Sky Petals - 2009 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Organic Silica - 2010 - mixed media digital photography - 16x12 Flying - 2009 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 On The Wing - 2010 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Planetary Globes - 2009 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Lost Marbles - 2010 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Suspended Collage - 2009 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Globes in Orbit - 2009 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Ocean LIfe - 2010 - mixed media digital photography - 12x16 Snake River - 2011 - oil - 16x20 The last Class A river in New Hampshire

Artist Bio
Proficiencies

Teaching: Fourteen years experience as an art teacher – college, high school, adults, children. Computer graphics and fine art, taught to adults and children from a variety of backgrounds, abilities and challenges.

Digital Media Arts: Digital Art – Images, Video, Music  Adobe CS5 Mac/PC  Microsoft Office Suite Mac/PC

Fine Art and Photography: Fine Art Painting in Oil, Acrylic, Watercolor  Drawing and Sketching  3-D Fine Art  Digital and Film Photography  Fine Art Photography  Image Editing and Creation

Graphic Design: Print and Web Layout and Design  Website Design  Logos and Business Collateral  Marketing Collateral
Work Experience - Teaching

Adjunct Faculty: Currently employed since 2008 as adjunct faculty teaching Intro to Computer Graphics, a core credit course for design majors covering Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign at Manchester Community College.

Non-credit Adult Art Teacher: Fourteen years experience teaching drawing and painting to adults through continuing education programs or recreation programs.

High School Art Teacher: Three years teaching Studio Art at a private college-prep high school. Three years teaching art to high school students with emotional and cognitive challenges at private out-placement schools.

Children's Art Teacher and Art Program Director: Nine years experience directing a summer art/music/theater program for elementary school children. Four years experience teaching after-school art classes for elementary school children.

Work Experience – Graphic Designer

Ongoing Work: Continually taking new clients as a freelance designer specializing in business collateral and web design work.

New Britain Museum of American Art: Internship in graphic design for museum publications summer 2007, working with membership, marketing and director's staff.

TodSmithArt.com: Designed website as a portfolio for cartoon artist Tod Smith.

Periodontal Associates: Designed business collateral for this medical office.

Silver Lining Technologies: Designed a logo and marketing collateral for this company that sells assistive technology for the visually impaired.

Ray of Light Farm: Designed a logo for the client according to her vision for her farm that helps injured animals and challenged children.

Simply Peace: Designed logo, business cards, brochure in progress for a massage therapist.

Patchy Fog: Designed business collateral, web site and CD packaging for a musical duo. Ongoing client.

Heartland: Provided artwork for CD cover for Connecticut's Best Country Band.

Spring Fling: “Spring Fling” cover design and program brochure for annual women's group event


Digital Fine Art Recognition

• By invitation – Group Show – Soho Digital Art Gallery, NYC, September 2011
• By invitation – MacWorld Digital Art Gallery, MacWorld 2010
• New Britain Museum of American Art Annual Members Juried Show 2010
• Faber Birren National Color Award Show 2010, 2011
• By invitation - New Britain Museum of American Art Annual Gala Auction 2010
• Accepted into the Museum of Computer Art, Brooklyn, NY

Awards and Accomplishments

Fine Art Awards for Paintings: West Hartford Art League, Arts and Crafts Association of Meriden, Housatonic Art League, Pioneer Valley Institute, Templeton Art Center

Invitationals:
• Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism - Painting for Senator Lieberman's inner office in Washington DC 2005-2009,
• “The Great River” 2005 exhibition at the Pioneer Valley Institute

Published Graphics, Photography, Artwork:
• iTowns cover – Hartford Courant, Sunday 9/27/09
• Membership flyer – New Britain Museum of American Art
• Long Range Plan – New Britain Museum of American Art
• “Violin” – an abstract illustration in Teacher's Study Guide to a String Quartet
• “Cactus Flower” – Cover for Connecticut Valley Biolo

Additional Information
I see the world in all its glory and in all its ineptitude and in all its chaos. I read as much as I can, I learn as much as I can, and I am active in political venues. I want to leave this world a better place. I defer to Emerson - “To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

My artistic visions are intended to be satisfy a need for beauty, fun, curiosity, and serenity. I believe strongly that we need to be able to immerse ourselves in aesthetics from time to time in order to keep our sanity. At least that is how I keep mine. I get lost in my work.

Reading classical and contemporary views of our environment and our connections to it has influenced me greatly. Authors such as Thoreau and Emerson alongside Rachel Carson got me started thinking about those connections early on.

That desire to create and be creative is something I was born with. I believe we all are born with it and it manifests itself
in different ways with each individual. Thank goodness! My creativity has always been centered on creating something aesthetically pleasing and if I can comment on the world around us at the same time, all the better. Even if the comment is just to record a disappearing landscape.

I started my professional art career painting landscapes in oils. Most of them have no sense of human presence - the viewer is alone with nature. I follow something of the essence of the Hudson River School in that way.

I have had a camera in my hand since I was a child and have an enormous collection of photography, mostly for references for painting. That has changed. My photographic eye and my creative visions now involve the computer. I have always also loved computers and the seemingly endless possibilities for creative expression. I teach Computer Graphics at Manchester Community College in Connecticut and that work has inspired this new digital genre that I am exploring.

I hope my viewers smile or relax or become curious. I am aware of others' reactions and feelings, and try to be considerate and encouraging. I am a teacher after all, as well as an artist.

Please view my full portfolio at www.kcsmitsgallery.com. Contact me at kcsmits@kcsmitsgallery.com.