Photographer

I have been interested in photography starting when my parents gave me a Kodak Brownie Super 27 when I was in grade school. In high school I bought myself a used Pentax SLR camera. This camera didn’t even have a light meter. I purchased one separately. Learning to use this camera taught me the basic principles of photography. During my college years at Indiana University I majored in geology, but I also took photography classes in the Fine Arts Department under Professor Henry Homes Smith.

After graduation I spent 30 years working as a geologist and my free time was spent exploring and photographing caves and the travels involved with caving. After a career in geology, in retirement I was able to spend more time with my love of photography. My passion has been nature photography. This includes wildlife, landscapes, waterfalls and caves. Photography requires extensive patience, yet quickness to capture the right moment. I enjoy the slower pace and concentration of finding the right view with the right light. I enjoy capturing the beauty I see all around me. Photography has given me another reason to visit beautiful places and try to capture some of this beauty.

Designer

Wende Cudmore has worked on multiple projects with KMAC museum of Contemporary Art since 2014 and Harrison County Arts since 2021. A 2013 graduate of Indiana University Southeast with a BFA in Printmaking. She has expanded her artistry into the fashion design world and Fiber Arts. Wende often combines it with her printmaking skills with her specialties, Botanical printing on silk scarves and an ancient art technique of pressing fruit and vegetables. Wende is most known for her pressed fruit and vegetable KMAC Couture designs, that can be seen at the annual KMAC couture event. She has made over 20 garments in 12 years. For the past 3 years, Wende is also involved in the annual Harrison County Arts fashion show. You can also find different fiber art works of Wende’s displayed at Harrison County Arts gallery in Corydon, Indiana. She also enjoys taking on a new creative challenge, such as Eco/Botanical printing. She says, it keeps her mind sharp and helps her perfect her craft and that’s a good thing! Wende resides in Salem, Indiana and keeps busy with her partner and artist Ron Gurgol and their two rescue cats, Annabella and Oshi. 

Multi-Disciplinary

Kevin, a native of Louisville, moved to Southern Indiana in 1995. He began his study of Ceramics in the late seventies at Western Kentucky University and later at University of Louisville under Tom Marsh. He had a fulfilling career in Graphic Design for the next 30 years and taught clay sculpture and woodcarving at the Waldorf School. Upon semi-retirement Kevin rebuilt his kiln, and began creating clay forms, wood sculptures and tables. Creative Energy is spent at a cabin in his woods and a studio at Mount Saint Francis.

Potter

While Carl DeGraaf creates a wide range of products including some unusual items for a potter, bookends for instance, he says his hand-crafted mugs receive the most attention during construction.

Carl considers himself a production artist, often working on 40 to 50 pieces in a session. He uses the traditional throwing wheel, but also works through press molding, extrusions, slab building, and hand building, often in combinations. Regardless of the technique, each of his pieces is unique, some with uncommon surface textures or carvings.

Mosaicist

Originally from Jeffersonville, IN, Cynthia lived in various locations including Texas, Kentucky, New Mexico, South Korea, and Illinois, before returning to southern Indiana in 2013. Currently residing in New Albany, IN, Cynthia, along with her husband, is actively involved in their church and enjoys taking day trips and exploring new restaurants.

Cynthia’s passion for creating began in elementary school with finger paints and pinch pots. This interest continued through high school and college, where she took a variety of art classes. During a workshop in 2015, Cynthia discovered a profound interest in mosaics. The physicality of breaking tiles and shaping glass appeals to her mechanical mind, while working with color and pattern inspires her creative heart. Cynthia’s artwork is featured at the Harrison County Arts gallery in Corydon, IN, and the Kleinhelter Gallery in New Albany, IN. She also participates in regional art fairs year-round.

Multi-Media Artist

Multi-Disciplinary

Originally from England, raised in Louisville and moved to Georgetown 12 years ago. I have been painting sellable artwork of over 10 years. Creating since childhood, whether it was making pottery from mud puddles or writing short stories about a mouse living in a teapot, the desire has been there as long as I can remember. I am self-taught. It has been the utmost healing for me since battling cancer followed by the loss of my husband and only child. While I continue to work 2 jobs, I dash to the easel whenever time allows. There is no greater feeling than having a piece of my artwork sing to someone’s soul.

Painter

Painter

Penny began Drawing with Charcoal and Painting in Acrylic during early college classes in Indiana, California, and New Mexico during the 1960’s. Pausing to travel, raise her family, and to finish a BS in Education Degree at Indiana University, she began painting again. Penny has studied with Joyce Sweet-Bryant, – New Albany, In., John Michael Carter- Louisville, KY. Patty Kane-Bonita Springs, Fl. – Terry Shattuck, Sue Pink, Neil Walling, Vlad Yeliseyev, Judi Betts, Pauline Healy, Tony Couch, Miles Batt, Sally Cooper, David Daniels, and others at Fort Myers Beach. Penny’s work gained notoriety with Best of Show, Third Place, Honorable Mention, Merit, and People’s Choice awards in many shows, and galleries.

