Jessica B Johnson is a local Wichita Falls teaching artist and educator. Her portraiture focuses on the internal processing of external struggles.

"My art portrays the growth, the struggle, the endless battle one fights with oneself day in and day out in order to maintain, to survive, to rise up from all failures, setbacks, and misunderstandings and now has progressed and grown into symbolizing growth, balance, self-love, beauty, and strength as a mother, educator, and women of color. My Signature body of art work displays portraits that embody a mixture of detail work in acrylic paint, assemblage, and embellishment of various materials with a touch of gold leaf."

Chip Kouri is a visual artist working mostly in acrylic paints, oil pastels, colored pencil and photography. Growing up, he always had a love for the arts and creativity and decided to make it his life work when he attended Texas Christian University, where he graduated with degrees in Fashion Design and Art.

While continuing to hone his art practice, Chip launched a successful thirty-year career in the beauty industry, eventually rising to the level of National Director of Education for a major haircare manufacturer. After retiring from the beauty industry, Mr. Kouri concentrated on his art and art practice.

Currently, he resides in Wichita Falls, TX, where he creates brightly colored and whimsical paintings and drawings. He also is a Lincoln Center trained Teaching artist, conducting art camps and classes for children and adults. He also dabbles in the theater, having appeared in eleven stage productions in the area.

Ferdine Le Blanc is an accomplished Multimedia Sculpture and Sketch artist living and working in Wichita Falls, Texas. A native of the Caribbean island of Dominica, Le Blanc holds an Associate Degree in Biology from Dominica State College, in the Commonwealth of Dominica (W.I.); and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with All-Level Teacher Certification from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, TX.

One of his key interests as an artist is considering the intersections between social justice, culture, race, and diversity. Ferdine has developed a passion for teaching and is a recent participant in the Lincoln Center Institute Teaching Artist Learning Lab presented by the Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts and Culture. His experience as a Teaching Artist was enhanced by the students he encountered while facilitating summer arts camps at various community learning centers in Wichita Falls. Prior to this experience, Ferdine worked for two summers at Camp Ramapo in Rhinebeck, New York as a counselor teaching young people with learning differences and demonstrating the power of the arts to encourage expression for students on the autism spectrum.

Ferdine served as a temporary gallery assistant for the Museum of North Texas History during their recent exhibition of Beisbol, a touring exhibition from the National Negro Baseball Leagues Museum. His work with the Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts and Culture focuses on providing arts learning activities for students in the area and supporting projects initiated by the organization to increase access to arts programs for students and their teachers.

His work has been exhibited at the University of Texas in Tyler Upcoming Students Art Exhibition, Texas Tech University Sculpture Symposium, and 9th Street Studios’ “An American Experience” exhibition.

Meagan Russell is an artist whose primary focus is painting and graphic design. She attained her BFA in painting from Midwestern State University. Currently, she teaches art to ages K-12 at the Dexter Private school in Wichita Falls Texas. When she is not teaching, she is pursuing local commissions and creating new landscape paintings from her travels.

Her body of work consists of a series of paintings that depict nostalgic landscapes using inventive color from childhood memories, or the obstruction of architecture in nature. As a child she was exposed to a very joyful, rural country life in both western Virginia and western New York. Along with her young adult experiences in Germany, these experiences influenced the vibrant color work in her artwork. Joy and peace are key foundations in her artwork and beliefs. The artist hopes to share these experiences of her faith and childhood with the audience through natural and human made environments with strategic color work.

Logan Lofgren, a Texas-born illustration artist, attended the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he received BFA in Illustration. He has studied and created his illustration artworks.

He explores the various skills, which specialize his artwork of surrealism arts, cartoons, caricatures, graphic novels, and illustration in general. Most recently, Logan received AAS degree of Graphic Design. His goal is to become an illustration artist.

My work is created traditionally and digitally by using drawing and painting. The illustration artwork is based on the idea and theme that it can be seen as imaginary or imagery. It would be a variety of visual images such as visual pun and etc. While I expressly draw the illustration within the image in my mind or play with the form, abstract, and doodle included with the abstract thoughts and emotions. The process of my work involves thought-provoking and decision-making by using sketch to experiment on and brainstorming with ideas and then drawing. The visualization of complex idea and variety element with the image of the aspect of emotional, informational, narrational, observational, and inspirational.

Logan acquires his drawing skills that develop as in the work, processing through traditional drawings and sketches, which he is improving every day. At five, Logan drew many inspired cartoons he saw from television, especially his favorite cartoon, Ren and Stimpy Show. That’s when his passion of drawing started to grew. He saw himself as an artist or cartoonist. Also, he expressly drew a comic book of his beloved cartoon of his own narration to tell a tale. His desires to create children’s book illustrations, book covers, posters, and working with clients for his illustration works. Also, creating many variety of single and series illustrations.

