Artwork

This year's artists were handpicked by Arizona Citizens for the Arts through a collaborative process with Artlink Phoenix, and the participants that submitted their work for selection.

The artwork,  provided as awards to each of the honorees, is underwritten by the JW Keickhefer & Margaret T Morris Foundations.

Shachi Kale is a visual storyteller, graphic designer, and children’s book illustrator. Her art is an exploration of her internal dialogue and an attempt at understanding herself and the many roles she plays. It is a meditation on all her journeys – from India to Arizona, her journey through marriage and motherhood and the internal journey that she takes as she traverses new emotional landscapes. She is fascinated by the desert landscape which is now her home, and tries to capture its thorny beauty. It symbolizes hope in the midst of hard times...a recurring theme in her art.

Shachi uses watercolors, acrylics, embroidery, and digital arts. She is fascinated by folk art from around the world, the artists’ use of flat colors, simple perspective, and storytelling. She is also drawn to Indian miniature art and the patterns and decorative elements used in them. The vibrant and rich colors of her palette are a legacy of her Indian heritage, and the narrative elements are an influence from her work as a children’s book illustrator.

Environmental artist, educator and master gardener, Joan Baron’s background includes a BFA from Washington University in St Louis and MFA from The Chicago Art Institute, and multi-disciplinary studies with The Institute of Noetic Sciences based in Petaluma, Ca. Her studio practice focuses on hand-made vessels and wares addressing her passion for sustainable practices that embrace More Clay Less Plastic.

Her aesthetic encompasses a passion for nurturing community through large and small art interventions that seek to bring a new awareness to place while creating a runway for confidence building. This, Joan believes, inspires and invites new collaborations between all ages and diverse cultures. These projects include site-specific interactive public art installations, designing edible landscapes, social justice projects, contemplative walks and curating art exhibitions such as her most recent installation titled, Tikkun Olam which translates “repairing the world” and included seven Arizona artists. She has exhibited regionally and internationally.

Kristine has been creating art since kindergarten when her teacher told her mom she had promising art talent. Her love of creating continued. She received a BA in Art Education for Adams State College, Alamosa, Colorado in 1985 before moving to Phoenix , AZ.

After 12 year working for a Tempe, AZ based design firm, Kris began her own business, Fine Art & Creative Environments, LLC in 1997.  The business umbrella’s Fine Art, Murals & Themed Environments, and Public Art.

She has been defined as a painter, a sculptor, and a ceramist, but no single word can describe this multi-faceted artist. Kristine works in many mediums, from steel, to clay and every color in-between. Her art reveals an eclectic blend of styles, techniques and mediums purposefully chosen to best express the art at hand.

“Artistic expression is therapeutic. I hear my own voice most clearly through paint, collage, texture and words hidden deep in the layers. My paintings explore the relationship between surface and depth, literal and metaphorical.”

Kristine is a Valley Leadership Alumni, curator of First Studio’s Art Gallery Space in downtown Phoenix, and has donated her time and talents for nearly 20 years to work with the youth and serve on the Board of Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona.

She is a two-time Governors Arts’ Awards nominee and recipient of the 2014 Phoenix Mayors Arts Award for her public art. From kindergarten to today, Kris is still doing what she loves — making art!

"We moved to downtown Phoenix in Spring 1996 from Chicago and have seen the incredible change in this amazing urban arts area (aka best move ever). Doing graphic design since day one and now retired from the City of Phoenix, I still do some freelance graphic design to promote local businesses. I believe in downtown Phoenix! Dine local! Shop local! Support local!

"Creating mixed media images on canvas and luvin’ the feeling that happens during the creation. They vary in size and media used. I start with a visual image in my itty bitty head and that inspiration almost creates itself, but not really."

About Jack Wabbit:

"Our desert creatures are amazing. This little critter is so at home with its surroundings. But beware, it can move fast. It loves the desert too!"

"With my current works, I include a blend of salvaged/up-cycled artificial flowers from cemetery rubbish bins - hand stitched into sturdy paper to create large scale works with plenty of texture and three dimensionality. I like to believe the use of materials is what makes my pieces really stand out.

I had the idea to up-cycle the silk flowers that had been thrown away and stitch them into my work, not only to help reduce waste, but to give these pieces of "trash", that had so much emotion tied to them at one point, a second life."

Originally from England, Joan Waters grew up on the east coast of the US..  She earned her BFA at MICA, Maryland Institute, College of Art, where she studied painting, drawing and printmaking, and developed an interest in African art.  After moving to Phoenix in 1989,  Waters had a successful graphic design business with local and national clients, then re-committed to painting and fine art after having breast cancer. More recently, Joan began working in welded steel, which led to public art projects for the Cities of Phoenix, Mesa and Chandler.  Her work is in many private and public collections including the Phoenix Sheraton, Shemer Art Center, Burton Barr Library and Northern Trust.  She can be found with her two dogs at her studio in Tempe where she welcomes commissions and enjoys the synergy of the collaborative process.

"Zanereti is a naïve youth expression of beauty, humility, physicality, love, irony, life, and death channeled through the familiar human form. Each piece is carefully crafted through these emotions. What implores me so much about lithography and other forms of printmaking is that the process can be so unforgiving. These methods make evident any mistakes and consequently, imperfections can be easily noticed, intentional or not. It is this vulnerability that helps convey my emotion in work. I can relate the hardest times creating to the difficulties exploring human nature and understanding emotions. Both must be confronted and become increasingly complex the longer you spend trying to understand. Each piece I create acts as a stepping stone in this exploration of understanding art as well as understanding life."

“Agave Crura” Demonstrates our unique relationship with nature. The contrasting shapes of the ‘flesh’ of the agave and our own. Despite its appearance, the Agave plant has a myriad of healing properties that are vital to us. The stalks of human anatomy however offer nothing to the plant and ultimately lead to its death despite being more visually appealing."