Category: Artist

We all have something that’s almost intrinsic to who we are, something that’s been part of life so long it becomes part of our identity. For Sam Parker, drawing is that integral aspect; he can’t recall a time when drawing wasn’t part of his life. Even at a young age, Sam realized drawing allowed him to express himself where words failed.

In high school, at the age of 16, Sam enrolled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. It was around this time that Sam really began his career in art. He started taking little jobs and selling some of his work in boutiques. By the time he graduated from high school in 1993, Sam already had a year of undergrad completed. Sam began to show interest in tattooing. One of his friends worked as a tattoo artist. In addition to doing some of Sam’s tattoos, Sam began to hang around the shop and watch his friend work. This friend helped Sam get his first pieces of tattoo equipment. Shortly after this, in 1994, Sam dropped out of art school. A year later, he moved to Atlanta.

Sam got a job as a tattoo artist in an Atlanta tattoo shop. After a few years, Sam began to pick up work painting murals in addition to his work as a tattoo artist. In 2000, Sam decided to go back to school. He attended Kennesaw State University where he studied drawing and painting. During his time in undergrad, Sam began to show his work in galleries. After receiving his BFA in 2004, Sam continued showing his work in galleries, got married, and started a family.

In 2007, Sam enrolled at Georgia State University’s graduate program for drawing and painting. After earning his master’s, Sam and his family moved to Colorado and opened his first studio/gallery, The Spiritual Bypass. He continued to show his work in galleries. His work made it into gallery shows across the country, with a few international shows as well. As time wore on, Sam began to feel burnt out. By 2015, he stopped doing gallery shows altogether, preferring to spend his time and energies in the studio making art rather than setting up shows and traveling. Focusing on his art for the remainder of his time in Denver, Sam worked with a group of great artists.

As he and his wife began looking to buy a house, they quickly realized the housing market in Denver was far too expensive. This prompted their move to Louisville. Despite the pandemic, the transition was fairly smooth. Currently, Sam works as a tattoo artist with Karl Otto out of Good Karma Tattoos. Additionally, Sam and Karl have a separate art studio space here at Mellwood, working under the Spiritual Bypass name.

Sam’s work, both his art and tattoo, is illustrative in nature. Both influence the other and share the use bold, distinct black lines. His tattoo work is largely black work, meaning the tattoos only uses black ink. Much of his artwork is pen and ink with splashes of paint for color. On occasion, he uses a traditional brush, but he primarily turns to pentel color brushes. He likes the loose feel theses brushes have compared to traditional brushes. In their use, it’s more akin to drawing than painting. To see more of his work, visit his site at samparkerartist.com. You can also find him on Instagram at @samparkerartist.

Growing up, art was her passion; Tomisha loved to draw. She regularly flipped through fashion magazines and drew the people inside. While she never took any art classes in school, she managed to work art into any and every class project she could. Towards the end of high school, when it came time to decide what to do after, Tomisha discussed her options with her school counselor. She told her counselor she wanted to go to college. When asked what for, Tomisha expressed a desire to pursue art or fashion design. “You don’t want to be a starving artist,” her counselor replied. Knowing that she was good with numbers, the counselor recommended becoming an accountant. When Tomisha enrolled at NKU, she did so as an accounting major.

After graduating, Tomisha became a licensed CPA. Working for a year as a public accountant, she later transitioned into corporate accounting. Even as she started her career in accounting, got married, and started a family, Tomisha held on to her passion for art. When time allowed, usually at night after her kids went to bed, she would work on her art. Up until her this point, Tomisha had never ventured into painting. It was while she was pregnant with her first child that she bought some watercolors, acrylics, and oil paints and began to experiment. She found watercolors difficult to use for her work and acrylic dried too fast; oil paints suited her best. She even attended a six-week oil painting course through LVA. During this time, Tomisha also took on a few commissions. Once life aligned in a way that allowed her to do so, Tomisha stepped away from her accounting job. While she doesn’t regret studying accounting and enjoyed her job, she wanted to shift her focus to learning, developing, exploring, and creating art.