By 2019, Penny had successfully completed Twelve years of Teaching Painting in SW Florida at several Art Associations, Senior Centers, Private Communities, and Summer Youth workshops. And, during Covid took many internet classes with Vlad Yeliseyev, Johannes Vloothuis, and Nancy Medina. A Move to Corydon, Indiana to be near her sons and families in May of 2023 brought Penny to Harrison County Art Association where she shows her paintings and teaches watercolor and other mediums and leads painters out for Plein Air painting adventures during the summer months.

Wood Turner

Ron is a self-taught woodturner and epoxy artist. In 2018, edging closer to retirement Ron found himself interested in woodturning. He found an old lathe and started turning. From then on, he was hooked! Ron also started working with epoxy and combining it with his wood turnings, giving his creations another dimension. Ron makes both functional and non-functional art. He continues to expand his work into new areas, such as hanging pieces and epoxy painting. He also enjoys making river tables, embedding objects such as buttons, clock pieces, flowers, shells to name a few.

Ron really enjoys coming up with new shapes and designs. His specialty woods he loves working with are old cracked and discarded pieces of wood, “The type of wood people would just throw in the fire pit, but I see it as a challenge, looking at it as giving it new life.” The thrill of turning wood into something unique and beautiful art is what is exciting for me, Ron says.

Ron also collaborates with his life partner and artist, Wende Cudmore. During the pandemic they transformed their two-car garage into a wood workshop and small gallery of their combined works. They call it R&W Wood-N-Veggies. Here is where you will find them on most days, Ron and Wende working in their studios and collaborating on new ideas.

Designer

My passion for beads and vintage buttons started at an early age when I inherited an old sock full of buttons from my great-grandmother. Years later I became a glass lampworker, making my own beads to use in jewelry designs. Today, as an old eccentric gal my art (along with my dogs) keeps me company and gives me purpose. Creating one-of-a-kind jewelry, decorative boxes of handmade paper or a collage are the best part of my day….. It makes me smile! I hope my creations make others SMILE too!

Stained Glass

Crystal Jacobs is a former cosmetologist of 20 years and is currently pursuing a career working with stained glass. She took a stained glass class and started making her own pieces full time in 2022. At which time she turned her hair studio into a glass studio. She finds inspiration from nature and landscape photos that she takes while traveling across the country with her husband.

She has been involved in many craft fairs and shows, including harvest homecoming. For these she creates and displays pieces from holiday themes to commissions to her passion projects. She is currently working on projects with a long-time stained glass glazier moving away from small commercial pieces and moving towards custom window panels.

Painter & Print Maker

Brian Jones is Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, where he taught printmaking and drawing for 36 years. His work has been exhibited in over 35 solo exhibitions and in over 200 international, national, and regional exhibitions, receiving numerous awards at each level. Brian’s work is further represented in museum, university, and corporate collections, including the University of Maine Museum of Art, the Amity Art Foundation, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Biblioteque de France, Paris, the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Utah Museum of Art, the University of Louisville Print Archive, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Brian has received over 15 individual artist fellowships to such programs as the MacDowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Brian has served as president on several Boards, including the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, The Mid America Print Council, and the American Print Alliance.

Painter

Joy has spent a lifetime painting. She stated, “I’m forever learning, forever. As in I can see no end to this adverb as it relates to art . . . And I love it.” She believes life and art are a lot alike: many smudges, reworks, erasures, corrections and then finally maybe, a pièce de résistance. She said that she’s still working on that. This gives her a goal. Her nature paintings have been accepted into prestigious shows such as the Kentucky National Wildlife Art Exhibition. She’s and equestrian who has taken a lot of nature ideas from trail riding and hiking. Sometimes the trail riding resulted in hiking. She is a commercial artist who has illustrated books and written several short stories.

Multi-Disciplinary Artist

Trish is ArtSeed’s Education Coordinator. Trish recently retired after 25 years as an Art Instructor for New  Albany/Floyd County Schools. She is an accomplished educator with extensive experience in developing curriculum for Fiber Arts and all other areas of fine art. Exceptional background in designing meaningful and effective coursework that engages students and expedites learning. Experience in community outreach through city and privately funded sculptural projects and art exhibitions. Active member in both educational and art organizations and a regular presenter at state level conferences as well as coordinating and teaching classes for art teachers and students of all ages and learning levels through visiting artist programs at the University of Louisville and Louisville Visual Art.

