Artists Talk with LVA: February 19, 2026

Matt, Tim, & Dawn

The 2026 Art in City Hall exhibit is now open, and this week our guests are 3 of the artists: Dawn Della Bella, Matthew Hagan, & Tim O' Connell. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM / Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Dawn Della Bella was raised in San Diego, California, but she and her family moved to Louisville in 1994. She and her husband both worked for the Archdiocese of Louisville for over 25 years and retired together in 2022.  Now, I spend all of my free time painting. 

Tim O’ Connell took a 20-year sabbatical from art in the 90s to coach volleyball. First at Male High School, then at DuPont Manual. Art filled the void after he retired. Since then, he has been selected to display at the Kentucky Bourbon Festivals, and, more recently in the Galt House East.

Matthew Hagan is an accountant by trade and also a landscape and wildlife photographer. He lives in Louisville, KY, with his wife and two daughters. He and his family love the great outdoors and can often be found hiking, kayaking, and traveling. Matthew is also an avid fisherman, and when not working or with his family, can usually be found wading in a stream or on a river.

The 2026 Art in City Hall exhibit runs through January 2027 at Metro Louisville’s City Hall. This year’s exhibition also includes work from Sheila Fox and Isabella Corine.

Artists Talk with LVA: June 5, 2025

Elmer Lucille Allen and Sandra Charles join us to talk about their exhibit, “Echoes of the Ages,” which opens on June 7th at the Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery. Tune in to WXOXm 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Sandra Charles & Elmer Lucille Allen are here to talk about their exhibit Echoes of the Ages, which opens June 7th at Bourne-Schweitzer Gallery with a reception from 1 - 3 pm. There will also be an artist's talk on July 10th

Sandra Charles is an oil painter who believes you should never give up on your dreams.  Her work focuses on the culture, history, and social issues that affect African American women.  Sandra has painted all her life, but began her career as a batik fiber artist.  She returned to school in 2011 and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree in painting from the University of Louisville.  After graduation, she realized painting was her passion and retired to concentrate on her art. 

Elmer Lucille Allen is a ceramic and fiber artist and chemist who graduated from Nazareth College (now Spalding University) in 1953. Both her father and brother were named Elmer, and the family chose to name her Elmer Lucille. She became the first African-American chemist at Brown-Forman in 1966. After retiring, she began studying art at the University of Louisville, where she received her Master of Creative Arts degree with a focus on ceramics and fiber in 2002. Allen's textile work incorporates shibori dyeing techniques.

Artists Talk with LVA: March 17, 2022

Clare Hirn received a significant scholarship to attend the New York Academy of Art – Graduate School of Figurative Art, located in Manhattan. The curriculum continues to focus on strong foundational skills for working “realistically” from life and the figure.

After graduating with her masters in painting and drawing in 1990, Hirn worked for a mural design firm in NYC, learning the techniques of working large scale. Upon returning to her hometown of Louisville, KY she pursued both mural work and her personal painting, participating and receiving awards in many regional shows. Hirn’s fine art murals and paintings grace many homes, businesses, and public spaces and have appeared in numerous publications.

Shohei Katayama is a Japanese American artist who explores the space between light and dark, life and death, beauty and danger, nature and man. His work includes line drawings, sculpture, and installation art. ​

Katayama received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2019. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award by the International Sculpture Center, the Frank-Ratchye Fund for the Art at the Frontier Award, and a finalist in the 21C Artadia award, among others. His work has been exhibited nationally, and internationally in Venice, Italy; New York; Portland, OR, and more. Katayama has participated in residencies in Norway; Brazil;  NJ; Tough Art Residency Program in Pittsburgh, PA, and at the Asia Institute Crane House in Louisville, KY.

Vignette: Sharon Weis

“Color Slice” by Sharon Weis, Oil paint on birch plywood, 13x42in, 2019, $1200

would that we could wake up to what we were
when we were ocean and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all----- nothing

-       From “Singularity” by Marie Howe

Are landscape painters drawn to nature as a subject because of a spiritual affinity, or do they discover that affinity through the act of painting nature? Such chicken and the egg queries may indeed miss the point, but we come across that relationship between nature and spirituality all the time. By quoting this Marie Howe poem, written in tribute to Stephen Hawking, Sharon Weis lets us know in no uncertain terms that her practice may be nothing less than a search for understanding about the very beginning of life. Hawking was a scientist, but Howe is a poet and Weis a painter, and both of these artists find beauty in the level of discovery in the work of the world-famous physicist. 

Weis describes her act of creation, the action of painting in language that reinforce that connection between rationality and the spiritual:

“Moved by lavish paint and painters, I love the lush, liquid stokes attainable with oil paint. I use birch plywood as it is the ideal surface to accept the viscosity of paint I work to acquire. For color and compositional rhythms, I look to the natural world for inspiration.”

“In my latest series, the sea is lush, I play with composition and perspective shifts using panoramic views, emotive color correlations, and natural rhythms set up by sea and sky to create aesthetic divisions of space. However, it is the physical texture of the paint itself, the charge of paint I push into the clouds or the clean, thick, fluid stroke added to the sea that excite me most when creating these works.”

