Deserie R. Valloreo grew up in Clearwater, FL and currently resides in St Pete Beach. For as long as she can remember she had yearning to paint. In 2017, she enrolled in a class and learned the fundamentals of painting. Since then, she continues exploring on her own, learning from others, and refining her skills as an artist. Her works are exhibited at galleries and shows throughout the Tampa Bay area.

“I attempt to be courageous in my use of color and I am enamored with the way light touches objects. The combination of these two things results in creations that appear slightly surreal.”

Deserie is the founder of DRV Gallery.

Award-winning artist Joyce Burkholder paints outdoors in all seasons, in both Gulfport, Florida and Ontario, Canada.

Joyce specializes in painting Gulfport street scenes. She can often be seen with her easel set up, happily painting while people stop to chat.

Well known for many years of teaching painting workshops in Florida and Canada, Joyce's masterful skill with numerous mediums has developed from her life-long commitment to her artistic profession.

Patricia Burrows is a studio pottery artist in Gulfport, Florida. Her work is inspired by flowers and the outdoor environment.

She applies botanical and whimsical effects to her work with inlaid drawings (Mishima), slip trailing, flower pressing, sprigs (appliques) made with her handmade molds, and watercolor-like application of stains. She especially likes to use the coral vine that grows at her studio to create floral imagery. A lifelong gardener, Pat has recently become fascinated by succulents, and some of her new work involves creating bisque molds by rolling succulent flowers from her garden into a slab. This type of mold creates a strong botanical relief that can be enhanced with glazes and different firing techniques, such as Raku and soda firing.

My life as a painter began ten years ago. I have studied and trained with many artists in the traditions of academic realism, and Impressionism, and I am finding my way to my own expression.

I had pursued other art forms through the years, acting, dance, classical piano and classical guitar. As a livelihood, I built a career in the healing arts as a Massage Therapist, and Acupuncture Physician and had a private practice for over thirty years.

As my desire to spend more time with my art studies grew stronger, I retired from my practice as a healing artist, and committed myself to growth as an artist. I hope my works encourage viewers to pursue their own passion.

Laurie Edwards is a watercolor artist originally from the Midwest, now based in South Pasadena, Florida, where she lives with her husband. A lifelong lover of music, reading, and nature, Laurie took up watercolor three years ago and quickly discovered a deep passion for the medium. Her work often features vibrant, expressive subjects inspired by both her Midwestern roots and her current coastal surroundings. Laurie’s paintings have been shown locally, including at the Suntan Art Center, and her studio is located at DRV Gallery. She has been an active member of the Florida Watercolor Society for the past three years and was recently interviewed by PBS’s Growing Bolder, where she shared her creative journey. Through her art and her teaching, Laurie is dedicated to encouraging others to explore watercolor as a joyful and personal form of expression.

Eric Folsom is a jewelry and sculpture artist who specializes in brazing. He left his home in Gulfport, FL in 1973, to undertake a self-education by moving to Washington DC, where he worked as bicycle courier. When not working he would spend time studying art in the museums, galleries and libraries of DC.

His skillset as a metalsmith began as an apprenticeship with George Anderson in Sperryville, Virginia in 1977. For ten years working under the guidance, he became proficient in the techniques of brazing and fabricating bronze and copper into jewelry and sculptural forms.

In 1979, during his apprenticeship, he began showing and selling his work at juried Art/Craft Shows from Boston, Massachusetts to Columbia South Carolina. He returned to Pinellas County in 1995 and from his studio in Gulfport is making work and accepting public and private commissions. Most recently as a nod to his first adult career, he has been recycling bicycle parts to make gates and other sculptural objects using the same techniques he employs in his jewelry. He continues to show his work at juried shows and galleries throughout the country.

Janie Haskins is a contemporary impressionist oil painter, capturing fleeting moments with rich brushstrokes, textures and colors. She often works on location, braving the sun, mosquitos and ever-changing weather to capture the essence of a subject. In the studio, these plein air studies inspire larger works. Janie began studying painting as a teenager but veered away from art and instead became a journalist and then a lawyer. It took years to return to her first love of painting. In the meantime, she wrote about local controversies, represented entertainment industry clients in Los Angeles, started her own law practice in Ohio, and raised four children. Janie’s life experiences inform her art. Growing up in coastal Newport News, Virginia, she developed a deep love of the water and the beach. Journalism taught her to be a keen observer. And law taught her perseverance. Janie has studied with some of the premier painters in the country and has exhibited her work nationally. Locally, she has taken top awards at plein air competitions. Janie lives in St Petersburg with her husband, artist Jim Kammerud.