Woodworker

Rob Roby fell in love with wood at a young age. Working at a pallet company he began to take pieces of wood home that he found beautiful. Later he began to select pieces of wood from his pile of firewood that he couldn’t bear to burn. Out of college he began to make things with the wood he had rescued. In 2005, he met a local wood turner and was hooked. Roby strives to bring out and reveal the beauty in the wood. He lets the wood tell him what is there.

Rob received a B.A in Biology from Hanover College and did his graduate work at Purdue. Rob worked at the Wolf Research Center in Battle Ground, Indiana. He returned to Southern Indiana and worked for Starlight Cabinet. He made custom cabinets in his Lanesville workshop and worked full time for Louisville Cement Company. He retired in 2014 and now works as a full-time artist.

Milliner

My journey to becoming a maker of hand-felted wool hats began with a love of the animals that produce the wool. I became a shepherdess in 1997 by buying a small farm in Southern Indiana and raising sheep for eighteen years. During that time, I was also co-owner of a fiber arts business, dyeing and selling the wool and marketing needle-felting tools and forms. I am a self-taught needle felter and have taken classes in various forms of wet felting, learning to felt two-dimensional landscapes, vessels, garments, slippers, and hats. My felting process is an adaptation and compilation of methods learned in various workshops and tutorials. My love of hats prevailed and prompted me to take millinery and ribbon design workshops to enhance and perfect my hat making process.

Multi-Disciplinary Artist

Alexandra Rumsey lives in New Albany, IN and is a full-time fine artist and small business owner. She has her MFA from Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, and her BFA from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY. Alexandra is a mixed media artist utilizing plaster, clay, resin, acrylic and oil paint, and assembled or found objects. She serves on the board of directors for Art Sanctuary in Louisville, KY and at Family Ark in Jeffersonville, IN. Alexandra is married to an artist, Ryan Rumsey, and enjoys hiking, traveling and reading in her free time.

The nature of Alexandra's work for the past thirteen years has been centered on death, cycles, rebirth, nature, mysticism, and the ephemeral. Her last solo show in 2024, “Sanctum”, was about the honoring of the death of animals killed unjustly by poaching practices, creating an interactive memorial sanctuary space. Alexandra is inspired by celtic folklore, and her spiritual connection to the natural world. She experiments with a variety of different mediums to create large scale installation work as well as smaller scale mixed media paintings.

Multi-Disciplinary

Kevin Rose Schultz finds her inspiration in nature and vintage textiles. She uses leaves and dyes to refashion gently used clothing into wearable art! She also uses a historic photographic process to print vintage dresses on cotton fabric with cyanotype. The printed dresses have a story to share about a certain time and place in history.

Her inspiration has been her mother, Alice, who is also an artist and her dear artist friend, Yin-Rei Hicks. Another important early influence was her maternal grandmother, Mary, who was an avid quilter and crafter. Kevin’s love of vintage dresses comes from her grandmother altering her wedding dress for her to play dress-up in when she was about seven years old.

Kevin taught Visual Art in the public schools for eighteen years and since retiring, continues teaching in workshops and through the Louisville Visual Art Children’s Fine Art Classes. She was awarded the Art Education Association of Indiana Art Educator of the Year in 2014. She has taught workshops on cyanotypes, calligraphy, encaustics, shibori dyeing, paper making, needle felting, eco-printing and photography.

She has a B.A. in Fine Art from Indiana University and an M.A.T. from the University of Louisville. Her work has been featured in solo shows, many juried group shows and has won numerous awards. Kevin currently shows her work at the Harrison County Arts Gallery in Corydon, Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery in New Albany, and Art on Main in Madison, Indiana.

Woodworker

Born and raised in Louisville, Paul moved to the country with his wife in the 80’s to “homestead” and raise children. Now retired after 40 years as a nurse he has been able to devote more time to creating. Wood has always been his favorite medium. He enjoys turning platters, bowls and vessels, often using spalted or partially rotten wood. The woods on his farm supply him with ample raw materials. Lately he has been experimenting with epoxy -the blending of wood and plastic which offers many new possibilities, including river tables, charcuterie boards and cutting boards.

Woodcarver

I’m a woodcarver who has been carving for over 42 years. At the age of 16, my mother had a massive stroke. My brother tried to draw my attention away from constant worry and asked me to carve a chess set out of wood since he and I were both on the chess team at Boonville High School. After carving my first chess piece, I fell in love with the art of woodcarving. I continued to carve at leisure but wasn’t serious about it until I met the girl that became my wife; while we were dating, I would carve her sets of joined hearts.

At the age of 21, I joined the United States Air Force. Since there was always a lot of down time and/or “hurry up and wait” time while deploying, I purchased some woodcarving books to learn different carving techniques. I started with smaller pieces such as horses and cowboys, and eventually tried my hand at carving a carousel horse. This taught me the art of wood joinery and how to dimensional carve and carve larger pieces without them breaking. Soon, I was able to undercut which gives a shadow, and then started relief carving.

