James V. Banta’s richly colored and textured work has been shown widely in New York City and Italy. He has travelled extensively in Asia, where he finds constant sources of inspiration for his photography, painting, and mixed-media artworks.   Much of Banta's subject matter is also inspired by geography, politics, and maps.  Banta studied at Connecticut College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. He lives in Jackson Heights with his wife, Andaleeb. The image at left is a detail of photograph donated by this artist; more of his work may be viewed at jamesbanta.net.

Deborah Garwood is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. Her photography explores landscape imagery as an elixir of fantasy, astronomy, and collective memory. This piece is from a project entitled Evans Pond: A Long Term Study of a Single Place. Bringing a variety of cameras and films to the same site, Garwood has documented and interpreted this space for almost ten years as a personal reflection of the duration of this forest on the edge of suburbia. Her work is in the collections of The New York Public Library and MoMA Library, and she had a recent solo exhibition of landscape photographs and photo-based drawings at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX. Garwood earned a BA at Oberlin College and an MFA in sculpture at Hunter College. Her arts writings have been published in journals and newspapers including PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (MIT Press) and Art Journal. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Pratt Institute; her work may be seen at home.earthlink.net/~dagarwood.

Robyn Love is an artist who lives and works in Sunnyside, Queens. She received a BFA from Cooper Union in 1988 and has exhibited at galleries and museums internationally. She has received project grants to create new work from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as from The Hess and Helyn Kline Foundation and the Pouch Cove Foundation (Newfoundland, Canada). She has completed numerous site-specific projects including an ambitious New York City Percent for Art commission for the High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety in Jamaica, Queens, and a large-scale, multimedia installation titled The House Museum in Gillams, Newfoundland. Love was a finalist for the 2004 Creative Capital awards and in 2005 she received a fellowship in sculpture from the New York Foundation for the Arts. View examples of her work at www.robynlove.com.

Ellen Mandelbaum lives and works in Queens. She established an artisanal glass business in 1980 and has received awards for a number of the many architectural commissions she has completed since 1996. Her work has been exhibited in group shows from Tokyo to Cork, Ireland, and her most recent solo exhibition took place at Queens College Art Center in Flushing. Mandelbaum studied at the Pilchuck Glass School, WA, and also holds an MFA in painting from Indiana University. Her work may be seen at emglassart.com.

Khosrow Moradian, a native of Iran, is an architect and city planner, now retired from the faculty of Howard University’s School of Architecture and Planning. In 1999 he was appointed by the Washington, DC mayor’s office to head the Bicentennial Mural Project (Millennium Washington 1800-2000). He has studied at the Art Student League of New York and Washington Studio School, and currently teaches art in SCS’s after-school programs, Senior Center, and Adult Day Services Program.

Roxie Munro is the author/illustrator of 30 children’s books, a New Yorker magazine cover artist, and an internationally exhibited painter. She specializes in cities and architecture and has published books on New York City, Washington DC, Texas, London, and Paris. Munro illustrated The New York Times What’s Doing Around the World; Doors; Gargoyles, Girders & Glass Houses: Magnificent Master Builders; Ranch; Mazescapes; Amazement Park; and, just out, Mazeways: A to Z. She has exhibited galleries and museums including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC; the High Museum, Atlanta; and the Detroit Museum of Art, and has work in numerous private and public collections, including the Delaware Art Museum, AT&T, Banco-Italia, Carnegie Hall, Pfizer, Unilever, National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC), and AOL Time Warner. She has a BFA in Painting from University of Hawaii, and received a Yaddo fellowship. See more of Munro's work at roxiemunro.com.

Cristian Peña was born in Atlixco, Puebla, Mexico and studied at Simon Bolivar College Preparatory. In 1993, he moved to New York and studied Liberal Arts at LaGuardia Community College, and photography at the International Center of Photography at the Point. As a photographer and writer, he is documenting social movements and indigenous traditions in his native Mexico and in the US. His photographs have been exhibited in the X Bienal Guadalupana at the Museo Nacional de Las Culturas Populares; Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco; Casa de la Primera Imprenta de America, Mexico City; and Universidad Iberoamericana, Puebla, Mexico.

Elinore Schnurr's work has been shown in museums and galleries across the US, including the Queens Museum and MoMA in New York City. Her work can be found in the public collections of the Museum of the City of New York, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art in Petersburg, Florida, and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. Summer Landscape VI is about light and space in the natural world. Schnurr has been selected for numerous private commissions and has won several awards, including a CAPS fellowship from the New York State Council on the Arts and a Mid-Atlantic/NEA fellowship. Her work also is in corporate and private collections across Europe and the United Stateswww.elinoreschnurr.com.

Maria Spector, who lives in Astoria and works in Long Island City, has shown at PS 122, LMCC, NURTUREart, Gallery Korea, and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Through the Queens Council on the Arts, she received Individual Artist Support grants from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. The artist received her MFA in painting from Queens College. Her work may be found online at galleryartist.com/mariaspector.

Joel Weber is an artist who lives and works in Jackson Heights. He focuses on informal images of people in his commercial, portrait, sports, and event work (and in his wonderful photographs for SCS’s publications and website), but he is currently concentrating on landscape and botanical photography. Landscape locations range from the Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Westchester County to the Rockies (Colorado and Canada), and to the state of Washington.

Melissa Wolf has been immersed in the New York art world for over 30 years. She grew up a half-block away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was visiting galleries and museums by the time she was 15. She was the founder of Women's Studio Center in Long Island City, and president of its Board of Directors. Wolf studied at New York University, the School of Visual Arts, and co-taught art in a public school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She is a member of ArtTable, College Art Association, National Sculpture Society, and New York Artists Equity Association, among others. In addition to Women's Studio Center, her professional experience includes the Visual Arts Project at ASTRAEA, Studio Manager for James Youngman from 1995-98, and working in the art supply retail industry at Sam Flax and A.I. Friedman. Wolf has also juried and organized over 50 exhibitions.