PAULE GINGRAS

Paule Gingras is a resident of St. Albans, VT. Her paintings express the spirit and essence of the environment: colorful and spontaneous, reflective and evocative. "Painting can be a metaphor for life and love, you have to have faith, accept possible failure, sometimes it is ugly, sometimes it is beautiful, it is never perfect, and almost never turns out the way you thought it would. No one will ever perceive the same way you do...Make the best of what you have created, the less you try to control it the better the end result. Learn from your mistakes, enjoy you successes, and fo not be too hard on yourself. The more you paint, the more you learn. Inspiration is everywhere." -P.G.

FRANK X. TIRALLA

Frank Tiralla was born and raised in Baltimore, M.D., and while attending local schools, he began his interest in art at the age of twelve. After graduation from high school, he attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. He served in the US Naval Reserves for six years. After and honorable discharge, Frank attended Towson State University majoring in art, while working as a draftsman and engineer for AT&T. He earned honorable mentions and ribbons in several shows, and his art works have been exhibited in several art studios in Maryland and Vermont.
His beginning art works were oil paintings of a series of sailing ships. His father encouraged him to continue painting and drawing, and in later years, his interests turned to drawing North American wildlife with pen and ink and charcoal sketches. Frank takes pride in the details of his sketches depicting the animals in their natural poses. His travels have taken him to the northern woods of Maine and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.
In 2000, Frank retired and now resides in Franklin County with his wife, Priscilla. They have two daughters and one son. Now, a day of his time is spent fishing in Lake Carmi, bird hunting with his dogs Patches and Maggie, and devoting more time to his passion for art. The majority of his art works are custom framed by himself using local hard and soft woods.
Frank is a great outdoor enthusiast and aquaculturalist, having raised different species of trout while living in Maryland. In the spring and summer, Frank enjoys being outdoors working in his gardens. You can find him at a local ski area in the winter as a certified instructor.

JIM FOOTE

Jim Foote is a long time resident of Northern Vermont and calls it his home. At age 5, the spark for art was given to Jim by his grandmother who encouraged him by always hanging his pictures on her refrigerator. While almost anything could a subject for a painting, Jim considers color, sunlight, and shadows key. Flowers that he grows and cares for at home are of particular interest to him for their never-ending variety of patterns and colors.
Jim has studied art through books and lots of trial and error. His desire and passion for creating are what motivates him to continue to learn new techniques. Jim's medium of choice today is acrylic painting. Working mostly from photographs, he has recently begun using Photoshop, Painter, and Cinema4D to get ideas down to help his paintings evolve. He also creates complete digital art pieces.
Woodcarving is another medium which he has used, creating beautiful painted wood sculptures; however, he is not creating woodworks at this time even though the love for carving is still strong. Jim's paintings are intricately detailed and elegant, and produce an effective and lovely depiction of the Northeast woodlands and lifestyle.

DONNA BLATCHLY

Donna Blatchly is the creator of Luvs 2 B Felt handbags. A native of Vermont, Donna lives in St. Albans and is married with two grown children. She learned to knit at an early age, but only recently became fascinated with the art of felting*. Always having loved handbags, Donna put the two together, creating an endless variety of fiber art designs. Each of Donna's bags are hand knit and felted using the finest quality of yarns from around the world. Originally designed, these bags are one of a kind! Donna uses an array of stunning colors, very special touches, and artistic designs. Unique beads and buttons, beautiful handles, felted flowers, and the embellishing techniques of needle felting set these bags apart.

*Felting: washing a knitted piece to create a fabric-like finish. Heat and moisture, along with agitation causes the "scales" that cover animal fiber yarns to loosen, tangle, and latch together. The result is soft, thick, solid fabric much smaller than the original piece.