After a lifetime of interesting experiences and world travel I stumbled onto a passion I didn't see on the horizon... Painting and Drawing! In 2005, I found myself in a hotel room in Germany for my job at the time with nothing to do in the evenings for 3 weeks. I picked up a few pencils and some drawing paper the next day and started trying to draw. I worked at it pretty much non stop until I I felt I could keep more than I threw away.

Well here I am several years later completely consumed with the love of art and the desire to paint and draw.

I hope you find some of my work personally inspiring and even more, that it stirs up a longing for your own adventure into creativity and personal expression. The secret is pretty basic...it takes a willingness to be not so good at first to develop the skill to be what you hope to become.

Cindy Rodella-Purdy creates whimsical dreamscapes inspired by the places where imagination and memory meet. Working in encaustic, watercolor, and ink, she combines luminous color with playful storytelling to create artwork that feels both nostalgic and hopeful. As a longtime children's book illustrator, every painting begins with a story and invites collectors to discover their own within each tiny village, quiet shoreline, and floating world.

When I first picked up my brushes and committed to jump in to my oil painting dreams, I couldn’t have imagined where the journey would take me. An artist friend encouraged me to take a daily painting challenge and shortly after, on a long shot wish, I applied to and was granted the Gulfport Merchants Chamber Rise and Shine Award for emerging artists. I showed my work at Art Walks and Fine Arts Festivals and have found my way into producing and selling my paintings.

Many of my works are done through Plein Air painting, which is outdoors, on site with natural light and elements. I am training myself to “see” the subtleties of light, shadows, values of color and hue. My goal is to let nature or human made objects speak for themselves through my own interpretation of how they flow through space, time and light. I love to play with undertones of ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium yellows and reds, which bring richness as a canvas base to layer my paint. I love painting locally throughout Gulfport and around my New England home. My challenge is always finding the magic in the beauty that surrounds us.

Rebecca Skelton earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.  She worked in the advertising industry in Atlanta before moving to St. Petersburg in 1985.

Ms. Skelton's work has been collected, exhibited, and published since 1974. She has taught art classes as an adjunct professor for University of Tampa, St. Petersburg College, USF St. Petersburg, HCC Ybor, and Eckerd College as well as for the Morean Arts Center, Creative Clay, Youth Arts Corps, and the Dali Museum. Her work can be seen in the Morean Arts Center, Florida CraftArt Gallery, Davidson’s Fine Art, and Articles.

As a volunteer, Ms. Skelton has participated in many community projects, including for St. Petersburg’s First Night, the Museum of Fine Arts Garden Party series, the Salvador Dali Museum, WMNF, the Humane Society, American Stage, Stageworks, Tampa Aids Network, Visual Aids NYC, Habitat for Humanity, CASA, Katrina/Rita hurricane relief, Family Resources, Family Services, Bayfront Hospital and Southeastern Guide Dogs.

Scott Solary is a contemporary visual artist and Florida native whose work explores the intersection of natural systems, perception, and material memory through sculpted and assembled wood surfaces.

Working directly with grain patterns, knots, and organic figure, Solary treats wood not simply as a medium, but as an active collaborator in the formation of each piece. Through mindful assembly, shaping, and dying, he reveals atmospheric abstractions that evoke geological formations, shifting horizons, and environmental phenomena.

His Grainscapes are the result of a self-developed artistic process that reimagines wood grain as both subject and collaborator. Rather than treating wood as a surface to paint over, Solary allows each board’s natural figure, live edge, and knots to determine the composition.

His latest work continues this evolution of exploration by integrating materials such glass and canvas with wood and delving into creation of abstract imagery utilizing unique tools and methods.

Solary’s work has been exhibited at the Sightline Gallery in the St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport, Forever Florida Gallery and the Dali Museum.

Dawn came to create art relatively late in life, after an advertising career and working as communications director at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. She is self taught, spent most of her life in Virginia, and now resides in Gulfport, Florida.

Since she began making fiber paintings in 2017, Dawn has been honored to receive the first place award in Florida CraftAt’s 2021 Members’ Show and in Fearless Fiber at Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa FL, as well as four awards of distinction: New River Art Juried Biennial, Moss Art Center, Blacksburg, VA; Fiber Art Now magazine; and Contemporary Fiber in Florida and the 2022 Art Festival, Florida CraftArt, St. Petersburg, FL. She served as juror for Felt: Fiber Transformed 2020, Fiber Art Network, and has had her work featured in Outsider Art Magazine and on the Summer 2019 cover of Fiber Art Now.

Dawn’s felted creations have been shown in Red Truck Gallery, New Orleans; MIZE Gallery St. Petersburg, FL; Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton NJ; Brenda McMahon Gallery and DRV Gallery, Gulfport, FL; Florida CraftArt, St. Petersburg, FL; Art Center Sarasota and juried fine art shows including the American Craft Council show in Atlanta.