Logan can be contacted at deafranger88@gmail.com or lnl6704@g.rit.edu. Also, can be contracted at VP (Video Phone) (940) 312-7098.

Eddie Mandela is a Wichita Falls native specializing in cartoons, kustom kulture art, signs, pinstriping, airbrushed t-shirts, and art. He has been involved in local car shows, outdoor festivals, and Comicon events for 35 years. You can find hundreds of samples of his art on his Facebook page.

My name is Siobhan Mason and I’m an artist who lives in Wichita Falls, Texas. I earned my degree in Journalism with an emphasis in advertising from New Mexico State University. After graduating, my husband, Roy, and I moved to Wichita Falls, Texas where I worked as an award winning graphic artist at the local paper and a local ad agency. Taking a 20 year break from work to raise my two boys, Sam and Riley, my first opportunity to get back into the art world came when a local group put on the Mane Event. This was a chance for artists to paint a horse that would be on display around town. I submitted a design and was chosen to paint a horse which is on display at a local high school. The group then asked me to paint a second horse which is on display in town. I’ve had two shows through the Kemp Center for the Arts and I am a member of the Wichita Falls Art Association.

My pen and ink art developed from my doodling in high school. I would start with a small circle and added geometric designs in the circles radiating out. Because of my journalism background, my work almost always includes words.

Helping Others Find the Artist Within and Beauty in Everything - Pottery is my medium of choice, but I have instructed other art mediums as well, such as painting, drawing, cut paper and more.

For adults and teens, I have offered a time with friends that adds a creative spark to a typical night out with a social, hand-building pottery or canvas painting experience. On my own, I work mostly with the medium of clay, but am still on a journey to find myself as an artist. I enjoy creating most forms of art.

Nadia Menchaca currently attends Midwestern State University, where she will earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Although she experiments with a wide variety of media, her major emphasis consists of painting and photography. Outside of school and work, Nadia focuses on bringing light and attention to the LGBTQ+ community.

Vickies love of all things artful began years ago while working in Downtown Development and Historic Preservation for 28 years. After retiring she created "The Artful Life" and began painting in 2006 and never looked back. A Gypsy Artist claiming art is her therapy is involved in community and has a studio The Lilly Pad located at 600 8th Street.

Audra Miller is a self-taught abstract multimedia artist that loves the process of creating! Audra’s art is about the process, nothing more, nothing less. As in life, her practice of making art allows the paint to lead her path as she looks and waits to see the direction her art will take her. The ups and downs of life have taught Audra that she does not have control over what will happen, but she does control how to handle what may happen along the way. She explores this same practice in her artwork. Exploration of a variety of media allows for an interesting result that directs her art path. Audra grew up in a rural area, learning a variety of things along the way. She raised animals, grew a garden, rebuilt cars with her father, practiced woodworking, and learned to in those years. Audra even worked at a gas station changing oil and detailing cars while in college. Growing up Audra strived for perfection and fell short time and time again. She dealt with her own demons of depression and began seeing the world in a different light. During this time, she began to notice the struggles of others and their demons. As an art teacher, she watches and notices the struggles of her students, and she has vowed to make a difference in the lives of others socially and emotionally through her practice of art!

Audra’s practice includes visual art, public art, collaborative art, and community art. She leads meaningful community art projects to empower her students with social and emotional skills for their futures. Audra knows the depths of vulnerability being an artist can bring and hopes to channel that vulnerability into relatable compassion through her art. Audra brings a “flawsome” attitude where her art travels, hoping to leave the reminder to embrace your flaws because they are truly what makes you awesome!

You can find her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audralynnmiller/

I was raised in Henrietta/Clay County, TX. While working in West Texas for the Boy Scouts of America, I started telling my family about all of the ghost towns and cool abandoned things that were around. My parents asked that I start taking pictures and bought me a cheap digital camera. Everyone started saying "wow, you've got a great eye". Since that time in 2003, I have purchased better equipment and learned more and more about techniques, editing and just photography in general.

I call my style rusty and crusty. I mostly take photos of landscapes, abandoned things like cars, trucks, barns and houses and occasionally a few animals. Our society today likes to throw things away and go get something new. With that, we are getting rid of a lot of old things that are still around. These old cars, barn and houses are being torn down to make room for new houses or to "pretty up" the property. I endeavor to capture these abandoned things before they are gone and although I may not know their story, I have at least captured them for future generations to see what it was like.

Michael A. Mitchell
Howling Coyote Photography