NANCY GERFERS

Art has always been a part of my life. I majored in both psychology and art at Simmons College in
Boston and found the immediacy and drying time of acrylic a new-found friend. I moved to San Antonio
in 1984 and spent a ten year period traveling with my husband and taking classes in watercolor at the
San Antonio Art Institute with William Hocker and Ben Carter.

Somewhere along the way, after having twin daughters, I decided that watercolor wasn’t giving me the joy I wanted and a friend asked me to her studio to try collage with papers and acrylic/watermedia. Oh, what fun! My inner child sang, both with the rekindling of acrylic work and the textures created in building layers on canvas. My white paper phobia disappeared with abandon and I still enjoy the process of layering, composing, and editing colors and patterns that interest me and evoke movement and feeling. The journey I’ve taken has enhanced
rather than compromised my watercolor practice in that I combine all my experiences in my new works.

I believe Art should be valued as a process to restore the soul, shared with others for their mental
health, and ultimately make the world a more beautiful place. I continue to share my experience and
enthusiasm for art through classes and demonstrations. It gives me great joy to put people at ease to
try something they think they can’t do and prove them wrong. Unlike children, adults become so
uptight about creating a product that “looks good or right” instead of embracing a process that can both
challenge and delight.

RICHARD MOGAS

LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATIONS
 
Having made art in various forms and materials for over 50 years, in the past 30 years or more, I have worked in a continuing series of landscapes that encompass journeys and events in my life. These art expressions find their way to wood panels or canvases that establish visual episodes from my experiences and travels in which many of my life’s thoughts are mentally recorded and emerge in the work.

These abstract landscapes are a combination of my painterly process using primarily acrylic paint combined with the pursuit of color
through the ready made materials of tape, paper and vinyl. As a compliment to the painting medium, I lean into the facile and expansive palette of color choices and textures these materials bring to the work. Other than those personal influences to the work, the pieces are mostly driven by the rigor of the traditional vocabulary of composition, proportion, scale, texture and color.

STEFANI JOB SPEARS

Stefani Job Spears holds a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. She has been teaching Visual Arts throughout the state for thirty years.

As an artist-in-residence for the Texas Commission on the Arts, Spears developed curriculum and fine art standards for public schools. In addition, Spears has taught Art, developed events and programs for the Southwest School of Art and Saint Mary's Hall. Her innovative art works frequently cross media boundaries, combining handmade paper, printmaking, oils and watercolors that reflect her love of nature and landscapes.