{mosimage } Born in Saigon, South Viet-Nam, Mai-Ly Pham came to the United States in 1975, along with the first wave of refugees. She began  her training in Fine Art at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Design in Portland, Oregon, where she was awarded the Henry Wentz Best Thesis Award and the C. S. Price Painting Prize. She continued her training in New York and obtained her M.F.A. at Columbia University.

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A Little Tarnished

Susan La Mont Loves Art.

That single line might well serve to orient the reader about this seemingly prolific representational artist.  To go further, however, would bear a greater service.  Susan La Mont is patient and caring about art.  She writes about it...sharing those thoughts in the twenty-first century version of an open journal - her blog.  She explores it...pondering the depth of shadows and skin tones, brush hairs, weaves in stretched linen, and other such details that contribute to her finished work.  She evokes Wyeth in her musings over the haste that some artists apply to their work, "...as though they had something more important to do."

When I'm not painting, I'm thinking about painting. I love every part of the process and I hope that is what shows when you view my art. Though I am a very private person, art is a way for me to openly share my thoughts, emotions, knowledge, and respect for this tremendous gift that brings me so many ways to discover and enjoy the world around me.

“I love being outdoors, so painting outdoors "en plein air' (from the French phrase meaning "in the open air") is a natural for me. Studio work is often done from field studies and memory. In the studio I distill the essentials and re-create the emotion and mood of a place. It is also my hope that my paintings of the landscape will remind people that our wild open spaces are vital to our existence and are worthy of our care and preservation.”

Blue Moon

Michael B. Platt is a 2007 recipient of the prestigious Franz and Virginia Bader Fund Grant. Long known as a printmaker, Platt now prefers the more encompassing designation, “imagemaker.” His artwork recently has turned to digital imagery and book art that combines image and poetry—fragments, allowing us glimpses of our selves. He continues to create artwork that centers on figurative explorations of life’s survivors, the marginalized, referencing history and circumstance in the rites, rituals and expressions of our human condition.