GNSI
Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
2012 Conference and Annual Meeting
July 8 – 14, 2012
Biographies
Alphabetical by Last Name: A-G H-L M-T U-Z
Karen Ackoff
Karen Ackoff has a BFA in Illustration from the Philadelphia College of Art (1977) and an MFA in Medical Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology (1985). From 1987–1997, she worked as Scientific Illustrator at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. She joined the School of the Arts at Indiana University South Bend in 1997, where she presently teaches and coordinates the Graphic Design program. She exhibits internationally and also lectures and conducts workshops.
Kristie Bruzenak
Kristie earned her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and studied classical drawing and design systems at The Barnstone Studios. She has been a professor of Foundation Studies at The Savannah College of Art and Design for the last nine year and also teaches in the scientific illustration minor program. She is currently studying with the Society of Botanical Artists learning applying her classical skills in the field of botanical illustration.
Steve Buchanan
Steve was trained as a classical musician at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and earned his doctorate at the University of Texas. After eleven years as a college professor and concert pianist, he studied art at the Hartford Art School and began a new career as an illustrator. He has illustrated magazine covers, posters, T-shirt designs, advertising, product packaging, and postage stamps for clients including Scientific American, The New York Times, Bayer Corporation, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Postal Service. Buchanan's art has been included in the Illustration annuals of Communication Arts and The Society of Illustrators and has been exhibited at the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Hunt Institute
"O C" Carlisle
“O C” Carlisle, Photographic Fine Artist and now Scientific Illustration student, University of Georgia, now researches and creates medical, botanical and entomological studies and final renderings during class and for homework assignments. Her developing skills include carbon pencil and dust, graphite, watercolor, pen & ink and computer illustration along with graphics techniques. Additionally, Carlisle has shown illustrations, fine art and photography in invitational, juried and solo exhibitions in the South-East and beyond, collecting several awards along the way including the most treasured, the Joshua P Laerme Award for Excellence in Scientific Illustration, presented by Professor Gene Wright, Chair, Scientific Illustration, UGA.
John Cody
John has been a member of the GNSI ever since he stopped going to the AMI meetings years ago. He has taught many watercolor workshops all over the US and some in Europe, both within and outside the GNSI. He is extremely old, with about 80 years of experience with watercolor. Excessively specialized, he paints moths – but only Saturniid ones.
Former physician and medical illustrator, John always considered moth-centered botanical paintings his real vocation, with related interest in artwork preservation and durability of art materials. Since retiring as a psychiatrist in 1986 he has devoted most of his time to painting moths and traveling widely to collect them for models. His spectacular award-winning moth paintings have been featured in magazine articles and exhibited nationally in solo shows, including the Smithsonian Institution. Author of Atlas of Foreshortening: the Human Figure in Deep Perspective, John has taught workshops for GNSI and the AMI, and lives in a tiny town on Kansas' high plains, ideal for creativity —there are few distractions.
Marlene Hill Donnelly
Marlene Hill Donnelly is a third generation artist with degrees in Fine Art from the American Academy of Art in Chicago and in Zoology, with a minor in Botany, from University of Illinois. She is a science artist Associate for the Field Museum, reconstructing ancient landscapes and extinct plants and animals for the Department of Geology. She also works with the Smithsonian Institution, University College Dublin, Ireland, and many other institutions, bringing the past to life. Her work is widely published and is exhibited in museums throughout the world. She is a Certificate Course instructor at the Chicago Botanic Garden and at the Morton Arboretum.
Jennifer E. Fairman, CMI, FAMI
Jennifer E. Fairman, CMI, FAMI is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine where she previously received her MA in Medical and Biological Illustration from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Jennifer is also the Founder and Principal of Fairman Studios, LLC (www.fairmanstudios.com), a board certified biomedical visual communications studio. She previously served as a Scientific Illustrator, Research Associate and James Smithson Fellow for the Smithsonian Institution (USDA Systematic Entomology Laboratory) located within the National Museum of Natural History. She is the 1999 Inez Demonet Scholar, an AMI Fellow and the recipient of the AMI's Outstanding Achievement Award. She has been a member of the GNSI since 1994. She currently resides in Baltimore with her husband and son.
Linda M. Feltner
Linda has produced natural history art for over thirty years, and self-employed for over twenty. Her career developed through interpretive media design, book and magazine illustrations, exhibitions, classroom teaching, lectures, and as a birding field guide. She designs exhibits for zoological, botanical, geological, and historical subjects. She taught wildlife drawing for the Scientific Illustration Certification Program at the University of WA, currently teaches at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum Art Institute in Tucson, AZ, Cochise College Center for Lifelong Learning, and various workshops in Wildlife Drawing, Watercolor, Pen and Ink.
Victoria Fuller
Victoria Fuller is an award winning professional artist, natural science illustrator, and a GNSI member since 2003, showing her work in galleries, museums, corporations, municipalities, and public parks. She received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and fellowship awards from the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the Illinois Art Council. Her public sculptures are: “Shoe of Shoes”, now at Brown Shoe, “I Want”, also in St. Louis. "Global Garden Shovel", commissioned by Sound Transit in Seattle ( a large scale bronze sculpture fabricated in the shape of a shovel, which is a compendium of plants from all over the world), and the Blue Whale, commissioned by Highlands Elementary School in Naperville, IL.
Britt Griswold
Britt Griswold is a multimedia graphics specialist working with the Science and Exploration Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He has also worked for many years as a freelance science artist for the Smithsonian, National Geographic, and the USDA. Britt has been a member of the Guild for 31 years and serves as a GNSI and Science Insights board member, as well as project manager for Science-Art.com and the GNSI web site. Britt is a recipient of the GNSI's Distinguished Service Award and Special Service Award.