August 3 - 31
Opening Reception: August 3
Standing Out 2013

Rockport Center for the Arts is proud to showcase our 2019 Merit Artists

Kelly Schaub 
A theatre artist and administrator for over 30 years, collage maker Kelly Schaub transitioned to full-time RV living in 2011, discovered the Coastal Bend as a Winter Texan, and became a resident of Rockport after riding out Hurricane Harvey. With a focus on mixed media collage, she works primarily with vintage ephemera and one of a kind painted papers. You will find her leading Collage Workshops and participating in exhibits around the area. She was recently featured in Kolaj Magazine after hosting a community collage event at Estelle Stair Gallery for World Collage Day. Her abstract mixed media collage works were featured in a solo exhibition at Estelle Stair and also in Empty Mirror. She is excited to share some new work during the Standing Out Merit Show and as a guest artist at Studio C Gallery in Corpus Christi from November through February.

Robin Hazard
Born in Freeport, Texas, Robin Hazard has always been inspired by color as evident in her strong and vibrant paintings. A graduate of Southern Methodist University, her fine art degree focused on painting, drawing and printmaking. She has exhibited throughout the U.S. and has been included in many corporate and private collections including the American Bank in Houston and the Cancer Treatment Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. Recently, several pieces of the historic Whittington Valley were selected for permanent collection at Camp Aldersgate, Little Rock, Arkansas. Her drawings were featured at the Kimbell Museum’s Creative Process - Drawing Symposium in 1983. She has also been included in the 500 Exposition in Dallas, the Dallas Women’s Caucus for the Arts, Dallas Life Magazine, and in many gallery exhibits. Her vibrant pastels have been featured in solo and group exhibits at the Baum Gallery of Fine Art at the University of Arkansas in Conway, St. Vincent Center for Women and Children, Garvan Woodland Gardens’ Plein Air Exhibitions, and Arts in the Air, at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, University of Arkansas, Morrilton, Arkansas. In the fall of 2008, she joined 16 artists currently exhibiting in Hot Springs for an exceptional exhibit in Shanghai, China, sponsored by the Chinese Government. Her work is currently represented by Boswell Mourot Fine Art in Little Rock, Arkansas, Cerulean Gallery in Amarillo, Texas, Bee Street Studio in Dallas, Texas, Felder Gallery in San Antonio, Texas, Maison in Rockport, Texas and Rockport Center for the Arts, Rockport, Texas.

Elizabeth Misitano
Born and raised on Long Island, Elizabeth Misitano earned a Bachelor of Arts from Adelphi University in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts from the New York Academy of Art in 2011. She has studied abroad in Florence, Italy, and worked as an assistant to Chinese artist Liu Bolin on notable projects, including his collaboration with Bon Jovi, and his ad campaign with Moncler and Annie Leibovitz. In her latest body of work, Misitano explores nature and her personal relationship to fauna. She works primarily in ballpoint pen, layering the medium to create subtle color shifts and depth. Misitano has taught this technique at Rockport Center for the Arts in 2018. She still lives on Long Island with her husband, child, and two cats. 

Sarah Fedak
Sarah Fedak’s interest in mixed media art began with a collage workshop in Costa Rica in 1997. After returning to Houston, she spent 11 years at the Glassell School of Art, further developing her artistic prowess in collage, drawing, and painting. In 2009, Fedak moved to Port Aransas, a town which has inspired her latest series of collaged wall-dependent sculptures made of beach plastic (trash) and wood.  In 2012 she joined KSpace Contemporary in Corpus Christi as both an artist and Board Member. Fedak has been a member of Rockport Center for the Arts since 2013. She has shown at both the Art Center and Kspace regularly.

Sally Mitchell
Sally Mitchell first entered the Arts as a dancer, and later became a public librarian and school library media specialist. After retiring and moving to Rockport, she took up photography. She was inspired by the ‘dances’ of the egrets, herons, and shore birds she saw during her walks at the Rockport Beach Park.  Apart from a class in film photography in college and some workshops in digital photography, Mitchell is entirely self-taught. She is unafraid to take risks, experimenting with photo editing to transform photographs into highly stylized, even fanciful images. Her first solo show – All Wet - at Rockport Center for the Arts took place in February 2017. The Texas Photographic Society selected one of her photographs for inclusion in its 31st Annual Members Show (2018) in Austin, and her photograph - Bird Feeder - received an Honorable Mention award in their 2019 International Show. Other juried shows have included Shorelines and Gulf Coast shows (Rockport Center for the Arts); the Dimensions, Photography, and Independents shows (Corpus Christi Art Center); and the Port Aransas Art Center Merit Artists Shows (2013-2015 & 2017). Her work is available at Wind Way Gallery in Rockport, Texas.

Rebecca Bridges Rice
Rebecca Bridges Rice’s love of art began in high school, when she was awarded a summer study scholarship at University of Kansas—Midwestern Music and Art Camp in Lawrence, Kansas. Their international faculty exposed her to diverse styles of painting, sculpture and 3D design. After earning art degrees at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, Regal School of Art in Houston, and Art Institute of Houston, Rebecca Bridges-Rice worked as an illustrator and graphic. She freelanced and worked for Southwest Art Magazine and Somerset House Publishing. Freelancing gave her the means and flexibility to take art classes in her free time, which she did extensively, studying under master paintings such as Harold Phenix, the first Rockport Art Festival Poster Artists. While she has retired from graphic designs, Bridges-Rice is still a prolific fine artist, working mostly in oils, but occasionally in acrylics and watercolor.