INSTRUCTORS

ADAMS SCHOOL OF ART

Carlise Azmitia

Carlise Azmitia is a semi self-taught artist and felter. It all started 12 years ago during a quest to introduce her daughter to new creative outlets. Diving into tutorial after tutorial until she joined art schools and mentored with esteemed teachers. She now regularly teaches felting, watercolor, paper quilling and meditative art.

She is the art teacher at Orange-Ulster Boces Adult Continuing Education in Goshen NY, and regularly travels throughout the region as a teaching artist including Garrison Art Center, Peters Valley School of Craft, NY Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck NY, Bronxville Adult School and many local libraries. Carlise is a 2008 graduate of New York Institute of Photography Professional Studies Program and has mentored under Ken Goshen, New Masters Academy, Tracey Turner and Louise De Masi. Carlise has an active art and workshop studio in the village of Florida NY.
____________________

Emily Bicht

Emily has been an active artist in NYC and the Hudson Valley for over twenty years and a member of several artist groups, including The Exhibitionists and Open Ground. She received a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and an MFA from Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Her work incorporates a variety of mediums, including ceramics, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. She teaches ceramics at Garrison Art Center, Cedar Lane Art Center, Peekskill Clay Studio, and Kroll Ceramic Arts School. Emily lives in Peekskill with her traveling companion and teenage cyclones.

Website: www.emilybicht.com
Instagram: emilybicht

Janelle Chandler

Janelle Chandler is a botanical illustrator based in New Haven County. Chandler has been a lifelong artist who in 2019 earned her Bachelor of Arts in Illustration from Western Connecticut State University, and in 2022 earned her M.F.A. in Visual Arts, Illustration from the same. She earned a diploma from the Society of Botanical Artists Distance Diploma Program, United Kingdom in 2024.

Chandler is a member of several artist organizations, including the American Botanical Society of Artists, (BASNCR and NESBA chapters), Colored Pencil Society of America, and is a fellow member of the Society of Botanical Artists UK. In 2020, her work was selected for an international juried exhibition at the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, England. In 2022 her work was shown in Blue Mountain Galleries, NYC and she has since exhibited her work in multiple galleries and exhibitions throughout CT, and NY.

Chandler is a Professor at Western Connecticut State University, an art instructor at NYC Parks and Recs Art Program and enjoys teaching classes and workshops when she isn’t creating art or spending time with her family. Her website is https://jchandlerartistry.com/.

Bruce Dunbar

Bruce Dunbar is a visual artist working in the expanded field of photography. His work moves between lens based and cameraless photography to explore the natural world and the nature of light sensitive materials. He frequently works across processes and combines different processes from analog to alternative to experimental. His work with combining photographic processes and natural sources is an attempt at capturing an impression, an inescapable essence of what once was, the invisible force through which matter changes- the state of flux in which all organic matter is caught.

Currently based in the Lower Hudson Valley, Mr. Dunbar was born and raised in Connecticut. Mr. Dunbar holds a BS from Boston University, a MA in Photography from New York University and a MFA in Visual Art (Photography) from Lesley University.

He has been a photography instructor, teaching traditional, alternative, experimental and digital photography courses at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, CT since 1998. In 2012, Mr. Dunbar became an adjunct professor of Photography at Western Connecticut State University. He has also conducted photography workshops for the Art Explorer Program at Weir Farm National Historic Trust in Wilton, CT, Rye Arts Center, Rye, NY, Guilford Art Center, Guilford, CT and The Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT.

Mr. Dunbar has been an artist member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists since 1997. In addition to exhibiting his work at the Silvermine Galleries, his photographs and mixed media photography have been exhibited in numerous group and solo shows in Connecticut, Philadelphia and New York City including the Lockwood Matthews Mansion Museum, Katonah Museum, Chroma Fine Art Gallery, and CJG Projects.
____________________

C.J. Guerin

C.J. Guerin has been teaching art to youth through adults for 25 years. Her work is in numerous private and public collections. Many of her solo shows are fundraisers to bring attention to the need for rehabilitating and rehoming abandoned and abused animals, both farm and domestic. Education: Post-Graduate- City College, NY; Master of Arts- Adelphi University, NY; BA, Queens College, New York. Teaching Experience: Silvermine School of Art. Her work in selected collections and galleries.
____________________

Heather Houston

Heather Houston was born in 1977 in Panama City, Florida. After a semi nomadic military upbringing that helped develop her appreciation for the folkways of different cultures, she attended the University of Georgia at Athens. She studied with Ted Saupe and Andy Nasisse while completing her BFA in Ceramics, where she began to explore the possibilities of the whimsical figure. The pursuit of her MFA led her to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she studied at the University with Gina Bobrowski and Bill Gilbert and participated in the groundbreaking Land Arts of the American West program.

Her solo MFA show, Liminal Colony, drew the attention of the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY, where she completed a one year artist residency culminating in a solo show, Horses in Midstream. She then accepted a position at the Silvermine Arts Center as the ceramic studio technician/manager and ceramics instructor. In this role, she gradually became more and more interested in making functional work, particularly hand built pieces, and experimenting with glazes.

