“Serendipity in the Woods” celebrates works of ten Reston area artists – Regina Adams, Karen Danenberger, Denise Dittmar, Margot Lebow, Julia Tova Malakoff, Joanne Roberts-Wittauer, Donna Ross, Ruth Sievers, Melanie Zucker Stanley, and Marie Georgette Wright – who met through area art venues. Their art encompasses the bold and colorful, the abstract and eclectic, the meditative and cathartic. The styles and media they work with are as diverse as the women themselves.

Regina Adams: Regina Adams is a Reston-based visual artist and voice teacher who seeks to bring more beauty and joy into the world through her teaching and creations. Regina launched Songbird Voice Studios in 2015. “I am on a mission to empower women and girls to connect to their creativity through song.” With the studio now in full swing, Regina enjoys creating art whenever she isn’t busy teaching music. Regina’s art includes vintage finds and patterns of all kinds. A lively palette forms the basis for her inspiration. Her style can be described as a nod to the past mixed with a quest for adventure.

Karen Danenberger: As a young artist, Karen spent two summers in Venice, Italy, through NYU’s Summer Abroad Program where water reflections and the emotive qualities of color first became central themes in her artwork. Many of her paintings still feature the images and feelings generated in scenes depicting water along with themes of nature and family. Karen has over 30 years of experience in art creation and instruction, and is an active member of the League of Reston Artists.

Denise Dittmar: For the past ten years, Denise has been an art instructor for children, teens and adults at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. After receiving a master’s degree in landscape architecture and working in that field for eight years, she taught high school art in the Dallas area. She paints both abstractly and representationally and enjoys drawing and painting portraits and landscape inspired work. Now living in Sterling, Virginia, she says, “I love living near so many beautiful parks for hiking and getting into nature and also having so many museums and cultural resources nearby.”

Margot Hahn Lebow: Margot has been painting since the age of eight. In the 1970’s she studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and was influenced by artists from the Minimalist-Conceptualist art movements. At a later stage, she discovered the Merz paintings of German artist Kurt Schwitters, and these became the ultimate influence on her style. She has been developing her unique style of collage and mixed media in Europe, Egypt and America for the past thirty years. She has exhibited in various public places, including the Gallery at Queens College, New York; Morgana Gallery in Cairo, Egypt and in private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Julia Tova Malakoff: Julia’s mixed media paintings, inspired by nature and everyday objects are vibrant and uplifting, telling stories through texture and tone. “Nature encourages me to take a closer look at our world, bringing to light the subtle and whimsical moments,” she says. Bold bursts of color push through shaded foliage; vivid imagery from our daily lives is layered against cool and calm. Julia has written children’s picture books and teaches a mixed media art class, Make Your Mark at the Workhouse Center for the Arts in Lorton.

Joanne Roberts-Wittauer: Joanne’s earliest creative memories are seeing all the colors of crayons in the Crayola box. “I would scribble and change the colors freely, exploring so many possibilities on paper,” she says. 20 years ago, when her husband began his wine import business, Joanne started painting as they traveled throughout the United States and Europe. She describes herself as an abstract expressionist painter who looks to artists like Picasso, Hoffman, Matisse, Diebenkorn and Richter for inspiration and motivation. Her work is exhibited in restaurants, retail stores and other places in the U.S. and abroad.

Donna Ross: “My absolute happy place is anywhere near water so it’s no surprise I love working in watercolors!”, Donna says. Her passion for landscapes is the result of a long career in a crazy busy industry and finding beauty and stillness in nature. She returned to focusing on watercolor landscapes during the lockdown. The mixture of water and pigment lets her express the light, tranquility and texture experienced in nature. She adds, “It makes me excited when I find my paint mingling and flowing across the paper and see a wind-swept ocean dune. I hope my art takes the viewer to these special places.”

Ruth Sievers: Ruth is a painter, collage artist and photographer. While she pursued a career in writing and editing, working for D.C.-area nonprofits and the U.S. Copyright Office, she has always tried to find time for art. She studied with Joe Shannon at the Corcoran for several years and for many years with Diane Tesler and other Art League instructors. Her favorite subjects are people, especially friends and family, and others in public places. Ruth holds a bachelor of science from the University of Maryland, with a major in journalism. She has a studio with the Columbia Pike Artists in Arlington, Virginia.

Melanie Zucker Stanley: Melanie’s parents were a huge influence on her art. Her mother was a singer and painter, and her father was a musician. “Our home was filled with an ongoing flow of creative vibrancy.,” she says. To create richness in her art, Melanie uses hand painted rice papers to help build layers and textures and colors. She also works with water-based paints, drawing tools and mixed media. If asked what her style is, she would answer “Bright, luscious COLOR and TEXTURE!” Melanie is a member of many art organizations and teaches art to children and adults in local galleries and in her home. She has written and published six children’s books. “I enjoy creating art…and inspiring others to find their artistic voice!”

Marie Georgette Wright. “I paint what I love. The small things that make me happy – a little slice of nature, an animal, colors of the sun, my family – all have found their way onto my canvases.” While working in a stained-glass studio in San Diego, Marie was introduced to the luminescent power of transparent color and light. She worked with Hudson River Valley artists after moving to the East Coast where she found the joy of transparent watercolor washes. Later she added acrylics and mixed media to her palette, frequently using bits of tissue and rice papers imprinted with impressions of leaves from her garden. “The colors of my life are a crazy quilt of bits and pieces, and so it goes with my art.”