Brazilian-born, Maria Barbosa left a position as a cell biologist at the National Institutes of Health to commit herself to art and arts education. Her installations and artist’s books have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the collections of the National Institutes of Health, Getty Research Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, Cornell University, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and Coleção Moraes Barbosa, São Paulo, among others.

Deborah Coolidge was trained in fine arts and ceramics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Rhode Island School of Design, where she then taught three-dimensional design for forty years. Since retiring, she maintains a painting and ceramic studio at home. Her work in this exhibition uses paper wrapped around trees as a kind of primitive printing press.

Limor Dekel studied ceramics design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. Moving to the US in 1984, she set up a ceramics studio and taught art for 21 years in Montgomery County public schools. She has exhibited her painting and sculpture at the Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC and the MFA Circle Gallery in Annapolis.

Juliet Drake Hossain works with mixed media at her studio in Frederick, Maryland, using a Glowforge laser cutter as well as paintbrushes. Exhibiting regionally, she won a Juror's Choice Award in the Maryland Federation of Art's "Strokes of Genius" exhibition and a Second-Place Award in the Delaplaine Arts Center's National Juried Exhibition.

After 26 years of teaching arts and crafts in a psychiatric hospital setting, combined with a lifetime interest in design, Cookie Kerxton found abstract art a natural transition. A resident artist at Upstairs Art Studios in Bethesda and member of Touchstone Gallery in DC, her work has been shown in numerous juried shows and galleries.

Taina Litwak turned to painting in 2020 after thirty years as a science illustrator. Seeking to express her concern about climate and cultural change, she primarily uses acrylic and collaged newspaper. She has exhibited at Foundry Gallery, Addison-Ripley, Katzen Arts Center, Washington Project for the Arts and the Washington Women’s Arts Center.

A former professor of history and women’s studies at the University of Maryland, Sonya Michel began making art in 2016. Focusing first on painting, she soon turned to using “the stuff of everyday life” in collages and assemblages. She has exhibited at Touchstone Gallery, MFA Circle Gallery, Martha Spak Gallery, DC, and the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Gallery.

Sookkyung Park, born in South Korea and now living in Maryland, transitioned from leading an arts and crafts studio for 25 years to earning a B.A. in Studio Arts and an MFA from Towson University in 2023. Her work has received international recognition, including first prize in the 2023 Fiber Arts’ "Paper Made" competition and Contemporary Art Gallery Online (CAGO) Best awards in 2020 and 2021.

Ian Parsons finished his degree in Studio Art at St. Mary’s College of Maryland last year, earning the 2023 Thomas Rowe Scholarship for life drawing and an award for the best work by a fourth-year student in that year’s All-Student Show. He is currently the Arts Programming Assistant at Riverworks Art Center in Poolesville, Maryland.

Jane Rostov never studied applied arts but she has always been interested in the process of creating it. Joining the Upstairs Art Studios in Bethesda, she began with painting but soon found that collage is “a whole ‘nother thing!” It gives her “great joy and a sense of accomplishment to pull together scraps of paper and other flotsam and jetsam to make something that sings.”

A member of Upstairs Art Studios and past president of Women’s Caucus for Art Metropolitan DC Area Chapter (WCADC), Holly Stone(Instagram) has exhibited with WCADC, Yellow Barn in Glen Echo, MD, and the Art League of Alexandria, VA. She is a current recipient of a Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Grant for Artists and Scholars.

Frances Vye Wilson creates contemporary sculpture using cambium fiber that she sources directly from Laos. A twelve-year immersive study of the Japanese art form Ikebana culminated in two exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2013, she began to pursue her passion for art on a full-time basis, studying sculpture and mixed media at the National Academy Museum and New York School of Art. She has exhibited extensively in the US and recently in France.