Live Auction Artists

Carol Adamec holds a BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from SUNY Brockport. Carol has completed numerous graduate courses from Syracuse University in ceramics, photography, and her love, sculpture working with Rodger Mack, Mary Giehl, and Matthew Gehring. Currently an art teacher at Westhill High School, Carol has also taught adult clay hand building classes through BOCES. As a member of the Syracuse Ceramics Guild, Carol often creates pieces in clay which she then makes into a bronze casting continuing the tradition of lost wax casting used by her jeweler grandfather many years ago. She has won numerous local and state-wide awards for her work in pottery, ceramic sculpture, and bronze casting.

Karen Bakke, who holds a BFA and MFA in design, is a designer who works successfully in a wide variety of media. She is a jeweler and silversmith, and works in handmade paper. Karen teaches textile design and interior design rendering classes at Syracuse University, where she is the chairperson of the Department of Environmental Arts, Consumer Studies and Retailing. She does calligraphy and illumination and collects 19th and 20th century antiques. Her work has been shown extensively and is always marked by a strong sense of composition and color.

June Carey holds a BFA from Syracuse University and has been a member of Associated Artists since 1960. June has participated in many juried and solo shows in the New York and Vermont area. Her collections have been on display in several local businesses including Crouse Hospital, Bristol Laboratories, and First Trust Bank. Her work has been awarded in shows such as the New York State Fair and the Associated Artists Annual Members Show.

Ron Derutte, a Texas native, has spent the last 18 years residing and working in Syracuse. He received an MFA in sculpture from the University of Maryland, College Park and a BFA in Graphic Design/Illustration from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Ron has taught various sculpture courses and has worked as the technician for the sculpture and ceramics facility at Syracuse University. He has done commissioned works for private individuals as well as public and private institutions and organizations nationally. Ron has also received various awards including a Penny McCall Foundation Grant.

“Making art is a direct reflection of my interest in the physical and psychological aspects of our lives. I have always felt that the eclectic nature of my work has been a part of its strength in that it reflects a certain honesty; both to myself and to the viewer. Bronze and steel have been the materials of choice as of late for they offer beauty, strength, and longevity.”

Nicora Gangi was educated at the Hartford Art School, Montclair State College, and received her BFA and MFA from Syracuse University. Her fields include both fine arts and art education. She is an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University (Studio Arts and School of Design). She has had numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States. She has lectured regionally and nationally as a visiting artist at colleges and universities as well as to the Artist’s Guilds on such varied topics as “Spiritual Symbolism in Art” and “Personal Expression Through the Pastel Medium.”

Nicora is represented by five northeastern galleries. She has been published in many art journals such as American Artist, Artist Magazine, International Pastel Artist Magazine, International Artist Magazine, and a book, “Pure Color” by North Light Books. Her most recent award, the Grand Prize Award for the use of pastels, juried by Daniel Greene, was published in the April 2005 issue of The Pastel Journal. She resides in Syracuse and is married to Bruce Manwaring.

Hall Groat, an American impressionist painter, is a native of Syracuse who received his BFA from Syracuse University. Twenty years ago, following a brief career in the commercial arts field, Groat made a complete transition into a full-time career as an artist. The Berkshire Museum in Massachusetts was the first of several museums worldwide to acquire a major Groat work. The museum purchased prizewinner “Megalopolis,” the largest of Groat’s early railroad paintings. The late Norman Rockwell expressed a strong interest in Groat’s work and invited the 29-year-old to lunch in the Berkshires. Groat has created 10 paintings that were selected by the United Nations for stamp reproduction. The entire series is in the permanent collection of the UN Philatelic Museum at Geneva, Switzerland. While his paintings are among the collections of Jimmy Carter, the late Jacob Javits, Henry Kissinger, Fred Perry, and several ambassadors, he is also popular in the music world. Sir Michael Tippett, Christopher Keane, the late Arthur Fiedler, and others have collected his work. In recent years, Groat has turned his attention to corporations, banks, churches, and the brokerage and insurance industries. Syracuse has become the showcase of Groat paintings as several murals are permanently installed in local buildings and his paintings are featured in our most prestigious offices.

