Working in the abstract, Karen Bright’s painting and sculpture derive from an innate focus on the natural world and concern for the environment. Exhibiting since 1981, Karen’s work has won numerous exhibition awards and project grants from a wide variety of organizations including: Urban Coast Institute, International Encaustic Artists, and Monmouth University. Artist-in-residency appointments include: Weir Farm National Historic Site, Petrified Forest National Park, and Hot Springs National Park.  Karen Bright, Professor Emerita, recently retired from Monmouth University after a 40+ year career in academia teaching all levels of graphic and interactive design and traditional printmaking. Previous academic appointments include: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey; Parsons School of Design, New York, New York. Professor Bright owns and operates Studio Bright in Newtown Square (Edgmont), Pennsylvania. Academic degrees include an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and a BFA with honors, from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Bettina Egli Sennhauser lives and works near Basel, Switzerland. Working with natural and sustainable materials, she builds layered surfaces that translate lived impressions of her environment into fields of color, texture, and subtle gesture. Her works explore relationships between people, place, and material memory, unfolding as contemplative spaces that invite for reflection.Since 2018, Bettina has extended her practice through international workshops and art retreats across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Ireland, and the United States, sharing process-based approaches to material exploration. In 2023, she published her first practical workbook on the Cold Wax & Oil technique.

She is a member of the SGBK (Swiss Society of Women Visual Artists) and the International Encaustic Association, and serves as a Core Artist with R&F Handmade Paints. Bettina has received scholarships from the International Encaustic Conference and her work has been juried into various exhibitions in Provincetown, New York, and Palo Alto. She has also been invited to speak at the International Encaustic Conferences in Provincetown, Cape Cod, and at the Celtic Convergence Conference in Ireland, contributing to the discourse on contemporary encaustic practices. Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Italy, and the United States. In 2024, she received the Director’s Choice Award at the International Encaustic Conference. Bettina is represented by Soderbergh Gallery of Sustainable Art in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Isabelle Gaborit is a contemporary artist whose work explores the intersection of ancient technique and lived landscape. Working primarily in encaustic—a process using molten, pigmented beeswax manipulated with heat—she creates tactile, layered surfaces shaped by heat and immediacy. Based in the Auvergne region of central France, her practice is informed by its distinctive volcanic terrain, deep valleys, caves, and river systems. Her work is process-driven and arises from an ongoing engagement with the physical environment and its underlying geological forces.

Originally from La Rochelle, France, Gaborit studied sculpture, drawing, and painting at l’École des Beaux-Arts in Poitiers, France, before completing a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts in Ireland in 2006. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in France, Northern Ireland, the USA, Germany, and China. With more than two decades of teaching experience, Gaborit has led workshops and retreats across Ireland and internationally, including at the International Encaustic Conference in Massachusetts, Mulranny Arts in Ireland, and kunstfreiraum in Switzerland.

She is a core instructor with R&F Handmade Paints, contributes to the online program Painting with Fire, and serves on the board of the International Encaustic Artists (IEA).
@isabellegaboritencaustics

Milisa Galazzi graduated from Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design with degrees in art, education and administration. She attended Phillips Academy, Andover for high school and was ‘boat schooled’ as a child aboard a vessel her father hand-built in the back yard. Galazzi has mentored thousands of artists and educators while exhibiting her artwork worldwide in galleries and museums. She has self-published numerous exhibition catalogs of her art work exhibited in solo and group shows. In conjunction with Archway Publishing, her first book, Full Palette Human: Ten Touchstones for Creating Your Truest & Most Beautiful Life From The Inside Out, is now available on Amazon and at your local book seller by special order. Galazzi is owner and CEO of The Family Schools, Inc. in Brewster, Massachusetts.

