Elizabeth Barksdale
Elizabeth is a local artist with a great love for creating art and sharing the joys of creating with others. She makes art in a variety of methods and media. She feels that when an artists allows themselves to experiment, interesting things begin to happen. It is often in these times of open experimentation that ones creativity can surprise even the experienced artist. Elizabeth Barksdale received her masters of the Fine arts in Statesboro, GA. She is an exhibiting artist, an art instructor, and has worked on and written several arts grants.

Liz Carey
Liz is a 200-hr Yoga Alliance-Certified teacher. She has practiced yoga for twelve years, and became a certified teacher in 2009. When not training yoga teachers, she designs and facilitates innovative training programs that help people develop awareness, authenticity, presence, and practical skills for deeply connecting with others and living a freer, happier, life. She has studied Shambhala Buddhism and meditation, and has a Master’s Degree in Counseling. Liz brings encouragement and acceptance to all of her work, and has a gift for helping people reconnect with and trust their own wisdom and intuition.

Michael Cole
Michael, a resident of Mahopac since 1997, took a pottery class in August 2011 and has quickly developed a new passion for throwing pottery on the wheel. A “Recovering Actor” (having performed in musical theatre productions in New York and across the country), he makes his living as personal assistant to Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist of the Broadway shows GODSPELL, PIPPIN and WICKED (among others). Mr. Cole’s voice can be heard on the soundtracks of the DreamWorks animated feature Prince of Egypt, the Wonderful World of Disney television special Geppetto and Disney’s live-action feature Enchanted. Other passions include home improvement and waterskiing.
On pottery: "I'm particularly drawn to the idea of altering the basic wheel-thrown form, the sculptural aspects of pottery and juxtaposing finer elements with the more 'earthy' bisque-ware."

Jeanne Demotses
Jeanne's primary medium is oil. She also often works in watercolor, acrylic, pastel, monotype and collage. She experiments in making her own paper to use as a ground for her pastel work, and uses the paper as a collage element. Her work ranges from the figurative to the abstract and often combines aspects of both. Jeanne's paintings are in many collections in the U.S. and in Europe. She maintains a studio in Peekskill and is a member of that community's growing artist district. In addition to her classes at the Putnam Arts Council, she also teaches oil and watercolor painting at other schools, and portrait painting in her studio. Jeanne studied art at Hunter College, the Art Students League and the Westchester Art Workshop.

Cathy Faiella
Cathy has been a very popular teacher at the summer program for years and teaches at a variety of art centers and other children’s programs in the area. Students flourish under her energetic and patient teaching style. She is a graduate of Connecticut College.

Sarah Gilchrist
A working visual artist and educator, Sarah introduces children to style and medium by showing them the work of great artists through history and then she encourages them to develop their own techniques, in pastel, watercolor, collage and other media, with light, fun, and playful presentations and activities. She has a Master of Arts degree in education from Manhattanville College and she studied in Italy as well.

Jennifer Hench Craig
Jennifer believes that teaching is about building relationships and meaningful connections. She has most recently been teaching art at Fox Lane and Bethel Middle School’s and Bethel High School. She completed a Master’s Certification in Visual Arts Education (K-12) after working 15 years as a graphic artist following her Master in Fine Arts.

Gina Keidong
A practicing artist and art teacher, formally trained at SUNY New Paltz in Art Education with a focus in ceramics, she currently teaches in Croton-Harmon High School. Gina has been working with clay as a medium for over 10 years. From throwing to hand building Gina takes a holistic approach to teaching ceramics reaching out to her students individually, taking them from the point they are at to the next stage in creating.

Dr. Bernie Kessler
Bernie Kessler has been an award winning photographer for over 50 years, exploring and celebrating the beauty of nature, including human nature. His images have been exhibited internationally and are in corporate and private collections. He is recognized as an outstanding teacher. His ease of style creates a non-threatening learning environment. Students have fun and feel very personally inspired as they improve their photographic skills.

Amy Menasche
A long-time Mahopac resident, Amy has a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from New York University and Masters of Arts in Teaching from Manhattanville College. She currently teaches art, including three levels of ceramics and sculpture, at Byram Hills High School in Armonk, NY.

James Sparks
Jim is a prolific painter and photographer whose work has been shown and collected country-wide. His special talent and energetic style as a teaching artist is widely known. His experience ranges from elementary level on up, with particular emphasis on college level instruction in art history, drawing, photography and painting (College of Mt. Saint Vincent, Bronx Community College, Connecticut Institute of Art and others). His BFA in Painting is from Washington University and MFA from the University of Southern California.

Alek Ustin
Alek grew up in Kent. NY influenced by his natural surroundings and their functions from a very early age. During his adolescence he discovered his appreciation for fine arts and ceramics and continued to explore this expression while studying Art Education in Fine Arts at the Art Institute of Boston. Since, he has lived in various US cities pursuing national environmental campaigns with Greenpeace while managing to never overlook his creative side. His work, a combination of wheel-thrown., hand building and varied glazing techniques focuses on functionality through elegance and strength, while taking keynotes from the natural world which has influenced him so greatly. He currently teaches at Katonah Art Center, as well as managing their ceramics studio, and at Silvermine Art Center in Ct.

Joann Zwolski
Joann works with a wide variety of mediums. Her work visually expresses a passion for line and color. Her palette is full of brilliant hues from a wide spectrum. She combines both abstract and thematic elements in her "works on paper". She has exhibited through solo and group shows in the tri-state area and Delaware.

Joann received her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MA from the College of New Rochelle. She has taught art for over thirty-five years to students from kindergarten to high school and has been teaching adults drawing for the past several years in a variety of places.