David M. Band, a native of Portland, Maine, now lives in Texas. He has devoted the majority of his life to art as a painter, printmaker, educator and collector.
David is a member of Allied Artists of America, Inc., Audubon Artists, Inc., Watercolor USA Honor Society, Salmagundi Club, Artists Fellowship, Inc., and is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society.
His work can be found in the collections of the Butler Institute of American Art, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Mo., Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Museum of Texas Tech University, Salmagundi Club, Dunnegan Gallery of Fine Art, and the United States Air Force collection.
He is the author of “Enrich Your Paintings With Texture”, North Light Publications.
To see David M. Bands collection visit this link: http://www.requestaprint.net/artist/gallery.php?gallery_id=20
Gary T. Erbe was born in 1944 in Union City, NJ where he maintained his studio for 35 years. Self taught, he began painting in 1965. In the early years, every painting Erbe created would become a learning experience bringing him closer to understanding what makes good art. This was a challenging time for him. Then he discovered and became interested in Trompe l’oeil painting. In 1969, he conceived a way of creating Trompe l’oeil paintings that would be contemporary and different from the 19th Century Trompe l’oeil masters and coined the term “Levitational Realism”. In 1970, he quit his job as an engraver to pursue art fulltime and in the mid 1970’s, he began to explore the idiom of abstraction and cubism and how it can be applied to Trompe l’oeil painting. The idea of integrating modern principles into his painting was very challenging and exciting. Bridging the gap between modern art and realism would be his vision. In fact, today his work has less to do with Trompe l’oeil and more to do with the creative process.
Monica Allen Perin, a painter from her youth, began her fine art studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California. She subsequently obtained a Masters degree in the decorative arts (Museum Studies) at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and consecrated her theses to the garden frescoes found in and around Pompeii.
During his nearly forty-year career, photographer Michael P. Smith (1937-2008) immersed himself in the larger world of New Orleans’s musical culture. At public events, from music festivals and concerts to street parades both mournful and celebratory, Smith was there with his Nikon cameras and, in later years, a tape recorder.