www.milisagalazzi.com

Jeffrey Hirst has exhibited his work throughout the United States and Europe since 1987. He received his MFA from Louisiana State University and his BFA from the University of Minnesota. His work has been exhibited at national and international venues including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, McLean Project for the Arts in Virginia, McKinney Contemporary in Dallas, and the Bienal do Douro in Portugal. Hirst has received numerous grants and was awarded a fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, where he has completed eight residencies. He is represented by Addington Gallery in Chicago and Brandt Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and his work is held in numerous public and private collections in the United States, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. In 2021, Hirst co-founded Catalyst Art Lab, an online art education platform, and teaches encaustic painting, experimental drawing, and printmaking workshops throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, and Ireland. Hirst is a Core Instructor for R&F Handmade Paints and has taught and presented numerous times at the International Encaustic Conference.

www.jeffreyhirst.com

Rosemarie Langtry is an Irish Contemporary visual artist Graduated in 2014 with a degree in fine arts in GMIT Ireland. Since then, she has been exhibiting work nationally and internationally Rosemarie is inspired by nature, the Irish bog landscape that surround her home and marks made by nature and time. Rosemarie received a scholarship to attend the 10th (2016) and 13th (2019) International Encaustic conferences in Provincetown, Mass, USA. She was subsequently invited to exhibit at the prestigious 2019 Webster Art fair in St Louis and in 2018 was awarded a two-week Encaustic Residency, Encaustic Castle AIR Kentucky. Rosemarie has exhibited in many solo and group shows with her work included in the Irish State Art Collection.

Susan Lasch Krevitt received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she majored in Sculpture & Material Studies. Susan uses new & up-cycled textiles, rubber, cardboard, metal, leather & whatever it takes to build non-objective, free standing & wall hung sculptural paintings. She is passionate about materials, always looking for possibilities to incorporate something new. Her organic, process driven work explores themes of structure, connection, transformation & memory. She finds inspiration through observations of the natural world including growth & decay, earthly & underwater life forms & plants, especially cactus & succulents. Her work has been exhibited in galleries & museums internationally & throughout the United States since 1985. Susan has shown work at the Cape Cod Museum of Art & The Provincetown Art Association & Museum. In California, she’s shown at The Chaffey Community Museum & The Riverside Art Museum. A free standing sculptural piece was included in a group show at The Painting Center in NYC. Susan was a featured artist in an article published in The Surface Design Journal. Of 50 international artists she was one of only 3 artists from the United States whose work was chosen to be included in Feel Free, a show that traveled around the world for 3 years. Susan teaches workshops & works one on one with artists in her Thousand Oaks, California studio.

SusanLaschKrevitt.com

Megan MacDonald (she/her) is a multi disciplinarian visual artist with a focus on encaustic and Core Artist Instructor for R&F Handmade Paints. Megan is drawn to natural and organic forms, the energy of hand-drawn lines, and the alchemy that occurs with the convergence of natural elements. She gravitated to encaustics due to its beautiful depth and luminosity, as well as, the myriad of possibilities the medium offers. Although she continues to explore a variety of mediums in her art practice, her focus is primarily centred on encaustic. Through formal education, Megan studied fine art at Emily Carr University and resumed her studies through Emily Carr’s Continuing Education programs and was apart of the in-depth colour study program under Tom Hudson. Additionally, she has taken part in the Golden Acrylics training program and has been a guest instructor for a wide variety of groups and institutions. Megan has been instructing and mentoring for over 20 years, owned and operated an artisan gallery and studio space for over 10 years, served on the board of the Delta Arts Council, co founded a non profit group artists group and has curated and juried numerous art shows.  She has been an instructor and presenter for both the International Encaustic Artists conference and workshop leader at the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In September 2025, She will be a presenter and workshop leader at the inaugural Canadian Encaustic Conference in Owen Sound, Ontario Canada. An award-winning artist whose work has been in juried exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her work can be found in numerous private collections around the globe. Megan continues to create and instruct out of her studio, The Crow’s Nest Art Studio is now located on Vancouver Island, in Maple Bay, just outside of Duncan, British Columbia, Canada.