Much of Tomisha’s existing work are photo-realistic representational realist portraits capturing a moment of daily life, focusing on human subjects set against a blur of colors. Each piece started with a reference photo. As she worked from that photo, Tomisha played with color in these paintings, adding life and vibrance as she went. Having further progressed in her art, Tomisha now experiments with more conceptual paintings, still beginning with reference photos and human subjects as the focus. Unlike previous work, which captured moments in daily life, the recent pieces are commentary on the experience of Black Americans, protest, and what civil rights mean, juxtaposing images from the past behind images from the present. Looking to the future, Tomisha is currently working on brand new paintings to display in our Pigment Gallery at joint show next year with another Mellwood artist, Sandra Charles. To see more of Tomisha’s work or to inquire about commissions, visit her site at lovelyallenart.com. You can also find her on Facebook at @LovelyAllenArt and Instagram at @lovelyallenart.

The seeds of Wayne’s lifelong love of pottery were planted early, playing with modeling clay at the kitchen table with his brother as a child. When he reached high school, Wayne was able to take some clay and pottery classes. After graduating in 1965, Wayne served in the USAF during the Vietnam era. Once served, Wayne enrolled at a community college and later the University of Kentucky, where he continued to study clay and ceramics.

During his time at UK, Wayne was fortunate enough to attend workshops led by some of the best clay artists of the time, including Jun Kaneko, Peter Voulkos, and Paul Soldner. He dropped out of UK and began to travel. First to Iowa, where he helped build a Japanese-style kiln and lived there for two years afterward. He then moved around to Tucson, AR and Mexico before returning to Kentucky. After moving back, Wayne held various residencies through the Kentucky Arts Council, has traveled abroad through Sister Cities International, and conducted workshops here in Louisville.

Today, Wayne works out of his studio here at Mellwood. Most of his work would be classified as holloware. These are vessels for things like water, grain, seeds, spices, or anything else you would want to store and keep pests out of. Wayne noted that his pieces are meant more for decoration rather than storage. Many of the pieces Wayne makes are considered effigy pots, vessels which take the shape of animals or people. Various cultures in the Americas have made such pots, and they each tell a story. Wayne’s work is no different, as his effigy pots often delve into political satire or commentary. “I’m like a cartoonist: I do political satire, but it’s three dimensional and I have to fire it to make it permanent.”

Sandra has always been an artist, but what cemented her love of painting, and specifically for oil painting, was an oil paint set her parents got her as a kid. That paint set laid the foundation lifelong love for art. Throughout grade school, art was Sandra’s favorite subject. She continued to pursue art in high school and her first attempt at college. Sandra didn’t finish college and shifted her focus to raising a family. In 2011, Sandra went back to college to finish her degree. There, a teacher suggested Sandra enroll in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program. This brought painting back into her life and rekindled a passion she had lost touch with for 40 years.

Today, Sandra still works in oils; she loves the liveliness and depth they bring to her work. She has adopted a painterly style, which emphasizes texture and doesn’t try to hide the brush strokes. This style is strongly reminiscent of impressionists’ works, and Sandra’s admiration of the movement plays a part in her implementation this style. As a person of few words, Sandra’s use of painterly style is reflective of how she communicates, preferring to tell as much as possible in a single brushstroke.

Sandra’s current series focuses on the experiences of being an African American woman in America, touching on subjects like racism, self-esteem, and code-switching. It’s important for her to highlight these experiences because they are part of her story and the stories of countless other African American women, which have been historically overlooked, forgotten, or lost. To see more of her work, visit Sandra’s site at scharlesart.com. You can also find her on Instagram at @sandraspaintings.

The therapeutic qualities of art are well known. It’s helped people with an array of different mental and emotional problems: from stress, to depression, to PTSD, and beyond. For Stephanie, art is her happy place; it helps her cope with her own mental illness and feel more fulfilled.

Growing up, Stephanie would paint with her aunt whenever she visited. She enjoyed these visits; it helped her foster a passion for art. She enjoyed her art classes in school and studied art all the way through high school. After graduating, she continues to study art on her own using online resources, especially online videos.

Today, Stephanie works as a peer-to-peer support specialist for the National Association of the Mentally Ill (NAMI). She’s also an outspoken advocate for those living with mental illness. “I like to talk about that because people don’t want to talk about it. I like to put that out there because there’s stigma towards people with mental illness. When people are able to see somebody thriving with mental illness, it makes a huge difference.”

