Ardine Nelson is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art's Photography program and enjoys a special relationship to the Art & Technology area. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, has received Ohio Arts Council and Greater Columbus Arts Council artist fellowships and was a GCAC visiting artist in Spain and recently in Slovakia teaching alternative camera. Professor Nelson's practice includes the traditional and non-traditional cameras and materials in photography and, since 1990, has incorporated the digital area including archival ink jet printing. As an early experimenter with Polaroid materials she discovered one and has worked with other transfer processes. Nelson is recognized for her continued bodies of work with alternative cameras; pinhole and Diana plastic cameras. Most recently, Nelson's German garden work has been recognized through a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts research and development grant and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for 2008–09. Though well versed in the possibilities of digital manipulation, her personal work is all camera based and only employs the computer as a printing device.

Margaret Freed is a lifelong artist based in Wooster, Ohio, originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With decades of experience painting and creating, she brings a rich background in both fine art and commercial work to a practice rooted in storytelling and the poetry of everyday light.

Trained in Illustration at the University of the Arts, Syracuse University, and Hartford Art School, Freed began a career in commercial art, working primarily in watercolor and digital media. Today, she focuses on traditional media, primarily oil and watercolor, where a deep love for narrative themes and atmospheric light takes center stage. Whether painting luminous still lifes, plein air landscapes, animals, or floral arrangements, she is drawn to the way light and atmosphere transform ordinary objects and scenes into stories worth telling.

Inspired by daily life and the beauty found in familiar surroundings, Margaret embraces a wide range of subjects with curiosity and joy. This “shiny object syndrome,” as she calls it, results in an eclectic and honest body of work that reflects a lifelong commitment to observing and celebrating the world as it is.

My work is an exploration of the underlying interconnectivity at the heart of nature. The rhythms of the breath, the tide, the seasons, birth to death, the ever-cycling spiral that roots and harmonizes all of nature - this cyclic, generative energy is the great unifier that connects all beings in a vast web of interrelationship, from the micro to the macro, all of the parts essential, all of the parts woven together to create a dynamic, fluid whole. I am interested in articulating a symbolic representation of the inherent interdependencies that connect all living beings in a vast web of complex systems and relationships. My intention is to emphasize the animating energy streaming through all forms of life; the invisible filaments through which spirit manifests into matter. The repetition of certain motifs - such as the spiral, the vulva, fractal-like patterns, root systems, waterways and mycelial networks - all function to highlight the generative dynamism and interdependent unfolding fundamental to the cycles of life, death and rebirth.

“Painting is my endless pursuit of understanding. Drawing on dual roles as an artist and mother, I explore the oft-conflicting tensions that exist in the work of painting and of caretaking. Through painting plants and people, I explore the dual needs for solitude and connection. For self-sacrifice and self-care. Growth as excitement for newness and growth as grief for what is lost.

Reflecting those dissonances, my paintings are a fragmented, disrupted environment. I layer moments of realism, impressionism, and abstraction onto the surface. Each new layer proceeds from and responds to what came before, and each fragment serves the whole while remaining discrete, unique. Divergent elements converge into something singular, and the pieces that would shake and fall from each other are bound together with threads of color.”

My work is an exploration of “Domestic Mythologies”. Our culture surrounds us with pervasive archetypal myths and fairytales. When measured against these “Storybook” expectations, life appears daunting.“Happiness” and “Fulfillment” seem bloated and are almost punishing when viewed through fairytale lenses. I find myself at odds with prescribed routes to “Happily Ever After” and “Success”.

Creating artwork is the way I express my questions, concerns and hopes for the future. Being a wife and mother, I find myself wedged into roles that both trouble and delight me. The emotional concept of “Home”, belonging to someone and someplace, seems integral to human fulfillment. The perilous and circuitous routes to these goals are what I investigate in my sculpture. Connection, safety, security, hope and fear are some of the emotional triggers that crystalize ideas for me.

