signature style of color and movement, Pam’s offerings today take on advanced theories reaching beyond her highly successful oeuvre. A potent point and counter point of perspective is added lending soft and wispy layers in nuanced terms. Visually, they take on a life of their own, floating across the canvas to their final destination. Pamela recently divulged, “My creative practice involves constant experimentation, exploration and serves as a source of meditation, which is rooted in abstraction. Working primarily with acrylics and watercolor, each painting begins without a fixed outcome, and rather a feeling or memory. My in-home art studio is filled with natural light…the space is light, and energy influences the rhythm of my practice allowing the freedom to move about the room in an intuitive way. Having my art studio within my home creates a seamless connection between daily life and my artistic process.” Contact [email protected].
Amie Bantz is always reinventing herself, which keeps her ahead of the curve. An influencer, trend setter, bon vivant, and world traveler, she dials up tomorrow today. A vital part of the AAPI community, she now resides in the Red Rose City of Lancaster. Having hit the “pause” button on her traditional art, she is now “working heavily in art direction…primarily with photo, video and graphics.” Over the years, she has toured with her “Lunch Box Moments,” a visual tour de force nodding to her Asian American upbringing, to working for Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, to years in her studio at Millworks—she knows no boundaries. In her new role as an art director, she already has formed the final frame in her mind’s eye. She recently shared, “For anyone who has followed my work, it’s no secret that I rarely stay tethered to one medium—’artist’ has always meant different things to me. In one season, producing a body of oil paintings; in another creating a traveling installation and hosting workshops. In this season, it’s the art direction of ‘shoots’ and developing visual content. I’ve still been playing with composition, color and storytelling, but these days through video and photo production. Some days, I feel like an imposter, a painter posing as a director. Other days, art direction feels like the truest expression of what I’ve been working towards all along. Every medium—paint, installation, digital design—feels like a step that led me here.” Contact [email protected].
Artist, illustrator and art instructor Susan Benigni-Landis subscribes to the school of plein air painters, of which she is a well-known practitioner of the art. Her studio, more often than not, is found in the great outdoors. From rivers and streams to forest and glens, with mountainside meanderings all for good measure, lead to canvases contemplatively considered when capturing the moment right before her eyes. That perspective places the audience side by side with the artist. Realism realized. Landscapes and the milieu surrounding her are Susan’s trademark, and art that like the seasons keeps changing and evolving. The artist from her actual studio revealed, “Nature and my travels inform my art. I like to work from ‘life’ plein air, still life or live figures. At times, I use photo references to create larger pieces always trying to capture color, light and moments of beauty. I work mainly in oil but also work in pen and ink and watercolor sketches. Contact [email protected].
Since the day I came across portraitist Alana Beall on my IG thread, I was enamored with her portrait of Edger Allan Poe. We share a love for animals, dogs, horses and any other four-leggeds you might find on a farm that she shares with her husband and kids. Renown for her paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Wednesday Addams and other Hollywood stars, she is equally adept at story telling through the images in her paintings. Her studio is found on the family homestead in Monkton, Md., where her art reflects that sense of inner peace, calm, inspiration and creativity, feeling right at home. The artist says that she finds “Inspiration in dreams, meditation and animal messages, and images that I come across that evoke a certain feeling. I usually paint with acrylic using the Stauvet palette to keep my paints for a few days. Glazes are my favorite addition. Starting a new painting, I go into ‘The Big Picture’ and free flow the strokes at a faster pace leaving the details for last.” Contact [email protected].
From her studio loft in Hershey, Millworks expat Joan Maguire is still basking in summer’s ebb and flow of seaside scenes. Her memories conjure sea turtles, koi fish and mojitos from her Cuban adventures. The last is a nod to her latest escapades over two years establishing artistic connections with a small group of artists who are internationally known. As a driving force among the Hershey/Hummelstown coterie of artists, Joan is always breaking new ground with projects-a-plenty. Joan’s philosophy is, “The perfect day is getting up early before the birds wake and watch the sunrise—then go upstairs to my studio and paint with the morning light. It lifts my spirit to create whatever the subject may be. To go a whole day without painting leaves a void in my heart.” Joan wants to share that her studio will be open weekends for gift buying through Dec. 20. Contact [email protected].
P.D. Murray formerly of Chicago, Mexico City and Midtown’s Millworks now creates his madcap melodramas out of a Scottish Brigadoon named Bonny Cala, the appellation he and his wife Amy affectionally call their domicile. Sounds like something out of a fairytale. Paul’s painterly patois nods to his embrace of fauvism that’s reflected in his art. His style, in his own words, is that “of a child perfected over 64 years of living like my hair is on fire.” The man, the artist, the myth, the legend, and today the king in his castle, found in an attached building to Bonny Cala, working out of a light filled loft as the world tilts around him, spinning wildly out of control. In the professor’s words, “My artistic process is simple, I make a glorious mess of pure color and then attempt to redeem it. It’s like I paint myself into a corner and then use parie dolia and intuition (or sometimes desperation!) to find forms, figures, or phrases to commit to and gradually develop. My studio supports this approach, in that it’s a chaotic, rock and rolling rats nest of paint on the floor and walls with lots of materials, books, beer and Cheetos lying around.” We visited Paul’s atelier shortly after he was settled in. With rappelling gear, carabiners and grappling hooks in hand, we climbed the parapet to the top as the service elevator was unavailable for use—a Viennese touring ballet troupe was stuck inside-alas! We lived to share the experience and were ever so grateful to partake of the medicinal spirits the Saint Bernard rescue dog had in his barrel. As far as it containing brandy or whiskey, that is purely the stuff of legend and so is P.D. Murray. Contact pdmurray.art.
December Events
Hear ye, hear ye! You Art Invited!! Sunday, Dec. 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Celebrate the holidays at the Champagne Fundraiser Brunch. $65 per ticket, the Civic Club Event of the Season. Contact Contrena Baltimore, president, for more info.
3rd in the Burg Friday, Dec. 19 Opening reception 5 to 8 p.m. for the exhibit at “All Access Harrisburg.” A quartet of photographers point their cameras at our beloved capital city. The show focuses on the people, places, and things found in and around metropolitan Harrisburg. View the escapades of Billy Hicks, Dr. Eliseo Rosario, Jr., Ron Steficek and Michael Yatsko. The exhibit runs through Jan. 8.
2026 Sneak Peek: Arts on the Square Gallery @ Market Square Presbyterian Church, located at 20 S. 2nd St. The new exhibit opening the arts season at the church is “Faces and Places,” works by Mindy Deardorff and Sherryl Heberlig. Deardorff is a hyper realistic portrait artist who works primarily in graphite and charcoal. Heberlig is a self-described street photographer/documentarian who traffics in black and white film as well as in color. The exhibit runs through April 19. Come out and join the opening reception and meet the artists upstairs at the gallery on Sunday, Jan. 18 from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m.
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