​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.
​
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.
​
An illustrator. That’s me.

​Jason Hardy

I use acrylic and other water media on paper and canvas, in an abstract figurative style.  
​
My creative expression uses layers of metaphor and symbolism to stimulate curiosity, provoke thought, and encourage further inspection. I often uses bold, clear, sometimes bright colors and themes are usually joyful in nature.

I've studied fine art at the University of Louisiana, Louisiana Technical School Adult Art Extension program, and many master workshops.

As a student I was interested in many subjects: art, anthropology, psychology, biology but the urge to create led to a Painting and Commercial Art Degree at Mississippi State University. To make a living, I have worked as a graphic designer/ illustrator for various businesses and environmental agencies over the years. It was working with environmental scientists that kindled my interest in the natural world. Birds, fish, leaves, trees, and animals often inhabit my work. 

​Through the Acadiana Center for the Arts I also work in public schools as a teaching artist. I am adept at using computer programs, such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign as well as traditional media like ink, paper and watercolor.

Diane Baker
​dbakerdesign@bellsouth.net

​​To form a clay piece, I begin by throwing the clay on a wheel forming an urn or bowl or rolling slabs out for tiles. I then sculpt my nature inspired scene on each piece. After air drying the pieces are bisque fired. I may add a glaze to the piece or high fire it “au naturel” since I prefer the finished pieces to reflect the natural clay coloring.
 

Bruci Gauthier
St. Martinville, LA
bruciredrim@yahoo.com

My work is involved with the spirituality of art. In the similarities between the creative experience and the meditative experience and the affects it has on my work. Striving to be in the NOW. Working with methods that diminish my authority during the creative act, relegating my influence, relinquishing my control.

I am a multi-talented artist with professional work in the Visual Arts, Music, Dance and Theater. At an early age I realized that the common thread in all of the arts, along with the fundamentals of design, is the creative experience. And the key to the creative experience is the dissolution of self-consciousness. Creating art is more about the act than it is making the product.

My Process: "Pre-Decide not to Pre-Decide"
I developed my personal approach to "art-making" while working on my Master's Thesis in the '70's. Through the years, I still maintain the validity of my original thesis, but arrived at certain realization along the way. I have become aware of some rationalizations I made in terms of how much control one could actually relinquish. I have come to realize that, although I can strive to minimize any efforts to control the final outcome, making design decisions is unavoidable. By striving to be present, acting within the process with little to no mental dialogue/conscious decision-making, relying on a well of knowledge and experiences deep within me, the decisions that are made are made despite me.  That, of course, is an ideal situation to aspire to.

​Edward DeMahy

I am (also) a painter, writer, and poet. I became aware of the situation in Louisiana after seeing my basin, having been gone for 37 years. What I saw east of the Atchafalaya was desecration--oak trees standing dead in the water, where once was dry land. Gashes of canals cut across once beautiful winding bayous. Hackberry bayou should have been a river by now, but because of the rerouting of the water it is silting up. What a mess we have made! I felt desperate to help.  Who knew what a catastrophe a levee could cause.

I had to do something. I had to paint this wonderful gift of nature before it becomes beach-front property.  After finding out that for my basin there was hope, I knew I could not sit still on this issue.
    
I used to read a story to my children called 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein. I don’t know if you are familiar with the story, but the tree gives up everything until there is nothing left but the stump. I fear my Louisiana, my dream state, is that giving tree.
 
So what could I do? How could I make a difference? I could only paint what was left of Eden. And as I would paint, the voice in the deepest part of me said, “Write.” And the poems as simple as they are came. The stories as simple as they are came. I poured my passion onto the canvas. I did not intend to make an issue. I only knew I had to do
something.
 
For twelve years I have worked to bring this work to fruition and here it is (www.barrysonsart.com) - a drop in the Gulf, but it’s my drop. One drop does not make a river flow the way it should, but one drop by many people possibly could. If enough of us stay conscious, holding together like the roots of the marsh to do what we can, perhaps the Mississippi silt will work for us again.

​My hope is that some day, my grandchildren can stand with their grand children (toes shoved into the blue-green clay of the riverbank) and show them the wonder-filled South-Louisiana that was my back yard.