Creating visual narratives helps me understand some of the mixed emotions I navigate through on a daily basis. By distilling events and feelings into visual metaphors, I seek to reveal the complex layers and emotions that are behind seemingly simple, yet integral relationships. Taking things out of their context, and juxtaposing them with other seemingly unrelated objects, begs questions of relevance and purpose.

Ceramics is a malleable and expressive material that lends itself to seductive surface treatments and voluminous forms. The relationship between the medium and my choice of subject matter feels innate. Using humor and beauty in the work allows me to delve deeper into the heart of the intimate relationships that surround the domestic stage.

Kelle Schwab is a Cleveland-based artist creating bold, narrative-rich paintings and large-scale public murals. Her fine art explores empowered women and archetypes of rebellion—drawing from myth, history, and pop culture to explore themes transformation and resistance. Her murals are immersive and expressive, transforming walls into stories that speak to identity, place, and community.

Kelle’s paintings have been exhibited at venues including the Mansfield Art Center, where she received an Honorable Mention in 2025. Her mural work can be seen across Cleveland through projects with the Cleveland Guardians, Destination Cleveland, and multiple neighborhood revitalization efforts. With over 15 years of experience as a designer and art director at American Greetings, she brings a strong visual language and layered storytelling to every piece.

She is currently developing a collection of large-scale oil paintings that explore emotional duality, shadow work, and feminine power. Through both her fine art and public work, Kelle aims to create art that resonates deeply, invites reflection, and connects people across backgrounds and spaces.

Throughout the years Laine has had work included in several juried exhibitions and group shows at numerous galleries as well as the Southern Ohio Museum of Art, and her work has garnered a number of awards and is in many private collections.

As a young child growing up in a once flourishing town in the Rust Belt of Ohio, Laine Bachman always had an affinity towards drawing and painting. Her parents encouraged her creativity from the beginning which led to her to attending art school in nearby Columbus, receiving a BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design in painting in 1997.

Often inspired by myths and folklore, Bachman infuses the worlds she creates with archetypal imagery, underlying themes, decorative motifs, and meticulous details. Working in watercolor and acrylics, her paintings are full of creatures and landscapes, real or imagined, that are all part of the larger story behind her work. Bachman's work, recognized as Magical Realism, is greatly influenced by Henri Rosseau and his flat, lush and detailed landscapes and also by surrealist Frida Kahlo.

Representations of life, death, beauty, innocence and evil are depicted in Bachman's work. Whether it's animals, insects, birds or favored objects, they become symbols of different expressions. As owls are a symbol for wisdom or butterflies can represent a transformation, it's this kind of idea behind the creatures that helps them tell a part of the whole story.

The works expose unique environments in which to explore and pay homage to the various forms of life that Bachman finds fascinating and mysterious in nature. Vast landscapes are used to showcase these life forms, showing the spaces between and the surfaces above and below. The worlds she creates are hidden and untouched by man, and give the viewer a glimpse into the secret lives of their peculiar inhabitants.

My works are most often aimed at finding our place in life. And in particular, my place in society and in life. I immigrated to the States long enough to become a stranger in my homeland, but not long enough to become one of our own here. In my works, I try to create my own comfortable world, and often these attempts raise questions of existentialism.

My collages explore a state of restrained tension - an unrest that is at once alluring and inert. Drawing from traditional ideas, I subtly manipulate familiar forms to create space for both unease and acceptance to coexist.

My body of work has grown up through the cracks between dependency, trauma, addiction, and neurodivergence. It has been cultivated through an ongoing process of self-reflection and personal growth, serving as both a record of and a response to my efforts to become a more integrated version of myself. While acknowledging the weight of these experiences, the work resists reduction to them alone; in confronting darkness, it gestures toward transformation and renewal.

Through collage, I engage in a continual practice of finding beauty within discomfort, inviting the viewer to witness this process as it unfolds.

Robert J. Putka received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education from Kent State University in 1975, and taught art and theatre in the Stow and Munroe Falls School District for 46 years. Always an active artist in a wide range of media, he has since taken up the brush with a passion after retiring from teaching in 2021, painting landscapes, gardenscapes, and flowers earning him awards and honors in numerous juried shows in northeast Ohio and beyond. He is a member of Artists of the Rubber City, Akron Society of Artists, The Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, and the Second Sunday Artists Collective. His works are in a variety of private collections, as well as the Ford Hospitals Collection in Detroit.