In her almost five-decade career, Joanne Mattera has had 35 solo shows and participated in about 10 group shows annually, both national and international. Her most recent solo, From Dawn to Dusk, took place at Odetta Gallery in Manhattan in late 2019. Joanne’s curatorial projects include Textility in 2012 at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit; A Few Conversations About Color at DM Contemporary in Manhattan in 2015; and Depth Perception in 2017 at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, Massachusetts, which she curated with Cherie Mittenthal. Joanne’s work is in the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Connecticut College Print Department; University Collections at the University of Albany; the U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.; and numerous institutional and private collections. Joanne is founder and director emerita of the International Encaustic Conference and author of The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax.  Her memoir, Vita: Growing Up Italian, Coming Out, and Making a Life in Art, was published in 2019 by Well-Fed Artist Press in Manhattan.

joannemattera.com

Kelly McGrath has been a practicing artist since 2007 and Art educator since 2009. She utilizes wax, paper, plaster, wood, clay and found materials in her process driven work. She explores themes that are influenced by biologic process like growth and decay, mutation and evolution. She has been invited to present and teach at R&F Handmade Paints, Women's Studio Workshop, Castle Hill Center for the Arts, Peter’s Valley and Snow Farm. She earned her BFA in Sculpture from SUNY New Paltz in 2007 and her Master’s in Art Education from Hunter College in 2019. She is currently employed at SUNY New Paltz as the Instructional Support Technician for the Sculpture Department. 

Kelly Milukas works and teaches in a variety of media, among them pastel, water-based & ink-based paints, and mixed-media-sculpture; with a particular love of creative encaustic and pastel fused together. In addition to private mentoring, retreats, and instruction in her seacoast New England studio, Kelly serves as Core Instructor for R&F Encaustics,  Instructor for the International Encaustic Conference at Truro Center for the Arts in Massachusetts, and a Master Pastelist Instructor for the International Association of Pastel Societies in New Mexico, where she holds an International Pastel Masters Circle title.  Kelly is an instructor, speaker, and art & science residency collaborator, an award-winning artist whose practice began as a sculptor and has expanded to multi-media painting including pastel and encaustic painting. Milukas’ solo exhibitions have been hosted at the Ronald Reagan International Forum, Washington, DC, the Museum at Palm Beach Photographic Centre, FL, and the Regenerative Medicine Forum in Berkeley, CA. Her artwork is in national museums, international private and corporate collections, and been visible at international art fairs such as Red Dot Miami, and Boston International Art Fairs. Her story and artwork have been featured in IAPS Globe 2021, ArtScope, Newport Life Magazine, Palm Beach Times, and The Pastel Journal, and in several books: “100 New England Artists”; ”Best of American Pastel Vol. 2”; “Artists Homes and Studios”, “A Woman’s Shed”; “The History of Little Compton, First Light: Sakonnet, 1660-1820”; and The Cortland Review. She’s served as a curator and juror, and her ability to communicate ideas has established her as a respected and sought-after instructor and speaker in, arts and science forums, universities, and corporate leadership programs. She is a juried artist member of the Salmagundi Club, NYC, the Connecticut Pastel Society & the RI Watercolor Society, she’s the founding President Emerita of the South Coast Artists, RI & MA, and a past President of the Providence Art Club, the 3rd oldest art club in the United States founded in 1880.

Cherie Mittenthal, Director and Producer of the International Encaustic Conference. She’s been working predominately in wax or encaustic paint while integrating tar, marble dust, pigment sticks, dry materials, graphite, collage and miscellaneous mediums. She has her MFA from the State University of New York at Purchase and her BFA from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford. She’s the Executive Artistic Director of Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill since 2002. She serves on the board of Campus Provincetown, Provincetown Cultural Council, OCARC - the Outer Cape Artist Residency Coalition and is partners with Highlands Center & the National Seashore for the only Wood-Fired Kiln on Cape Cod. She won the 2019 Artist Fellowship award from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

