After working for 20+ years as a computer programmer in the corporate world, I experienced a level of burnout
that left me longing for change.
My first foray into the art world was through the door of art-as-therapy. I studied with the late art therapist and
prolific author, Lucia Capacchione, PhD, ATR, and became a certified coach of her methods of
journaling and expressive arts.
My work with Dr. Capacchione created a profound shift from the predominantly left-brained computer geek
I had been, and awakened the more right-brained, creative artist that has been lying dormant
In me for my entire life.
As this new self emerged, I explored many mediums including acrylics, watercolor, pastels, colored pencil, mixed media
and collage.
After participating in a 3-D mosaic workshop with Debra Mater a few years ago, I immediately recognized
that I had finally found the medium my creative heart had been looking for.
I enjoy reusing old discarding jewelry, semi-precious stones, tile, glass, beads, buttons, and other
trinkets to create my mosaic pieces. I build connections through color, shape, theme and texture.
I blow the dust off thrift store cast offs and bring them back to life with new sparkle and shine.
I delight in creating playful and imaginative birds, animals and insects.
My work is sometimes whimsical, sometimes mystical and often grounded in nature and the divine feminine.
Gabriele Bitter is a painter, collage artist,
artist, printmaker, and art instructor
originally from Germany.
Primarily self-taught, she also completed
completed a three-year art program and has attended numerous workshops to deepen her practice.
Her work centers around non-objective
abstract acrylic painting and collage work,
often incorporating layered textures, quiet colors and the expressive faces of women.
A longtime wig wearer, Gabriele brings personal experience into her current series “Bare Beauty”, which features women without hair as a tribute to those living with hair loss or alopecia.
Her art explores themes of identity, resilience, and inner beauty— inviting viewers to connect, reflect, and feel.
As an instructor, Gabriele encourages play, exploration, and staying present in the creative process. Her philosophy is
simple: the more you make art, the more you grow—and perfectionism is overrated. Just let yourself be in the moment.
When I moved here in September 2010, I never dreamed I would become a 2-D soft pastel artist. Or a 2-D artist of any kind! I visited “the club” to find put if they recognized basketry as an art form. Because that’s what I was, a Basket weaver! I was given an unequivocal “Yes”.
The club offered all kinds of classes and I decided to do all of them. When I took a charcoal class, I found that I had permission and loved getting “dirty”! A fellow member then guided me toward pastels …. And the rest is history….
That is what the club does so well….teaches, guides, encourages, and supports creativity in the arts.
I was born and raised in Colorado. My style of rustic sculpture began with the love of drawing animals and walks in the country. In High School I was introduced to clay and have been sculpting ever since. In college I majored in art, completing course work at New Mexico Highlands University, Colorado State University and Mesa State in Grand Junction. Over the years I have taken major interest in learning more about ceramics and have attende various classes and workshops.
Art is a shared experience. A vision is captured in clay, something we can see and touch. God created wonders for us to behold and I like to show His work in abstract or primitive style, creating a moment in time. My objective is to share that and in the process to improve on shape, color and technique, to continue to experiment in an expressive medium that can be shaped, molded and given life.
Bio
Celeste Woodes Koper grew up outside of Boston Massachusetts spending most of her summers on Cape Cod.
A cross country summer long trip with her facility at the age of 12 changed her view of the world. During that trip she experienced the beauty of nature and all its diversity. Her love of nature, its beauty and moodiness is apparent in her colorful evocative paintings. Paintings depicting the American landscape.
Ms. Koper is mostly a self taught painter. She has taken occasional workshops at the Cape Cod School of the Art and Scottsdale Artists School. Her paintings are in private and corporate collections around the world including France, England, Germany and China.
Ms. Koper’s paintings have been incorporated into television and movie set designs. Along with her many other accomplishments, Ms. Koper taught art at the Gatehouse Academy in Wickenburg, Arizona during the winter season.
She own and operates her own Fine Art Gallery for the past 20 summer seasons in Wellfleet Massachusetts on Cape Code.
Ms. Koper presently decides her time between Wellfleet on Cape Cod and Wickenburg, Arizona.
Bio
I have loved art since I was a kid, and my earliest memories involved re-arranging mud in dried up puddles. This was the beginning of a journey that would lead me to try out different types of art, each offering a unique way to see and interact with the world.
My work. reflects my journey, exploring form, color and material to capture the human spirit and world around us. Each piece is a testament to the power of art and it’s ability to reveal new ways of seeing and understanding.
Bio
Angus Ross is a local resident here in Wickenburg, having moved here in 2021 from Newport RI. Prior to that he was a career naval officer (25 years) in the British Royal Navy, before coming to America and the US Naval War College as a faculty member in 1996.
He became a naturalized citizen in 2013 and continued to teach at the College until his retirement from full time work in 2021. Today, he continues to teach for the College on-line, in a part-time arrangement from his home.
Now that his family are grown and he has a little more time, he has recently re-kindled his love for painting and drawing, something that had to be put aside during a busy career.
He was last active (in sketching) in the 1980s, when he took to sketching sights seen around the world during his 25-year naval service.
Watercolors are essentially a new challenge for him, and he is thoroughly enjoying the experience. The unforgiving nature of the media, the very “natural” look of the pigments and the wonderfully “fluid” way in which contrast and color are applied, are a source of endless fascination to him.
He is currently trying all sorts of subjects, although wildlife, marine scenes and landscapes will probably end up being his favorites
I’ve always been a bit of a creative soul. When I was a kid, I was drawing, imagining, and creating all the time.
As an adult, I decided to take the plunge and enrolled in a fine arts program at a college in Traverse City, Michigan.