Autumn Cadle is a visual artist and educator based in Ohio whose work explores the intersections of land, labor, and care. She holds an MFA in Visual Art from the Columbus College of Art and Design and a BA in Fine Art from Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

Cadle's practice centers on bringing natural materials — soil, plants, and living organisms - into interior gallery spaces, deliberately disrupting the pristine, sterile environment of the traditional white-walled gallery. By introducing the rawness of earth and organic growth into these controlled spaces, her work creates a direct tension between the formal and the elemental, inviting viewers to slow down and reconsider the often fraught human relationship to the land and the often-invisible labor of everyday life. Her work transforms living soil into durational sculpture, tended and nurtured over the course of an exhibition. She shapes the initial forms and the work evolves on its own terms. Drawing on the traditions of minimalism and maintenance art, her practice engages with questions of context, power, and what it means to care for something without expectation of return.

In addition to her studio practice, Cadle has taught art at the elementary, middle, and high school level and served as an Art Department Chair and Gallery Coordinator.

Barbara Vogel received her BFA and MFA from the Ohio State University. She creates images based in alternative photographic processes. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Ohio, the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, Ohio, and the Ross ArtMuseum in Delaware, Ohio. Locally, her work can be seen in the permanent collections of the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, the Hilton Columbus Downtown, and the Columbus Convention Center.

The imagery presented in this exhibition is “clickless” photography created with a hand-held wand scanner, an instrument designed to be used on books and flat materials. The scans take over five seconds, which develops an intimacy between the subject and the photographer, as well as a different kind of image. The ambient light and the light of the scanner create valleys of shadows and unusual luminosity. The soft focus gives both people and plants a sense of the historical or antique, while veils of light bathe each subject with serenity that elevates the imagery above the commonplace, decorative, or commercial. I cover these images with fused encaustic medium to add to their other-worldly, unattainable preserved quality.

Hello, I am a 52 year old father, husband, son & man in Carroll County, Ohio.

I was raised by a father and mother that had a strong work ethic with a focus on honesty and integrity. In my late teens I realized I like building mechanical things. In my 20’s I realized I was pretty good at designing and building mechanical things. When I hit my 30’s I had worked my way up to a corporate level manager of a mechanical engineering UL certified testing lab for a household name brand company. That is when I found love for mechanical engineering and products made by proud good people here in the USA. I started seeing the outsourcing of American product to foreign country labor. I didn't like what I was seeing! I made the choice to start my own small business, that would focus on my skills, in the mechanical design and building areas. I would call the business “Built By Pottsy”, because my nickname was Pottsy and I love to build things. One of my favorite mechanical parts is the gear, this is how I incorporated the gears in to my logo when I designed it. In 2008 I turned the business into a legal LLC, with a strong work ethic and a focus on quality and integrity I started designing and building product. Over the years I found a liking for building things from old scrap metal parts. This pushed me toward the metal art flowers, which came to me thru the direction of my mother. Powder coating and blending of colors seem the best natural process to enhance my crazy flowers. Today I focus on building my flowers from quality American made scrap mechanical parts, and each flower is handmade and formed to a one of a kind unique style. I put a strong value to building the best product I can build, so that it will stand the test of time in or outdoors. Once I feel that I have archived this goal, I then serial number, date, sign and place my “Proudly hand made in Ohio, USA” logo sticker on it. Family, honesty, integrity, quality and a good focus on the customer, that is what my business model is made of.

Over the years, I have designed and built cool stuff for names like: Timken, Army Corp Of Engineering, 4 Wheel Drive Hardware, University Of Tennessee, City of New York, Aclara, E-finity Distributed Generation, Dick’s Sporting Goods, American Roads Machinery Co., Ohio Dept. Of Transportation and Capstone Turbine Corporation.

The dream keeps growing & I love to chase at!