Moving to my next duty station of Iceland afforded much more free time. Due to lack of trees in the region, I started scavenging and hoarding wood from the beach. Vikings were the founders of Iceland, so I started carving them. This led to my first encounter with selling my art to the U.S.O. on base. I was finally making a profit from the hobby that I loved! The demand for my carving was high, and ironically, I found myself with no time. To this day, people still send me photos of those carvings from almost 25 years ago, still hanging in their homes!

Each duty station thereafter, I tried and found my niche carving and selling plaques for squadron duty rotation gifts. South Georgia, Okinawa Japan, and Alaska allowed me to carve maintenance badges as going away gifts to fellow Airmen; I still carve them to this day and ship them all over the world. While in Alaska, I started carving eagles and have since continued that art.
High relief carving is probably my favorite type of carving, as to me, it tells a story in wood. I carve from all types of wood, be it hard wood, soft wood and reclaimed/found wood, and use the reclaimed/found wood in most of my pieces. My skills include in-the-round carving, high relief, chain saw carving and all fashions of wood carving.

I retired after 24 years of active duty service and returned to my home state of Indiana after traveling the world. Duty stations were Travis AFB in California, Keflavik NAS Iceland, South Georgia, Okinawa Japan, and Alaska. I am a self-taught carver. Every destination I’ve lived at and visited has inspired me to appeal to a specific customer need and has helped me push myself to provide quality and cherished hand-carved pieces.

Multi-Disciplinary

Cathy is a mother, grandmother and great grandmother who has always been artistic. She studied art in college until life pushed her into more practical occupation. As a registered nurse in Labor and Delivery for 42 years, she has been blessed to be a part of helping families grow. An avid crafter, photographer and seamstress she added painting 6 years ago when life slowed down a bit! As retirement looms, Cathy is looking forward to having more time to explore her art and grow as an artist.

Painter

Carol Brenner Tobe is a Louisville native, and resident of Floyds Knobs, Indiana for over fifty years. She is a graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Louisville where she was a Hite Scholar and studied with noted landscape painter Eugene Leake; well-known Louisville artist Mary Spencer Nay; and Charles Crodel, German artist and visiting professor. She is a landscape painter, painting in oil and water-based media, and selects subject matter from the familiar landscapes of gardens, backyards, roadsides, meadows and neighborhoods. In addition to a solo exhibit at Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery, she has been in duo exhibitions at Carnegie Center for Art and History and, most recently, at Bourne-Schweitzer. A number of individuals have commissioned Tobe’s paintings to celebrate their most memorable places. Her works have been shown in local and regional group exhibits and are currently available at Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery in New Albany; the HAC Gallery in Corydon; Art on Main in Madison; and Kleinhelter Gallery in New Albany.

Carol Tobe was the Founding Director of both the Floyd County Museum (now Carnegie Center) and the Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) in Louisville and was active in museum associations in Kentucky and Indiana. When she retired from the APH Museum in 2005, she was able to devote more time to her art and other projects. Other professional positions include work at the Louisville Art Gallery; Louisville Visual Art Association; Jefferson County of Historic Preservation; and historic preservation projects in Kentucky and Indiana. Her publications include the books; Worthington and Springdale, the Kentucky community where she grew up; and History in the Making: the Story of the American Printing House for the Blind, 1858-2008.

Multi-Disciplinary

Cheryl, a native of Floyds Knobs, Indiana, has always had her hand in the arts. She began her formal training at Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. After two years at Herron, the lure of a larger city and a broader cultural experience brought her to New York City, where she continued her education at The School of Visual Arts. It was there that she earned her BFA in Graphic Design. While residing in New York, she continued to gain experience working in the field of graphic design.

After ten years in the Big Apple, she moved back to her home town. During this time, she rediscovered her passion for ceramic arts. She studied with various resident artists at the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts and taught several classes in hand building while exhibiting her work locally. The art of hand building allows her to express her thoughts and feelings about many topics in a creative way.

Painter

J. Wright has an avid interest in the arts, especially the visual arts. He has collected pieces of art around the world, and for the past several years has been painting and participating in shows in Southern Indiana and the Louisville area. His paintings tend to be in the impressionist and pointillist styles, styles that have influenced art around the world. He tends to like Middle Eastern art, which tends to be aligned with impressionist styles. His paintings are shown and sold paintings regionally at the HCA Gallery in Corydon; The Spot and Art on Main and the Chautauqua Art Festival Madison; the Kleinhelter Gallery, Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery and Chestnut and Pearl galleries in New Albany; the Harrison County Arts Gallery in Corydon, and the Edenside Gallery in Louisville. He his riverboat paintings have been shown by the American Queen Cruise lines. He is from Floyds Knobs, Indiana, has a Bachelors and Master of Business from the University of Evansville, a Master in Middle East Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Loughborough University, England.