Sheila Bergman
I’m dabbler, moving from one medium and environment to the next, sometimes away from art for years at a time. Plein air is a favorite for me though.
Ritamarie Balcerzak
I use various inks to develop my images which are usually abstract but based on natural settings . I really like the plein air. experience. Port Wing is a great setting for artistic inspiration. I look forward to attending again this year. My Instagram site is @ceeceezak.
Pete Border
I am a (mostly) retired teacher at the U of MN. I started painting 30 years ago, then stopped for 20 years after the kids arrived. Now the kids are grown up (mostly) so I can paint again. Outside, I work in watercolors and acrylics. Port Wing is a lovely place to paint and the community of artists is quite stimulating. This will be my 4th or 5th time at the Festival and I am really looking forward to it.
Gretchen Burke
I enjoy pastel painting pleinair as well as in the studio with a pastel group that meets in Washburn. My work has been in many local galleries as well as in our local CBAC shows. My inspiration comes from nature, travel and loved ones.
Patricia Canelake
Patricia Canelake lives and works in Knife River, Minnesota near the North Shore of Lake Superior. Simple figurative and animal subjects, leashed and unleashed, are the focus of her work. Her style of painting is a fine balance between storytelling and the rough elegance of form and color. She will be returning to Plein Air painting during the Port Wing event.
She was awarded two McKnight Foundation Fellowships, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, The Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Fellowships, and Arrowhead Regional Arts Council awards. She was included in the 2015 Minnesota Biennial Exhibition at the Museum of Minnesota Art. Her work is in permanent collections and at the Tweed Museum of Art and The Department of the Interior, United States.
John Dehaven
As a permaculture practitioner and landscape designer, I am primarily interested in how humans interact with and manipulate the landscape. My outdoor painting focuses on unexpected beauty – the mundane miracles we all too often pass by. The practice of noticing these subtle moments and attending to them has deepened my experience of everyday life in ways hard to describe, and it is my hope that the pictures inspired by them might offer a gentle reminder of the beauty we experience continuously.
Jean Derider
Artists Bio coming soon
Dixie Dykstra
Artists Bio coming soon
Allison Eklund
I paint primarily in oil and enjoy painting directly from observation outdoors. Wilderness, wild spaces, and moving figures capture my imagination. I discovered my tribe – plein air painters – in 2007. Learning to paint directly from nature is humbling, and the more I learn the more I understand there is to discover. Making new friends through plein air painting and learning from each other is one of my greatest joys.
Mike Enz
My wife and I are lucky. Since retiring, our happy place is sketching and painting . I try not to be too serious about my work so hopefully my pieces look fun. I’m most comfortable with urban scenes but love the challenge of ‘going rural’ , making Port Wing is the perfect place to hang out and sketch.
Pamela Enz
My husband, Mike Enz, and I have traveled to several countries painting urban and landscapes. I most enjoy painting in place, which makes Plein Air a perfect scenario for me. My favorite subjects are those that have high contrast, and Lake Superior offers a lot of challenge for me with sky, water, grass, rocks, and change. My work has been shown at the White Bear Center of the Arts and other small galleries. I am excited to participate in the Port Wing Plein Air for the third time.
Chris Garrity
am a graphic designer and illustrator for a promotional advertising company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. When I do plein air, it’s what you might call urban sketching with watercolor, usually relying heavily on the “sketching” part. This is my favorite art event of the Summer and I look forward to seeing everyone I have met over the years.
Kathy Gilmore
My backyard flowers originally inspired me to paint again. I love observing nature. I enjoy painting something I am curious about or that touches me emotionally whether people, landscapes, animals or plants.
Dee Ginthner
Artists Bio coming soon
Robert Haddow
Landscapes and beachscapes from Port Wing.
Linda Hildebrant
Enjoy trying new ways of painting and drawing using new materials and experimenting with different combinations of media. Watercolor with ink, acrylic with charcoal on different surfaces, canvas, paper, board, cardboard. This will be my fourth year attending the Festival. I look forward all year to the time away with no task but to paint!! If you are still considering, I highly recommend the experience. Gorgeous natural surroundings, friendly welcoming residents, a pair of charming hosts and many other fun and helpful volunteers create a very enjoyable event.
Jon Hove
Artists Bio coming soon
Neil Johnston
When I move from my familiar studio space into the outdoors to paint, I am challenged by the vastness of the space, the naturalness of the light, the smells, colors, and the textures of the visual space. Getting out of the studio forces me to recalibrate – to move from an internal way of seeing to an outward form of seeking. This transition is profound for me and on many levels, it fuels my painting and is full of surprises and challenges. When we look, we feel. Taking time, sitting, breathing, smelling, looking, and observing these spaces and places, is a powerful exercise to help someone identify where one truly is. I enjoy returning to Port Wing to explore, re-charge, learn, and to celebrate the invigorating challenge of painting the landscape. I am a visual and musical artist, and my studio is in Shoreview, MN.
Lynn Krueger
Artists Bio coming soon
Brock Larson
Artists Bio coming soon
Elizabeth Lexau
Elizabeth Lexau is a nature-inspired artist based in Northern Wisconsin on the south shore of Lake Superior. Working primarily in pastels she is especially moved by the breathtaking beauty and dramatically changing moods of Lake Superior, the Apostle Islands and the surrounding Northwoods.
Caren Martin
I have been painting off and on (mostly off) since I was in elementary school. Oil paint is my medium of choice. Landscape is my preferred subject. Seems like water, rocks, trees, sky, and the play of light draw me to their constant beauty and ever-changing characteristics. The oil painting process reveals both inspiring, pleasing surprises and disappointments alike—depending on the day! Painting in Port Wing is a highlight of my painting experience.
