Nov 28, 2025
Frankie Hansbearry breathes life into artistic forms, from ceramic dogs and papier-mâché masks to vibrant mosaics and figures that resemble ancient artifacts.
The Oak Park artist credits much of her inspiration to National Geographic magazines she flipped through as a kid.
“Those images just fascinated me,” she says. “They were so different than the life I grew up with in a very homogenous community. Something about those images of artifacts from ancient sites really interested me—the rawness, the fascination that so-called ‘primitive peoples’ could have the ability to create images in such an interesting way.”
Oct 28, 2025
The best place to find Jennifer Reason is at a piano or microphone. Reason figures she’s played for “pretty much everyone at every place in town.”
She recently finished an artist residency at The Jacquelyn club, where she assists with shows. She’s a regular at Fleming’s Steakhouse in Roseville.
A musical theater expert, Reason is in the pit at Broadway at Music Circus shows, including the upcoming “White Christmas” in December, part of the company’s first year-round season.
She performs with the Sacramento Preparatory Music Academy’s The Beatles Guitar Project, where hundreds of students and professional musicians tour the state.
Sep 28, 2025
It’s hard to refuse a request from artist and philanthropist Marcy Friedman. Pat Mahony understands this firsthand. She recalls Friedman “confronting” her to suggest they start a life drawing class together.
Mahony’s first instinct was to say no—she hadn’t drawn figures since college—but she was soon convinced. Her mother recently died and Mahony felt a void.
After two weeks of hesitation, she told Friedman if a good group came together, Mahony would relent. Under Friedman’s guidance, Fred Dalkey, Boyd Gavin and Jian Wang signed up. Mahony couldn’t refuse.
Aug 28, 2025
Peggi Kroll Roberts confirms her identity in art. She says, “The ultimate purpose of painting and drawing is finding yourself. Otherwise, you’re an artist stuck in someone else’s format.”
Kroll Roberts will never be stuck in a stranger’s format. For six decades, wanderlust and curiosity carried her near and far for jobs and experiences.
She began as a fine arts major at Arizona State University. From there, she followed her mother and studied fashion illustration at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
Jun 28, 2025
If something interests Steve Kellison, he turns it into art.
For his “Lost Vincent” series, Kellison was inspired by “The Painter on the Road to Tarascon,” a Vincent van Gogh work destroyed in World War II.
The image of a painter on his way to work embedded itself in Kellison’s imagination and sparked a series of drawings and paintings. In each, the central image is recognizable but captured in various styles and mediums—some in charcoal and pastel on paper, some in oil and pigment stick on canvas. Some are abstract, others more faithful to the original.
Jun 28, 2025
Since we last spoke nine years ago, Jeff Myers has been busy.
“Tractor Levitation,” the outdoor sculpture he was working on in 2016, was unveiled at McKinley Village. He’s enjoyed several solo exhibitions, received good press and traveled.
Myers also added to his three series, “The Secret Life of Machines,” “The Land Series” and “Bodyen.”
His latest artistic exploration takes him back to his roots: cameras.