After becoming a mother, she left studio management but continues to teach and make work at Silvermine Arts Center. Current work centers on showing the touch of the artist’s hand, making unexpected shapes, and creating a jewel like glaze surface. She continues to pursue her education by attending workshops with some of the top ceramic artists in the country. She lives and works in Norwalk, CT.

Website: http://heather-houston.squarespace.com/contact

Nash Hyon

Nash has taught art in public schools, continuing education, Brookfield Craft Center and at Silvermine Arts Center since 2000. She has demonstrated encaustic techniques at two of the International Encaustic Conferences. Besides encaustic (hot wax) Nash teaches mixed media, acrylic and oil and cold wax painting.

Her work has been in many private and corporate collections including Flagg Venture Partners and most recently the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Research. Her work is also included in the William Benton Museum of Art. Exhibitions include: Montclair Art Museum, Knoxville Museum of Art, NY Hall of Science, National Academy of Sciences as well as many regional exhibitions. She has an MFA from Vermont College.
____________________

Karen Jaimes

Karen Jaimes is a ceramic artist-activist-educator based in the Hudson Valley, New York. She creates sculptures and installations that address socio-political issues, designed to inspire social engagement. Jaimes invokes the rich visual language of her ancestors to continue the practice of creating social commentary through art. She has an MFA in Ceramics from SUNY New Paltz and a BFA from Manhattanville College. Her sculptures have been exhibited in the Hudson River Museum, the Dorsky Museum of Art, and the Katonah Museum of Art among others. She is a seasoned educator who has worked with people of all ages and learning capacities at public schools, universities, art centers, museums, and community centers. She is an enthusiastic ceramics instructor who uses the transhistorical and transcultural properties of clay to engage in diverse dialogues to foster community and connection in the classroom.

Website: www.KJclay.com
Instagram: KJ_ceramics

Natasha Karpinskaia

Natasha Karpinskaia is an artist, art historian, and educator. She has had numerous solo and group shows both nationally and internationally. Her works are in many private and some corporate collections in the U.S. and Europe. She was a recipient of a prestigious grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

She has been teaching courses in abstract painting, mixed media, printmaking, and art history at the Silvermine Guild of Art, Pyramid Atlantic in Washington, D.C., and other art centers. She was a professor of art history at the New York Academy of Art. She had also worked as a curator at the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, one of the largest museum of Russian art. She received her PhD (ABD) in American art from Columbia University in New York, M.A. from the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, and M.A. from the University of Linguistics in Moscow, Russia.
____________________

Michael Keropian

Michael Keropian has been an artist all his life, and a professional sculptor for over 45 years. He has a total understanding of all areas of sculpture including, new and old technical processes and use of materials such as marble, wood, plaster and metal. His work is in both private collections and in public spaces. He has taught at a number of fine art schools in the New York and Connecticut area and is a sculpture conservationist. Michael is known for his nine colossal tiger sculptures on Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tiger baseball team and his local sculpture of Sachem Daniel Nimham in Fishkill, NY. He concentrates on figurative portrait sculpture of historical subjects and fountain sculpture. He is a board member of the National Sculpture Society and the Hudson Valley Art Association.
____________________

Clare Lewis

Clare Lewis has a degree from Smith College (Northampton, MA) and also studied at the Cornell University Summer Studios in Art (Ithaca, NY), Brookfield Craft Center (Brookfield, CT) and John C. Campbell Folk School (Brasstown, NC). Past teaching credits include Brookfield Craft Center, the Katonah Art Center (Ceramics Director), Northern Westchester Center for the Arts (Head of Ceramics), Farmington Valley Arts Center and Silvermine School of Art. A member of NCECA and the Silvermine Guild of Artists, she exhibits her work regionally. Clare started out as a functional potter but found her interests also led her to more sculptural forms. For her functional work, the accent is on beautiful forms and gorgeous glazes. For the more sculptural work, she starts by throwing simple yet elegant forms and then alters her pieces by pushing or stretching the clay with her hands or adding more clay and texture. During the glazing process, she tries to bring a sense of freedom to her technique that translates into the visual appearance of the piece after firing. The right balance of form, design, color, and texture is the goal. And when teaching, Clare stresses this balance, as well as the need for contrast in a piece to create drama and interest.

Website: www.clarelewispottery.com
Instagram: clarelewisclay
Pinterest: clarelewisclay

Shizue Pleasanton

Shizue Pleanton was born in Japan and has been studying classical Ikebana since 1967. She married an American in 1975 and moved to the United States where she continued her studies in Ikebana and received her first teaching’s certificate, Eight Level Degree International Sogetsu, Riji.

Living in England for a short time, she exhibited her artwork at the Japanese Embassy in London, Trinity Church and numerous flower shows. Returning to the United States in 1996, Shizue has given lectures and demonstrations to many groups including the New York Botanical Gardens, Christie’s Auction House, the Metropolitan Museum, the Garden Club in Fairfield County and Southern Connecticut University.

