Artists displaying works at the Art With a View benefit include:

• Jay Davenport began private instructions at an early age. His enthusiasm and education in arts continued as he later earned an associate degree in painting and illustration. He completed a four-year apprenticeship in Realism and Trompe-l’Oeil.

He has participated in many exhibits across the country, winning The Bosque Conservatory Silver Medal and numerous awards in Artist Magazine Annual Competition. His passion for art has been illustrated in many publications including 2007 Strokes of Genius, The Best in Drawing. In 2015 Jay won the OPA Animal Award of Excellence, Signature & Associate Division for Keep Your Eye on the Ball.

• Linda Christman: After a 30-year career in local government in California, Christman retired in 2002 with her husband, Roy, to the Christman family farm near Beltzville State Park.

With time to pursue her painting, she studied at the Barnestone Studio and the Baum School of Art.

Primarily a pastel artist focusing on portraiture, she has completed a series of portraits of American Indians sourced from the work of Edward Curtis, an American photographer known for his sensitive and respectful photographs of American Indians, their culture and their rituals taken in the early to mid 1800s.

• Cheryl Popek: Upon leaving her career as an ER nurse, she began to develop her painting ability. She enrolled in Jay Davenport’s studio to study hyperrealism and also studied at the Ani Art Academy in Wilkes-Barre. Her favorite medium is oil paint but she enjoys charcoal and pastel.

She has received awards from the Palmerton Concourse Club, Carbon County Art League and the Palmerton library show.

Her work can be viewed on Instagram, Cherylpopekart.

• Claudia Hill has been involved with artistic endeavors since she was young. Since 2006, gourds have been her canvas.

“I love the variability of colors, shapes, and sizes as well as the ability to use them for carving, painting, pyrography, beading or any other technique you can imagine,” she said.

• Duane Costenbader is self-taught. He had been dabbling with oils since high school but didn’t get serious until he retired and switched to acrylic. He generally does nature, woods and water, and displays his work locally. He has been a member of the Carbon County Art league for several years. With the exception of three years in the Army, he has been a lifelong resident of Palmerton.

• Earlene Russell is a third-generation artist. Her work has been on display in galleries, art shows, art competitions, and featured on The College of the Atlantic’s website in Bar Harbor Maine. She enjoys working in oils, acrylics and watercolors.

“My goal as an artist is to develop paintings that are a true expression of common places and things that are all around us. With each stroke, all my effort is devoted to creating art rather than attempting to recreate a place or an item,” Russell said.

• Joan Lech always wanted to work with wood, even as a youngster. “I would go hunting with my dad and always carried a pocket knife to carve sticks into utensils, which were used to cook our lunch over an open fire,” Lech said.

She attended Penn State University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in art education. She has been woodcarving since 1988 and using her bird photography for reference.

“My art always takes me back to nature with the wood I use and wildlife I photograph. It will always be a part of who I am,” she said.

• Lynn Shupp studied photography at The Art Institute of Philadelphia. In 1997, she opened her studio Photography by Lynn in Palmerton. Shupp uses the local landscapes, people and abandoned places as her canvas.

Shupp’s work has been displayed in multiple locations throughout the state including the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State Capitol, Palmerton Library and the Lehigh County Nature Center.

• Sarah Binder, raised in Palmerton, uses the forms and colors of metal to build sculptural jewelry. Binder, who lives in New Berlin, graduated from Cedar Crest College in May of 2011 where she studied studio art, jewelry and metalsmithing, business and marketing. She earned an MBA from Ashford University. Her full-time career is in marketing.

“My jewelry captures the world as I interpret it: elegant, colorful, and full of surprises,” Binder said.

• Sheri Ryan came to Carbon County from Bucks County in 1987. She serves as executive director for the Carbon County Bar Association. As a young adult, she served as a lighting assistant for her father, who was a talented wedding and portrait photographer. In addition to landscape and macro photography, she enjoys portrait work with a focus on women’s portraiture.

“Most women do not feel comfortable being in front of the camera. All they see are their ‘flaws’. What I see is their beauty, and I want to show it to them,” Ryan said.

• Desha Utsick, Jim Thorpe photographer who captures local landscapes and portraits. She is a graduate of Moravian College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in business management and a minor in English. Her work hangs in many local banks and businesses.

Utsick, an inspirational speaker, blogger, Christ Servant Minister, says, “The gift of photography emerged through changes in my life twelve years ago, when I finally decided to make changes in my life, and I came to my Faith in God.

My faith helped to heal me and solidify my path.

“When this happened, I wanted to capture everything, and saw God in everything. I was seeing with new eyes, so to speak, and photography helped me to connect. It also helped to give me a voice I never knew I had. I began to write with my photos, and others connected with my words.”

She began speaking publicly about her story of addiction and other other various issues, after feeling it is part of what she is meant to do.

Desha’s story has been shared through various programs, schools, churches, and other numerous events.

• Veronica Walck is a multimedia artist in pursuit of continuous learning while nurturing her accomplished skills in drawing and painting. Born in Babylon, New York, her interest in art began when living with her uncle, artist James Koegel, who encouraged her natural creativity with painting supplies. Upon retirement from nursing, she returned to art completing an apprenticeship with Jay Davenport, Jim Thorpe, practicing in charcoal, learning the Language of Art Program. She has won awards for her work, including the People’s Choice Award at the Palmerton Library in 2019 for her portrait in pastel, “Pondering the Possibility.”