Dana Gentile uses humor in her collages to evaluate issues in the agricultural industry. Each collage contains layers of encyclopedia photographs that are reconstructed into new meanings. Dana's work tackles industry concerns while reminding us of our relationship to these industrial practices. www.danagentile.com

Donna Sharrett is a recipient of two New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowships and several artist’s residencies and grants. Her work has been widely exhibited including a solo exhibition at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York and in the American Embassy, Bangladesh. Articles about her work have appeared in the New York Times, Art & Antiques, Fiberarts, Sculpture Magazine & Surface Design, Time Out New York & Village Voice. Her work is held in numerous private collections such as Fidelity Financial Services, JP Morgan Chase, Pfizer, Sprint & Vinson & Elkin, and public collections including the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City. She holds a degree from School of Visual Arts in New York City and is represented by Pavel Zoubok Gallery in Chelsea, New York City where a second solo exhibition of her work was presented in April 2009. www.donnasharrett.com

Ambriel Floyd draws, gardens, cooks, and tells stories. She makes screen-printed canvases and clothes, watercolors of cranes, wood cut-outs, and brass pendants. She lives in New York with her boyfriend and a crazy Jack Russell named Mila. She tends a rooftop vegetable garden, dreams of sailing wooden boats, and remembers the Blue Ridge Mountains. www.ambrielfloyd.com

Born and raised in Rockland County, Joan Lesikin now resides in lower Ulster County, in the mountaintop hamlet of Cragsmoor. In Bodyscapes, her latest work, she brings together three traditional artistic subjects: landscape, still life, and human form. Landscape is represented by the hills and valleys of cloth. Cloth has traditionally been paintings’ backdrop or decorative element as in portraits and still-lifes; Lesikin brings the cloth to the foreground, wanting viewers to see the suggestion of human form within the landscape created by the cloth’s drape and fold. Lesikin received art training at Rutgers University (now Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts); School of Art, Syracuse University; and at the Art Students League. She is recipient of a Woodstock Artists Association Grant and NYS Arts Alive Grant. Her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including the former Museum of Modern Art Loan Collection and French & Co. Gallery in NYC and Galleria Juana Mordo in Madrid, Spain. Her work is presently represented by Karen Lynne Gallery in Boca Raton, Florida. Her work can also be seen at www.LesikinArt.com.

Arik Roper is an illustrator and designer from New York City. He is currently a contributor to Arthur magazine, and recently created a book titled Mushroom Magick for Abrams Books. www.arikroper.com.

Deb Lucke not only paints Fox Cherry Tomatoes, she grows and eats them as well. When she's not busy making Fox Cherry Tomato salsa, she writes and illustrates children's books. They include: "The Book of Time Outs" published by Simon & Schuster, "The Boy Who Wouldn't Swim" published by Clarion Books, "Never Say Boo!" written by Robin Pulver and published by Holiday House, and the forthcoming "Sneezenesia" soon to be published by Clarion Books. In addition, she does educational books and editorial assignments. She lives in Cold Spring with her partner, Paul Hartzell, who has his own recipes for Fox Cherry Tomatoes. www.deblucke.com.

Gigi Chew is a Brooklyn-based social worker, illustrator, and plant enthusiast. Having grown up in numerous countries including Switzerland, Singapore, the United States, Japan and France, her artwork often explores fantastic distant lands and wanders into the inner landscapes of the subconscious mind. Gigi is highly influenced by the natural world, often giving reverence to the plant and animal kingdom, while taking an absurdist view of the human condition. She is particularly interested in representing the disconnect between mankind and nature, and in inciting the same enthusiasm and wonderment that she experiences while seeing nature at work. Gigi has also been inspired by golden age children's book illustrators, the rich imagination of schizophrenic individuals whom she works with, and the imagery conjured up by surrealist authors like Henri Michaux and Franz Kafka. gigichew.blogspot.com.

When Jacinta Bunnell was very small, she fell off her moped and gave up her life-long dream of one day becoming Evel Knievel's adopted daughter. And took up art instead. Now she carries her art supplies around in an Evel Knievel lunch box, because, well, you never know. Jacinta's visual art is made from primarily recycled materials. Jacinta has toured the US and Canada with The Sparkle Kids Action Network, Gadabout Film Fest, Neko Case, and Michael Truckpile. She is co-founder and organizer of Broad's Regional Arm Wrestling League (www.hudsonvalleybrawl.com). Jacinta has been a pinch hitter for the Seed Library when they needed her nimble fingers to hand pack these well-loved seeds. She believes in iced tea, unicorns, hometowns, lip syncing, and having the same best friend since you are two. Jacinta does not believe in Mother Goose. Jacinta's gender-defiant publications include: Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be...Coloring Book and Girls Are Not Chicks Coloring Book. She lives in Stone Ridge, NY. www.girlsnotchicks.com.

