Ryan Myers of Madison, Wisconsin, tells stories about everyday lives, hopes, fears, and cherished deities through his figurative works in clay. From the very beginnings of mankind, the figure in art has held limitless possibilities and has been a subject matter to which everyone can relate. Since Myers’ very first attempts to create art, he has been attracted to the human form.
Through his keen interest in the history and the intimacy of old objects, he expresses unique stories and hidden values through his art. As a youth he was influenced by his father’s Native American artifacts and American antiques which he remembers thinking of as treasures. He was attracted to the intimate qualities of the smaller objects: the textures of rusty iron, crawling paint on old furniture, and even the musty smell of various old objects from the past.
Myers comes from a background of art making in a university setting, where he focused on ceramic sculpture, primarily figurative. His current work focuses on sculpture that has an implied function. The possibility of people using the work for their daily rituals, such as morning coffee, is both fascinating and inspiring to him.
Myers is the 2012 Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts’ Featured Artist and his wall sculpture, “Girl with Hand Puppets,” has been chosen to represent the festival in promotions and advertising. During the 2012 Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts, Ryan Myers will be located in the Featured Artist booth at the intersection of Mill Avenue and 5th Street.
One of Myers’ original sculptures will be added to the Tempe Festival of the Arts Featured Artist Gallery, and will be on display at the Mill Avenue District offices at 310 South Mill Avenue, Suite A-201, in downtown Tempe, Arizona.

Robert Gertz of Scottsdale, Arizona, has always been interested in photography, but he did not come to his craft early. Working after school and on weekends in his brother’s frame shop as a teen, he learned framing and matting and began his interest in the art world. His experience there led to many years in the custom frame and matting business.
One of the first expressions of his artistic skill was making custom mats and he became an expert at creating unusual designs and even logos carved into multi-layer mats.
His constant exposure to many different forms of art sharpened Bob’s eye for detail, balance and color and his curiosity about photography also grew. He began experimenting with various cameras and films by first shooting 35mm film. But he wasn’t satisfied with the results when compared to the best he had seen in his frame customer’s work. His dissatisfaction led Bob to experiment with medium format cameras, and after only a few rolls of film, he realized he had discovered his passion.

Tanya Doskova is a Bulgarian-born, Canadian artist living in Vancouver, BC. She holds a Master of Arts 
degree in Printmaking. In 1990, Tanya moved from Sofia, Bulgaria to London, UK, where she had her 
work presented in more than 20 group exhibitions and was featured in three solo exhibitions in Soho.
In 1995 Tanya moved to Canada and in 1996 and 1997 she won five major Canadian Awards from the 
Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators (CAPIC).
From 1998 to 2002 she did computer animation and special effects for the film industry in London, UK 
and Vancouver, BC. Tanya worked in U2 and Ridley Scott’s post- production house ‘The Mill’ and in 
Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in England, creating special effects for the Hollywood motion pictures: 
’Enemy of the State’, ‘Babe 2′, and ‘Pitch Black’.
In 2010 Tanya Doskova won an Award of Excellence in The Communication Arts Illustration Annual 
Competition. This prestigious American award and the publication of her images in The Communication
Arts Magazine gave her worldwide exposure and recognition.

Check out Tanya Doskova images online at www.fineartoncanvas.com

Kari found her calling early on by gluing leaves to her school dress and creating an “assemblage” on her mother’s dining room table by covering it in Smokey the Bear decals.
Her life education includes sculpting cakes in a well known bakery Cake and Art and opened her own bakery, Takes the Cake in Pasadena and produced all kinds of edible sculpture. She burned out on buttercream and eventually found her passion in metal art. She was more drawn to the physicality of her intaglio zinc plates than to the prints they created.
She began pop-riveting used printing plates together forming sculptural objects and gravitated to scrap metal, which offered creative choices in surface texture, color, and form. The history of found metal is revealed in its torn disintegrating edges, pitted surfaces, natural patinas, and play of the elements. Remnant shapes and surfaces bring another layer of content to her work, a synthesis of her vision and the inherent personality of the found piece or object. She received her M.A. in intaglio and an M.F.A. in sculpture at U.C.L.A.

