Mary Moore comes from a family of artists, and can’t remember ever being without art supplies. At 17, she began to study painting in earnest, beginning with Washington painter Gertrude Brown, and continuing with Bernice Cross at the Corcoran School of Art. Then she studied with William Thornton at the College of William and Mary and Eleanor Carlyon at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received an M.A in Art History from V.C.U. while working at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from 1983 to 1990.
She moved to Charleston, SC, to work at the Preservation Society of Charleston, and stayed till 2002. The next year, she relocated to Lewisburg, where she lived until moving to Hillsboro in 2008. She is active with the Pocahontas County Art Guild and Greenbrier Artists. Her most recent paintings reflect the landscape behind her home in Hillsboro. She also does animal portraits to sell through the Artisans Co-op of Pocahontas County.
Shoshanna Schwimmer has looked for beauty since the sandbox, but never expected to be an artist. She got a PhD in comparative literature (French, Italian and Russian), in preparation to teach. Now she creates her own fabric designs, using everything from fabrics, ribbons, and beads to costume jewelry. Whenever possible, she is outdoors growing food and flowers, but when the last flowers have died in fall, she searches her fabrics and beads for colors that are nourishing. Her work is in private collections in the United States and Canada.
