Bill Krauss – Montrose – Beer/Wine/Cheese

Artist, illustrator, sculptor, and crazy birdhouse maker, who’s just trying to leave something behind that makes people smile. A lifelong Northeast Ohio native, he studied commercial design at Capital University and fine arts at the Ringling School of Art & Design. Over the years, his creative path has wandered through acrylic painting, pen and ink illustration, and now woodworking—each medium feeding the next. His painting roots still show up in his approach to color and detail, a style shaped by starting every canvas black to make the colors deeper and richer. Whether it’s a brush, pen, or saw in hand, his work carries the same goal: to craft something a little unexpected that brightens someone’s day.

Dan Buckholz – Montrose – Culinary

Dan’s first foray into expression began around 5 years old – carving his name backwards onto mom’s soft pine end table with a screwdriver. Knowing that it’s spelled backwards, he escaped punishment…. to this day! He’s taken that expression of markings deep into poetry and then most recently back onto wood.
“Patterns”: what we notice of our own, in others, in nature, from the inside out and outside in.

Love gave birth to Dan’s poetry and grief to his art. He recognized his own patterns of healing and reflections from caregiving to solace. Dan explored the haphazard nature of pressboard and how the blank canvas spoke in volumes of movement and topographical shifting in ways that aligned with his experiences. His art populates patterns clustered closely and also spread out over time and space, allowing the viewer an aerial feeling of looking over, and through, at the same time.

Each piece reflects a complex array of shapes, flow, and directions undiscovered. His work stems from a desire to be unintentional and let the patterns transform onto the board. Dan’s art supplies and boards are upcycled, donated, and unearthed. Using what he has received permits Dan to explore what is in front of him, a calling, unintentional and forging a connection from artist to viewer. Allow yourself to move with the art, or track with your eyes. Point to what you see, show someone the depth, or travel a vertical pattern up and away.

Charles Szabla – Montrose – Grocery

My work explores quiet spaces: facades, frameworks, ordinary structures that hold light in ways we rarely notice. It reflects the interplay of light, texture and shadow to create a moment when time is suspended, and shadow becomes language. This work is both an observation as well as a meditation on what holds and what drifts through life. I offer the act of seeing beyond surface detail to the rhythm within form. I invite the viewer not to just look, but to feel the weight of silence, the balance between emptiness and presence. My hope is that these drawings offer a sense of calm presence.

I am a 1981 graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art majoring in Illustration and minoring in Drawing and Photography. I have exhibited in juried exhibitions in, among others, Madrid, Spain, New York, New York, and Cleveland & Akron, Ohio. My influences include Ray Metzker, Aaron Siskind, Caravaggio and Dali.

BRIAN HARVEY – HIGHLAND SQUARE – Grocery

I am currently an artist working out of my garage studio in Cuyahoga Falls. I have a BA and MA from Kent State University in enamels and metals. After finishing my thesis and graduate school I did some traveling. These travels exposed me to many new experiences, cultures, and friendships. The internet allows me to keep up these global relationships. I am a customer service supervisor here at The Mustard Seed. My artwork focuses on jewelry and small sculptures. The small scale invites a more intimate, up-close, holding, touching, and moving about in the light experience.

Like special people in our lives, these sculptures have a first impression and a relationship that evolves as you interact more and more with them, just as relationships evolve through interaction. All my work explores the properties of materials, the natural world, touch, light and reflection. My work is comprised of mainly metal, enamel, glass, gemstones, and beads. This current body of work involves a further exploration of spirit vessels and bowls, a concept loosely based on the Ban phi (spirit houses) of Thailand. In this grouping I am exploring ideas and constraints associated with the concepts of bowl, container, and vessel. In fact, one of the vessels’ shape and size is suggested, but the actual vessel only exists in one’s imagination.

