Resident Artists

Sheela Becton is a mixed media artist, a survivor and storyteller whose work explores the quiet strength of the feminine spirit and resilience, the healing rhythm of nature, and the ancestral wisdom woven into everyday life.

After facing cancer, she returned to her creative path not just to make art—but to reclaim joy and meaning. Each piece she creates is both a whisper and a roar: a reminder that beauty can bloom from broken ground.

Sheela had her first solo Exhibit in 2022 and since then has been juried into various group exhibits in and around Maryland. Sheela’s painting Golden Forest won second place in people’s choice awards at the First Friday gallery and she was also nominated for Baltimore magazine readers poll in the Visual Arts space.

In 2021 her painting “Love” was featured on the cover of Hope Collected, an anthology celebrating the best of Dragonfly entries since its inception in 2014. Sheela is honored to be one of the 30 women Artists published in the Studio Visit Book (2023) by Arts to Hearts Project a Global Media publication.

After many years in the tech industry, I left to pursue a career in the art of sculpting. My focus is on design and sculpting monumental fine art with a purpose. I work to create historical monuments, public art sculptures and portrait commissions that enable me to focus attention on important events and issues through the lasting medium of bronze and stone. I am very proud to have my work displayed in the US and abroad, including four important monuments in France that remind us of selfless sacrifices made for freedom. I was elected by my peers to become a Signature Member of the National Sculpture Society (NSS). As an artist and educator, I believe that nurturing a passion for art enables you to soar beyond limits.

As an educator, I strive to develop students’ individual talents in creating an atmosphere that inspires and motivates by enhancing ways to improve. Using methods based on building confidence in a strong set of core principles with a focus on composition, design, and technique. I teach courses in sculpture and the business side of art, an often overlooked skill.

My work ranges from traditional representational figurative work to abstract color impasto explorations. I am fascinated by the human face and figure in art and am in a continual effort to create and develop expressiveness in my figurative works and studies. Several years ago I began working out the textural and sculptural possibilities of paint as a medium, and I enjoy working those textures into both my figurative paintings as well as creating pure abstract explorations in color and texture using a heavy impasto technique to make the colors work both for and against each other — to “fight nice”, as my grandmother would have said. My artistic goal is to bring these two sensibilities – figurative and abstract – together into a body of work that celebrates both the inner expressions of the human form with the array of colors and textures found in my abstract impastos.

I am currently a member artist at Gallery 209 in Rockville, Maryland, USA, and an affiliate artist with Artists & Makers Studios in Rockville, Maryland, USA. I am also a Home Artist with Galleri Soho based in Västerås, Sweden, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I have shown my drawings, paintings, and sculptures at many venues over the years, including eight shows at Artomatic in the Washington, D.C. metro area (2004-2024), many shows with Gallery 209 and Wheaton Arts Parade Gallery (Wheaton, MD), as well as Galleri Soho’s member exhibitions in Västerås, Sweden; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Paris, France; Dubai, UAE; and Cairo, Egypt.

Susana M. Garten, a vitreous enamels, metals, and mixed media artist, lives and works in the greater Olney area and maintains a studio at Sandy Spring Museum. Exhibiting for over 30 years, she has been a member of the Enamelists Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia, a Resident Artist at Rockville Arts Place, a participant in fine arts and craft fairs, and an instructor at Glen Echo Park. She exhibits her work locally and all across the United States and in Canada.

Robin Ziek began working with clay in college as an apprentice with a Danish potter. After a long career in history and architecture, she is very glad to come back to clay. Her work involves a combination of wheel and hand-built techniques.

Jean Fletcher was an economics professor at Gettysburg College from 1983-2014 and is now a professor emerita. One summer, on a whim, she took a ceramics class and found her true passion. Jean’s work emphasizes the synthesis of modern shapes and natural or traditional designs.

Curiosity and exploration are the driving forces behind my work. I am constantly fascinated by the world around me – ALL of it! Growing up near the Chesapeake Bay our rich natural resources influenced my love and respect for this Earth. We have so much opportunity for joy in the sounds, smells, tastes, and atmosphere of the bay region. It fills my soul. I live it, I feel it and I paint it.

Working for NASA expanded my appreciation for our relationship to the Universe and all of its expansive beauty. The birth and death of a star and the birth and death of the smallest sea creature are part of the same life structure. As humans living in this glorious Universe, we have the opportunity to absorb all of this wonder.

I approach my work with this same sense of awe, testing mediums and working to expand my knowledge of their limits; exploring every sense of their possibilities and pushing their boundaries. What else can they do? How can I use them in a new and different way?