Joanne Meierhof
I enjoy the challenge of plein air work. Working in pastels provides an immediacy that I love. The downsides are weather and framing. The Port Wing plein air Festival was my first foray into this type of competition and I got hooked.
Aram Melis
Artist’s bio coming soon.
Rachel Melis
have been drawing Port Wing landscapes since my family moved to the area when I was twelve. I look forward to returning for the Plein Air festival all summer. During the school year, I teach biological illustration, printmaking, graphic design, and book arts at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota. My drawings, prints, and books have been in numerous exhibitions, and I am currently working on a picture book about a shy child moving to a new home.
Joel Nimocks
I have designed and hand etched artwork for cemetery memorials for over 20 years, but behind the scenes I am an abstract painter. So I toe the line between creating representational and abstract works.
My background includes studying art at UW Green Bay, with an emphasis on Painting/Drawing and a minor in Graphic Design.
I consider myself a novice plein air painter, but have had some successes- which is enough encouragement to keep me working to find my “style”.
I paint mostly in acrylics and water-based based mediums.
Priscilla K Olson
Priscilla Olson grew up in Midland, Michigan and began her professional life in the Chicago area as a commercial animator and plein air painter. Since returning to Michigan in 2011, she has been participating in painting events around the area, as well studying figurative subjects in the studio.
Tom Pryor
I love painting in nature. East coast oil painter. Repeat visitor to Port Wing and this wonderful, well executed and supported event! Look forward to making new friends and exploring the local beauty. Show my work in Stone Harbor, Cape May NJ, and Salmagundi Club, NYC. Will be great fun!
Andrea Pokrzywinski
Paul Quie
I dabble in a lot of things, when I go to Port wing it’s usually acrylic paint, possibly oil paint, I usually bring my Chinese brushes and ink with my red stamp. When I’m in the cities, that is the Twin Cities I do conceptual art and mainly acrylic pain getting more abstract as an age. Joy is my subject sometimes from light, and sometimes from playing around.
Megan Raye
Artists Bio coming soon
Mary Katherine Reynolds
Artists Bio coming soon
Cindy Schipper
As a teaching artist In senior settings I create and re-create many of the same images but it is always a delight to work with a variety of new artists. We share and learn a bit about art – and a lot about how to enjoy each others’ company. Participating in this festival has been fun because it welcomes and challenges artists of all skill levels. I’ve attached an image from a class I took at the Edina Art Center.
Nancy Scott
While not a professional artist, I have been painting for about 6 years exploring with watercolors and more recently pastels. I am drawn to more atmospheric art as an observer. Enjoying quiet spaces that evoke light, introspection and serenity bring me joy as I paint. My hope is my “artistic journey” will have a focus on feeling over detail inviting viewers to pause, breathe, and experience the mood within each scene. My image was inspired by the many artists who have painted sheep through the years.
Joseph Smigiel
I’m a recently retired teacher with a background in antiquated photographic processes. Since retiring, I’ve been revisiting my earlier interests in painting and have participated in several classes and workshops. In 2023, my partner and I planned a summer vacation trip from Michigan to Wisconsin and participated in the Port Wing Plein Air Painting Festival. We have returned every year to relax and paint along Lake Superior coast.
I’m quite fond of the Port Wing Plein Air Painting Festival and glad I can participate and meet so many talented artists and local individuals again this year..
Lenore Quandt-Smith
Lydia Steiner
Lynn Zsidov-Steiner
Lynn’s work is deeply inspired by the rugged beauty of the Lake Superior Region. Her oil paintings are not only shaped by her connection to nature but also by her background in Graphic, Fine Art, environmentalism, and her interest in 18th and 19th century history.
She continues to refine her painting process through personal study and practice. She is committed to using environmentally safe materials, avoiding petroleum-based solvents and mediums. Incorporated into many painting are pigments made from locally sourced materials. Her art is thoughtful, grounded and connected to place.
Roxanne Sullivan
Plein Air painting is a relatively new endeavor. Its greatest reward is an increased appreciation of the constant changes of a single landscape throughout the day. Learning to “paint the light”…
Wes Sweetland
Artists Bio coming soon
Laurice Wade
Setting out in brash ways in order to entice my vision into going through new doorways, brings more freedom perhaps. Opening up connections to life and wonder is change at its best.
Amy Wilson
Artists Bio coming soon
Cici Woolf
I like to paint with oil and gouache paints, generally flowers in a pot or a lovely tree.
Stephen Wysocki
Stephen Wysocki loves to paint and is always painting.
Even when he doesn’t have a brush in his hand; he can’t get, away from it – it’s that simple. Stephen studied at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for one semester in 1990. He finished his Studio Arts degree with an emphasis in Painting and
a minor in Graphic Design in 1996 at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.
Wysocki’s mission is to show beauty in the ordinary, to allow the viewer to experience an image they see every day in a new way. He gravitates from ordinary structures to dramatic landscapes. He is always trying to tell a story in his work through brilliant color and muted shadows. He enjoys painting in his studio as much as Plein Air painting Stephen believes that one compliments the other.
Jan Vaughan
I was born and raised in Ashland, Wisconsin on the southern shore of Lake Superior. My interest in art started young, but I didn’t start painting until later in life, after my careers and raising. 2 sons. My passion for landscapes always took me back to the north woods and the lake.
Angela Velin
Plein air painting perfectly compliments my love of the outdoors. I enjoy the challenge of capturing light in a fleeting moment. As for my work, I’ve been told my paintings can be quite messy up close, but read well from a few feet away. However I’ve also been told it’s fun to see all the colors hidden in the shadows up close with a flashlight. I just enjoy the process. sometimes experimenting with new discoveries, and hoping for a pretty painting in the end.
We thank 
