From Civil War battlefields to covered bridges to lonesome rural roads, stand in front of a John Cleaveland painting and feel as if you could walk right in. A landscape painter for over 25 years, John's oil paintings go beyond photorealism. "Since I was a boy, I've always loved being outside in nature," the artist says. "I'm fascinated by the light in a place, and I try to bring that into my painting. When light resonates from inside a painting instead of just sitting on top of the canvas, that's when a painting becomes real for me."
Born in 1963, Cleaveland received his BFA from the University of Georgia and held a graduate assistantship in the studies abroad program in Cortona, Italy. "Before Italy, I was an abstract painter," John says. "It was in Italy that I realized landscapes were the best way to convey emotion."
Cleaveland's paintings are all about emotion – the passage of time, the harsh yet beautiful reality of nature, the cycle of life and death. It's not unusual to see an old house falling down from neglect, a steam engine from another era, or even a deer lying dead by the side of the road in one of his canvases. "Nature dies, but it also rekindles itself," John notes. "What I sometimes see is like Mozart's Requiem, in part really sad but also very beautiful."
Represented by Bluespiral1 Gallery in Asheville, NC and in Athens, GA by Mercury Art Gallery.
Leigh Ellis is a professional painter and instructor of watercolor. She holds a MS degree in biology and began her art career 20 years ago in biological illustration. She studied painting and design at the University of Hawaii and Montana State University. Her paintings have been exhibited in juried and private shows from Hawaii to Georgia, including 10 solo exhibits. Ellis has illustrated five books for Manasha Ridge Press and one book, The Journeyman’s Path, in 2002. She is an active member of the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation and the Georgia Watercolor Society. Leigh has been a juror for the Georgia Junior Duck Stamp Contest for the past 5 years.
Self-taught and painting since 1987, I build and paint all manner of whimsy. I am known for my one of a kind bird houses and animal shaped dulcimers. My paintings are a reflection of my deep interest in the natural world. I have done illustrations for posters and books, Bongo is a Happy Dog has traveled across the world.
I am currently represented by the Ginger Young Gallery in Chapel Hill, NC and my work has been shown in galleries and museums. I am proud to be offering my work through the group efforts at the Farmington Depot Gallery
PM Goulding an American resident born in St. Louis Missouri and raised in St. Louis and Detroit Michigan, has also lived in Hawaii, New York, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin and presently lives in Athens, Georgia. He started his study of sculpture in high school in St. Louis, received a BFA in sculpture from Northern Michigan University in 1992 and his MFA (including a summers study in Italy) at University of Georgia, in 1995.
While well versed in casting and fabricating, Mr. Goulding has been carving and manipulating stone since 1976. He has produced many morphological and minamalistic forms as well as some representational and architectural works. More recently he has created a series of large scale "toys" in stone, steel and bronze. One constant element in all of Mr. Gouldings sculpture has been the high quality of his material manipulation and sensitivity to the material he uses.
Artist Statement
The artist is a member of society with the accompanying responsibilities. As an artist it is my responsibility to produce a meaningful and viable product for the public. My personal belief is that my art should serve to advance society and create an understanding between those who view it.
In order to achieve these goals it is my job to utilize the tools at my command. These obviously include the techniques and implements needed to manipulate the materials I select. The skill with which I wield those is an indication of the value I place on my efforts. What is more important is the intelligent use of the tools of psychology, sociology, the physical sciences, history and those elements that constitute our culture and the greater my understanding of other cultures the greater my scope of potential influence. Another important constituent of professionalism is the interaction among those of like interest and purpose, my colleagues and cohorts in the art community, people who share a vocabulary and are practiced at communicating their artistic understanding. It is in this company where my successes and misses can best be discovered.
Artists are often asked to name their favorite artist. It is almost expected that the artist will answer by naming “master artists”, such as, Picasso, Van Gogh, or etc. I do agree those gentlemen played an important role in shaping “art”. My answer differs. The art that has influenced my artwork the most is that of cartoons, album art and skateboard artist. I watched cartoons and read comics and comic books growing up. The art on skateboard decks and in Thrasher magazine in the late 80’s and early 90’s provide a spark of interest that exploded into my career in Art. It was the art of Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton that I found exciting through the energy that was created in their minimal graphic style. My art has transformed and changed over the years from abstract non-objective art to my own cartoonish doodlish style of painting and artmaking. I like to make up words. I also believe art should be fun. I am able to escape reality and travel into the cartoonish landscape and spaces I create. Many of these places are places I visited when I was a kid, so in a way I refuse to grow up.
Cheri Wranosky's artwork has been shown across the United States. Her ceramic and mixed media figures have been featured in Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, Lark Book's 500 Figures in Clay, and included in a textbook for children Emphasis Art: A Qualitative Art Program for Elementary and Middle Schools by Bob Clements.
Cheri is from Athens, Georgia, via Kansas, Colorado and Virginia. She received her BFA from the University of Georgia in 1984.
