"All wild birds beguile and fascinate, and Annette Corcoran’s porcelain bird teapots do that, and more. Corcoran’s work draws on her love of wild birds, and her extraordinary ability to capture them in porcelain. Each piece is a complete sculpture that captures the gesture and spirit of the subject birds, even when tethered to the requirements of their teapot perches."  Credit:  Martha Drexler Lynn

It is how the light falls upon the land that can inspire me to paint a particular scene at a particular time.  These moments are fleeting, and can often find me sprinting with my camera to the hilltops behind my house or driving up and down River road to find the exact loca- tion where the setting sun’s rays are illuminating a sliver of the Gabilan Mountains under a heavy purple cloud. It is the light that gives this landscape it’s form... shadows rounding the foothills or creating sharp linear patterns across the fields. These shapes and patterns change with the time of day and the inconstant cloud cover overhead. Land to sky... this is the relationship that I am captivated by, and it is my intent to crystallize these moments in my paintings of the Salinas Valley.

Mari Kloeppel is drawn to paint through sheer passion for her subjects-animals.  The species matters less to her than the personal connection she shares with the animal.  For Kloeppel, it is beauty and familiarity that resonate most.  Most she knows well, having lived with them for years at her rural home in Elkhorn, north of the Monterey Peninsula.  Others she has encountered through animal rescues or friends.  Her work epitomizes an emotional connection versus an anatomical documentation. 

Nick Lamb is a bit of a rarity; as a modern woodcarver he has largely adopted the aesthetics of a culture distant in time and place from his own.  Lamb is now one of the most highly regarded and prize-winning carvers of contemporary netsuke, and his pieces are collected privately and publicly, and exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.

When I began my project more than 30 years ago I decided that there would be three basic components to my work; Figures, landscapes and still lifes. For me the pastoral landscapes of our region of California have been useful as stages for ideas. Indeed, the 'pastoral mode' as it's called is essentially a contemplation of mortality. The classical approach to landscape requires an underlying structure (implying the inter-relatedness of all things) as well as an elegiac approach to the wonders of nature and the beauty of light. The landscape of California like the landscape of Italy is a dream made real.

Gwynn Murrill’s work bridges figurative and abstract sculpture. Her animal figures serve as points of departure for the exploration of form, becoming vessels, which reduced to their most basic lines and shapes, elegantly echo the essence of her subject.

Paring away everything that is not absolutely necessary to perceive her subjects in all their purity, Gwynn often sacrifices details leaving us with sculptures emanating primal characteristics and universal attributes. Gwynn’s signature bronze works are fluid in line and form, elegant, inviting to touch and instilled with vitality and a sense of being--either caught in an tacit moment of serenity and self-possession or brimming with the implied potential to pounce, twist, or take off at any moment.

April 6th, 1950 – April 18th, 2025

Renowned artist and educator Jane Rosen passed away surrounded by family and friends on April 18th, 2025 in Northern California. Born on April 6th, 1950, Jane was a bi-coastal artist known for her New York sense of humor, her fantastical but true stories, and for her insatiable love for friends, family and life. But most of all, for her love of nature and art in its purest study. A fiercely loyal person, she had decades of dedicated students, many who are now artists known in their own right.

Born and raised in New York, Jane spent years as an artist working and living in downtown Manhattan. She was deeply connected with nature, and based her art and her teaching on this connection. This deep link prompted her to relocate to a rural, coastal property in San Gregorio, California, allowing her to live in nature amongst a family of ravens, crows, foxes, a vulture, red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, and Acorn woodpeckers.

The 40-acre hill-top sanctuary that is her home will be a future place for artists to work and gather amongst the ancient redwoods and wild animals. As a great lover of the natural world, the legacy of her life’s work will live on in the future of this habitat. Jane was a master sculptor, deeply connected to both eastern and Renaissance traditions, and created unique glass and stone sculptures. Her proficiency with glass grew out of her teaching at Pilchuck and her partnership with master glass blower Ross Richmond.

Jane earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at New York University in 1972 and studied at the Art Students League until 1975. She studied drawing with Robert Beverly Hale, and was a student of Leonardo da Vinci throughout her life. Her credentials include professorships at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Davis, Senior Faculty at the School of Visual Arts and Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Rosen received the National Endowment for the Arts Sculpture Award.

Jane was a singular force for good on behalf of the natural world. She worked, taught, advocated and lived to restore our connection with nature and animals. This taught her lessons that she communicated forward in her drawings and sculptures. In recent years, she supported over two million acres of Indigenous-led land conservation in tropical forests. This was done in partnership with the non-profit Art into Acres, founded by one of her students.

Rosen’s work is featured in numerous public and private collections including The Brooklyn Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Mitsubishi Corporation, Luso American Foundation, and the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia. She has been honored by the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, the Pilchuck Glass School as an Artist-in-Residence, and is a recipient of the Madein/Luso American Foundation Grant. She published a book called Dual Nature with Pointed Leaf Press in 2021.

We were privileged to know Jane, work with her, and love her. She is survived by her brother Joe Rosen, sister Lety Pemberton, daughter Lila Tretikov, niece Samantha Royalty, nephew Max Rosen, grandson Max Tretikov and her close life-friends Edith and Eduardo Marin. Jane loved all her dogs - Mayo, Mei Mei, Mei Rose, Bookie and Rookie. She is predeceased by her mother, Norma Rosen, and her father, Mel Rosen, both of whom she loved dearly.

In New York, she was represented by Michael Steinberg at Bienvenu Steinberg & C. and Gaines and Macie at Sears Peyton Gallery. She is grateful to her gallery family and the teams that supported her career including Chris and Molly at Winfield Gallery in Carmel, California; Gail and Shannon at Gail Severn Gallery in Sun Valley, Idaho; Maya and Katie at Maya Frodeman Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming; and Bill and Sarah at Traver Gallery, Seattle.

Her recent solo exhibition “Variegated Stones” closed on April 5, 2025 at Bienvenu Steinberg & C. in New York City and her work will be included in the upcoming exhibition "The Ark" at The Church in Sag Harbor, curated by Eric Fischl, opening June 21, 2025. This forthcoming international, historic exhibition epitomizes Jane’s spirit and her New York roots. Fischl shares, “The show is all about animals and sculpture. She is integral to it.”

A celebration of her life and her ethos will be announced at a later date. Donations can be made to Hearts for Paws Rescue of California in her memory.

"Art imitates life. Particularly for those who recognize it in the common elements of their everyday surroundings. The sculptural curve of a coffeepot, the etching on a bar of soap, the texture of an orange. The creative eye can see it; the creative hand will render it.

Karen Shapiro derives her art from what’s already there. It doesn’t have to be studied, interpreted or understood. Her ceramic sculpture is what it is, whether it be a crayon, a lipstick or a carton of milk." - Lisa Watson

David Stanger is a realist painter known for his contemplative portraits and interiors that often have a symbolic or allegorical character.  Simultaneously painted with a deep knowledge of old-master technique and approached in a contemporary manner, Stanger’s work reflects various influences, most significantly the works of Vermeer, Hammershoi, and Lopez Garcia.