A Bachelor of Fine Arts from The College for Creative Studies (CCS), Julie Tibus has been professionally selling and showing her work for over 15 years and spent several years teaching at her own studios in Ann Arbor and Brighton, Michigan. Recently her desire for freedom has led to a life full-time on the road. Selling everything and traveling the USA, teaching and showing her art.. Julie has an insatiable
curiosity that leads her to explore emerging mediums and discover new techniques. Her work draws from an intersection of nature and her own bold expression of color. Teaching is how she shares her love of art with others.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art is centered on the exploration of natural form and an uninhibited freedom to play. I begin with a loose thought (floral, landscape, color, pattern, shape) then move through the composition with an internal desire to free myself from laboring and instead lose myself completely to the process. I believe we all are creative and through art we can learn how to overcome the fear of comparison, the unknown, and expectations we impose on ourselves. My work is for the viewer to experience, contemplate and enjoy.
Victoria is an oil painter and pottery. She earned her B.F.A. in Studio Art from Florida Southern College in 2010. Victoria is in her second year of her Painting M.F.A. program at The Savannah College of Art and Design. Victoria has been the recipient of awards for her artwork and for her role as a teacher. She holds leadership roles within the school district to support Visual Art Education. Victoria has been teaching Visual Art for 12 years and loves to enrich her students with a variety of styles, ideas, and techniques to help them find their artistic voice and identity. Victoria enjoys working with students of all ages and skill levels.
Carla Hyde is a certified and insured yoga and meditation teacher and the founder of Flying Heart Yoga. With over 25 years of experience, she has taught yoga, meditation, group fitness, and personal training in Ft. Myers, Florida.
Carla’s inclusive and nonjudgmental approach to yoga is inspired by BKS Iyengar’s teachings, which emphasize alignment-based practice. Her Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist studies under several Tibetan yoga masters have guided her in teaching mindfulness meditation techniques, karma yoga, mantra, and yogic philosophy to her students.
Since the age of 16, Carla has been involved in fitness and group exercise, and she always sought physical training as a means of physical release, conditioning, and self-expression. As her love for physical fitness grew, she explored circus training and aerial arts, including flying trapeze, trampoline, and everything aerial. She underwent rigorous training to become an elite athlete on trapeze, performing for and delighting audiences for three decades. Carla also produced her circuses in Ft. Myers, Florida, including several right here at the Alliance for the Arts. However, yoga became her favorite tool for healing her body from constant training and teaching. She soon realized that yoga does not only heal the body but can also be life-transforming for regular practitioners.
Christar Damiano, owner of the “Healing Hands”, was born in New York City, and was introduced to the Healing Arts while living in Hawaii. For the past 35 years, Christar has traveled to over 50 countries learning different healing arts and massage modalities. She has studied massage techniques in India, Thailand, Hawaiian Lomi/Lomi, and from a Reiki master in Africa , just to name a few.
Movement and sound is an essential part of healing. Christar uses tuned crystal bowls that resonate with the chakras to allow for optimum healing in the body.
Sound healing is the use of specific instruments, music, tones and other sonic vibrations to balance and heal the body, mind and spirit. The sound frequencies create a therapeutic atmosphere to promote deep rest, nervous system rebalancing an emotional release. The different emotions vibrate at different levels,if blocked, or left unexpressed can create dis-ease in the body.
Christar believes in the healing of the whole person, not just the physical body. She teaches classes on the healing power of plant medicine and EFT tapping.
EFT tapping is another way to break thru old patterns and change them to live out your best life.
Christar is a Certified life Coach and puts together one-on-one healing packages that include Massage, Vibrational Sound Healing and Shamanic journeying.
“I believe that everyone possesses the power to heal themselves. I inspire people to create a life they LOVE living.
The most important journeys are the ones that we make inward. – Eckhart Tolle
Painting gives me joy and purpose – a way to explore my creative process, observe the visual world and express concepts and feelings. I am interested in the relationship between visual ideas and images, focusing on personal expression and communication of ideas and emotions. Painting provides me with a kind of meditation that is both relaxing and stimulating.
It has been a pleasure to collaborate with my dear friend, Mara Purl. I have been able to visualize and create cover art for several of her books. Illustration has been a new and exciting approach for me to tell her stories from my perspective. I look forward to working together with her again in the future.
I paint images with varied levels of connectivity to realism. I don’t limit myself to a single medium, style or approach. The subject matter of each painting guides the decisions I make. I take inspiration from many sources – the love of travel, the stimulation of music and the beauty of nature.
I want my paintings to have visual impact. In my art-making process, contrast of value and intense color is where I start. I focus on how colors contrast and interact with each other and with the image itself. I explore various mediums: acrylic, watercolor, oil pastel and even digital painting. I trust my intuition. I revisit memories that have personal significance for me. However, the meaning I get from my paintings may well be different from that of the viewer. I want others to interpret my art through their own filters and experiences. Maybe my paintings will bring back memories of their own or lead their minds to a creative place where they can follow their own ideas to new places. Enjoy!
I was born in New York City and grew up in the northeast. I earned a BA in Fine Arts from Bennington College, and an MEd from USF. I have worked in several art fields, from illustration and exhibit design (Smithsonian, Royal Scottish Museum and the Science Museum of Minnesota) to graphic design to art education (22 years in Lee County Schools). I am a Golden Apple and a National Board Certified Teacher, teaching students from age 4-94. I was a founding member of WARM (Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota), the Women’s Network, the Lee County Dance Council, The Bell Tower Artist Co-op and am an active member of the Alliance for the Arts.
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