About Us

Darla Andree

I own and operate Premiere Performance Dance Studio. While dance is my lifelong passion, color, fabric, yarn, and old buttons have always fascinated me. Growing up with a grandmother who was known for her beautiful crochet and knit work, as well as, an aunt who can always be found in her sewing room, working on some gorgeous new project, might explain my natural attraction toward creativity. At the dance studio, I love encouraging my dance students to express themselves through creativity. When I am not at the studio, I enjoy making fabric handbags, felted bowls and jewelry from antique buttons as avenues for my own self-expression. I find exploring with combinations of color and fabric to be therapeutic (and easier on the body these days!).

Elizabeth Jayne Edwards

I have always enjoyed working with vivid colors. During my career as an elementary school teacher, my medium was crayon and construction paper. Since retirement I have been able to concentrate my efforts with fabric. Bright colors and geometric shapes are characteristic of a majority of my work.

Joe Galbraith

A lifelong love of travel, nature, and places along with retirement from a 50 year Human Resources career drives my interest in and approaches to photography. Over my career I have had the opportunity to live in Hawaii, Germany, Washington DC, and the Midwest, plus do some amount of temporary travel around the US and the World. I loved that travel and frequently took pictures to share with Family and Friends and to remember what I felt and found in a variety of places. At age 72, I retired in March 2013. Photography keeps my interest in travel, nature and places alive and requires me to learn new skills and technical knowledge, things required to remain active in retirement. People have always seemed to enjoy my photography, but now I want to become more of a professional. My first efforts were from an August 2012 trip to visit one of my daughters who lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya. Some of those pictures will be available for viewing at my site again this year, but I have also focused on my close-by home area of Johnsonville, Illinois, the deer in my Ginger Creek back yard, and scenes and wildflowers in Edwardsville’s wonderful Watershed Park. I look forward to feedback and suggestions for my future efforts from the individuals viewing my work.

Sherry Turpenoff

My work is an expression of my love of nature and the natural wonders of the world we all share. My fiber work is directed at creating a shared moment of natural beauty, an emotion or reflection evoked by an image of our world or a message of impending danger to our world. Using the color and texture of the fibers and fabrics as a palette, I piece, fuse, felt, free form knit and quilt my images. While my work may vary from abstract to realism and from intense color and movement to subdued forms, the unifying theme is a message from nature. While I appreciate the beauty of traditional knitting and quilting, I am not good at following the rules; therefore my work is non-traditional in construction and form focused on the message. My love of animals, nature, the outdoors and travel combine to make my work generally structured around organic forms created with flowing color and highly textured fiber. My pieces are generally playful or positive. In the occasional piece where the message is a sober one, the colorful moving forms add a feeling of hope and optimism.

Katherine Turpenoff

My work in metals often focuses on animals and work that speaks of my vegetarianism. Before metals or college I was always exposed to art because my parents are both accomplished artists in their own right. I did not always appreciate art when I was little, and it was not until high school that I decided art was for me. I have traveled to Italy and seen Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and I have traveled to France and seen bits and pieces of the Louvre. Art makes me feel and helps me understand how the world was seen through the centuries and how it is seen now through different eyes. I want my work to do that. I want my work to show people the world through my eyes, and I want to make them think of something that makes them happy, sad, angry, or any kind of emotion that makes them stop and think of the world or part of it for a moment.