While she’s worked with various media, including egg tempera, she prefers oil paint. She likes that it takes longer to dry, giving her more time to work, and that you can mix colors directly on whatever surface she’s painting on. While she doesn’t work in any particular style, she does enjoy using a lot of color in her works. She also transitioned from painting on canvas to painting on wood and has started making tables out of her work. She’s found she enjoys painting on wood and making pieces that serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. Currently, she makes small tables, ranging from in size from plantstands, nightstands, and end tables to small card tables. To protect her work from wear and tear, she applies a layer of epoxy resin to each tabletop. As she continues to create, she hopes to move into a larger space to make larger tables.

Today, Stephanie works as a peer-to-peer support specialist for the National Association of the Mentally Ill (NAMI). She’s also an outspoken advocate for those living with mental illness. “I like to talk about that because people don’t want to talk about it. I like to put that out there because there’s stigma towards people with mental illness. When people are able to see somebody thriving with mental illness, it makes a huge difference.”

While she’s worked with various media, including egg tempera, she prefers oil paint. She likes that it takes longer to dry, giving her more time to work, and that you can mix colors directly on whatever surface she’s painting on. While she doesn’t work in any particular style, she does enjoy using a lot of color in her works. She also transitioned from painting on canvas to painting on wood and has started making tables out of her work. She’s found she enjoys painting on wood and making pieces that serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. Currently, she makes small tables, ranging from in size from plantstands, nightstands, and end tables to small card tables. To protect her work from wear and tear, she applies a layer of epoxy resin to each tabletop. As she continues to create, she hopes to move into a larger space to make larger tables.

For Asia Jewell, it’s all or nothing. “If you’re going to do something, do it good or don’t do it at all. My mom was like, ‘If you’re going to put your name on it, you need to make sure it’s the best thing you’ve done.’” There’s no half-hearted or partial commitment; she gives it 100% or it’s not worth doing.

As a kid, Asia learned to sew from her grandmother and made clothes for her Barbie dolls. Although she enjoyed art, she viewed it as a game: a fun activity, not a serious pursuit. The notion of art as a career didn’t occur to Asia until late in middle school. At that point, she had attended a magnet school and participated in their communications/journalism program. When her cohort was switched with another and began taking an art class, the teacher saw Asia’s talent and encouraged her to study art.

Going into Wagner High School, Asia pursued art from the beginning of her freshman year. While there, she had two art teachers, one focusing on 2D art and the other on 3D. While her teachers’ personalities were as different as their preferred media, they both helped Asia and her classmates discover and develop their own styles. She learned much from both teachers and saw how what they had to teach could work together. After high school, Asia went to EKU for a year followed by the International Academy of Design and Technology in Nashville, studying fashion and design at both. It was while at IADT that Asia made a significant self-discovery: fashion and design weren’t enough, she needed to immerse herself in art as well.

Today, working from her studio here at Mellwood, Asia largely works on mixed media 2D/3D pieces. Using textiles, resin, charcoal, markers, oil pastels, watercolors, clay, and more, Asia’s art literal pops off the canvas, working in her interest in fashion into her art. Not having a preferred medium, Asia likes to work with her hands and explore a wide variety of materials and media. Art isn’t just a passion for Asia, it’s also therapeutic. It allows her the opportunity to work out her anxiety and OCD in a constructive way. It’s also important to Asia to pursue her art to be a role model for her two daughters, to show them that they can do anything so long as they give it their all. If you would like to see more of Asia’s work, check out her Instagram at @asiabjewell.

Going into Wagner High School, Asia pursued art from the beginning of her freshman year. While there, she had two art teachers, one focusing on 2D art and the other on 3D. While her teachers’ personalities were as different as their preferred media, they both helped Asia and her classmates discover and develop their own styles. She learned much from both teachers and saw how what they had to teach could work together. After high school, Asia went to EKU for a year followed by the International Academy of Design and Technology in Nashville, studying fashion and design at both. It was while at IADT that Asia made a significant self-discovery: fashion and design weren’t enough, she needed to immerse herself in art as well.

