Category: Instructor Bios

Meticulously torn bits of hand-painted papers, delicately put together, form the exceptionally vibrant collages created by Artist Elizabeth St. Hilaire. Richard Colvin, executive director of the Lake Eustis Museum of Art says,
“Elizabeth St. Hilaire’s artworks have a fresh quality that belies the way they are constructed.”

St. Hilaire published her book Painted Paper Art Workshop internationally with North Light Books in August (2016).
Elizabeth’s work has also been published in Acrylic Works 3: Celebrating Texture (2015) and Incite 2; Color Passions (2014), both by North Light. A feature article on her work appeared in the April, 2014 issue of The Artists Magazine, she was also a finalist in The Artist’s Magazine Annual Art Competition (2014 and 2015) and took first place in the category of Collage/Mixed Media for The Artist’s Magazine All Media Competition (2010). St. Hilaire was an award winner in the National Collage Society’s Signature Members Exhibition at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, in
Mesa AZ (2013). Online, Elizabeth was a Finalist in The Richeson 75 Annual Art Contest (2013).

Born and raised in New England, Elizabeth has lived in Central Florida for the past 20+ years. She holds a B.F.A. in Advertising Design from Syracuse University, which prepared her for a dual identity as both communication designer and a painter–these days she’s a full-time fine artist who’s only graphic design client is herself. St. Hilaire has earned Signature Member status with the National Collage Society and crisscrosses the country several times a year to take her painted paper tidbits on the road. Teaching and sharing her collage technique through an intense three day Paper Paintings workshop has become a passion.

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Nancy Gehrig grew up in Wisconsin and loved drawing from early on which led to a degree in Fine Arts.  Her career started in Medical Illustration and Graphic Design.  Owning a small hobby farm developed her passion for botanical art and the natural world.  Nancy has shown her work in London with the Royal Horticultural Society and her work has been included in exhibitions at The New York Botanical Garden, The Phoenix Art Museum, and the Filoli in California.  She has also shown with the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and regionally in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.  She also teaches Colored Pencil and Drawing at the MN School of Botanical Art in Minneapolis.  Nancy has also taught Colored Pencil at the MN Landscape Arboretum.

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Eric Knoche grew up in White Bear Lake and had a very bad attitude towards pottery as a child and young adult.  Towards the end of his time at the U of M, Morris, he touched clay for the first time and after that could no long imagine doing anything else with his life.  He subsequently worked for two years with ceramist Jeff Shapiro and for six months with Isezaki Jun, Living National Treasure, Bizen, Japan.  In 2011 he discovered the Argentine tango and now splits his passions between clay work and dancing.  In addition he enjoys playing Sheepshead, trap shooting and checking the cloud formations for the face of Elvis.  Eric lives in Asheville, NC with his wife, Kristin. 

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Dan Hill, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Sensory Logic, Inc., which originated the use of facial coding in business beginning in 1998. Dan has received ten U.S. patents in all, and his research-based consulting company has worked for over half of the world’s top 100 business-to-consumer oriented companies.
Dan’s TV appearances have included: ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Al Jazeera, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC’s “The Today Show,” PBS, and The Tennis Channel. Radio appearances have included the BBC and NPR’s “Marketplace.” Print and digital coverage of Dan’s work
has included: Admap, Advertising Age, Adweek, Allure, Cosmopolitan, China Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, The Financial Times, Inc., Kiplinger’s The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Politico, Time, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, in addition to his having been a columnist for Reuters during the 2016 presidential race. His essays were noted with commendation in the 1989, 1991 and 1994 editions of The Best American Essays.
Since his education at St. Olaf College, Oxford University, Brown University, and Rutgers University, Dan has given speeches and workshops in over 25 countries, Along with his wife, Karen Bernthal, he lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and Palm Desert, California. To sign up for Dan’s Faces of the Week blog series or to learn about his other offerings, please visit www.sensorylogic.com.

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Graduate of the U of Ariz. with a B.A. in anthropology & history, and a M.A. in Museum Studies.  1973-1981 various roles with the Arizona State Museum and the Arizona Historical Society including Site Manager, Registrar, Acting Curator of Education, Acting Collections Curator. 

Marcia managed and developed the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) three-dimensional collections from 1981-2011. 

Marcia’s essay, Art for Life’s Sake: The Handicraft Guild of Minneapolis,” in Minnesota 1900: Art and Life on the Upper Mississippi, 1890-1915, Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1994, pp. 122-213. Received the Montgomery Award.

She is the author of  “The Handicraft Guild of Minneapolis: A Model of the Arts and Crafts Movement,” in The Substance of Style: Perspectives on the American Arts and Crafts Movement.  Winterthur, Delaware: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996, pp. 213-228. 

Co-author and developer of the In Honor of the People website with Tilly Laskey. Using MN Legacy funds to document and make accessible the Bishop Henry Whipple American Indian related collections held by the MNHS and the Science Museum of Minnesota, 2010-2011.  http://www.inhonorofthepeople.org/

Marcia is a collaborator in creation of The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary online resource using MN Legacy funds, 2010-2011.  http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/

She is retired as Senior Curator in 2011.  2011 – 2017 completed a book on the MNHS bandolier bag collection – A Bag Worth a Pony: The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag.  Published – May 2017, MNHS Press.  

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Karen is a fiber artist and creator of KJE Felties™, needle felted birds. Her wool sculptures are inspired and informed by her direct observation of birds in the habitat she’s created around her home studio. Karen’s career as a graphic designer and illustrator is evident in her packaged needle felting kits, classroom instruction books and the tiny books about birds she writes, illustrates, and prints in her family’s letterpress print shop.

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Kit Artig is a former advertising Creative Director and artist working in acrylic, oil, and mixed media. Favorite subjects are wildlife and nautical, with a bit of a twist… all growing out of passions formed early living on the lake. She received her BFA at Minneapolis College of Art & Design after a year in London studying printmaking and bookbinding. There she showed new work with classmates in galleries in London, Edinburough & Greenwich. After college she became art director and courtroom artist for KMSP TV, always ready for the next murder conspiracy trial.

Her work has been featured in Newsweek, Time, New York Times, published in “Art and Illusion”, and resides in many private collections.

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Clarice Allgood is a functional potter and artist. Many disciplines inform her practice. A pragmatic, DIY childhood and an academic foundation in philosophy underwrite her focus on the practical and ethical tools of everyday life. Allgood has traveled around the country studying ceramics, participating in numerous workshops and in informal residencies. Allgood currently resides in Minneapolis where she is a 2019 graduate of the MN NICE Program, an advanced certificate program at Northern Clay Center.

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