“Sugar Fix” by Sharon Weis, Oil paint on birch plywood, 13x42in, 2019, $1200

“These paintings heighten our connection to the sea, intensifying our vast range of emotion in the form of water, land and sky.”

Weis teaches Art at Walden School. In the past two years she has exhibited at Ann Tower Gallery and New Editions Gallery in Lexington KY as well as Art Prize in Grand Rapids, MI.

Some of the work we see here is currently on public view as part of the Spring Invitational at Kleinhelter Gallery, 701 E 8th Street, New Albany. The exhibit runs May 10 through July 6.   

Weis has exhibited in the Louisville area for years, and her work was shown in two International Shows; Septemberfest International at Period Gallery in Omaha and Across the Atlantic in Dublin Ireland. 

She is included in these corporate collections:

Barnstable Brown Center for Diabetes ~ Lexington KY
Bluegrass Eye Center~ Crestwood KY
Brown Forman Corporation~ Louisville KY
Caritas Medical Center~Louisville KY
Cobalt Bravura Lofts~ Louisville KY
Commonwealth Bank and Trust~ Louisville KY
Masonic Homes~ Louisville KY
Pediatrics South~ Lexington KY
Saint Joseph Hospital~ Lexington KY
Summit One Partners~Louisville KY
Square One Offices~ Louisville KY
The Center for Women and Families ~Louisville KY
Time Warner~ Louisville KY
Turfland Medical Clinic~ Lexington KY
U of K Woodland Glen Dormitory~ Lexington KY
Ventas, Inc~ Louisville KY
Waterfront Park Place Club Room and Lobby~ Louisville KY
Woodward Hobson and Fulton~ Louisville KY

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BA, University of Louisville
Website: sharonweis.com
Gallery Representation: Kleinhelter Gallery (New Albany), New Editions Gallery (Lexington)

“Tide Pull” by Sharon Weis, Oil paint on birch plywood, 13x42in, 2019, $1200

“State of Contentment” by Sharon Weis, Oil paint on birch plywood, 13x42in, 2019, $1200

“Begin After” by Sharon Weis, Oil paint on birch plywood, 13x42in, 2019, $1200

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

 Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.

Vignette: Amy Welborn

“Summer Sunflowers” by Amy Welborn, Oil, 24x30in, 2019, $1200

Nature is often connected to divinity. Even among agnostics there is often found a deep spiritual relationship to the natural world.

The other common spiritual association is in the act of creation – the act of making art. Painter Amy Welborn sees herself as part of the centuries-old tradition of painting landscapes as an expression of religious belief. 

“My work is typically created from oils in vibrant colors and lush brushstrokes. God's creation and man's connection to the land never cease to provide inspiration for me. Everywhere I look, I find God's joy in design. When I slow down to pay attention to what I see, I find the essence of holiness; God's thumbprint in all creation is evident. Translating my awe for God's amazing planet into paint is my lifelong passion.”

An engineer by profession, Welborn began painting with oils as a hobby, but eventually was encouraged by friends to begin exhibiting in community art festivals. As do so many plein air painters, she finds order and pattern in her observations. The hand of humankind imposes some of that discipline: the occasional fence line or a field furrowed for planting. But the greater harmony emerges from the relationships between the elements: the rolling hills seen beyond the fields, and the trees that break the horizon to reach into the sky.

Although Welborn’s style is typically naturalistic, she incorporated aspects of primitivism in her mural for the Dixie Highway Kroger in Louisville, "Bird’s Eye View of Louisville".

Welborn teaches children and adult art classes through the Arts Association of Oldham County. 

Recent Exhibitions:

2017 - “Joie de Vivre”, group show with Louisville, KY artists and Dijon, France artists, Louisville Metro City Hall, KY
2017 - “Joie de Vivre”, group show, Dijon, France
2017 - Governor’s Derby Exhibit, juried exhibition, Rotunda of the Capitol, Frankfort, KY 

Amy Welborn with the Dixie Hwy Kroger Mural

“Snow & Sycamore” by Amy Welborn, Oil, 8x10in, 2018, $400

Public Collections:
Owensboro Medical Health, Henderson Clinic, Henderson, KY
Owensboro Medical Health, Madisonville Urgent Care, Madisonville, KY
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Cincinnati, OH
NICoE Camp LeJeune, Jacksonville, NC
Riverside Hospital Surgical Expansion, Newport News, VA,
Owensboro Medical Health, Henderson Clinic, Henderson, KY
Lanthier Winery. Madison, IN

Home: LaGrange, Kentucky
Education: Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering, Purdue University
Website: PaintingsbyAmyWelborn.com
Gallery Representation: Gallery 104 (LaGrange)

Scroll down for more images

“Brush of Spring” by Amy Welborn, Oil, 24x24in, 2018, $650

“Graf Farm Revisited” by Amy Welborn, Oil, 11x14in, 2018, $450

“After the Storm” by Amy Welborn, Oil, 16x20in, 2017, $800

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

 Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.