Artists of Palm Beach County is a non-profit 501c organization dedicated to helping member artists achieve their artistic goals and utilize their talents to enrich the lives in our community.
We recognize that artists often face difficulties in having proper resources to practice and produce their art, to learn and expand their skills, and to feel that their art is recognized and appreciated. We are a home for these artists. A place where they can access resources, expand their skills, be inspired, share their art, and help each other prosper.
Most importantly, we want to facilitate and enable the youth in our community to embrace the study and practice of all that is art. Our Certificate of Solicitation allows us to pursue tax-deductible donations to generate scholarship money, which we use to award scholarships to local students who show outstanding achievements in the visual arts and to offer educational programs, opportunities, and experiences to the community.
We strongly believe that art in all its forms serves a public purpose and can enhance community well-being.
THE BOARD
Carole Pichney –
President
Carole Pichney is an acrylic painter specializing in interiors and travel-related paintings. Although not professionally trained, she has taken numerous painting classes in New York and Florida. These include the Art Students League, The National Academy of Design, The Center for Visual Arts, The East Ends Arts Council, and the Armory Art Center. She joined the Board seven years ago after moving here from Long Island.
Karen Karmazin – Vice President
Karen Karmazin attained her BA and graduate studies in Fine Arts at Queens College. Subsequently, she was awarded a fellowship and attained her Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut and a Doctorate in Education at the University of Buffalo. Karen’s teaching career spanned the education of normally achieving and special needs students from birth to adolescence in suburban and urban districts. She holds NYS Certification in School District Administration, Special Education, Elementary Education, and Fine Arts. Fellowships included a scholarship to study at the Provincetown Art School in Cape Cod, MA, a grant from the Department of Health and Education for graduate study, and a National Wildlife Grant to construct a large school habitat. Her painting and drawing have been influenced by post-abstract expressionists and incorporates a wide array of medium, including oil, acrylic, mixed media, drawing, and watercolor. She has exhibited work in Cape Cod, MA; Queens County, NY; Buffalo, NY and Palm Beach County, FL.
Al Rojas – Treasurer
My works attempt at balancing the abstract with the representational, colorful, linear, and geometric. I use a chaotic process to produce abstract imagery and backgrounds and using every step of the way to control the work giving it a sense of order and composition to come up with a blend of abstract-representational images – see some of my works at my signature artists page. Currently, Al is the organization’s Treasurer.
Linda Miller – Chair of Art Salon/Secretary to the Board
Linda Miller has always loved and appreciated art, but didn’t become an artist herself until 2002. Traveling throughout Greece with a group of watercolorists was the launching point of her art adventure. Landscapes in the impressionist style are the focus of her work and she has used both watercolor and oil in her art. A relative newcomer to Florida, the natural beauty of the area is her constant inspiration.
She started the Art Salon a few years ago out of a desire to inspire and connect with fellow artists. Creating art can be a lonely process; and she believes that sharing information and ideas help us learn and grow as artists and professionals. The monthly meetings have featured various successful artists who shared their life stories and provided helpful information for the group.
Ilene Gruber Adams – Chair of Marketing /Webmaster
Owner of The Marketing Works of Palm Beach. After owning a nationally acclaimed multimillion-dollar broadcast marketing company in the Northeast, she shifted her interest to small businesses and the arts.
Ilene has worked in the non-profit art world, bringing her marketing talents and creativity to several art organizations and working to advance art and artists in the community.
She has curated and judged many large festivals and exhibitions and has served as a board member at several organizations, including ArtSynergy, Artists of Palm Beach County, and Wellington Art Society. She was a long-time advisor for the Cultural Affairs Committee for the city of West Palm Beach and volunteers at Norton. She is also the designer of the volunteer newsletter.
Adams works in mixed media and photography, often combining the two in installation pieces.
Katie Deits – Chair of Exhibitions
Katie Deits is an award-winning artist, Master Photographer, and writer whose expertise includes art reviewing, public relations, marketing, fundraising, and organizational leadership.
In 2007, she received the South Florida Cultural Consortium Art Fellowship for Palm Beach County. Her art has been exhibited widely, and she is known for her photography, figurative sculptures, drawings, and paintings.
She also writes about art for newspapers and magazines and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of South Florida. She holds the Florida Degree of Photographic Excellence, as well as a Master of Photography and Certified Professional Photographer from Professional Photographers of America.