​Barry Sons
 
barrylsons@gmail.com
www.barrysonsart.com

Whether it be a person or a place, a moment or a day, a dream or an awakening, I strive to translate the experience into something for others to see. I use paper as well as metal for support medium and apply bold use of color and confident strokes that are quick and unguarded. 

I began making art at the age of seven. As a child I was the day-dreaming doodler. I then received formal art education at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

I have enjoyed teaching for over 25 years in both classroom and private settings. I’ve facilitated large public art projects for children and written the grants to fund those projects.

​email: margomirebaker@gmail.com

I was born in Troy, NY, and grew up in Peru, Illinois.  During a long college career at McNeese, Southern Illinois University and Western Illinois University I studied music and photography.  In 1988 I moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, and opened Nouveau Photeau soon after.
 
In 2007, I earned the degree of Certified Professional Photographer from the Professional Photographers of America.  Less than 2% of all professional photographers have earned this degree.  I teach several photography classes through the Potpourri Division at UL.
 
I have long been a huge fan of Ansel Adams as well as the portrait work of Kenny Rogers. (Yeah, the country singer) I have been influenced by Ansel Adam’s work, but also by a gentleman  named Bob Kahn, and Louisiana natives Kirk Voclain and Tim Babin.
 
My business is a portrait studio, but my personal art comes mostly from my relaxation time away from the studio. As an example, when COVID and the shutdowns hit, I took the opportunity to pursue more personal pursuits which led to an exhibit. It was first displayed at the gallery of the Louisiana Secretary of State’s building, and several other venues since.
 
I was once told that a creativity is the act of taking something ordinary and make something extraordinary. That is precisely what I attempt to do. I try to see something considered ordinary by others and do something with it in the camera that makes it look less ordinary. (EXTRAordinary)
 
Even in my portrait work, I try to visually show something about my subject that everyone knows, but now they SEE it visually.
 
I love to show the ordinary in an extra-ordinary fashion. I hope you enjoy my work.

“I do what I do because I love it and it is fun!”

My artistic passion is as a visual artist, curator, and arts educator. I am native to Lafayette and have been professionally exhibiting art and actively participating in the cultural community for the past 30 years.  I have served on the boards of Acadiana Arts Council and the Louisiana Crafts Guild and currently on the board of the Lafayette Art Association. I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was artist-in-residence at Louisiana Artworks in New Orleans in March 2007. 

​In 2010 and in collaboration with Craig “Whoojoo” McCullen, we created the official art piece and poster for Festival Internationale de Louisiane.  And in 2012, created the official posters for the Miles Perret Cancer Services and the Grand Coteau’s “Sweet Dough Pie Festival”.  I teach classes at the Lafayette Art Association in addition to conducting summer arts programs for the Acadian Suzuke Strings  Institute.

The LAA Website would like to include an artist profile/statement for each of its members. It would be a short explanation of your work, creative process, including your motivations, inspirations, mission, and methods.

​It would be written in your own words and be an opportunity for others in LAA to know you.

How to submit your artist profile to the LAA Website
1. Develop your own narrative using the basic five questions/tips below. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
2. Include an image of yourself, preferably in an artistic pose or setting
3. Email to: laachallenge@yahoo.com

Following are five basic questions to consider in your artist profile (500 words max): 

1. What is your background?
Use this question as an opportunity to highlight those aspects of your background that make you and your work unique, with bonus points if you can tie your life experiences to your artwork. Did your upbringing prompt a specific reference point within your work? Is your work informed by certain concepts or themes from your childhood, background, socio-economic status, where you lived or were raised? How does this impact how you see the world and create art?

2. What is the intent and purpose of your art?
Why do you make art? 

3. Who are your biggest influences?
Is there a particular artist that inspired you to pursue art? Whose techniques do you study or admire? What genre does your work fall into? Make sure you address why you’re influenced by these artists or artistic movements. 

3. What Inspires You?
What connection do you have to your art? What motivates you? Enthusiastically express why you create what you do. How would you express your creativity at work?

5. What Does Your Art Mean to You?
How do you interpret the meaning of your work?  Focus solely on your own understanding here because everyone views art differently.