Beth Gillian
Meet self-taught photographer Beth Gilleon. Beth has always liked cameras. In fact, one of her favorite things to have in her hands as a child was an old Sony video camera that used mini cartridges. She still has it in her closet, but doesn’t really use it much any more. Beth really developed her interest […]
Chad Kessler
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Chad Kessler is a web-thinker. It wouldn’t be a very shaky limb, since I spent an hour with him in the delightful funhouse known as 451 Spirits, tucked away in the back of an old commercial building on Oakland Park Avenue, somewhere between Indianola […]
Chris Cropper
Chris Cropper has been creating art for about thirty years in Central Ohio. His early experiences of drawing off in the corner during Baptist youth group Lock-Ins, and drawing late at night in his bedroom helped him to build a well-developed style early on. He believes that his gift was from God, and was present […]
Chris Duda
Meet self-taught mixed media artist, Chris Duda. When I say mixed media, I am not kidding, and you will soon discover why. Meeting Chris was like standing at the gateway into the world of a truly twenty-first century artist. Chris doesn’t even question the incorporation of digital medium into their work, since as a nineties […]
Damian Synadinos
Damian Synadinos speaks for a living. For twenty-five years, he built and tested software, but now, he “helps build better people.” At least he did before a pandemic hit. The large conferences and corporate meetings he had been used to were brought to a grinding halt. On top of that, he found himself in the […]
Eli Lambert
Eli doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he likes it that way. It all really started with his grandfather’s woodworking shop. He swears he really didn’t learn any skills then, but I suspect it was the spark that started everything. There were other places in his world as a child where he didn’t learn, […]
Holly Hahn
My curiosity got the best of me, and I met Holly Hahn. That’s really how it happened. Holly was the second person in this project that I sort of semi-randomly encountered while taking one of my morning walks in the South End of Columbus (the first being Eli Lambert). I’m curious about a lot […]
Justin Frehs
Meet self-taught watercolorist Justin Frehs. Justin’s first art memory was when he was about four years old, and his parents handed him a stack of old-fashioned IBM computer paper, with the instruction to draw. There was plenty of influence at home, as his father was a graduate of OSU, specializing in oils and photography. […]
Ken Goodson
Meet outsider artist and autodidactic painter/sculptor Ken Goodson. He didn’t start out working in either of those media, though. The earliest story he recalled to me involved frustration over a Batman sketch, and asking his mother to help him out with it. As a youth, he worked with what was available—manilla paper and pencil; later, […]
Lisa O’Connell
Meet self-taught artist Lisa O’Connell. Like many people, Lisa’s life changed dramatically in 2020. She was working in a warehouse for a company that distributed materials for the education of children. Lisa was given the option to continue working or take furlough, and chose the latter due to potential health risks for other members of […]