Rhonda Simmons is a descendent of Black Loyalists who came to New Brunswick in 1783 following the American Revolution. She is well known for her thought-provoking assemblage art which often addresses issues of women, race, and power. She is a mixed media artist, an altar maker, an assemblage artist, a tea maker, a storyteller, an expressive arts facilitator, an avid baker, and the keeper and tender of creative flames at Casa Sanctuary Art House. I was asked for a creative perspective from the new exhibit opening at the Fredericton Region Museum “Our Black Heritage”.

April Pyne’s abstract geometric paintings are informed by a childhood spent in Brooklyn, New York. April has studied the language of abstraction looking to past modern masters and spent a summer studying sculpture at Cooper Union in New York. Her style embraces modernism, geometric forms and sculptural elements. She is fascinated with circles and with finding the shapes in the painting as a sculptor finds the shapes in wood or clay.
April has been a recipient of a New Brunswick Arts Board Creation Grant.