2022 New Members Showcase March 2022
Exhibition can also be viewed at www.issuu.com
President’s Message Dear New Members Cyndi Bemel, Arnor Bieltvedt, KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud, Roger Dolin, Emily Goff, Michael Pitzer, Jean Richardson, Daniela Soberman, Marilyn Stempel, Tamara Tolkin and Sean Yang, Welcome to the Pasadena Society of Artists! Thank you so much for joining us as our new members selected in 2021. I am thrilled to welcome you and excited for the richness your perspective and artwork will add to our group. The Board and I hope to serve you in many ways and are eager to get to know you and your art! I, for one, am excited to view this new member exhibit and am grateful to Lawrence D. Rodgers and the exhibitions committee for organizing it. I know I really enjoyed being a part of the show when I was a new member. Please make sure to acquaint yourself with the PSA website, especially the Board of Directors and Committee Chairs page, so you can connect with the right people for inclusion in member news, for social media opportunities, to get questions answered, etc. And, make sure to get your profile up on the site so we can learn more about you as well. I personally hope you will make time to participate in our meetings, demo opportunities, and future exhibitions because we are better together. It’s great to have you with us. Please feel free to reach out to me at President@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org. Sincerely, Shaney Watters President Pasadena Society of Artists
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A Short History of the Pasadena Society of Artists and the Membership Selection Process The Pasadena Society of Artists came into being in early 1925. Benjamin C. Brown, the “dean of Pasadena painters,” sent out a notice to local painters to discuss the formation of a society for local artists. The consensus was that the Pasadena Society of Artists should be formed. Attending this meeting were Benjamin C. Brown, Edward B. Butler, Maud Daggett, Antoinette De Forest Merwin, Louis Hovey Sharp, F. Carl Smith, Orrin A. White, Wallace LeRoy De Wolff, and Frederick A. Zimmerman. Seven more artists then joined PSA to form the founding charter members. They were Herbert V. B. Acker, F. Tolles Chamberlin, Alson S. Clark, John “Jack” Frost, Jean Mannheim, Katherine B. Stetson and Marion Wachtel. It has been suggested that PSA was formed out of the desire of the founders to exhibit their contemporary work, which was not acceptable in exhibitions of the California Art Club. The first Annual Juried Exhibition was presented in April 1925 at the Pasadena Art Institute located in Carmelita Park, now the site of the Norton Simon Art Museum. The PSA founders stated that “the standard will be high and only work of real merit will be accepted.” PSA continues to adhere to the guiding statement of the founders by accepting new members by juried submission. The juried submission process has been an integral part of PSA membership from the very beginning. The Membership Chair asks five or more experienced members to form a jury. The jury then reviews all of the submitted artwork, statements, and biographies/resumes. As part of this review process, each individual member of the jury will note which submitting artists have qualified for membership based upon quality, execution and presentation of artwork, and professional activities and achievements. The Chair then calls the jury together to review and discuss each artist. These discussions can become very spirited at times! Once the final selections have been made, the artists are notified within two weeks of their acceptance into PSA.
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Table of Contents President’s Message
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PSA History
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Table of Contents
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Cyndi Bemel 4 Arnor Bieltvedt
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KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud
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Roger Dolin 15 Emily Goff
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Michael Pitzer 23 Jean Richardson 26 Tamara Tolkin 29 Sean Yang 30 Contact the Artist
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PSA Board of Directors
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Catalog Production Team
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Call for New Members
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The Pasadena Society of Artists wishes to acknowledge and thank the Jeanne Ward Foundation for its continuing support. The Pasadena Society of Artists wishes to acknowledge and thank the Pasadena Arts League for its support. Cover artwork courtesy of the artists. Top left: Tamara Tolkin, Emily Goff, Arnor Bieltvedt, Sean Yang. Copyrights held by the artists. All rights reserved.
