Meet Our Committee
The Artist Advisory Committee is a group of exhibiting artists, some new to the Scottsdale Arts Festival, and some who have been part of it for many years, who will be available to answer questions from artists who are considering participating in the Festival. The artists listed below will give their best advice, as artists, about all aspects of the Festival, but will not represent the opinions of Scottsdale Arts. Committee members also will serve as liaisons between the artists and Festival management to provide feedback on how to continue improving the experience for artists.
CATHRA-ANNE BARKER
My work is high-fired, reduction stoneware. I throw, trim, and finish my own work. I also design, decorate, and fire my own kiln loads. My decorations are wax-resisted glaze with polychrome glaze washes; glazes made from scratch.
I have made my living at art festivals for the past 30 years. Cherry Creek, Lakefront, Fort Worth Main Street, Sausalito, The Woodlands Waterway, Port Clinton, and the Scottsdale Arts Festival are among the events where I’ve sold my work. I’m happy to share any information about Scottsdale; it’s one of my favorite shows.
STEPHEN AND BONNIE HARMSTON
HarmstonArts represents a partnership of 30 years of creativity. Though we both worked in different areas of the arts and selling to the public, today our work represents a new focus that reflects each of our sensibilities. Steve has a bachelors of fine arts in printmaking and has spent his career working as a commercial screen printer and as a printmaker in the fine arts. Bonnie has a degree in marketing and began selling jewelry at art fairs with her aunt in the 1970s before moving into a sales career. Together, we collaborate on designs that reflect a way of sharing our experiences from travels throughout wild and rural areas. Our silkscreen prints are expressions of an attachment to this imagery with simple, hand-cut shapes, overlaying a vibrant palette of translucent and opaque colors.
The thoughts, theories, and ideas about colors and sizes, along with lots of second guessing between us always seem to come together in the end. We share the responsibilities of the process of printmaking, which includes the film cutting, screen prep, substrate preparation, ink mixing, printing, cleanup, matting, and framing.
While other artists may use brushes to paint their images onto canvas, Steve uses something as simple as a No. 11 X-ACTO knife. Combining color, simple shapes, and the physical aspects of creating their art—the stencil cutting, color mixing, and the act of pulling ink across the screen onto the paper all work together to produce original pieces of art.
We embrace the craft of fine art printmaking, printing in short, limited editions (50 or less), and never make commercial reproductions of our work. Avoiding high-tech equipment, we stay true to processes used by past generations to bring vibrant images to life. Our work has been sold to art collectors, been used in corporate installations, and has frequently been employed as promotional subjects for cultural events. We currently travel across the country sharing our work at fine art shows and exhibitions.
TANYA DOSKOVA
Bulgarian, Canadian, United States—Arizona artist Tanya Doskova was born in Bulgaria in 1960. In 1985 she received her master of arts degree in printmaking from The National Academy Of Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria. From 1985 until 1990, Doskova ran her own private art school in Sofia, Bulgaria and she took part in many group shows run by the Union of Bulgaria Artists (UBA). Her art was first published and recognized in May 1988 by Izkustvo, the Bulgarian artist magazine. In 1990, Tanya moved from Sofia to London, UK, where she had her work presented in more than 20 group exhibitions and was featured in three solo exhibitions in Soho. From 1995 to 1997 Tanya lived in Toronto, Canada where 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 as well as in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and Double Negative in England, and Rainmaker Entertainment (Mainframe Entertainment) in Canada, creating special effects for the Hollywood motion pictures and TV series: Babe Pig in the City, Pitch Black, Action Man. Doskova’s has received numerous awards in recognition of her artistic achievements. Most recently, she won an Award of Excellence in the 2010 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.
