Artist Sara M. Schaeffer is currently enrolled as a student at Harrisburg Area Community College and is pursuing a degree in Art Education. She settled in Adams County in 1992 and became increasingly passionate about the natural beauty of the area. Though not formally trained, she has received instruction and inspiration from local artists. Her diversity of experience is matched by a variety of media including oils, acrylics, charcoal and pastels.
Buoyed by an emerging sense of confidence and a mounting body of work, Schaeffer launched her first show at the Blue Parrot Bistro in 1998. With a few years to grow and explore new subjects and techniques, she had a second show in early 2001. She is currently represented by Gallery 30 in Gettysburg, where she has had two successful solo exhibitions. Her commitment to local land use issues inspired her to organize the Earth Day Art Auction, an event supported by local artists and businesses that has raised funds for the Land Conservancy of Adams County for seven consecutive years.
Nancy Hanson has taught watercolor painting through the community education program at Gettysburg Campus HACC for several years. Many of her students have taken her classes again and again.
Hanson developed her passion for watercolors as an art major at York College. She continued her education by studying watercolors with noted professionals, including Armando Ortiz, Ron Schloyer, Tony Couch, Skip Lawrence, Mary White, Lynn Yancha and Jean Uhl Spicer. She travels extensively with her husband, Professor Jerry Hanson of Gettysburg College, and as part of those travels she has conducted watercolor painting classes as service projects with children in Bluefields, Nicaragua and Woodside, Jamaica.
Andrea Miller Theisson is a staff member in the library and test center at Gettysburg Campus HACC. A magna cum laude graduate of Tyler School of Art, she has exhibited in juried and solo shows throughout south central Pennsylvania since 1971. Her paintings and tapestries are in public and private collections in the United States, Germany and South Africa. She is represented by Gallery 30 in Gettysburg and The Artisans Gallery in Boiling Springs.
Theisson says that her artistic work is influenced by nature, travels and life on both coasts, a holistic attitude and many, many books. The world of ideas has led to her commitment to nurture the spirits of other artists and women trying to live creative lives. Her studio, Rockey's School Retreat, is a center for creative empowerment, a place for networking and workshops, solitude and renewal. "Art is life. Life is art. Celebrate! This sums up my philosophy," she said.
Ken Corbran, Corporate Training Specialist at Gettysburg Campus HACC, has been a photographer for more than 30 years. He has produced more than 50,000 images for commercial endeavors such as trade journals, sports magazines, product flyers and brochures, and he also shoots subject matter in which he has a personal interest.
Corbran presents his photographic work in varied ways, including traditional color or black-and-white images, computer manipulated design, and mixed media. He has recently ventured into the world of three dimensions, using objects gathered from anywhere and everywhere. "I try to construct pieces that make statements about the way we view our lives and the environment in which we live," he said.
Corbran comes from a family of canvas artists, but he has always felt photography to be as much a form of art as any other genre. "Often, the viewer looks at an image and thinks, 'I could do that picture,'" he says "If my images stir an individual to create images of their own, then I have succeeded at my task of making images that cause effect. I have created art."
Other exhibitors in the HACC show include Gettysburg Campus students Petra Hayden, Joy Milburn and Luke Rider.
Exhibit hours at Gettysburg Campus HACC are 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 7:30 a.m. to noon on Friday. For more information, call 717-337-3855.