With no formal art training since grade school, Kentucky native, now Athens, Georgia, resident, Chris Hubbard left a 20-year career as a scientist (microbiologist and environmental consultant) in 1998 to be "BORN AGAIN" as an artist. This transformation began with his decision to make an art car and participate in the art car scene currently spreading around the nation. His driven-daily car, the "HEAVEN AND HELL CAR," is a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek expression of the good vs. bad dichotomy of self, other people, and life in general. The car is decorated with his first attempts at primitive carvings made from found wood, sheet metal, and other objects. Depicting saints, angels, and devils, these pieces are influenced by his Catholic upbringing and his deep appreciation of outsider/visionary artists from the south such as R. A. Miller, Howard Finster, and Edgar Tolson, as well as Latino santos carvings. After requests from admirers of the art car, he began making more the "Heaven and Hell" carvings and began to sell them out of his car when traveling around the country to art car festivals and parades.
With no formal art training since high school in the mid 80’s, I have followed—since childhood—the path of passionate fascination with various artistic mediums, ranging from charcoals to pencil sketches to acrylic paintings to mosaic tile creations and mixed media presentations. My works are reflections of both my love of the natural world and my ruminations about the spiritual world; I especially am interested in how these two worlds converge for good. Born in 1969, I am a Georgia native, presently residing in Watkinsville, Georgia. I earned an Associate of Arts from Oxford College of Emory University, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Emory University, and a Master of Arts in English Education from the University of Georgia. I am a formally certified English teacher who, after instructing in the public schools for several years, stayed home to raise my two children. My artistic bent has developed on an upward trajectory through these child rearing years as I've sought to teach my own children to appreciate the beauty in the natural world and to nurture their spiritual well beings, all with the goal of impressing upon them the wisdom of a favorite Catholic theologian, Thomas Merton, who stated in his No Man Is an Island that “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." I believe Merton had it right. It’s all about that convergence. I am fortunate and humbled to be associated with artistic friends/mentors at The Farmington Depot Gallery. I also am both thankful and proud to be offering my work to the public through the group efforts at the Farmington Depot Gallery, and I look forward to meeting you through this venue or otherwise.
I have always been an artist—an instinctual knowing inside of my self that pushed my paintbrush to paper from the very beginnings of my childhood. I have found my way to my artistic voice through many profound life experiences. Struggles with epilepsy as child pushed my spirit into the ether and back into this plane of existence, bringing back with me a love of the spirit realms and a creative force inside myself that sends me like a shooting star through space-time to create endlessly. I received my degree in Textile Design from the University of Georgia in 2013, and I am a self-taught painter. The message of my work is universal TRUTH: The physical/material illusion of this world has come to reflect our own disconnection from our true human nature, a part of us that is connected to both the earth, the cosmos, and the ultimate reality of consciousness that all came into existence under. I reflect this deep spiritual connection that we have with the multiverse and in one another. The greatest Love of all, the One, burst forth infinitely, with no ending and no beginning to its creating and expanding, culminating in our existence of love and light here on earth. The mystical, ancient symbols and archetypes in my work inspire this deep soul knowledge to blossom in the heart of the viewer. My work relates our inter-dimensional existence of love to the relationship of our physical consciousness to each other, the earth and the divine universe.
My love for clay came to me as a child growing up in a small town in North Carolina. My family loved to go to the river to fish and at a young age, I learned to hang a worm on the hook of a cane pole, learned how to read the bobbing cork, when to pull or not pull. As I became bored with catching fish, I spent countless hours sitting by the waters edge making little pots from the red clay. At the end of the day I had accumulated a small army of little pots. I sat them up on a log to dry in the sun and I remember how crushed I was and the bitter tears when my Mamma would not carry them home with us. Whenever we went to the river, I headed straight for the bank. Back in the years of my childhood raising, there was no issues of concern when I struck off alone to roam the woods. On one of my adventures I discovered a very deep ravine coming from way back up in the woods. I followed it up a ways and I remember wondering what could have made such a deep cut in the side of the mountain. There was no water running in it. At a place up on the bank was a very large tree with a tangle of its roots exposed, growing all the way to the bottom, about eight feet down. My curiosity sent me climbing down the jagged bank to get a better look at the roots. I wiggled up between them and around them as I made my way down. Then something caught my eye. Back behind the roots were strips of "white" mud. This left me completely slack-jawed as I had never known mud to be any other color but "red", the kind that got us in a lot of trouble when we wore it home. This was white and I wanted some! With the help of a stick I dug and poked enough of this special clay, tucked it into my shirt and hurried back to the river. I couldn’t wait to get my hands in it and make some beautiful pots.
As I recall this experience, it is with vivid and delightful detail. I remember how the woods got cooler the farther back I went. I remember all the colors of green. I remember how the white clay smelled. If any one had called for me, I did not hear them. It was this closeness to the clay that had me hypnotized. When I had a lump of that river clay in my hands, I could make anything I wanted to make.
It is this sense of wonder that 50 years later, I was able to reconnect with. This deep, wide eyed wonder that brings me back everyday, just to get my hands in the clay and see where it takes me.