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Dreaming In The Woods Cyndi Bemel
Photograph 12" x 8.5" $500 “Dreaming in the Woods” is a collage of a soft ethereal ambiance within a valley of clouds and trees growing stronger and stronger physically and spiritually until their time has been reached. It is printed on handmade paper with the essence of a kakajiku – a Japanese scroll.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Llibreria Cyndi Bemel
Photograph 11" x 16" $500 “Llibreria” is a collage of the power of books, reading, and writing as it takes us to exciting places and helps the understanding of others’ perspectives, even when we don’t understand the printed words and the pages are out of order.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Rialto Cyndi Bemel
Photograph 11.5" x 17.5" $500 The black and white sign taps into a deeper vision of what we take for granted, a fresh visual interpretation of the Rialto theater that will never be seen in such a state ever again. “Rialto” captures the subtleties and an impression of the ever-changing environment that reflects the tremendous vitality of South Pasadena.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Untitled Arnor Bieltvedt
Spray Paint and Colored Pencil on Paper 30" x 22" $1000 The contrasting volcanic and glacier-shaped landscapes of my native Iceland, and the light and flora of Southern California where I live now, are part of the visual memories I draw upon while painting. Like a generation of Icelandic artists before me (Nína Tryggvadóttir and Kristján Davídsson are influences), the intensity of these landscapes inspired me to perceive deeply, to look for elements that stand out and how things connect as a whole. Working abstractly, my paintings express my admiration for nature: its beauty on the surface and its underlying force and strength. Abstraction allows me to focus on color relationships and to organize essential impressions and memories into painted poetry.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Untitled Arnor Bieltvedt
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas 48" x 36" $4000
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Untitled Arnor Bieltvedt
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas 48" x 36" $4000
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Untitled Arnor Bieltvedt
Ink on Watercolor Paper Framed 49" x 20" $3000
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Plum Water Lilies KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud Chalk Pastel 21" x 17" $800
Plum water lilies offer a subject matter of such rich possibilities wrought with shimmering slivers of tones ever-changing with the time of day and mood of the weather. This piece, a study of lilies and pads, highlights sitting upon brackish water.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Hills of Santa Barbara KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud Chalk Pastel 17" x 22" $600
“Hills of Santa Barbara” represents the quintessential landscape of Southern California from the backdrop of rolling mountains to the lordliness of running rows of majestic palms in shades of verdant green.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Sipping Geese Reflections KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud Chalk Pastel 24" x 24" $800
“Sipping Geese Reflections” captures the lovely fluidness and flickering pastel tones of water ringlets caused by the elegant movement of Canada geese taking a drink. The sketchiness and palette of chalk pastel is the perfect medium to render a sense of floating life to the subject.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Loons Among the Lily Pads KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud Chalk Pastel 14" x 18" $600
“Loons Among the Lily Pads” offers a rendering of one of the most dramatic and iconic birds of Maine setting a striking silhouette of tones of black amongst the melting shades of minty greens-tipped pads with burnished edges of fall.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Griffith Park Vertical Roger Dolin
Acrylic on Pellon on Panel 36" x 8" $5760 My purpose with these paintings is to record our existing natural world and preserve it in painting. I would like to share my love of being immersed in nature. There are so many different color palettes, depending on the season and the time of day. From the tops of our local mountains, you can see the entire city of Los Angeles. We have built up to the very edge of habitable land and now we are having to learn to co-exist with nature. How will it look here 100 years from now? What does nature have in store for us? What kind of world will my daughter and future generations see and live in?
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Griffith Park Landscape Roger Dolin
Acrylic on Pellon on Board 24" x 33" $4400
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Burst of Toyon Roger Dolin
Acrylic on Pellon 25" x 40" $4500
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Felix Roger Dolin
Acrylic on Pellon 52" x 40" $4500 I love how you can blow up digital photos to almost unrecognizable sections and, when painted, each section becomes a small abstract painting. When you put them back together, they return to a very realistic, detailed photographic image. The painting can be blurry and messy up close, but from a distance very detailed. The grid has a layering effect, as if we are seeing through a window or perhaps looking back through time, remembering when access to nature was easy.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Georgia Emily Goff
Acrylic, Maps, Human Hair on Pellon 47" x 24" $800 These paintings were completed in 2020 in response to the pandemic and issues we confronted in the United States during that time. They reflect my grief and hope during an unprecedented period in our history. I seek to suggest ideas rather than explicitly illustrate them, finding beauty and freedom in the ambiguity of abstraction. Painting is a part of my spiritual practice, a means by which I process my place in this world, and an expression of longing for peace. Allusions to plants and the soil from which they emerge serve as metaphors for impermanence, change, or institutional disease.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Systemic Emily Goff
Acrylic on Pellon 46" x 20" $800
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Taproot Emily Goff
Acrylic on Pellon 42" x 20" $800 I create collage paintings using acrylic paints on a non-woven, synthetic fabric often used for large murals. I glue together remnants from old mural projects, reconfiguring, reworking and painting over the discarded pieces to create something unexpected. Nature is my solace and inspiration and thus many lines and visual textures are built up by using pine needles, leaves, or branches I find while hiking. The pleasure of painting with a traditional brush is also part of my process.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
