Artists in Focus – to see all, click HERE.
This is a selection from the current collection of Focus On The Masters artist documentation. Click on the picture or artist name to view the portrait, biography, media presentations and website of the artist.
All artists’ portraits are by Donna Granata. The photographs and artworks shown on this website are copyrighted by the artists and may not be reproduced without permission from the copyright owner. By entering this website, you agree to these conditions.
Tom McMillin
Environmental Artist/Ceramist
Tom McMillin has made an impressive artistic evolution from sea captain and ceramist to conceptual artist of dynamic installations. “My art has been devoted to process and environmental...
Leslie McQuaide
Sculptor
Clay, bits of old jewelry and thrift shop cast-offs are the tools of Leslie McQuaide’s trade. Her work can at first seem humorous, but humor is merely the door through which we enter into her personal history. ...
Nuvi Mehta
Violinist/Conductor
Mehta began violin studies at the age of six. Attending Indiana University as a student of the famed Josef Gingold...
Mary Michel
Painter/Printmaker
Mary Michel remarked that she had been an artist as long as she could remember. Known for her bold yet delicate paintings and serigraphs, her signature style was an elegant and refined technique...
Sally Miller
Painter
Sally Miller was revered as a painter par excellence, compassionate critic and inspiring teacher. Josef Woodard, writing in the Los Angeles Times, called her work...
Carole Milton
Painter
Milton says her work “expresses my subconscious visions… to my perceptions of reality.” Her work explores “texture, impasto, calligraphy, and buildup of color layers” and creates an image in response to the “impressions, visions, questions, doubts, evaluations, and journeys of my...
Cynthia Minet
Sculptor
Cynthia Minet’s sculptures, often larger than life and composed of synthetic materials, immediately capture attention. The choice of subject and materials is not accidental; it is a comment on our consumer...
Carlyle Montomery
Sculptor
Carlyle Montgomery’s interest in the arts began as a child when he experimented in both two and three dimensional work. His love of art...
Michael Moore
Photographer
The Universal Landscape is a document in progress, a constantly expanding definition of how I interact with the land...
Christine Morla
Painter
Christine Morla combines images from her Filipino-American background to create art that expresses universal statements about family, world events and popular culture. She is a mixed-media artist who appropriates...
Bob Moskowitz
Painter
In his teaching and in his own work, he stresses the importance of mastering the fundamentals, of not taking short-cuts. His colleagues describe...
Jane Mulfinger
Technology/Installation Artist
Using site-specific installations, performance and sculpture, Jane Mulfinger offers commentary on the human condition. Of her work Jane says: I act as archivist and archaeologist, an analyst of...
Marta Nelson
Painter/Printmaker
Since winning her first art scholarship at age 10, Marta Nelson has continued a career in fine arts. A life-long love affair with drawing the human figure developed when she attended her first...
Janet Neuwalder
Sculptor & Installation Artist
Janet Neuwalder specializes in clay and ceramic processes. Some of her installations are modeled after anthropological displays often found in Natural History Museums...
Arnold Newman
Photographer
In a career that spanned almost 58 years, Arnold Newman was a significant contributor to the history of photography. His photographs are part of permanent collections at the most respected museums...
John Nichols
Photographer
Yogi Berra may have counseled “when you get to a fork in the road, take it,” but photographer John Nichols is apt to not only take the fork, but will probably examine it, learn from it, and happily follow...
Margaret Nielsen
Painter
The canoe, encased in golden vines, floats in darkness, illuminated by stars, anchored by vein-like roots. Is the canoe waiting to take you on a journey through the unknown? Through memories? Will it navigate a...
Valerie Noelle
Environmental Artist/Ceramist
Valerie Noelle's work is greatly influenced by her childhood exposure to the diversity of human culture as well as nature's myriad forms, through her extensive travels as a result of her...
Paula Odor
Painter
Odor's watercolors emphasize composition and design, establishing an equilibrium of all the elements within the picture plane. Paula Odor Painter and etcher Paula Odor began her studies at the Texas State College for...
Dennis Oppenheim
Conceptual Artist
Dennis Oppenheim created Bus-Home, the large functional sculpture graces the Bus Transfer Center at Ventura’s Pacific View Mall. Stanford educated, Oppenheim was a world famous pioneering...
Rondal Partridge
Photographer/Master Printer
The son of renowned photographer Imogen Cunningham, Rondal Partridge grew up surrounded by some of America’s most iconic photographers, among them Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and...
Ruth Pastine
Painter
The paintings actively engage the viewer to experience light and color from black, from a perceptual place where visibility is ambiguous and is free from preconceived notions, and is redefined. Ruth Pastine Intense...
Michael Pearce
Painter
Neolithic man aligned massive stones with the sun, building places of worship and ritual. Alchemical philosophers distilled elements to find pure essence, creating allegories and symbols to express their...
Rafael Perea de la Cabada
Multidisiplinary Artist
The artist describes himself as a visual poet, offering a powerful dialog that resonates with the plight of humanity. His intuitive approach draws from his personal experience, incorporating deep narratives layered in symbolism...
Susan Petty
Painter
Susan Petty paints because she has to. Her works chronicle timelessness and continuity. Her technical expertise resonates in both tightly detailed images of delicate lace and barren tracks of land. Yet she continues to...
Joseph Piasentin
Painter/Mixed Media
Joseph Piasentin is a professor of painting and drawing at Pepperdine University. It has been said that Piasentin encourages his students to be responsible for every choice, every decision made...
Gail Pidduck
Painter
“There are moments when art attains almost to the dignity of manual labor.” The quote is Oscar Wilde’s and the words have a special significance for Gail Pidduck. She has, with paint and the eye of a discerning...
Elisse Pogofsky-Harris
Painter
Dreamy and surreal images, ripe with symbolism, gradually reveal to the viewer a world of multiple possibilities. Elisse Pogofsky-Harris worked mostly in oil on canvas. She spent 11 years...
Patti Post
Painter
“The arts exist, so that we might give voice to what we cannot say any other way. I am amazed and inspired by the profound insight and awareness that our students realize through their images and their willingness to...
Len Poteshman
Painter/Sculptor
Len Poteshman‘s dreams of being a concert violinist came to an end due to injuries sustained in World War II. He pursued an arts education at the Chicago Art Institute, the American Academy of...
Peggy Pownall
Painter
Peggy Pownall is a mixed media painter working as an Artist-In-Residence at Studio Channel Islands in Camarillo since 2008. She received her B.A. from Pepperdine University and has...
Astrid Preston
Painter
Astrid Preston has been called “one of America’s most important contemporary landscape painters.” She joins a love for Renaissance and Chinese/Japanese art with the emotions...
Sandra Price
Tatto Artist
Rock stars and celebrities sport them. A tattoo can be decoration or can express solidarity among those who have served overseas. An exquisitely colored song bird may be a way of overcoming...
Bob Privitt
Sculptor
Visiting with Bob Privitt is like gliding through a history of civilization on roller skates. His conversation is peppered with references to Plato, Icarus, Langston Hughes and Countee...
Chris Provenzano
Sculptor
The mystery of stones guides sculptor Chris Provenzano’s fingers. “There’s always a surprise within each stone...
Keith Puccinelli
Assemblage/Performance/Installation Artist/Draughtsman
In a world that is increasingly chaotic, is it the role of the artist to eliminate chaos? Or, is he simply to pick up the pieces of a shattered world...
Richard Rackus
Painter
Having studied under some of California’s foremost teachers and artists – Frank Tolles Chamberlin, Laurence Murphy and Sam Hyde Harris – it was natural for Rackus to remain in the school of the California plein air painting...
