2021 ARTIST MARKET JUDGES

Rick Berman

Rick Berman MFA Ceramics U. of Ga. 1973 Director and Founder of the Ceramics Dept. at Callanwolde Art Center 1973-1980 Artist in Residence for the South Carolina Arts Council 1981-82 School Year Co Owner of Berman Gallery 1982- 1997 Faculty at Pace Academy 1997- 2013 Associate Editor of Claytimes Magazine 1994-2006 International Teaching: Arusha, Tanzania 2012 and 2013 Meherabad, India 2012 U. of Ga. Faculty in Cortona, Italy 2014 One Person and Group Exhibitions: Over One Hundred Many Articles written for International Magazines: Claytimes, Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, Art Papers, and more.

Ebru Ercan

Ebru Ercan was born in Ankara, Turkey and was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Her creativity and love for art from a very early age guided her to pursue a career in architecture. As a child, Ebru’s dream was to become an artist and she fulfilled this dream. She graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelor of Architecture and has practiced architecture both in the United States and Turkey. These experiences have enabled Ebru to grow as an individual while gaining inspiration and strength from her dual heritage. Everything she does on a day-to-day basis stems from her culture, which results in depth and meaning to her designs. Ebru is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is a licensed architect in the States of Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

She is currently practicing architecture with her own firm, e3 design which specializes in architecture, interior design, and custom furniture design. Ebru is a self-taught artist that began painting to help encourage creativity with her designs. Her artwork is exhibited in private collections around the world. She expresses herself in bold colors and strong brush strokes. Her vibrant personality comes forth in her paintings through rhythm and movement. Ebru also incorporates the concept of layers and depth as another tool to express herself. As an artist and an architect, she is continually incorporating her background, dual heritage, and new experiences into all of her artistic endeavors. Ebru also uses her artwork as a means to express herself through the creation of art beyond the sole parameters of architecture. She seeks to showcase a more subjective and passionate response to the world of ideas and subject matter.

Anna Hamer

Anna Hamer uses paint, pastel, charcoal, encaustic and digital photography in her work. With abstract continuous line and interwoven circles she explores our interdependence and interconnectedness with each other and with all life on the planet. She is propelled by the quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “…life…is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outward to new and larger circles, and that without end.”

Anna is a Hambidge Center Fellow and was awarded an FCAC Residency at the Caversham Centre in South Africa. She was a Mentor/Artist with the ArtsCool Program with the Bureau of Cultural Affairs. Her work is in several collections across the Southeast.

Megan McKendree

Megan McKendree has called Atlanta home for half of her life, growing up with the city since early childhood. Her art school background includes programs since age fourteen with a varied focus ranging from a well-developed Creative Writing program at D.A.S.O.T.A. in North Florida to completing a BFA of Photography from SCAD ATL. She has been an incorporated independent artist since 2007 and successfully runs her own business. In 2012, she opened her art studio at The Goat Farm in the heart of West Midtown. Seven years later, it is still her U.S. headquarters. In late 2013, she moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico choosing to build an International team & rebrand as HART Jewelry. The slow-fashion brand showcases Meghan’s unique talent of finding bones in nature along with the process of transforming the found object into a desirable design that can be integrated into one’s wardrobe. In the daily operations of HART Jewelry, Meghan curates, creates and critiques what is necessary to clearly represent her vision. She is honored to have the chance to be a juror with the 2020 Atlanta Dogwood Festival.

Charmaine Minniefield

The work of artist-activist, Charmaine Minniefield preserves Black narratives as a radical act of social justice. Firmly rooted in womanist social theory and ancestral veneration, her work draws from indigenous traditions as seen throughout Africa and the Diaspora, to explore African and African-American history, memory and ritual as an intentional push back against erasure, displacement, and misrepresentation. Her creative practice is community-based as her research and resulting bodies of work draw from the physical archives of a community, place or institution as she excavates the stories of African-American women-led resistance, spirituality and power in response to contemporary social landscapes.

Her recent public works include projection mapping and site- specific installation which visually activate spaces of historical significance to insight dialogue around race, class and power. Through interdisciplinary collaboration she incorporates other art forms including physical movement to reveal embodied memories as resistance and healing, and utilizes sound, film and digital imagery to virtually bridge the past to the present. With a degree in Fine Art from Agnes Scott College, Charmaine Minniefield has also served the Atlanta area as an arts administrator for nearly 20 years, holding positions with such arts organizations as the National Black Arts Festival, the High Museum of Art and the Fulton County Department of Art and Culture, producing projects around art and activism with such organizations as Alternate ROOTS, Points of Light and Flux Projects. She recently served as faculty for the Department of Art and Visual Cultural at Spelman College and currently serves as faculty for Freedom University, an underground university for undocumented students.

Ann Fay Rushforth

Ann Fay Rushforth is a silversmith, artist, independent curator, juror and art critic. She has extensive experience & interest in arts education, mentoring, advocacy and arts presentation & gallery management. She designs and fabricates contemporary heirlooms rich in global texture. She is influenced by years spent in Europe and the Orient and a family who revered and collected objects and jewelry created by skilled artisans, no matter the century, style or media. Her family roots grow from the coast of the Sea of Azov, north of the Black Sea, a major trade route of the Vikings and a vital source of cultural interchange.

Master of Fine Arts, College of Visual Arts, Antioch University. Additional studies include Gendai Bijutsu Kenkyusho (Institute of Contemporary Art) Tokyo, The American University, D.C., Montgomery College, MD, The Corcoran School of Art, D.C. and the Atlanta College of Art, GA. B.A. degree from George Washington University, D.C. Studies in art history were pursued at The Prado Museum, Madrid; University of New Mexico; The Smithsonian Institution; The National Museum of American Art, D.C.; University College London, UK. Master copyist in The National Gallery of Art, D.C.