The People
Meet the people of the Majestic Ranch Arts Foundation! Join us in building an arts community.
Staff
Rene Hall Eldredge
Director of Public Relations
René spent seven years in Los Angeles, CA as a member of the cast and crew of the NBC/Walt Disney Pictures hit television show "Scrubs". René also worked for ABC, CBS, and Buena Vista television and has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild since 2001.
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Stevie Kesner Ricks
Executive Coordinator
A native of Texas, Stevie obtained her BA in Art and Education at Trinity University, San Antonio, and obtained her post-graduate studies at Trinity, Sam Houston State University and St. Mary's University. She taught in the NEISD for ten years, where the art program was recognized as the most outstanding art program in the State of Texas.
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Jane Wilson
Office Manager
Jane has been managing the office, dealing with administrative logistics, class scheduling and student registrations since the Foundation opened for classes in Fall 2006. Jane also creates and coordinates children's camps and programs. Originally from Leeds, England, she received her B.A. in English Literature from London's Kingston University. After college, Jane worked for many years as an administrator and manager in a customer services environment, and latterly in the legal field. Jane moved to San Antonio with her Texan husband in 2002. She and her husband manage a brood of three sons, two cats and a dog.
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Faculty
Dianne Click
"Fearless” is the way my painting style has often been described. There is such joy in the process that it can’t help spilling with abandon onto the canvas. My initial academic training taught me a deep respect for the early impressionists, and the works of contemporary master excite me about using form and color.
As my paintings came to life, I developed a reverence for my subject and enormous pride in my craft. The landscape is my first love and the foundation of my inspiration.
I am a colorist. Color is a language. It can speak in simple phrases. So as with words, when colors are artfully combined it is poetry. I use deftly applied color values and shapes to design a composition that moves effortless across the canvas.
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Gladys J. Baez-Dickreiter
Gladys received her Masters in Clinical Psychology in 1977 from St. Mary’s University and taught at St. Philip’s College for 23½ years until her early retirement in 1999. She was an Art minor in college and has applied her skills to jewelry making since the early 1980s, first as a hobby and stress relief, later as a business.
She has taken classes in Bead Stringing, Glass Bead Making, Wire Wrapping, Precious Metal Clay and Metal Smithing. She continues to take classes in Metal Smithing. She is a member of Go Texan, MJSA and the International Society of Glass Beadmakers and the PMC Guild. She is certified in PMC.
Gladys and her husband Walter have been in the jewelry business since 1992.
Sylvia Benitez
Sylvia Benitez is a nationally known, installation artist whose work has begun to explore landscape painting within the context of a site-specific agenda. She is the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner awards, an AICA award, and two National Endowment for the Arts Visiting Artist Awards. Benitez has conducted over 60 community based mural workshops along the eastern seaboard. She recently relocated to Seguin, TX, where she lives with her husband and white cat.
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Roberta Buckles
Roberta is an MFA graduate from UTSA with an emphasis in painting. Her oil paintings are large, colorful and spirited, focusing on color, light and reflection, riding the border between realism and abstraction. Her interest in the abstract nature of perception and her never-ending fascination with reflection and distortion led her to this focus. You can see some of Roberta's work on her website and here.
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Pat Farley
Pat Farley graduated from Harris Advertising Art School in Nashville, Tennessee. She was resident artist at the David School of Basic Art in New Orleans for 20 years.
Private showings of her work included The French Quarter Gallery Membership.
Her many years of experience as an art teacher, and consultant, make for a perfect fit at the Majestic Ranch Arts Foundation. Her specialty is pencil, ink, charcoal and pastels.
Some of Pat's work may be seen here.
Student work is available here.
Nancy Graham
Nancy Graham is a recognized and multi-faceted artist. She feels comfortable working in a variety of mediums including watercolors and oils. Her paintings demonstrate a remarkable attention to detail and an outstanding technical ability. The excitement they generate is almost independent of the subject matter.
The subjects she paints range from photo-realistic images of classic cars and hotrods to cowboys, horses and ranch life.
A truly feminine viewpoint is presented in the dream-like settings of her jeweled and patterned egg paintings.
The life size "Day of the Dead" cow she painted for the San Antonio Cow Parade was a stepping-off point for a series of paintings and fabric pieces celebrating the well-known Mexican day of remembrance.