Dennis Brady is a Sand Point, Idaho based self-taught fractal artist with more than 25 years experience with digital computer art. He is self-taught and learns through experimentation. Dennis draws his inspiration from eclectic views of nature along with the psychedelic scene in the 60s. That era’s music, personalities and light shows truly affected his perception of art and his fractals are the culmination of that journey. His work has employed dozens of fractal generating programs in the creation of his art. The computer is his tool to create art, just as brushes and paint are the tools with which a painter works. Dennis begins with the selection of the mathematical formula used in the structure of the fractal, and includes the printing and framing of the prints as part of the creation of his art. All of Dennis’ designs are printed using light fast inks on acid free, resin coated archival satin/luster paper on the new state of the art Canon 12 color iPF wide format printer. This ensures years of museum quality print life.

Bill Cramer grew up in Riverside, CA exploring the deserts and hills near his home. Family summer camping trips and learning the sport of rock climbing further cemented his love of the outdoors. Despite his attempt to become a professional fulltime college student, Bill finally graduated from Cal State University Long Beach with an BFA degree in drawing and painting plus a minor in outdoor studies.

A move to central Arizona opened his eyes to the possibilities of landscape painting, and today he divides his time between his family, his art, and his outdoor pursuits. His beautiful and sensitive “High Sedona” plein air oil on canvas (20″ X 20″) is the featured art for the 2010 Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts.

Painter Jarrod Eastman, winner of the Painting category at the Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts, has been chosen as the Featured Artist for the Fall 2009 Festival. His “surrealist” images are potent and colorful, perfect for helping us market the Festival. Now from Bozeman, Montana, Jarrod grew up in Arizona. His early influences were skateboard, rock band, and pop culture art.

He’s self-taught, and his work has been shaped and reshaped over the last 15 years in the business by the subcultures ranging from skateboarding, punk, jazz, hip-hop, and the spoken word. His most creative moments are infused with motion, music, and color. He brings a fresh, provocative look to the Festival!

Check out his images online at www.jrodart.com

Counts’ affection for art blossomed into a love affair when he was introduced to the art of glassblowing in 1978. He was young, full of energy and still searching for his educational direction in college. One day Counts watched a glassblower work and this experience changed his life forever.

He studied with Dick Marquis and Lino Taliapiatra at Haystack School of Crafts summer workshop in between 1990 and 1991. Counts became a production glassblower in various California glass studios from 1984 to 1985.

One of Counts’ beautif vases from his “Spiro Bowl” series is the Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts inspiration for all marketing and promotional materials and can be viewed in the DTC office Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Paul Counts’ booth will be located on the intersection of 5th Street and Mill Avenue in the Featured Artist exhibit space

Born in Boulder, Colorado in 1962, Carson began to experiment with the tools he still uses today at a very young age. Each year of maturity brought more motivation to mine his past, sometime very distant past, for clues to his future. His palette includes electronics, illustration, the camera, and mechanical systems, all woven together to interact with the spirit of the human being.

Carson personally executes every step of his process, which includes design, engineering, protyping, metal cutting, pounding, and finishing as well as glass and cement casting. He has an assistant that helps with sanding as well as shipping.

Every one of Carson’s designs starts in a rough sketch on a napkin or the backside of a discarded piece of paper. He believes a good sketch begets a good piece, and over time when he is looking to do something new, he looks to his piles of sketches and executes from the most intriguing. From there he works digitally, sizing the parts, figuring the mechanics, reflecting the rotations and clearances. When the design is done he breaks this digital sketch up into pieces and prints them at full scale. From the stage he drills and cuts the parts and begins to assemble the final piece, including the glass balls, the hubs and the transitions.

It is not easy to weave functionality with form. Not many of the things he dreams are realized, and not every realization matches the rough concept in style and grace. Embarking on each new project destroys his fantasy of its ideal potential; replacing it with a reality that can be frighteningly vivid or painfully dull. There is no book he refers to. Andrew Carson creates original pieces today, based on the cruder ones he made yesterday.