Andy Brooks – Highland Square – Market Kitchen

I was born in Honduras, where I was adopted at age one and came to Akron. I’ve been living in Highland Square ever since. My interest in photography started when I was eleven. I played around with an old camera that my brother David had. I would watch him take pictures in Chicago, where we went on vacation. He inspired me to get into photography. I have been taking photos for the last 12 years and have gotten more serious about this in the last eight years. I love taking photos of old-style and gothic architecture. Shown in this collection are photos of downtown Akron, Cleveland, and Chicago.

During the summer, I’m a staff photographer and teen coordinator for Mi Pueblo camp for kids of Hispanic heritage. Much of my work is local nature photography, specifically of the Gorge and Elyria, Ohio. My love of nature comes from an Ohio childhood spent in Boy and Eagle Scouts.

Everson Brooks – Montrose – Grocery

Everson Brooks is a multi-media artist from Akron, OH, currently studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art for a BFA in drawing. His work combines flowing materials such as watercolor and ink with dry media such as pencils and pastels, building up layers of translucent pigment to create rich images that maintain a gentle and ephemeral quality. This delicacy aids in their explorations of personal and interpersonal relationships, beauty, and the complexity of self-love. Over the past few years they have developed further interest in printmaking processes, using the printing press as an excuse to stay fit. When home for the summer, Everson works as a Grocery associate, and on his days off will go on bike rides around Highland Square, journal, or sketch ideas for new drawings.

KINZBIZ – Highland Square – Café

Hello all, my name is Kinz. I come from a dainty Oklahoma town and tend to travel across America continuously. I plan to live in at least 15 states and
to explore them all. Oregon is next on the list. Regardless of the medium I’m working with, I tend to work fast. Incredibly
fast. With such viscosity that my brain seldom can keep up, but eventually it gets there too. I’ve been creating all sorts of things since the wee age of 7, and my desire to create has only continued to grow as I’ve explored and aged.

Here is a link to my instagram, where I post most frequently. Feel free to either scan the QR code or enter the link below! https://www.instagram.com/kinzbiz/
There are also links to portfolios, digital creations and more, listed in a helpful little clump of links below the username! This little show of mine at MSM is only the beginning of an era, and painting those who are dearest to me is only just the start of a grand artistic awakening. Thank you for this opportunity, Jessica, & thank you to all of the amazing friends I have made during my residence in Ohio.

Jackie Barnard – Highland Square – Wellness

The women of my family made me, and taught me how to make — clothes, costumes, blankets, scarves, and how to embellish the mundane with beauty. From a young age, my grandmothers and mother taught me to sew, crochet, knit, embroider, and cross stitch. These early lessons were not only moments of connection but the foundation of my creativity and confidence to make anything I could imagine. In my 20s, I began cross stitching and embroidering with a twist: every material I use is secondhand, sourced from vintage shops, estate sales, or passed down through generations. My work continues this lineage of craft, care, and reinvention. Commissions available through Instagram @jackiethreadbender

Myla Ray – Highland Square – Market Kitchen

Bold strokes and all-too-thick borders struggle to contain the poppy punk-horror acrylic works of Mylaray. The world is portrayed with a fairy-tale whimsy through the lens of the macabre.

Her work with acrylic began at the age of twelve. Deriving inspiration from the humanity she could find in the fringe. Monsters, lepers, and the exaggerated features that are preyed upon by our insecurities.

Currently working on her portfolio for an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist. The influences of American traditional tattoos can be felt in her current pieces on display. Thick, consistent line work holding together the purposefully simple color palettes. An eyeball motif beckoning you to linger and watch, only to return the favor.

Based in Akron Ohio, she continues to experiment with saturated color, and eerie symbolism to bring her vivid, dreamlike visions to life.

BOB POZARSKI

Bob Pozarski is a short, thick old man with green eyes.  After graduating from KSU in 1975, he opened a stained glass shop near Akron U. He’s made art glass for the area for forty four years. Always learning new glass making techniques, he makes kiln cast and fused glass, hand beveled and blown glass. He teaches beginning and advanced glass blowing.