Today, working from her studio here at Mellwood, Asia largely works on mixed media 2D/3D pieces. Using textiles, resin, charcoal, markers, oil pastels, watercolors, clay, and more, Asia’s art literal pops off the canvas, working in her interest in fashion into her art. Not having a preferred medium, Asia likes to work with her hands and explore a wide variety of materials and media. Art isn’t just a passion for Asia, it’s also therapeutic. It allows her the opportunity to work out her anxiety and OCD in a constructive way. It’s also important to Asia to pursue her art to be a role model for her two daughters, to show them that they can do anything so long as they give it their all. If you would like to see more of Asia’s work, check out her Instagram at @asiabjewell.

“I’m thankful everyday I’m doing something that I really like.” For most of us, that’s the ultimate career goal. For Drew of The Bridge Tattoo Studio, he found his perfect career, one which merged his interests in drawing and 3D art, with the help of a friend.

Growing up, Drew was surrounded by art. His father was an avid painter and illustrator. Drew loved to draw and make things too; he would paint murals in his bedroom and make mobiles. However, in high school, his focus shifted away from art and towards debate and science. Going into North Central College, he planned on going into a science-related field. After his first year and discovering what this career path entailed, he switched majors. Drew tried philosophy for a year before a friend encouraged him to take a few art classes.

From that point on, Drew was hooked and switched majors one last time. While studying art, Drew received encouragement from one of his professors to sculpt and loved it. He enjoyed working with stone and plaster, exploring their initial shape, and developing it down into a refined, abstract shape. After graduating in 1996 with a degree in art and art history, Drew didn’t have any job prospects.

The same friend who had urged him to take art classes in college, urged him to join him as a tattoo artist. In a move that shocked his family, Drew decided to give it a try. At the time, getting into tattooing was difficult; there were no easily available resources and professional grade equipment was hard to get ahold of. The only way in was to be taken in by an established tattoo artist or shop. When he started, Drew worked in a busy street shop. While this forced him to work in various styles, Drew appreciated that he was exposed to all those styles and that provided him variety in his work.

Today, Drew has his own private studio here at Mellwood. Clients typically contact him online, either through his site or Instagram. He discusses their project with them, meets with them, and then either creates a design or takes artwork from the client for a custom tattoo. While he does a wide range of tattoos, he enjoys intricate black and gray realism the most, often featuring natural subjects.

If you would like to see more of his work or book an appointment, check out Drew’s site at thebridgetattoo.com. You can also find him on Instagram at @drew_on_the_bridge.

For Sara Noori, it all started with a lime green crayon. The simple act of picking up it to color was the beginning of Sara’s lifelong pursuit of art.

Growing up, Sara spent much of their time coloring and building with LEGOs; the two activities were their happy places. Throughout their schooling, Sara signed up for as many art-related extracurriculars as possible. While attending Ballard High School, they knew they wanted to pursue art as a career. Luckily, Sara had a supportive and encouraging art teacher who helped them get into AP art classes to further their goal.

After graduating from Ballard, Sara went into UofL’s 2D Studies program. They volunteered at the Speed Art Museum and interned with the education departments of both the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Upon receiving their degree from UofL in 2010, Sara worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Family Day program and as a visual arts teacher at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

Earlier in their art career, Sara focused on maximalism, painting still lifes containing objects and patterns with strong connections to family and heritage. When they first visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, they saw an installment by Olafur Eliasson, which was more experimental and immersive and focused on color theory. This installation left a lasting impression on Sara, as they embraced more 3D installation work, memory-based pieces, and abstract expressionism, all using mixed media.

In addition to their paintings and installations, Sara also creates designs for garments, typically denim jackets. They screen print symbolic elements, such as orchids, braided hair, chains, and barbed wire, and further embellishes the graphics with layers hand-painted designs. If you would like to see more of their studio or classroom work, check out their site at saranoori.com. You can also find more of their garment designs at foremotherstudio.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram at @ForemotherStudio.

In addition to their paintings and installations, Sara also creates designs for garments, typically denim jackets. They screen print symbolic elements, such as orchids, braided hair, chains, and barbed wire, and further embellishes the graphics with layers hand-painted designs. If you would like to see more of their studio or classroom work, check out their site at saranoori.com. You can also find more of their garment designs at foremotherstudio.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram at @ForemotherStudio.