Rachelle Cohen lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She makes drawings, paintings and collages about place using the language of maps. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and exhibits her work in different places. www.rachellecohen.com.

Michael Asbill received his MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 1999. He has created numerous public artworks, exhibited in galleries across the country, and produced historical exhibitions for small museums. Michael sits on the board of directors for Walkway Over the Hudson, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to restoring the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge and transforming it into a linear park 212 feet over the Hudson River. He is a founding member and resident of Mettacamp, in Accord New York, an intentional community committed to sustainable living and the arts. "My work is an exercise in finding deeper meaning in familiar things. Certain objects, places and even memories will develop a hold on me. I keep them around, draw them, photograph them, dismantle them, and tinker with their context. Sometimes, through my experiments, the qualities of my subject open up and reveal themselves. In other instances, I might simply give the thing a new form, a new vantage point from which it can be scrutinized. In essence, I am visually interpreting the meaning of common things the same way one might interpret a dream. And as a mixed-media artist, I use whatever media is called for by the specific subject. By drawing out these inner meanings, investing them with personal connotations, giving them metaphoric breadth, extending and expanding them, I feel them I am in a sense making simple dreams for the waking world."

Dana Gentile is an emerging Brooklyn based artist and Hudson Valley goat farmer. She graduated with a BFA from SUNY Purchase College in 2003. Her work has been exhibited in New York at +Kris Graves Projects, Slide Luck Pot Show, and Pocket Utopia. She was interviewed in the Italian Publication PIG (People In The Groove) Magazine in October 2006. In addition, her work is included in a curated limited edition book titled Ruby Mag that was published in Argentina. She was invited to participate in the 2007 project titled Fjord, which brings together emerging and up and coming photographic talent of today. www.danagentile.com.

Michael Gellatly, artist and freelance illustrator, living in Sharon, CT. He has shown widely throughout New England and New York, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including an NEA and a Pollock-Krasner Grant, along with several from the CT commission on the Arts for Painting, Works on Paper, and Sculpture. As an illustrator he has worked on many garden related books for various book and magazine publications. www.bamboo2studio.blogspot.com.

Robert Morris achieved the rank of second class Boy Scout in Missouri. Worked as a railroad switchman in California and Oregon, and horse wrangler in Wyoming; turned to art as a last resort.

Originally from Maine, Ayumi Horie received her BA from Mount Holyoke College, her BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. She is on the board of directors of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana and has taught many workshops on functional ceramics and the internet across the U.S. and internationally. Ayumi works a studio potter in Cottekill, New York, drawing inspiration from American and Japanese folk traditions and comics. www.ayumihorie.com.

Wendy Hollender is the coordinator for Botanical Art and Illustration at the New York Botanical Garden. She teaches students there as well as leading workshops in exotic locations such as Trinidad, and Hawaii. She had designed textiles for more than 20 years. Through her work developing floral designs for clients such as Wedgwood China and Westpoint Stevens, she became intrigued with the complex beauty of plants. This fascination inspired Wendy to earn a certificate of Botanical Art and Illustration, and become a full time Botanical Artist and Illustrator. Since 2002 her work has focused in this area. Currently some of her clients include:the French beauty company Coty Inc., the Riverside Park Fund, the Morven Garden and Museum, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and Caspari, Inc. Wendy is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited her work extensively across the United States and England and has had many solo exhibitions. Illustrations by Hollender have graced the pages of publications such as Country Living and Horticulture magazines and the Missouri Botanical Garden scientific journal Novon. She has self-published her own book, Botanical Drawing: A Beginner’s Guide and has a book coming out from Random House in 2010. She recently bought a farm in Ulster County, New York, where she has started to hold workshops. Not only will students study and draw the living plants, (grown by her son and daughter) but will also enjoy sampling their culinary possibilities (prepared by them). For more information about her botanicals and workshops, visit www.whartdesign.com.

Diana Bryan is an award-winning artist/illustrator/animator whose paper-cutout work is currently on exhibit as steel sculptures and prints at the Colony Arts Center, Woodstock, NY. She has created 30 foot-long murals for Walden Books and the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue. Her work has appeared in appeared in children’s books, magazines, webpages, packaging design many galleries and museums including The Smithsonian, The Society of Illustrators in NYC and The Library of Congress. She has been a member of the faculty of Parsons School of Design for 20 years and of the Syracuse University Master of Arts Program. Diana is the founder of the Hudson Valley Artists Network and the Hudson Valley Architectural Forum, which are sponsored by the Art Society of Kingston (A.S.K) and Highland Cultural Center. Diana is currently creating sculptures from her paper-cutout art, using computers and lasers to transform them into steel sculptures, architectural tile design, children's books, murals and animation. She lives with Bob in the woods near Woodstock, NY with bears, frogs, wild turkeys, thousands of records and cds and five cats.