Lori Hawke-Ramin received an MFA in Metalsmithing from Syracuse University. She currently teaches casting and metalsmithing at SU. Her work appears in the books, 1000 Rings and 500 Bracelets by Lark Publishing. “Personally I am fascinated with the ideas or meaning we attach to the objects that surround our daily lives. As a maker and wearer of jewelry, I participate in the notion that jewelry can represent a bond, a mood, a moment, or a memory. I create jewelry from the little things I find along the way that activate these ideas within myself. The handmade becomes an alliance of found objects with examples from nature.”

Jean L. Henry is a graduate student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, School of Design at Syracuse University. She holds a BFA in Design from SU and will receive an MA in Fashion and Design Technologies in May 2006. Currently, Jean is a teaching assistant in the School of Art and Design and teaches courses in design, drawing, and fashion accessories.

Margie Hughto, initially with her early studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art, has examined ceramics in a non-traditional format, finding her metier in the slab or wall-mural format. Former Everson curator Peter Doroshenko called Margie “a unique and paradoxical artist.” Her work is characterized by shifts in color, shape, and style. It includes references to landscape and to painterly and natural abstraction. Her works are alternatively monumental and intimate in scale, mute and garish in color, objectively descriptive and purely abstract in subject matter; her glaze application can be flat and smooth or thickly built-up. Having received an undergraduate degree in art education from SUNY Buffalo and an MFA in ceramics from Cranbrook, she joined the faculty of Syracuse University in 1971 where she continues to teach ceramics. In recent years, Hughto has undertaken a number of public-space commissions, including large-scale ceramic installations for the New York City and Buffalo subway systems. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is counted in the collections of major American corporations and museums. Most recently, Margie was a 2001 recipient of a Tiffany Grant.

Sarah McCoubre is a painter and teacher. She received her MFA in 1981 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned a BA in English and a BFA in painting. She has exhibited regularly in group and solo shows and has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships including a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Grant Award, a Maryland Council for the Arts Award, a New York State Foundation for the Arts Award in Painting, two Saltonstall Foundation Awards, and funded residencies at the MacDowell and Millay Colonies. She is currently represented by the Locks Gallery in Philadelphia and the Robert Brown Gallery in Washington, D.C. For the past fourteen years, she has been teaching drawing and painting at Syracuse University.

David MacDonald is currently a professor of art at Syracuse University, where he has taught since 1971. He received his MFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His creative work spans the entire ceramic spectrum, from earthenware to stoneware and porcelain. His artistic production encompasses utilitarian vessel forms as well as large sculptural forms. His work is greatly influenced by the celebration of his African heritage and is most widely known for his large intricately carved stoneware plates and platters. David’s work is represented in many private and public collections throughout the US, including the Everson, the American Crafts Museum, the Afro-American Museum and the Studio Museum. David was represented in the prestigious national traveling exhibition Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: The Legacy of African American Craft Art, which ended its national tour at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

