​My friend and co-author Nancy Rust and I have written and published five books, including three picture books. We enjoy writing books about history and interesting people and animals.

​We are both members of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), and through that, the Acadiana Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. 

​I am also a potter and longtime member of LAA. I love the flexibility and unpredictable nature of clay art. I like hand building and creating fanciful figures and shapes. I learned to work in clay from the late Betty Jean Tompkins, who introduced me to LAA. Through her I am a founding member of the Cracked Pot Friends, a group of potters who continue to inspire and encourage me.

Kudos to LAA for encouraging creative talent in art and writing. Recently, my writing group collaborated with LAA to promote reading during Children’s Book Week. It was a wonderful way to showcase the link between art and writing, particularly in picture books, which are often where children first experience art. 

​Carol Stubbs

I was obsessed with drawing and art from a young age. I drew pictures for years before starting to paint.
I’ve taken many workshops with numerous artist for many years but never had any formal training. What you see in my exhibits is the culmination of hours upon hours of trial and error.
 
My painting  “career” started with landscapes. I produced many bayous and swamp scenes with oak trees being my favorite subject with lots of Cajun cabins, ducks, and chickens.
 
After moving away from Houma, LA back to my childhood town of Lafayette, I branched out to floral abstracts and to figurative art.
 
I love outsider art, as well as the expressionists. Many of my paintings reflect these ideas.

Camilla Drobish

I suppose if I pinned myself down (which would be a lot to wrestle with) I would call myself an illustrator. Drawing has always been my favorite form of art. In the womb I kneaded an eraser. That’s a mild artist joke. I have lived most of my life in south Louisiana so I do enjoy creating images of wildlife, but I tend more toward fantasy images inspired by books I read or films I watch. I grew up in the 70’s/80’s which were the heyday of paperback cover art and movie poster art, so I’m sure I picked up on much of that as I got older. I do traditional media artwork rather than digital. I’m a lead-head.

My biggest influences were mainly the fantasy artists I admired and tried to emulate as I continued to illustrate: Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, N. C. Wyeth, Robert McGinnis, John Harris and many others. Illustrators all, who transformed words into images. I also enjoy pin up artists like Gil Elvgren. For obvious reasons, but also for the innocent nostalgia it invokes.
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I make art to tell tales. Which makes sense since I also enjoy writing poetry and an occasional story. I try to interpret what I read or watch in illustration form. It is frequently humorous or in caricature style. I tend toward YA or children’s art in many ways, but not exclusively.

Art means a lot to me. I have been viewing it or doing it all my life in one form or another. It helps ground me while at the same time allowing a much needed escape into fantasy that is often lacking in everyday life. Which, in essence, is what most artists strive for.
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An illustrator. That’s me.

​Jason Hardy