No Pongas Triste ... Solo Mira al Cielo (Don’t Be Sad ... Just Look at the Sky)
Emily Goff
Acrylic on Pellon 41" x 16" $500
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Mars Attacking Robot No. 2 Michael Pitzer
Graphite, Colored Pencil on Paper 65" x 36" $3960 My work is comprised of highly rendered pieces of iconography that come from my childhood growing up on the St. Clair River in Algonac, Michigan. I call my work “Happy Art” because the inspiration to create each piece is simple to appreciate, easy to understand, and the work makes me happy — unlike my last six years working as a creative director in advertising.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Juicy Fruit Gum Michael Pitzer
Graphite, Colored Pencil on Paper 23" x 41" NFS
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Epiphone Casino Sunburst Guitar Michael Pitzer
Graphite, Colored Pencil on Paper 72" x 36" $5200 I share these drawings on Facebook, posting different stages of my work for family and friends to comment on, offer encouragement, and share their own stories of similar things that bring back happy childhood memories. My art borders on realism, not quite photorealistic, but the work definitely encourages conversation that spreads happiness — ergo, “Happy Art.” I then combine those stories with my own and place them next to each piece of art at my gallery shows.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Bold and Beautiful Jean Richardson
Oil on Canvas 24" x 30" $600 My work often reflects groups of women at work or in family gatherings. I have studied realist figure painting for many years, but this painting is an abstraction of the forms of the women and children. The theme of this series of works is women helping women and women in community.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Dream the Future Jean Richardson
Oil on Canvas 24" x 24" $600 This is a painting of a woman at the end of a day’s work and reflecting on her future. The sketchy background and clothing puts the focus on her pensive but optimistic facial expression. I have studied portraiture and want the viewer to see a person with a personal story and specific personality.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
Seven Lovely Daughters Jean Richardson
Oil on Canvas 18" x 36" $600 This painting is a playful interpretation of a family portrait. The image depicts, in an abstract form, seven lovely daughters and the mother somewhat wrapped in her red cloak. The daughters, however, are a free spirited lot, with flagrant disregard for social conventions. While I have studied realist figure painting for many years, this abstraction of this family is humorous and lively.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Worth Every Penny Tamara Tolkin
Acrylic on Wood Panel 29" x 9.5" $1200 My paintings first develop from a provocative image. It is then manipulated in the computer to break down each color into shapes and then oversaturate them, arranging the shapes into patterns that are similar to a paint-by-number. I find delight in combining the sexy with the simpleness of the technique. I want my artwork to provoke arousal by subversively showing a peek at something private or that maybe you are not supposed to see, making you blush (or uncomfortable?) as I welcome you into my world.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
A Chip off the Old Block Sean Yang
Cast Bronze, Wood, Gesso, Gold Leaf, Acrylic, Mineral Oil 5' x 5" x 5" $5000 each A “chip off the old block” means someone is just like one of their parents in character or behavior, making each individual unique and special. Prominent educator Erik Erikson’s view on identity development and understanding different stages of human development was helpful for me to reflect myself on multilayered lenses and thought filters of others. Having flexibility in one’s perspective and being able to take others’ perspectives is challenging to any human being because we come from different backgrounds. The key is to keep adding more conscious effort to improve myself as a true adult and to lift each other up. That’s what democracy is really about. However, our reality is different because people in power choose to hoard it all, although the universe and earth provide enough resources for every man, woman, and child to live comfortably. It’s not just about saving money and living better. It’s about “We The People.”
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Monsanto Babies Sean Yang
Cast Clay (Porcelain, Black Mountain and B-Mix), Clear Glaze 5" x 12" x 5" $1200 Each My “Monsanto Babies” series started as a social and political statement about the problematic nature of industrialized food to help inform the public just how widespread the problem of our contaminated food really is. Consumers are the top of this food chain and we ingest, often unknowingly, all the hormones and chemicals added to the product along the processed way. Worse, the enormous power of the food industry has blocked any effort to regulate or educate people about what they eat. American names like Monsanto or Purina are sold in Asia and Europe and this food pollution is a global problem. The population has little to no idea just what is in processed foods. Huge corporate farms grow or buy grains whose seeds have been genetically altered, which they feed to livestock after chemical additions of synthetic hormones. Many communities have no alternative to processed foods.
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Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
The Pigeonhole Sean Yang
Cast Resin, Wood, Found Objects, Nuts and Bolts, Pigments, Acrylic Paint 24" x 24" x 8" $8000 “The Pigeonhole” represents compartmentalized obsessions. “Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar,” Sigmund Freud once said. A cigar just being a cigar means that it doesn’t need to be a big phallic symbol or have a grandiose academic thesis written about it. What was it that produced this idea of obsessions? A morbid thought suddenly overcame me, and it had a power of its own that I could not control. The primitive phenomenon of obsession still exists in a civilized world as a form of folklore genre, symbolism as mythical ideas. Dream images were called “archaic remnants” by Freud. They form a bridge between the ways we consciously express our thoughts and a more primitive, colorful and pictorial form of expression. Dream images appeal directly to feeling and emotion when one dreams. “The Pigeonhole” contrasts between the “controlled” thoughts in waking life and the wealth of dream images.
