JULIA TAYLOR

My artistic journey began in a small farming community in Indiana, where I discovered my love for drawing at an early age. During my youth, I earned spending money by creating portrait sketches at county fairs and providing illustrations for local weekly newspapers. The strong foundation I received from dedicated art teachers in both high school and college taught me to draw fluidly from life. 

After graduating with an arts minor during an economic downturn, I stepped away from my art practice for several years, though I continued sketching and taking occasional art classes. Ten years ago, I returned to serious artistic study, focusing intensively on watercolor painting. 

I’ve had the privilege of learning from renowned watercolor artists including Alvaro Castagnet, Janet Rogers, Andy Evansen, and Jean Haines. 

My work has been featured in several exhibitions, including the David Barnett Gallery, where I held a solo exhibition in 2019, and the annual North Point Lighthouse Art Show. I’ve also had pieces accepted into the Watercolor Wisconsin 2021-22 Exhibit and the “In the Park with Olmsted” exhibit at the Villa Terrace Museum. 

I am an active member of the Transparent Watercolor Society and the Wisconsin Watercolor Society, as well as an Associate member of the American Watercolor Society. 

Two local artists circles, Momentum and Watercolor Gals, provide friendship, support, and feedback. 

I managed Lily Pad Gallery West in Milwaukee’s Third Ward since early 2024. Karen Ellenbecker and I purchased the gallery in 2026 and it is now known as JK Art House in its new location at 191 N Broadway.

ROBIN LEENHOUTS

I have been seriously making books since I retired from being an elementary school art teacher.  While teaching, I had fun imagining and making with kids different books appropriate for 5 to 15 year olds.

I am all about paper and marking it up.  I make sewn, hard-bound journals and sketch books as well as smaller pads and soft cover books.  The latter work well as substitute electronics to make lists, keep schedules or to tear off a page of information and hand it to someone. 

JEANNE COLE PANKA

My work reflects my connection to nature and my interest in the changing environment. When the rush and hustle of my life becomes too much, spending time in nature is just what is needed.

I create botanical images with watercolor and colored pencil using the flowers in my garden as subjects. I use soft pastels when doing landscape paintings.

Follow me on Instagram  @jeannepankasart and on my website  www.JeanneColePankaFineArt

MICHAEL DILLON

A Lifelong Milwaukee resident and graphic designer, my most remarkable achievement, apparently, is that I created, ran in and was the first winner of the Brewers Sausage Race (as the Bratwurst). I prefer to paint mostly urban scenes, mostly Milwaukee, but also Europe where I have spent a fair amount of time. I paint in smaller formats. Acrylic is my usual medium but I also like watercolor and pencil.

JAMES ROWEN

I am a retired journalist now memorializing through photography the rich environment gifted us by past generations in parks and along the lakeshore, which helped to create and define Milwaukee.

MICHAEL J BROPHY

Michael J. Brophy is a Wisconsin-based visual artist. 

His art tends toward abstract expressionism.  He paints in acrylics on canvas.

He derives his inspiration from the state of our nation and world, the quotidian of our human condition and the sublime beauty of nature around us.

“I paint because I believe art can make important societal statements and be an agent of change.  An accomplished artist once said to me: ‘You paint with feeling.  Never lose that.’  It was the highest compliment I’ve ever received, because I want my art to mean something, even if it is sometimes dark or maudlin.  As art is a platform for self expression for me, I am always humbled that a person might find also meaning and beauty in one of my works.”

His art and photography can be found on Facebook and Instagram @mbrophy_art.  He is also a poet.  His books include Tears on the Sidewalk and Selected Poems; Rockwell’s Tears and Other Poems; and A Rock Hopping Boy.  All are available on Amazon.

MARY LOUISE DEAN

My paintings are most often created from dreams or memories about the beauty of nature. My media can be oil, watercolor or cold wax. Most of my work created for the North Point Lighthouse features landscapes in oil and cold wax.

I am mostly self taught with the influences from a 30-year career in advertising and communications. Over the last ten years I participated in many workshops offered by recognized contemporary artists.

Since 2020, I have shared and sold my art in group shows throughout Greater Milwaukee. I enjoy membership in League of Milwaukee Artists, Milwaukee Artists Resource Network, Museum of Wisconsin Art and Fox Point Artists Collaborative.

FREDERICK ROOS

Frederick Roos is a self-taught wood artist making one-of-a-kind pieces, ranging from wooden bowls to unique boxes and vases. As the former president of the Wisconsin Woodworkers Guild and a Turners Guild member, he is inspired to create from the wood itself.

ANNE REED

I haven’t been painting long and I still struggle to describe my work. Early on, I was startled to find that if I kept putting down paint and making marks, something would happen. The image in front of me would suddenly shift. Instead of simple paint on a surface, it took on a life and energy of its own.

My journey since that discovery has been to keep seeking that moment, and to bring each piece from that point to what seems to be its full expression. I’m not a particularly mystical person in other ways, so it has felt strange — and has been an honor — to follow this path of bringing a painting into the world.

DEBRA KLEPP

I am, by my own definition, an occasional artist — my life is full of interests that pull at
me in different directions: service, gardening, poetry, museums, crafts, traveling our
country, even basket weaving now and then. But painting is where I keep returning.

I am not self-taught — through classes and workshops I keep exploring new methods,
mediums, and styles, honing both realism and abstraction. I love the transparency and
unpredictability of watercolor, the way pigment blooms and pools on wet paper, and the boldness of acrylic, which lets me build up layers quickly and change directions mid-
painting. I also work in oil and alcohol ink as my mood decides, painting on paper and canvas, but also on tile, tables, pots, chairs, boxes, and wood.

I’m drawn most to painting oils on carefully turned wood surfaces, where I often turn to
rosemaling, the traditional Norwegian folk art of decorative flower painting, with its
flowing scrollwork and stylized botanical forms. Painting on wood asks something
different of me — building depth and perspective on a flat, unconventional plane is
where I feel most alive as a painter. I’m equally drawn to three-dimensional objects —
stools, benches, boxes, ceramic pots — things with real presence. There’s a spirit of folk
art in this for me: finding ordinary, discarded things, sometimes rescued from the curb,
and figuring out how to make them beautiful again.

Underneath all of it is nature. The colors of the natural world — vibrant or muted, soft
or harsh, whimsical or orderly — shift with every season, and I never tire of chasing
them onto a surface. I also paint and photograph what I find in the garden, turning
those images into greeting cards so the colors of a single bloom can travel beyond the
moment I caught them. I’m still learning how to be patient with learning. I suspect I
always will be.

MARJORIE WINDREM

Come check out my small works with a Lake Park theme!  I’m creating new pieces especially for this show. I paint in oils and watercolor in a loose, expressive style.