Bruce Manwaring received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1962. Traveling to California, he attended the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont University) studying painting at Scripps College where he received a BAed. After serving as Chairman of the Art Department at Jamestown College, he continued on to receive an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Massachusetts. In 1970, Bruce was hired as an Assistant Professor in Printmaking and Illustration at Syracuse University where he, with Prof. Don Cortese, helped to build up the Printmaking Program as part of the Experimental Studios Department. This Department, which he chaired for five years, became the present Studio Arts Department. He was a member of the founding board of the Central New York Arts and Crafts Society and has served as a Ruling Elder at the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Syracuse since 1979. He and his wife, Nicora Gangi, are co-partners of Machaira Studio, which was formed in 1986. Bruce has served as Area Coordinator of the Printmaking Program and has taught courses in Foundation Drawing, Lithography, Relief, Monoprint, and Stained Glass. He will be retiring from Syracuse University in the spring of 2007 after 43 years of teaching. Bruce’s prints have been exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally in numerous juried and invitational shows. They are in the collections of the Free University in Amsterdam; The Munson Williams Proctor Institute; the Tyler Gallery at SUNY Oswego; the Scripps Gallery in Claremont; and in numerous private collections in the US, Canada, England, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Lynn Fishbach Miller creates art in many ways. She is a pastelist, quilter, watercolorist, and also works in mosaics and painted furniture. She loves new artistic challenges and clear bright colors as reflected in a mural she has created in Naples, FL. Lynn has studied painting with private instructors, including Nicora Gangi and Mary Padgett at Syracuse University, Albert Handell and as a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Fashion Institute of Technology. She received her MS degree in Educational Communication from Syracuse's Newhouse School where she was a graduate assistant in the Retailing Department in the College of Human Development, and an adjunct lecturer in Retailing. Lynn taught a class in painted floor cloths for the MPH Adult Education program. She has been an active volunteer for MPH for two decades, working on countless fundraising events and serving on the Board of Trustees and as President of the Parents' Association. Although her sons, Jared '00 and Kyle '01, are no longer around campus, both Lynn and her husband Robert are still active supporters of the School.

W. Ralph Murray is a graduate of the Museum School of Art, now known as the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia. He received a BA in art education and has also taken graduate studies at Syracuse University. After teaching art in public schools for 31 years, he retired to devote more time to his special interest in watercolor painting. He also teaches a watercolor class in Hamilton and Cooperstown. Ralph is a charter member of the CNY Watercolor Society, a signature member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Club, and an exhibiting member of the Pioneer Gallery in Cooperstown. He exhibits widely and has been represented in many national and regional exhibitions including the Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolors in Old Forge, the Cooperstown National & Regional Exhibitions, and The Kent Art Association in Connecticut. One man shows have been held at the Art Centers in Clinton, Rome and Old Forge, SUNY Oneonta, the Gallery at Jamaica, Vermont, The Southern Vermont Art Center, and The Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, just to name a few. His work is represented at the Lupine Gallery on Monhegan Island, ME and the Pioneer Gallery in Cooperstown. Ralph also maintains a gallery in his home in Waterville, NY.

Carmel Nicoletti is a local artist who works in a wide range of materials including glass, bronze, found objects, drawing, collage, and performance. She currently teaches at Syracuse University in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She is a faculty member in the Department of Art and Foundation. “The balance of fluid motion in a contained space is of great interest to me. Throughout my work I explore the different pathways that occur in motion and gesture. I use materials such as glass and metal that were once liquid. The colors present in these materials have intrinsic qualities that evoke human response, often suggesting a place or experience. I combine these materials to emphasize particular elements of motion such as rhythm, contraction, release, pulsation, and flow and put them in architectural and sculptural frameworks.”

Mary Padgett’s pastel paintings are distinctive for their high-keyed color. Educated at Boston University and Syracuse University, she is an instructor in Syracuse University’s School of Art and conducts workshops in art facilities throughout the state. She is a signature member of the Pastel Society of America and has been featured in American Artist magazine. Her paintings are in numerous private and corporate collections and can be seen locally at The Gallery, 58 Albany Street, Cazenovia.

David Rufo, in addition to teaching in the Third and Fourth Grade Blend classroom at Manlius Pebble Hill School, is also a full time artist. The inspirations for his paintings and sculptures range from pop art and abstract expressionism to antiquities from the Cycladic and Scythian cultures. David is a graduate of Syracuse University with a degree in Fine Arts. Recent group exhibitions include the AAF Contemporary Art Fair in New York City as well as the Spring Gallery in Belgrade Lakes, Maine. In his words, “I wanted to find an iconic approach to my work. I developed this style in 1999 with the advent of the ‘flower’ paintings. The painting process was swift, vigorous and directly from nature. I wanted to represent the flowers as entities rather than passive objects in a still life. Compositionally, the works are rather simple. I like the idea of the viewer being able to visually dissect the work, to take it apart stroke by stroke. Or, perhaps, it is the influence of the Pop and Minimalist art movements from my childhood that has crept from my subconscious into my paintbrush.”