Maxine Schreiber
A retired Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Maxine received a Masters degree in Expressive Therapies in 1977 from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. She was a psychotherapist for over thirty years. In 2005, she closed her private practice of sixteen years to devote her full time to oil painting, fiction, and non-fiction writing. A former columnist for BestofArtists.com and the Indian River Art News, she was West Palm Beach Fine Arts Examiner for Examiner.com and published close to two hundred articles about the art community. In 2014 she wrote, illustrated, and published The Story of Daphne the Duck, a children’s picture book. Though primarily an impressionistic landscape painter who loves creating art, showing, and selling her work, she gets equal pleasure writing about and promoting the artists and art establishments that make up the fabulous art scene in Palm Beach County.
Heather Couch
Heather Couch is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach. Heather received an MFA in Fine Art in 2015 from Arizona State University. She works in sculptural ceramics and mixed media installation, composing with material language to form pieces that reflect on tensions of uncertainty. Recent solo exhibitions include "Static/Not Static" at The Peach Arts District in West Palm, “Composing Texture” at the University of Dallas in Texas, and “Knowing, On What Grounds” at the Fried Fruit Gallery in Deland. Heather has been a resident artist at CRETA Rome in Rome Italy, the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary, and the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona. Her work can be found in private and public collections, including Florida Gulf Coast University in Florida, Union University in Tennessee, and the Mesa Contemporary Art Museum (MCA) in Arizona.
Lupe Lawrence
I was born in Havana, Cuba. When I was five years old, my family and I moved to Palm Beach County, and lived in my aunt’s house. In her living room, hanging above her sofa, I saw the painting Haywain by John Constable and began to cry, immediately I knew that I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to evoke the same emotions in others as the painting had produced in me.
I told my mother that I wanted to go to art school, and because we had just come from Cuba, we did not have the money to go, and she persuaded me to forget about my desire. When I entered high school, I took my first art class and felt as if I had come home. I told my teacher that I wanted to pursue an art career. She told me that I did not have what it took to go to college. Deflated, I was persuaded not to follow my inspiration to become an artist. It would take a crisis in 1995 for me to remember my desire for art, and I began taking classes at Conveniant School of the Arts headed by Robert Watler. Through his instruction and my perseverance, I began exhibiting professionally in 2002. I have since shown in England, South and North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Jersey and throughout Florida.
Susan Currie
Susan Currie is a West Palm Beach based visual artist who integrates vibrant color
with timeless geometric elements in her printmaking and painting — her photographs
often serving as prompts for creative exploration.
Susan's chromatic takes on simple universal elements extend a nod to the art of play and to the wonder of childhood, a subject she faithfully focused on for over two decades in her work as a fine art portrait photographer.
Her fine art can be found in a number of galleries, private collections and commercial settings.
978.835.9691, @susancurriecreative
Cynthia George
The two words I would use to sum up my biography are the words “Full" and "Circle”. I have always been creative, and as a teenager, I was addicted to big screen movies. When I saw the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire”, I decided I wanted to become a Special Effects Make-up Artist. So I went to and graduated from the University of Florida with a BFA in Theatrical Production. I moved to Los Angeles, California and enrolled in a Special Effects Make-up Artist program.
Upon completion of the program I moved back to Florida and worked on a major motion picture. I got to see my name in the credits. A few months later, I was hired at Universal Studios Orlando to work on “Halloween Horror Nights.”. I was asked to stay on permanently. This was my dream job however, September 11th, happened. As the world changed so did I. I realized I had to move back home to be with my family. This was a difficult decision but I felt there was something missing. So I went back to school and became a Registered Dietetic Technician. I went from art to science. You can’t get any more extreme. Unfortunately, I felt something was still missing. I decided I needed to go back into the art field. Thus, coming “Full Circle”.
My hope is that the emotions I feel in the creation of each piece will come through to those who view my art and that something in a particular painting will speak to each viewer on a very personal level. My themes are not always serious. Some are whimsical and light hearted, but at its core, my artwork is storytelling. Currently, complementing my commissioned Pet Portraits, are pieces using wildlife animals as the subject. It is very important to me that when a painting is completed it must speak to you; as if it has a “voice”. The purpose; start a conversation positive and or negative.