Fleming College

Sam Paonessa

Sam Paonessa is a professional artist with a creative career spanning over 35 years. Upon graduation from the Ontario College of Art, he worked as an illustrator for one of Canada's largest commercial art studios, TDF Artists, and subsequently joined Hallmark Cards Canada in roles of illustrator and later, art director. Widely exhibited and awarded, Sam has gained the attention of both corporate and private fine art collectors across North America and abroad. The Museo di Cultura in Pescara, Italy has one of his landscape paintings in its permanent collection. His coin design, Canadian Icons, was selected as a finalist for the Royal Canadian Mint 2017 150th Collection commemorating Canada's anniversary as a nation. Sam also has category awards for his paintings from a Plein Air magazine competition. His popularity for teaching workshops continues to grow across Ontario. www.sampaonessa.com

April Gates

April Gates is a full time ceramic artist and educator. After colourful and long meanderings in travel, work and education, she finally answered the call to study ceramics. A lifelong background in image making married a concern for function and ritual ~ and Blackbird Pottery was born. April's graphic and illustrative work has been nationally exhibited, collected and published. Her current obsession is to marvel the endless potential of the ceramic surface. As a facilitator, April is passionate about helping others to find their voice through artistic explorations. www.blackbirdpottery.ca

Julie Gemuend

Julie Gemuend is a Canadian artist. She studied visual arts with an emphasis on photography and video at Brock University as well as Ryerson University, where she received her Master of Fine Arts. Her practice is aligned with a number of intersecting movements that emerged in the 1960s, including body art, performance-based video, and land art. Julie employs her body to speculate on theories concerning the self, space and the relationship between interior and exterior landscapes. She has been the recipient of various notable awards and grants and exhibits her work both nationally and internationally.

DeAnn deGruijter

DeAnn deGruijter is an award-winning actor, theatre teacher, Arts & Education Consultant and Expressive Arts Facilitator. She holds an MFA in Theatre and Teaching and is a graduate of the Expressive Arts program at Haliburton School of Art + Design. DeAnn has performed at both Stratford and Shaw festivals, as well as on stages large and small across Canada and abroad. She worked in political satire at CBC radio comedy for many years, voiced Paw Patrol's Mayor Goodway for seven seasons, and has taught for the Canadian Opera Company, York University, Young People's Theatre, and various school boards throughout southern Ontario. She brings EXA to the Social Planning Council of Peel and multiple groups and organizations both in person and online. DeAnn is an advocate of Prescribing Arts in Healthcare. Her classes are infused with knowledge, experience, emotional intelligence, and her signature sense of humour.

Fly Freeman

Fly Freeman trained as a sculptor in Scotland, where she started her career as a stone carver, carving everything from gargoyles to gravestones and large-scale public commissions in granite. A mid-career move to Canada led to a radical shift in her sculptural practice: carving has been joined by construction as a sculptural method, and wood and other media are now worked alongside the stone. www.flyfreeman.com

Jason Fowler

Jason Fowler, a Toronto guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer, holds an Honours Degree from McGill University in Classical Guitar Performance and is a two-time winner at the prestigious Walnut Valley National Guitar Championships, in the fingerstyle and flatpicking categories. He has released six independent solo albums and has played on over 100 albums, various television and radio spots, and numerous film soundtracks. Among his performance and recording credits is working with innumerable Canadian and international artists including Loreena McKennit, Michelle Wright, Valdy, Pavlo, Nana Mouskouri, The Irish Tenors, Susan Aglukark, Bruce Cockburn, Murray McLauchlan, Amy Sky & Marc Jordan, Heather Rankin, Quartette, Anne Lindsay, Suzie Vinnick, Justin Rutledge, and Madison Violet. In 2019 Jason played in the bands for the Toronto productions of The Lion King and The Girl From The North Country. His composition, Midwestern Lament, was the inaugural winner of the Instrumental category in the OCFF Songs From The Heart Awards. Jason has also received a Porcupine Award, the CEC McEachern Award, for Outstanding Musical Accompanist. www.jasonfowler.ca