Julie Gibson
Julie Gibson earned a BFA from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. She is an award winning teacher, has taught workshops in photography and digital imaging, and worked very successfully with troubled inner city youth for many years. Her photographic work has been published and features specializations in nature and portrait photography. Now living in the beautiful hill country, she also volunteers altering photographs for a herbarium website in which the hill country flora is being catalogued.
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Lawrence Jennings
Lawrence is an artist, instructor and freelance writer for ARTL!ES who works in San Antonio, Texas. He received his MFA in Painting from The University of Texas at San Antonio in 2002. His abstract paintings, sculptures and videos have been included in solo and group shows in San Antonio and Dallas. Laminae, a solo show at Sala Diaz, included a site-specific wall painting and video installation, shaped acrylic sheet paintings and sculpture made from skateboarding materials. His most recent work is a series of paintings on grip-taped panels that derive their patterns from video-feedback. Lawrence's work here.Read more
Lisa Kerpoe
Lisa Kerpoe is a fiber artist who focuses on creating art cloth, wall hangings and monoprints. She hand-dyes fabrics and then uses a variety of techniques including screenprinting, stamping, metal leaf and hand stitched beading to create images on the dyed fabric.
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Susie Monday
Susie Monday makes art cloth and art quilts in her hilltop studio near Pipe Creek, TX. Her vibrant contemporary fiber art is inspired by the region's cultures, natural beauty, stories and archetypes. Often incorporating both her own fabrics and ethnic and vintage cloth into her work, her voice is clear and distinct -- a goal she has for her students, as well. She has won numerous local and regional awards, and is a member of Texas Originals, the state's select group of craft artists, and artisans.
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Diann Reina
I graduated from a state university with a Bachelor of Science degree and a teaching certification. I worked in banking for 12 years and then switched to teaching middle school. I taught school for 10 years during which time I was making wearable quilted jackets, vests, and purses. While teaching, I decided to pursue my interest in glass that had started when I was a child. I took a stained glass class and decided at that time to give my sewing machine a rest. It has been resting ever since. I quit teaching to focus on stained glass and working in my husband's business. In 2001 I opened Stained Glass Crafters Workbench in San Antonio, Texas. We offer a large variety of classes in various mediums of glass, and we also do custom work and sell stained glass supplies. In 2007 my husband and I bought a 1950’s farm house. We have moved both of our businesses into this location and are in the process of expanding our space giving me a total of 3000 sq feet. Although I have tried a variety of mediums in glass, my preference is traditional lead method. Currently I am a contributing writer for Glass Patterns Quarterly, a magazine publication for the glass professional and enthusiast.
Some of Diann's work can be seen here.
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Michael Saul
Michael Saul relocated to San Antonio from Fort Worth in 1974, in order to attend school at the Southwest Craft Center. There he studied under four masters until 1979, when he left to open his own studio and gallery, Michael Saul Pottery.
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Desiree Schanding
Desiree Schanding earned her MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institue of Technology. She has also completed a Graduate Certificate in Non-toxic Printmaking and can teach both Photography and Non-toxic Printmaking. Desiree received her BFA from The University of Texas at San Antonio in 2004. She is represented by the Robert Hughes Gallery San Antonio. She lives in San Antonio, TX with her husband Zack.
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Phil A. Simpson
Phil Simpson is a landscape-sensitive sculptor who masterfully forms steel that responds to the environment through sensuous and elegant expression. Created in forged and fabricated steel, his works are found in corporate, museum, university and private collections throughout the United States.
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Vicki Stephens
Vicki Stephens was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and received her early education in Washington and Michigan State. Moving to Louisiana after high school graduation she worked in the manufacturing industry for many years. During these years, her childhood interest in art found expression through drawing and painting. In 1987, after completing studies in Graphic Arts at the Shreveport-Bossier Technical Institute, she worked in the commercial printing industry for 12 years.Read more
Rachman Ulmer
Rachman is self-taught, drawing his lessons from his life experiences. He is an avid learner with a natural curiosity. To follow through this lyrical path of creativity with Rachman, you would encounter an instrument maker, vintner, restaurant designer, furniture sculptor, rock climber, musician, environmental planner, exhibit fabricator, symphony and opera stage manager, educator and husband, and father of 4.
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