Christina Paul has been involved with art since college. Always finding some time to paint, she worked as a graphic designer and art director contracting and working with many notable illustrators and artists in the making of picture books and illustrated fiction. As Associate Publisher and Creative Director she managed a department of eighteen designers and art directors for 20 years at Candlewick Press (a company known for its quality books) in MA. Now living in the Buffalo NY area, she is pursuing her love of painting and all art!
Christina received a B.A. in Art from St. Elizabeth University in New Jersey. After college she lived in New York City for 12 years and, while building a career as a graphic designer, she took extension classes in painting with Manfred Schwarz at The New School and Leo Manso at NYU and the Providence Workshop. After moving to the Boston MA area in 1979, she maintained a studio at The Umbrella in Concord MA, took part in many shows and began to sell her work, also helping to manage their gallery. She studied with notable artists and teachers such as Timothy Harney at DeCordova Museum and Jakki Kaufmann at Silvermine, New Canaan, CT. Her most current mentor was William (Skip) Lawrence.
Exhibiting member, Buffalo Society of Artists
Member, Western New York Artists Group
Member, Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society
Board member, Orchard Park Chorale
Represented by Rider Gallery and Frames, Orchard Park
Tami Fuller is a second-generation fiber artist, working as an abstract weaver and felt artist, using woven tapestry, soft sculpture, mixed media and metals to express the female experience. Born and raised on a family sheep farm, and connected to the fiber community in a professional capacity, she uses traditional women's work to explore post-trauma identity concepts and concepts surrounding self-actualization. Her work combines traditional process-based techniques and fine art applications, with a modern discipline.
In addition to working as a full-time artist and writer, she teaches fiber art and creative practice workshops for adults and youth across New York State and the East Coast in order to modernize and invigorate interest in fiber in fine art. She is a NY Council on the Arts 2022 Creatives Rebuild NY (CRNY) artist, a program defining culture-makers working to promote and revitalize the arts landscape post-COVID.
Her work has been shown in several group and solo shows, and she holds awards from the Carnegie Art Center and NYS Sheep and Wool. Her work can be found in collections in the United States, Canada and Australia and is currently on view at the Burchfield Penney Art Center as part of the 2023 Art in Craft Media biennel. Fuller's studio is located in the rear of 17 Elm Street, where she educates, creates and shows her work. She is also an editor, a self-taught pianist, oil painter and model.
Member, Carnegie Art Center
Member, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center
Member, Arts and Craftsmen Guild
Exhibiting Member, Buffalo Society of Artists
Emerging Artist 2021, Roycrofters-at-Large Association
Executive Coordinator, Roycrofters-at-Large Association
Primary Fiber Events Coordinator, Arts Council for Wyoming County
Liz Birardi has been an artist since receiving a watercolor paint tray as a young child and has enjoyed a lifelong career in art, exploring various media and subject matter.
She is influenced by nature, what cultures have learned about nature through ecology, biology, astronomy, and mathematics and how that knowledge informs the built world through architecture and technology. In recent years, her work has focused on how to see and experience the world from a larger perspective. She use the discipline of portrait and figure drawing to enhance observational skills.
"I use paint, paper, clay, fiber, and found objects to express my experiences in a sharable form. My work shows my vision while allowing the viewer to interpret the work in their own way."