Artist Biographies
Gwendolyn Beachy
Born in DeKalb, Illinois in 1971, Gwendolyn Beachy has lived art since chewing on the first crayon. In the beginning she explored writing, drawing, and painting until the discovery of clay ten years ago. It was muddy love a first touch.
Developing this attraction at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, Gwendolyn graduated in 1999 with a BFA in ceramics and sculpture. She joined SCBWI in 2003 as an illustrator; she also creates public and commissioned art.
In the past few years she has lived and worked in the high deserts of New Mexico and the rolling hills of Northern California. Last year she embarked on a grand gypsy adventure to Nicaragua by school bus with her true love, Jim, as well as the Dog and the Cat.
Photo galleries:
“Seed Stories”
“Fuego y Agua”
Kathy Adams (Empowerment International)
Former engineer, photographer and founder of Empowerment International. In 1998 Kathy Adams worked as an engineer in Costa Rica but found a strong urge to help the kids on the streets. While with the intention of only helping a few children, it did not take long before many more wanted help to attend school. Exhausting her own funds with the existing demand she started asking friends and family to help. While many people said "Kathy, you can't change the world", she knew that may be true but perhaps through education and empowering people, particularly children who are the future, the world could change, 'poco a poco'.
At the age of 10 Kathy's parents gave her a 126 camera. Her great-grandfather, (the photographer of the family), was impressed with her 'eye'. She never studied photography but picked it up throughout the years on her own. In 2004 when she met a 7 year old Yaoska, who was a future program participant in Nicaragua. While showing Yaoska how to use a digital camera she saw magic occur. Many years later, thanks to donations of cameras a photography program was formed with the intention of working with the youth most at risk of dropping out of school as a small portion of Empowerment International's program which has a main focus on school retention.
Fernando David Moreno
Fernando David Moreno was born in 1923 in San Miguel, El Salvador. Settled in Nicaragua since 1955, a self-taught painter, he began at the age of 52, alter working as a school master, as a public accountant, salesman, and businessman among other activities.
He has participated in over thirty collective exhibits in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador; his over two thousand Works to date have been commercialized in permanent exhibits.
Leonel Cerrato
Leonel Cerrato, (1946), alumni and professor at the National School of Beautiful Arts. Cerrato first cultivated impressionism sui generis of Costumbrist content which was recognized by the second place award in the National Contest of Plastic Arts (1971). His definite contribution was the task of rescuing wooden carvings, which were valued by a decisive push that he has given since 1974, conserving their Costumbrist subject matter which adapts so well to that old art of a certain folkloric root and with an exemplary background in the country (carvings on calabash and wooden crates).
Cerrato covered a greater range and he has adapted to his own ability and may have given more South American environmental poetry.
Germán Sandino
German Sandino Pérez was born on November 20th, 1981 in San Juan del Sur, and is self-taught in the fine arts. He began drawing and painting in elementary school and has continued through the years, which has helped perfect his artistic style. He was an excellent student sponsored through Fundación A. Jean Brugger and is now graduated from law school, from the Universidad Politécnica of Nicaragua. He is still a fervent collaborator of the Fundación, which has watched him grow, and he is also very active in politics.
In 2004, Fundación A. Jean Brugger held its first Artists’ Fair where German participated with many art pieces, of which all proceeds went to help the community of La Libertad, Las Brisas, for the purchase of water filters.
Sandino says that many people can understand the inner world of an artist; this is because through painting the artist can express feelings and transform things which for many people are hard to understand. Personally, he says that each day he paints a new picture is a new experience.
Francisco Noel Sánchez
Francisco Noel Sánchez H. was born in Masaya, Nicaragua in 1955. He studied at the Miguel de Cervantes Institute and his third year in Arts and Letters in 1988 at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA).
