CSA 2021 Artists

Piper Pottery (artist's website)

Piper Pottery is the ceramic studio of Cammie Meerdink, a local artist who finds inspiration everywhere she walks. For over 20 years, she has been playing in the mud – turning clay into beautiful and functional ware. The studio’s name comes from the artist’s maiden name and that of her youngest child. With three kids, a husband, and a part time job as a nurse, life is full! Cammie creates using both hand building and wheel thrown pottery in her home studio.Touched with the whimsical beauty of our native landscape, her stoneware pieces are equally at home in your garden or on your table.

Darin Doty (artist's website)

I make paintings because not making paintings makes me uncomfortable. My paintings triangulate somewhere between cartoon, still life, and landscape. I typically make paintings on recycled materials, creating images that react to and interact with preexisting patterns. Sometimes, as a change of pace, I sit outside and paint what I see. My paintings are meant to entertain and unsettle, but sometimes just end up being pretty. I am an artist from Illinois. I have been making art as far back as I can remember. There is an expensive piece of paper in a drawer somewhere certifying that I know how to paint and draw.

Cindy Sampson (artist's website)

I've been doing shows in one form or another for almost 35 years.  I started out doing craft shows, then on to antique shows, then back to craft shows, art shows, and then finally farmers markets.  It's been an amazing journey. Throughout my life, I have been both a collector and an artist.  In my assemblages, found objects are combined with paint, wood or other elements to become a cohesive whole. When I start a new piece, I never know how the story will end.  Depending on my mood, anything can emerge: my passion for the environment, our culture or something more serious and dark.

Stacey Gross (artist's website)

A Quincy native, Gross earned a MA (‘01) and BFA (‘94) in Art Education, with a studio concentration in photography, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She is a practicing artist who works primarily with camera-less darkroom photographic processes to create abstract imagery.  She is an avid traveler, with a passion for Japanese art and culture.

In 2015, she was named Art Educator of the Year by the Illinois Art Education Association.

Gregory Stallmeyer (artist's instagram)

After more than 20 years building cars, Greg closed his shop in Seymour and built a home studio so he could spend more time making art. He became heavily involved with the local art community where he has found friendship, support, and feedback that has allowed him to grow as an artist and person. Today Greg still works with metal and automotive paint creating two dimensional art and three dimensional sculpture. He garners his inspiration from nature, people, and everyday life. He enjoys experimenting with new mediums and has discovered that he has an affinity for the fluid process of working with a combination of resin and paint.

Fire Doll Studio (artist's website) 

Fire Doll Studio is a Midwest based independent woman-owned artisan chandlery with a passion for health, sustainability, and the art of candle making.  Fire Doll Studio began in 2011 in the tiny kitchen of a small studio apartment in Champaign, Illinois when owner/chandler Kayla Brown was in nursing school. From the hands of a nurse, musician, artist, and lover of upcycling… you will find a lovely array of natural soy and beeswax candles ranging from pillars, votives, and taper candles to container candles thoughtfully poured into repurposed containers. Some love for the earth, for your health, and for your comfort. 

Pipapo (artist's website) 

Trained in Germany and the US, Anna Gutsch is a Color Designer with a passion for creating simple yet meaningful objects. In the design of her jewelry, she combines her love for wood and rich color with designs inspired by her childhood and nature.

"With my work, I try to create beautiful objects that complement the individual. In my opinion, when someone smiles with their eyes it reveals their pure and essential beauty. Seeing that my work can make such a profound difference in someone's life makes me happy!"

Carol Alison (artist's website) 

I have always had a love affair with art+music and with science+nature. I find inspiration is human relationships: the complexities, dynamics, love, the push and pull, the beauty and the destruction. My abstract work uses bold colors and textures and is heavily influenced by nature, counter culture of all kinds, other artists, and the basic human condition. My work always seeks to explain my experience in the world; to make sense of the business of life. If my work gets people to feel something then that really is everything, because that’s where the human condition starts.   

 
 Lisa Kesler (artist's website)

I’ve been a full-time artist for almost thirty years. I am a painter and printmaker and I approach my compositions in a very intuitive way, letting them evolve as I work on them. While I’m painting, I mostly think about the interplay of colors, the direction of the marks, and try to find different ways to apply the paint.  My prints portray simple images with interesting textures or patterns. I find that subjects from the plant and animal world lend themselves well to the linocut process. Sometimes I bring the painting and the printmaking together in the same piece of art. The result has a unique character that I haven’t been able to achieve any other way.