Artist Spotlights

Dottie Sommer wrote many original plays produced on our stage in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Thanks to Eleanor Miller for providing copies of her drawings and to Patrick Fowles for curating them.

“If you want to restore your faith in humanity, hike the Appalachian trail,” says Francisco Silva, whose painting of the Phillips’ Mill was selected to be the art show’s Signature Image for 2021.

Amanda’s paintings often feature beautiful natural settings, captured and interpreted in bright, bold colors, in places that have special meaning to her, like the fields surrounding her family’s farm in Ottsville, Pa. And, of course, the Phillips Mill itself, a setting she has drawn and painted often.

Contemporary painter and sculptor Léni Paquet-Morante looks to the landscape for inspiration and finds beauty and intrigue in its intricate structures as well as its sweeping vistas. More and more, she is drawn to the water, particularly shallow water­—creeks, puddles, wetlands—mesmerized by its layers and movement.

When Frank Arcuri began painting “Capriccio,” it had been nearly 25 years since he had submitted any artwork to the Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show. In that time, the fine artist who is currently represented by the Patricia Hutton Galleries in Doylestown, Pa., has earned much acclaim for his masterful still life paintings.

Just in time for the holidays, we are spotlighting Robert Papp, whose mesmerizing oil painting, “The Christmas Tree Farmer,” was featured in this year’s Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show. The Bucks County fine artist had been getting his Christmas tree from the same nursery for many years, and was always struck by the owner’s sense of pride.

Sculptor Jennifer Rubin Garey is fascinated not only with the female form, but in how women are represented (and underrepresented) in art — both as artists and as subjects.

Award-winning photographer Bob Krist loves to tell a good story, and one of his favorites is about the time he met Bob Gilka, Director of Photography at National Geographic. Back then, Bob was an aspiring photojournalist and would-be world wanderer, who could only dream of securing an assignment from the prestigious travel magazine. But he had also just been named “Photojournalist of the Year” by a New Jersey newspaper, and that gave him the courage to approach Gilka about a job.

For as long as she can remember, Annika Crawford has communicated through her art. “Even before I could write, I was drawing,” says the George School senior whose work, “Alton” won “Best in Show” in this year’s Youth Art Exhibition.

Born and raised in Clinton Township, New Jersey, Sullivan knew she would be an artist when she was five years old, the year her grandmother surrounded her with paint and repeated simple but encouraging words: “Don’t be shy with the paint,” a refrain that stuck.

Patricia Allingham Carlson's watercolor and mixed media paintings are of real and imagined people and places.

Luiz Vilela works primary in oil, but is proficient in watercolor, charcoal, pastel and pencil on paper. Many of his paintings include landscapes and river scenes of Bucks County, Pa. He is also drawn to popular locations on Cape Cod, the English countryside, and his native country of Brazil for inspiration. 

Rick Goodwin recalls the exact moment he decided to write his first full-length play. The retired magazine publisher from Bucks County, Pa., was sitting in a hotel room in Evanston, Illinois, a small town just north of Chicago and home to Goodwin’s alma mater, Northwestern University. It was seven years ago. He was 59 years old. The play that had been floating around in his head was still there, in his head. “I said to myself, ‘You better get started,’” he relays.

When Delia McHugh asked her art teacher at Central Bucks West if she could borrow some oil pastels to finish up a piece, she was just “playing around” with a new medium. When Delia returned to school a few days later, her teacher was astonished by the self-portrait she created.

Miller is known for her landscapes with hay rolls, which she wants to capture before they disappear from the Bucks County scene forever.

As a woman, a writer, an architect and a community advocate, Joy Nash felt a certain kinship with the pioneering women who founded the Village Improvement Association (VIA) of Doylestown.

Winning the Best of Show Award at the 2024 Youth Art Exhibition at Phillips’ Mill overwhelmed the high school student from West Windsor, NJ. Her painting, “Dislocation,” amazed juror Mel Leipzig, and just about everyone else who saw it.

Debbie Wolf, whose photograph, “Early Morning Ritual,” was awarded “Best of Show” in the 2024 Phillips’ Mill Photographic Exhibition, describes moments of inspiration as "sighs and gasps." "I see something that I am so taken by … its beauty … its brilliance … or its creativity … that I literally gasp or sigh out loud,” she says.