Contact information for this artist can be found on page 33.
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Contact the Artist Cyndi Bemel cbemel3@me.com https://www.Cyndibemel.com FB: cyndibemel IG: @cbemel https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/cyndi-bemel/cyndi-bemel.html Arnor Bieltvedt arnor1@aol.com http://www.arnorbieltvedt.com FB: ArtbyArnor IG: @arnor_bieltvedt https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/bieltvedt/arnor-bieltvedt.html KALLENA-Karen Chutsky-Naud karenchutsky@aol.com www.kallenaartsite.com FB: Karen Chutsky Naud https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/kallena/kallena.html Roger Dolin roger@muralenvironments.com https://www.rogerdolin.com IG: @rogerdolin https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/roger-dolin/roger-dolin.html Emily Goff
goffritchie@gmail.com
IG: @emilygoff1 https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/emily-goff/goff.html
Michael Pitzer michael@mpitzer.com https://mpitzer.com IG: @mpitzerart https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/michael-pitzer/michael-pitzer.html Jean Richardson jean.richardson@med.usc.edu
https://www.jeanrichardsonart.com
Tamara Tolkin ttolkin@yahoo.com https://tamaratolkin.com FB: TamarasZinnia IG: @tamaratolkin https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/tamara-tolkin/tamara-tolkin.html Sean Yang countryang@gmail.com IG: @seanyang_art https://www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org/artists/sean-yang/sean-yang.html
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Pasadena Society of Artists Board of Directors 2021 - 2022 President: Shaney Watters President@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Executive Vice President: Robert Asa Crook VicePresident@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Vice President - Exhibitions: Lawrence D. Rodgers Exhibitions@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Recording Secretary: Rhonda Raulston Secretary@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Treasurer: Kathleen Swaydan Admin@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Director of Communications: Debbi Swanson Patrick News@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Director of Grants: Kruti Shah Grants@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Director of History & Archives: Robert Asa Crook Historian@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Director of Membership: Marion Dies Membership@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Director of Programs: Patricia Jessup-Woodlin Programs@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Past President: Victor Picou PastPresident@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Member at Large: Art Carrillo MembersatLarge@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Member at Large: Liz Crimzon MembersatLarge@PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org www.PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org FB: PasadenaSocietyofArtists IG: @pasadenasocietyofartists
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Catalog Production Team Exhibition Chair: Lawrence D. Rodgers Director of Communications: Debbi Swanson Patrick Editor: Alison Davies Treasurer: Kathleen Swaydan Technical Lead: Rhonda Raulston Instagram Content: Emily Suñez Facebook Content: George Paul Miller Webmaster: Fred Chuang Catalog Designer: Lawrence D. Rodgers Cover Design: Karen Hochman Brown
Artwork appears courtesy of PSA members. Copyrights held by the artists. All rights reserved. © 2022 Pasadena Society of Artists www.PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org
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Call for New Members Are you an artist? Throughout Pasadena Society of Artists’ 97-year history, works by PSA members of have been sold at major auction houses, collected in important art collections, and displayed in museums throughout the United States and Europe. Our legacy is immense! Would you like to be part of our organization? We are always looking for new, dedicated members. Our artists work in all media and styles of drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography. All have been juried into the society. New Member Screenings for the Pasadena Society of Artists are usually held twice a year, in the spring and fall. Please go to our website at www.pasadenasocietyofartists.org for more information. If you are interested in becoming a member, please complete a Membership Inquiry Form, found online, and contact our Director of Membership, Marion Dies. If you miss the current 2022 deadline, Ms. Dies will notify you when the next screening has been scheduled. Qualifications considered for membership include the applicant’s dedication to artistic standards of excellence, professionalism, accomplishments, skills that benefit the Society, and the artist’s future potential. Applicants submit three (four if a virtual screening) pieces of artwork representing current media and style, created in the past two years. Artwork submitted is judged by presentation, talent, and originality. We encourage perseverance; a number of our members have been offered memberships after having been declined multiple times. Former members include Charles White, Walter Askin, Jirayr Zorithian, Conrad Buff, David Green, Enjar Hansen, Frode Dann, Jae Carmichael, Leonard Edmondson, Mildred Lapson, Paul Sample, Hanson Puthuff, Sam Hyde Harris, and many more. We look forward to welcoming new artists to the Pasadena Society of Artists as we approach our 100th anniversary in 2025.
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Pasadena Society of Artists P. O. Box 90074 Pasadena, California 91109
www.PasadenaSocietyofArtists.org Facebook: PasadenaSocietyofArtists Instagram: @pasadenasocietyofartists