I took classes in drawing, design, and pottery. I did really well and loved all my classes, but I realized that becoming
an artist wasn’t going to make me rich, so I decided to switch gears and get a business degree.
After moving to Colorado in the 1990s, the beautiful scenery inspired me to pick up the arts again. I started taking pottery
classes in Boulder and Golden, Colorado. And then, after I retired in Colorado, I started sketching and also started making
landscape quilts. I’ve had a sewing machine all my life, and I have a machine set up along with an art table, so I’m ready to go wherever inspiration takes me. I’m rarely at a loss for something
to do.
Now, I often find myself watching and practicing watercolor and quilting techniques on YouTube. They’re like rabbit holes that I can’t seem to get out of! I really enjoy them.
Since I moved to Wickenburg, I’ve been taking watercolor, acrylic, and oil painting classes. I’ve even been juried into the Wickenburg Art Center for mixed media and have exhibited in a few shows there.
In 2025, I was lucky enough to be exhibiting in the West of Center art show at the Desert Caballero Western Museum for the second year in a row. I entered a landscape quilt and two watercolor paintings. My watercolor of Vulture Mountain was even selected to be on the literature for the show!
Bio
My paintings are mostly with oils, but also do watercolors and acrylics. I started oil painting at the age of 16, painting wildlife on paper plates with an oil paint set that a neighbor had given me.
Someday I’ll paint that! Now it’s time. I am inspired by a lifetime of artistic memories, experiences and want to paint the picture. Retired after 40 years of being advertising art director and graphic designer, I then began to seriously paint.
One of my favorite things to paint is photos of history. Finding old black-and-white photos and paint them in my colors. Photos that I have taken from the western history places that I’ve discovered.
In high school, I was mostly interested in the art classes and and the drama classes. My formal art education began after high school at the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, plus 40 years of advertising art direction and marketing.
I like coming back to Wickenburg each winter for the art club, it’s helpful members and being able to paint outside in the AZ desert.
Some of my work is exhibited at the Platte Canyon Artist Guild’s Fall Fine Art Show in Bailey, Colorado, also at Wickenburg Art Club’s Fine Art Show and in their gallery.
Bio
Deborah Nielsen works in the watercolor and acrylic mediums. She began her adventures with watercolor and advanced very quickly. This inspired her to begin experimenting in acrylics, which became her second love. Deborah credits her success and love of these mediums to the local art instructors her in the valley, who helped her develop her God given talent.
Growing up point eh upper Midwest, first on a dairy farm as a little girl and then becoming a ranchers wife, inspired Deborah’s love and appreciation of animals and the beauty of the country atmosphere. Deborah, along with her husband Larry, is now semi-retired and living oil Wittmann, AZ. She is pursuing her dream of capturing the beauty around her and her love of animals. Deborah teaches both watercolor and acrylic classes on Arizona and for a few months in the summer she returns to Nebraska and helps work the ranch and teaches color classes at a local shop.
Deborah is juried onto the Art Club in Wickenburg, AZ and has competed on the Artisan Fair Art show during Gold Rush Days for the past few years where each year she has won honors in both mediums. In 2018 she was also juried into the Glendale Fine Art show with two of her paintings, “Blue Agave” and “Platinum Vintage”, and in 2019 with her painting “Bird of Paradise”, and in 2021 the painting “Tatonka”. The West of Center Art show in the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, in Wickenburg, AZ, also accepted two of Deborah’s paintings, “Chinks” and “Platinum Vintage”, for showing and sale.
I was born in Oklahoma City, moved to Idaho as a child.
Found my way to Wickenburg, Arizona, twenty-one years ago — “snowbird.”
I’m self-taught with a mentor. Pat Hould, an abstract artist, guided me to my path of a figure painter.
I work in mixed media, collage with acrylic glazes. Influenced by southwest colors.
I’m represented at:
Manos Gallery in Tubac, Arizona
Rancho de los Caballeros Spa
Allender Studio
Cecilia moved to Los Angeles, CA with a degree in Commercial Art from Stockholm, Sweden.
She worked at Honeywell, Inc. and at several commercial print shops applying her creative skills as a Graphic Artist.
Cecilia moved to Arizona, attended painting classes in acrylic and watercolor at Yavapai College in Prescott. She has received awards at art galleries for her work.
Her paintings have sold at Phippen’s Western Art Museum store.
She is a juried artist with the Wickenburg Art Club where her art has received many awards.
In 2016 Cecilia fulfilled a longtime desire of becoming a sculptor and has completed ten bronzes.
In 2018, Cecilia was accepted into the 44th Annual Phippen Western Art Show & Sale for painting and sculpture. There she received THE PHIPPEN FOUNDATION AWARD for her bronze sculpture “In Trouble”.
In 2020 she was invited to participate in the Miniature Masterpiece Show and Sale and in the PAWs Show at the Museum during the month of May, Cecilia also participated in the Phippen Western Art Show and Sale during the Memorial Day weekend! Received the 1st PLACE AWARD in Sculpture with her piece “Saved From The Storm”! It was all done virtual due to Covid 19 safety guidelines!
She participated in the 48th Annual Phippen Western Art Show & Sale with her bronzes during the Memorial Day weekend in May 2022 and received the very prestigious PHIPPEN FAMILY AWARD for her bronze “MOMENT OF PRAISE”!
Cecilia will have all her 10 bronzes on display at the 50th Annual Phippen Western Art Show and sale in 2024.
Cecilia’s childhood dream was to have horses, which became a reality when she moved to Arizona. Her love for the Western lifestyle inspires her to create art of horses, cowboys and landscapes of the West. She is residing in Hillside, Arizona close to family.
