Paul Jaekel has had an interest in photography for many, many years. For a long while, he only took the usual pictures of clouds and nature with his cell phone. Then, in early 2015, he started fully acting on that growing interest by turning it into an amateur hobby. As a lifelong resident of Southeastern Michigan, he began by driving around to places nearby his home. As he ventured, he found places that he never stopped at before. Later, he traveled to places further out from home - towards Detroit and up into the thumb of Michigan.

The painter and sculptor Dimitry Domani has an amazing story. Born in Romania, he grew up under the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In 1978, Dimitry and five friends walked 75 miles trying to escape his oppressive homeland. They walked at night, swam the Danube River, and walked 5 more miles into Yugoslavia, where they were captured by the Yugoslavian police. At this point, he became a political prisoner in another communist country.

I first spotted them as we drew into the parking lot of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore's Visitor Center. Stunned at this unexpected, extraordinary beauty, I hopped out of the car almost as soon as Ed had put it into park.

I first noticed the incredibly beautiful art of my friend Yuliya Talinovsky on my facebook feed, as she was in Newfoundland for a bit with her family, and I LOVE those row houses in St. John's. It's amazing how once something is on your radar, how you keep seeing it. Her paintings kept popping up, and I kept being so very happy to see them. Guess what? Her kids are also extremely talented - I'm so happy that this love of art and painting is growing in this world.

An artist of an inspirational talent, Luba Kostenko was branded an art prodigy whilst still attending Secondary School of Art in Leningrad, Russia. She entered the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad in 1965 where she was taught by the distinguished professors E. E. Moiseyenko, I. P. Veselkin, P. T. Fomin, D. A. Shuvalov, and A. A. Mylnikov. 

You may have seen our Artist of the Month, Mark Hicks, before on Wandering Educators - we love his work, and have shared much of his art.

I'm always inspired whenever I look at Instagram, but some photographers seem to have that extra SOMETHING that makes their photos stand out from the 737 photos that are uploaded every second (!!). One such photographer is our Photographer of the Month, Greg Viau, a Michigan photographer that truly shares the beauty in this world, photo by photo.

Just look at our artist of the month this month – she exudes joy, both in writing and in her art. Born in 1963 in Faro, Portugal, Manuela Martins-Karman (Manny) is honing her skills as a visual artist in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Manny graduated from Red River Community College, where she majored in Graphic Design and minored in life drawing. There, she developed her acute attention to form and spatial analysis.

We are very happy to present you Carla O'Connor and her wonderful watercolor art. I have been following Carla's art ever since I took a DVD workshop with her. I loved being introduced to her technique and also to her open-minded generosity. Thank you Carla for accepting to be presented as our artist of the month at The Wandering Educators.