Kira Mountjoy-Pepka’s hand shakes as she holds her paintbrush. She laughs and shakes her head, withdrawing her brush from her canvas and attempting to keep the paint from splattering a nearly-complete painting of two oversized green pears.

Tara Joshi is the owner of TJ Pottery and a ceramic artist living and teaching in Saline, Michigan. She earned dual degrees in Ceramics and Art History from the University of Toledo in 2011, and previous to opening her own studio worked for the Toledo Museum of Art and managed local glass studios and galleries. A popular judge at juried exhibitions, her work is known for its delicacy and subversive beauty.

Kira is an award-winning artist whose work pushes the vibrancy of color found in quiet still lifes in an unlabored, alla prima style. Born in 1982, Kira has worked in oils since she was 16 years old and her work is on permanent display in public and private collections around the country. She currently lives in Ohio.

Ronald Shap was born in Toledo, OH and lived most of his life in California. He was a scholarship award graduate at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1964 and completed graduate study in painting at the University of Nebraska and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1967. He was a visiting artist and instructor at BGSU in 1973-74 and worked out of his Los Angeles studio and taught drawing and anatomy at Citrus College until his retirement in 2005.