Tanya Silverstein is an instructor of Art Education at Syracuse University. She will receive a Ph.D. from SU in May. She received a Master of Science in Art Education and Certificate of Advanced Study in Woman’s’ Studies specializing in Woman Artists from Syracuse University. She also received a Bachelor of Science in Art Education with a concentration in Fibers from Buffalo State College. As a practicing artist, Tanya explores cultural practice, scientific controversy, and general absurdity through assemblage. Working within the confines of a defined three-dimensional space, manipulating ephemera and found objects, Tanya approaches her work intuitively as she explores a variety of concepts through a system of spontaneity and purposeful juxtaposition. Tanya is an active member of the New York State Art Teachers Association and the National Art Education Association.

Gail Sustare received her BS in Fine Arts and Theater and her MS in Communications from Syracuse University. She owned “The Studio Gallery” for many years. In 1989, she won Best of Show at the Everson Invitational and was a featured artist at the 10th Anniversary TelAuc Art Invitational. She was selected to create a rendering of the Syracuse Courthouse for King & King Architects and was the first Vice President of ACRA.

Pam Steele is internationally known for her large-scale wall pieces, which have been exhibited, commissioned, and purchased for numerous private and corporate collections, including: I.B.M., Xerox, Lucent Technology, and Hyatt Hotels. Her experimental techniques combine color field painting with optical art in a circular icon. Her work has been published in The Guild Sourcebook, The Artful Home, and Who's Who in the East. She received her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has been an art instructor at Syracuse University, Cazenovia College, Queens College, and the Everson Museum of Art. Her current TARGET paintings have been in several exhibitions and may be seen on her web page at steelestudio@netzero.net.

Ludwig Stein is a Professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts-Studio Arts at Syracuse University. As a visual artist, he has had numerous one-person exhibits locally, nationally, and internationally. Recently, he was part of an exhibition called “Drawings” at the Shoeneck Gallery in Basel, Switzerland. His work can be found in many permanent collections including University Hospital, Syracuse; The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; Fundacion Centro Civico, Ecuador; University of London, England; The Finnegan Building, Washington, D.C.; American Airlines; New York; Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center, Texas; and countless others.
Ludwig’s current gallery affiliations include the Barbara Gillman Gallery in Miami, Florida and Galerie Schoeneck, in Basel, Switzerland. His publications include The Excuse, 1999; The Gang of 5, 2000; Blind Date, 2004; and Legends, copyright pending. He is also the recipient of many grants including a New York State Council for the Arts Grant, a British Arts Council Grant, a Northern British Arts Grant, and a Ford Foundation Grant. Other accomplishments include listing in Who’s Who in American Art 1982-2000, Best of Show for “Painting” in Waterloo, Iowa; Barbara Rose Jurors Award in the Tyler’s Alumni Show, Pennsylvania; and Second Place at Wind River Valley National Painting Exhibition, Wyoming. “Drawing has always been one of the major influences in my work. Solutions to my artistic problems are discovered through drawing. A common studio experience is the production of an initial series of paper drawings delineating a problem and resulting with a resolution on canvas.”

Yusaku Uchida, from Tokyo, Japan, is a Computer Graphics major at Syracuse University. He will receive a BFA in 2006. Yusaku works in paints and ceramics, as well as computer graphics and this is his first art show.

Jerome Witkin, a Syracuse University professor, received his undergraduate degree from The Cooper Union in New York City, his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and has studied at the Berlin Academy in West Germany. Jerome was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Grant, a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Cooper Union in 1996. His collections have been seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Butler Art Institute, The Uffici Gallery in Florence, Italy, and the California Legion of Honor Museum. Currently, his work is at the Jack Rutberg Gallery in Los Angeles. Jerome resides in Syracuse.