She is the Sogetsu Study Group Vice Chairman of Connecticut and past New York Branch Director. Shizue is presently teaching Sogetsu Ikebana at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, CT.
____________________

Cindy Sacks

Originally from New York City, Cindy Sacks designed products for a decade while continuing to study fine art with renowned artists, most notably Burton Silverman. After moving to Northern Westchester Cindy established her career as a fine artist. Sacks’ watercolor and oils share the expressive marks of a painterly hand and a lively imagination. Her art has been published by The National Foundation of Wildlife and licensed for tableware and fine art prints. Paintings were recently featured at The Touchstone Gallery, Washington, DC, at The Sorokin Gallery, Greenwich, CT, and she is a juried member of The Hammond Museum, NY.
____________________

Wendy Shalen

Wendy Shalen has taught figure and landscape drawing and painting to adults and teens for more than thirty years. She has taught drawing, painting and portfolio development at The Art Students League of New York for 20 years since 2005.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of Brandeis University, where she majored in art history. She also studied at the Art Students League in the late 1970s with Daniel Greene, Harvey Dinnerstein, and Robert Beverly Hale, and privately with Burton Silverman.

She has exhibited at Allan Stone Gallery (New York City); Abbot & Holder (London); Carol Craven Gallery; Gardner Colby Gallery (Martha's Vineyard); The Art Students League of New York; the Katonah Museum of Art (Katonah, NY); the Housatonic Museum (Bridgeport, CT); and the Belskie Museum (Closter, NJ). Ms. Shalen has also taught a Portfolio Development Drawing class for high school students, as well as landscape painting workshops for adults, at the Silvermine Guild School of Art in New Canaan, Connecticut, at the Vytlacil Campus of the Art Students League. She is currently a member of the Prince Street Gallery in Manhattan where she will have a solo show from March 25- April 19, 2025.

To see Wendy Shalen’s artwork visit: www.wendyshalen.com and on Instagram : @wendyshalen

Nomi Silverman

My art deals with the shifting shadows of social issues. I use my love of drawing as a path to express innate concerns about liberty, fear and hope, about an individual’s need for work and for sustenance, for shelter and for love. Some are as geopolitically volatile as the indignities people suffer when they lose their basic freedoms. It is by means of charcoal, ink and paint that I celebrate, agonize and weep over this life, whether it is in the glare hurtling off of an arm wrenched by jailers, or the shifting glow on necks entwined in an embrace.

Education BA, Barnard College; National Academy of Design; Art Students League; Privately with Burton Silverman. Teaching: Center for Contemporary Printmaking; Greenwich Continuing Ed; Greenwich Art Society, Center for Contemporary Printmaking.

Solo/ Group Exhibitions: Westchester Comm. College; National Academy of Design; Allied Artists; Ward-Nasse Gallery, NY; Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT. Select Collections: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, The Fine Arts Museum of SF, CA. The Janet Turner Print Collection, California State University, Chico, CA; Fairfield University Art Museum, CT; Awards: CT Commission on the Arts Fellowship; Allied Artists; Nat’l Acad. of Design; Akron Soc. of Artists; Duke U. Fellowship.

Publications: NY Times; LA Times; Advocate & Greenwich Time. Member: Society of American Graphic Artists; Society of Tempera Painters; Silvermine Guild.
____________________

Liz Stine

Liz grew up in lower Westchester and knew as a young child, art was her passion and she wanted to make it her career. She received a BFA in sculpting with a minor in Ceramics from Purchase as a freshman, and then the College of New Rochelle.

She has pursued, and still enjoys, a life-long career as a commercial toy and giftware sculptor providing work for the toy, museum reproduction, giftware, and cosmetic industries to name a few, including clients such as Mattel, Disney, Dark Horse Comics, Victoria Secret and many others. Recently, in the last seven years, she has been re-exploring her love for the ceramic arts and has been very passionately working both with wheel throwing and hand building. She views it as another extension of working in a three dimensional creative sculptural medium. Her pieces are very textural and patterned, her love of the natural process of clay and its properties being evident in her work.

She currently lives in Putnam County with her husband and teaches clay classes, both wheel throwing and hand building, at Interarts in Patterson NY.

Websites: www.stinesculpture.com www.SimplyDivinebjd.com www.stinesculptureceramics.com
Instagram: stinesculpture

Kiara Taylor

Kiara Taylor studied Human Development and Fine Art at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). Since 2019, she has worked at several pottery studios across New York, and currently works as a Clay and Glaze Technician at Peekskill Clay Studios. In her personal artistic practice, she creates both functional and sculptural vessels.

Website: www.kiarainthewinter.com
Instagram: kiarathrows

Justin Wiest

Justin has taught and exhibited in the area for over twenty years. He has been on faculty at The Schuler School of Fine Art (Baltimore), The Lyme Academy of Fine Art, and The Silvermine School of Art. Justin has a passion for Plein air painting as well as figurative painting.
____________________