Chris Bahry

Chris Bahry has carried his sensibilities and experiences from his mentorship under Bruce Mau in the world of print, branding, product, video and architectural design into motion design and filmmaking. Over the course of his creative career, Chris has actively sought out beauty and meaning in the places where the visual arts and sciences converge. In 2009, Chris and his longtime collaborator Alexandre Torres met EP Kate Bate and founded Toronto-based design and animation studio Tendril. Currently Tendril is represented in the US by Blacklist, in Canada by Hesty Reps and in Europe by Passion Pictures. Tendril Design + Animation Inc. is a design and animation studio with roots in Brazil and Canada, where a diverse group of directors, designers, and artists come together to push the boundaries of the visual storytelling experience, employing an always evolving kit of styles and techniques. Our vision is to rediscover the everyday through the filter of our imaginations. To inspire and be inspired.

Janine Marson

Instructor for:

• Colour Design
• Composition Design

Janine Marson is a graduate of the Design Art Program at Georgian College and received a BFA from the University of Guelph. Her 30-year career has established a strong sense of direction, garnered several exhibitions and awards, and has provided the opportunity to influence hundreds of students with her calm, encouraging spirit. Janine loves to inspire others with art, teaching private art lessons in person and online via ZOOM. A trained, professional picture framer, she has provided her services with a keen eye for colour and design for over 25 years. Her commission work includes painting on a canoe for the Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and painting a paddle for the Algonquin Outfitters Paddle Art Contest. She is one of the muralists for The Group of Seven Outdoor Gallery in Huntsville and has painted six murals to date. Janine received a Woman of Distinction Award for Arts, Culture & Creativity in 2018. www.janinemarsonart.com

Elise Muller

Instructor for:

• Lino Printmaking Workshop
• Holiday Card Making Workshop

Elise Muller has been sculpting stone since 2001 and her large public sculptures can be found in Dorset, Fergus, and Kingsbrae Garden. Elise's granite sculpture 'Attunement' won the 2018/9 Canadian Sculpture Competition at Kingsbrae Garden in St. Andrews, NB. Elise has been teaching stone carving to both adults and children for 19 years, and enjoys nurturing her students' individual creativity. Elise lives and works at Stone Tree Studio in Muskoka with her partner, furniture maker Cirvan Hamilton. www.stonetreestudio.ca

John Anderson

John Anderson is an enthusiastic studio and plein air painter, working in oils and acrylics. His excitement about the language and process of painting, accompanied with an element of creative joy is infectious. As a full-time artist and instructor, John is committed to assisting, mentoring and instructing here in Canada, in Provence, and in Tuscany. As a young boy, his first major influences were the paintings of Andrew Wyeth and later meeting A Y Jackson, he was inspired to absorb the landscape tradition of Tom Thomson and members of The Group of Seven. Many more artists have become the influence from which he has drawn the building blocks of his craft. The focus of much of John's work is the light story, as he describes it. His approach is a study in how the character of light movement creates the elements of composition in a pathway of light as it touches surfaces, creating shapes in value and colour from which to build an engaging surface in paint. John is represented by The Ethel Curry Gallery in Haliburton, Double Doors Gallery in Barrie, The Art Bank Collective in Clarksburg, as well as many guest appearances in other galleries. www.johndvidanderson.ca Instagram: @jdapainter

Jeremy Laing

Jeremy Laing spent his childhood on an army base in Germany. He learned to sew at age 13 by watching his mother, and has been making clothes ever since. Jeremy's self-taught method, which combines organic and geometric approaches to pattern making and construction, was honed while studying in Toronto, on exchange at Westminster University in London, and through an apprenticeship with Alexander McQueen. Following his apprenticeship, Jeremy worked freelance developing showpieces for five of McQueen's collections, demonstrating his strength in innovative pattern making, garment construction, and the use of textile to create form. In 2011, Jeremy was a finalist for the prestigious ANDAM Fashion Award. In Jeremy's view, garments are a sum of parts, all functioning in relation to one another and, ultimately, to the body. His collections often stem from his elaborations on simple principles of construction and form, drawing simultaneously from couture and tailoring traditions. Jeremy currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.