Jodi Reeb received a BFA degree in Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, MCAD, where she instructed printmaking for over 9 years.  Jodi has been a full-time working artist creating paintings and sculpture and a teacher in Minneapolis for over 28 years. She has taught printmaking, acrylic and encaustic painting as well as book arts classes/workshops at colleges and art centers regionally and internationally. She has taught encaustic workshops at the Essence of Mulranny in Ireland,  Zijidelings in Netherlands, Kunstfreiraum in Basel, Switzerland, and San Miguel De Allende. Nationally, she has taught workshops at Arrowmont School of Craft, Penland School of Art, Tubac Center for the Arts, Wild Rice Retreat and Haystack School of Art. She has been an online video instructor with Painting with Fire for 4 years and has taught workshops at the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, Massachusets for the past 7 years. She teaches monthly workshops in her NE Minneapolis studio and offers art study coaching to artists for professional development. She is a CORE teaching Artist for R&F Handmade Encaustic Paints, an Ambassador artist for Ampersand Art, Artist Educator for Silverbrush Ltd., and a GOLDEN Acrylic Paint Artist educator.

For more information, available artwork and workshops please contact Jodi at www.jodireeb.com

Lia Rothstein has BA and MFA degrees from Boston University. She was the Climate Change Artist in Residence at the Brattleboro, VT Museum and Art Center for 2023.  Her work is in numerous public and private collections and she has taught extensively. She has exhibited her work with biomaterials, most recently in Tokyo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her work has been featured in numerous publications, including the first and second editions of the ”Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations” by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin. A new book, “Ideal Matter: Art, Bioplastics, and the Hope for Degradation” by art historian Yorick Berta, featuring Lia’s biomaterial work, has just been published in Germany. 

Patricia (Patti) Russotti is an artist, explorer, maker, and educator whose work investigates entropy, negentropy, nature, and the small things she encounters within the world around her. She is fascinated by the alchemical magic that occurs in natural phenomena—and in the creative process itself. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally through solo, group, and juried exhibitions and is held in private and corporate collections. Her practice encompasses analog, digital, alternative, and historic photographic processes, with a particular interest in moving images across processes and substrates. Russotti has taught and presented on Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom since their earliest versions and has been a regular presenter at national and international imaging and education conferences since the 1980s. Today, she offers workshops online and in person, helping artists expand their practices through digital tools, alternative processes, experimentation, and play. She is co-author of Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook (Focal Press, 2010) and is Professor Emerita of Rochester Institute of Technology, where she taught for four decades across the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), and the School of Print.

Gabriela Sánchez is a visual artist from Mexico City, born in 1972, specializing in encaustic and mixed media techniques. With a background in Textile Design and a master’s in Visual Communication, her work is deeply rooted in the exploration of texture, layering, and personal narratives, often weaving in family letters, documents, and memories into her pieces.

Since 2002, Gabriela has built a solid career with solo and collective exhibitions, recognized for her technical mastery and emotional expression. Her teaching practice extends beyond the studio, offering workshops on encaustic painting and mixed media techniques in both Mexico and internationally, inspiring others through her creative process.

Dietlind Vander Schaaf holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and an MA from the University of Southern Maine. Her work has been described as “the transformation of disparate objects into elegantly simple compositions of pattern and grace” (Artscope). Vander Schaaf has exhibited at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Fuller Craft Museum, and On Center Gallery, among others, and been featured in Maine Home + Design, Decor Maine, UPPERCASE, and Downeast magazines. Vander Schaaf is a Core Instructor for R&F Handmade Paints, an Ampersand Ambassador, and the former president of New England Wax. She has taught workshops throughout the country, including Haystack, Arrowmont, Castle Hill, Snow Farm, Penland, Maine College of Art, R&F, and internationally at Zijdelings in The Netherlands, Essence of Mulranny in Ireland, and Kunstfreiraum in Switzerland. The recipient of grants from the Maine Arts Commission and International Encaustic Artists, as well as a Tending Space Artist Fellowship from the Hemera Foundation, she is represented by Portland Art Gallery and Artemis Gallery. Vander Schaaf is a 500 hr Kripalu yoga instructor with specialty training in meditation, advanced asana, Ayurveda, vinyasa, and pranayama, as well as a Level 2 Archery Instructor through USA Archery.
dietlindvanderschaaf.com
instagram.com/dietlindvanderschaaf