Arts Beacon

Arts Beacon Mission

We strive to be a beacon in our community with exceptional art education, inspiring exhibitions and to provide supportive environment for our resident artists. Arts Beacon's team is made up of resident artists. Our resident artists learn, teach, exhibit, curate and critique together. We share our collective knowledge with each other so we can improve our art practice, guide our students and inspire our community. Our foundational teaching philosophy is to develop creative thinking while teaching students to develop a rich visual aesthetic.

Jena is the owner/ director of Arts Beacon Studio and co-founder of Arts Beacon Gallery. She holds a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA in Sculpture and Drawing from Queens College CUNY. She is the director of the studio program and lead instructor for the teen, adult program. She also founded the resident artist program and the FIRE critique group. Jena's specialty is in portfolio development, artist mentoring, observational drawing, figure drawing and handbuilt ceramic relief, sculpture and functional ware.

Group classes, Private and Semi Private Lessons available Tuesdays-Fridays.

Jena's art is always on view and available at the gallery.

See Jena's work at jenadost.com

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Erin Drakford is co-founder and curator for the Arts Beacon Gallery and is our social media guru. She is a painter of vivid, colorful figures and the emotional complexities they mask. She is also a Mint Studio Artist.

See Erin's work at www.erindrakeford.com

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Karissa is a Georgia native with a focus on recycling found materials into new artworks. She is skilled in painting, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, wood works, metal works, drawing, assemblage, mixed media and jewelry making. She has earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education. 

When not teaching children in her community at Arts Beacon and Panorama Oaks Day Studio, her focus is building new pathways to self-expression through experimental creative processes in ceramics, sculpture and painting. Her personal work is focused on trauma and healing, spiritual inclinations and patterns as they relate to everyday life. Karissa’s work is both reactionary and visionary in the response to the world around her.

A native of Atlanta, Stacey Beth Shulman first discovered pottery in kindergarten when she made letters and numbers out of smelly green modeling clay. Today she enjoys making and selling colorful handbuilt tableware painted with images that are inspired by Italian majolica pottery, southern folk art, and Chinese brush painting. Stacey received her BFA in Ceramics and Art Education and an MEd in Recreation Therapy, both from the University of Georgia. She is grateful to have studied under ceramicist Andy Nasisse and potters Ron Meyers, Michael Simon, and Rick Berman. When she is not in the studio, Stacey enjoys yoga, birdwatching, reading, and baking.

Becca Rodriguez is a Florida-raised multimedia artist living in Atlanta, Ga. They enjoy world-building through creating lore-filled comics, ceramic memorials, experimental video & animation, and music, all of which explore themes of both fictional and existing ecologies. Their musical involvement includes a sci-fi music project duo called Notes From the Early Simulation, and an eco-lore solo project called Leather Projection.

Rodriguez holds a BFA in Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking from the University of North Florida. They are currently a research volunteer at the Amphibian Foundation in Atlanta, Ga, where they assist in conservation practices, specifically from egg to fully metamorphosed frog or salamander in the foundation's nursery. Caring for these beings and the prolongation of their species is a strong reminder to Rodriguez that laboring in love gifts life.

Eve Brown is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are inspired by psychology, the yogic path, Buddhist thought, negative space, non-binary nature, anti-ableism, resisting capitalist structures, play and impressionist painters. Brown’s experience of chronic illness has impacted and inspired their work, especially provoking thought around what it means to be an artist outside of capitalist modes of production and the ableist expectations placed on artists to produce. Brown’s current project explores the paradoxical necessity and tension of the extension of self via social media as a chronically ill human. 

Brown holds a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College where they studied painting, sculpture, poetry and digital media. Brown also received the Ellen Battel Stoeckel Fellowship to study at the Yale/Norfolk Summer Painting Program. Eve has shown work at the Gadsden Museum of Art where their solo show Life is Like Unpeeling an Onion opened. They have also shown work at South River Art Studios where their collaborative show with Rebecca Rodriguez SHOW/ NAME opened.

*Eve uses Eve instead of most pronouns, though they and she are used at times in this bio

Larissa is a metalsmith, watercolor artist, and Artist in Residence at Arts Beacon. Having a Psychology degree from UWG with a minor in Studio Art, her work often reflects her personal/internal/spiritual experiences. She takes inspiration from her faith and upbringing and, recently, incorporating organic elements found in nature into her work. Her primary focus is metalworking to create unique jewelry, and she is exploring sculpture as well. As a member of the Metal Arts Guild of Georgia, she is a studio monitor and student continuing to learn new techniques to improve her metal art.

You can see Larissa's work here.

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Jeremy Dost is an artist and technology lover. He is an oil painter of expressive figures and landscapes when he isn't being our technology expert, web designer and developer. Jeremy also designed our rockin sunburst logo.

Jeremy's art is always on view and available at the gallery.

follow Jeremy on Instagram

see Jeremy's website