Ron Hall is an award-winning multi-media visual artist who grew up in the Sacramento area.

Originally an art major out of high school, Ron changed his degree and entered the fire service in 1987.

While in the fire service, Ron created art for numerous fire safety and educational publications.

Ron continued his love for art and from 2009-2015 he taught art and art history to a local homeschool co-op group.

In 2011, Ron started exhibiting art (acrylic and mixed media) in juried and non-juried art shows.

His art has been exhibited all over Northern and Southern California.

Ron is an active member of many art organizations in the area, including Rancho Cordova Arts, where he serves as a Director.

Ron has been an instructor for both classroom workshops and online tutorials and has served as a juror and curator for a variety of local art shows.

After Ron retired from the Fire Service, he returned to college in the Spring of 2015 and earned degrees in Art History and Arts and Humanities in 2018.

Ron enjoys creating art that uses vibrant, free-flowing color that borders on pop, abstract, and surrealism.

Beginning as a child I was involved in all sorts of crafts and dabbled in stained glass.

It wasn’t until watching glass blowing demonstrations all day long at the 1997 California State Fair, I truly decided collecting glass was not enough. I tried glass blowing with Phil Teefy in Sacramento which required strength and numerous kilns and tools. He referred me to fused glass which has lower temperatures and less kilns than glass blowing.

Fast forward to 2022 and I have collected all sorts of kilns and tools in my studio.

I start out cutting sheets of glass using a hand cutter, and also use a ring saw and a tile saw—all with diamond blades. Grinders help to shape and smooth the glass edges—two grinders shape and smooth the glass, while a flat lap grinder polishes.

Other tools to polish and smooth the glass are wet belt sanders, a dremel, and lots of handwork. Working with glass is dusty and dirty, often very wet, —you won’t see clean glass during the process. I am often wearing goggles, a respirator and gloves.

From ramping to soaking to fire polishing to fusing to casting, my glass work is kiln formed in an electric kiln with temperatures between 1250 and 1900 °F — different temperatures and time for the kiln forming process I have chosen. When I fire the kiln, I may not be able to touch my pieces until 24-36 hours later when they have cooled to room temperature. Pieces are usually fired two or more times.

My small kiln is 13” round and my large one is like a 24x40” bathtub. Glass stringers, powders, micas and paint are my favorite glass supplies. You might call me a glass snob, as I truly believe you should be able to see through glass art. You can find transparent glass in all of my work as I like the way light can transmit and reflect colors, light, and layers with the glass.

I like to experiment with inclusions - from copper sheet and copper wire to gold leaf; and flowers and leaves to ash; as well as reactions between the copper and sulfur ingredients of glass. You might look at one of my artworks and wonder what is in there?

Fascinated by the interactions of color, intense heat, light, shape, texture, chemical reactions and inclusions my glass style is continually evolving as I innovate with glass art and the science of glass. I have enjoyed teaching elementary school students the Science of Glass and encouraging future artists.

My work is colorful, unique, and combines mixed media with glass art. Introduced to the ancient craft of Kumihimo, I like to combine unique pieces of opal looking glass jewelry with Kumihimo style beaded braids.

I was raised in the town of Oakdale, CA, notable only because it was on the way to Yosemite.

I moved to Sacramento to pursue a nursing degree at Sacramento State.

However, nursing and I soon parted ways and I got my BA is Social Science.

With that degree, I was fortunate to take more creative classes in photography and art.

I lucked into working with two professional photographers (one commercial, Ron Busselen, and a horse photographer, Bill McNabb Jr.) to help put myself through college.

After five years working part-time for two photographers, I was in need of fulltime employment and decided to work for the commercial photography studio Busselen Photo Illustrators.

I spent 30 years working as a “Jacqueline-of-all trades”-office/business manager, black & white and color lab person, food stylist, prop & logistics coordinator.

During my last ten years, I was a partner in Busselen/Bauer Photo Illustrators, Inc.

My time in commercial photography afforded me many opportunities to work with creative art directors, artists, lab workers and photographers.

In 2000, I retired but the artistic bug hit me and I tried my hand at painting.

Kari Uhlman lives in California.

She is a married, retired civil servant and Mending the Soul Facilitator.

She is on the Advisory Committee for Stand Up Placer.

She studied General Design.

She was first introduced to art as a child, through her neighbor.

Her acrylic paintings promote joy in others.

It’s about surrendering everything to Jesus.

She wants to convey courage to deal with feelings we prefer to ignore.

Upon viewing her pieces, you will immediately be transported to a sense of calm peacefulness.

Her acrylic paintings include, but are not limited to stunning, vibrant, welcoming scenes.

Since she was a child, Eileen has been making art as a way of exploring the world around her.

From those first woven potholders and a crayon obsession to her current love of metal and ceramic, Eileen is always trying something new, pushing the limits of what she’s mastered and what she can learn.

Words were her medium through much of her life. Publishing poems in her teens, Eileen went on to work in the wild world of advertising writing television and radio commercials for national brands.

All the while, she was absorbing everything she could about music, graphic art, lighting and film production.

She dove head first into photography.

Spending countless hours in the black and white darkroom working with 4” x 5” negatives. Finally graduating to the full darkness of color developing.

There was also a collage period that resulted in pieces with bold graphic images and poems, poems, poems.

Melding together what I know with what I am learning has always drawn me, Eileen explains. How do I take what I know and build on it in a new medium?

Falling in love with the big flames of welding, Eileen has lately explored working with larger metal pieces as well as making metal jewelry.

A foray into polymer clay proceeded her entrance into working with clay: slab building, throwing and sculpting.

I’m on a quest to capture the beauty of things I see in my world.

I want to take what captivates me and translate that into an oil painting.

I mainly paint still life in a representational style. Inspiration comes in many forms; I love flowers and fruit and often use things I’ve grown in my garden.

I also like to incorporate things I have collected over the years, a silver pitcher, copper pot, or depression glass. Anything with meaning to me.

I discovered painting during a difficult time in my life and found it to be restorative.

It has been a balm to my soul, and I can’t imagine how I ever managed without it in my life.

Now I look forward to painting almost every day and marvel at my good fortune in having found my “second act”.

My favorite artist would be John Singer Sargent. I love how effortless he makes his paintings look, but I know that he spent an incredible amount of time to get it right. I would love to ask him how he knew that the painting was done.

My favorite tools are Sable Tech brushes and Centurion Linen Panels. It is worth it to have good quality tools!

My favorite fruit to paint right now is peaches. Each one is so different, some are mostly yellow while others lean to purple in places. The fuzz is a challenge too.