Ricky Barton: Lives in Cheshire member of Future Labs Gallery. Abstract painting automatic mark making and color theory emphasis. Robot Painting is an exploration of automatic mark making and discovering interactive color theories.

Autumn Phoenix: Autumn Phoenix (She/Her) is a professional photographer whose work spans landscapes, cityscapes, animals, and portraiture. Her images are defined by unique lighting and vibrant color, capturing moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. Inspired by her grandfather, who documented meaningful moments throughout her life, Autumn continues that tradition through her own lens. She views each photograph as a "treasure chest," a way to preserve and revisit experiences long after they've passed. Through her work, she invites viewers to reconnect with memory, emotion, and the beauty within everyday life. Autumn dreams of traveling the world, capturing and sharing both the experiences and the beauty she encounters along the way.

Lisa Slavid: I believe that we are all artists in some form in our lives, and I try to live my life by using my art to uplift folks and create beauty, whether that is by keynoting creativity and innovation talks or producing physical forms of art. Since the start of the pandemic I’ve been doing a deeper dive into oil painting landscapes, which for me is a commitment and practice of paying deeper attention. I find solace in nature and I feel like honoring nature lets us connect more authentically to ourselves, which is related to my queerness. My queerness set me on a path of being authentically myself, of pushing boundaries and exploring possibilities, which is also what I try to do in my oil paintings—I push the chroma, to try to capture a bit of the joy and awe and even freedom of the landscape. I don’t often have figures in my landscapes, they tend to be places where you can pause, and take a breath with joy and curiosity.

Jackie Luczynski: Graduated from an art university in Taiwan. Primarily creates two-dimensional works using sketching, watercolor, and oil painting, with a particular strength in acrylic and mixed media.

Thom Cassotta: Born & raised in W Mass… now retired in Florida , l return to my Berkshire studio / Campsite for the long season. I work in Mixed media , mostly acrylics & cut papers (my own). I've Supported my self thru sales of my artwork for over 50 years .

Pops Peterson: Having made all forms of art since my days as a painter at the HS of Music and Art, I was stunned by the critical acclaim I received for my series, Reinventing Rockwell. Well into my 60s I suddenly found my work featured in the national media, (NY Times, CBS Sunday Morning, NPR), and featured in museums from coast-to-coast. But the real reward has been to see people come to tears viewing my work, telling me how I inspire them and offer hope for a more inclusive world.

Brian Foley: I've created & exhibited ART for 37 years, 1987I was introduced to Printmaking - Monoprint's, Etching, Woodblock prints. The last 17 years I've been working on large canvases using Acrylics. I believe all ART should be respected as well as all humans.

Mike Zippel: Hi there—I’m Mike. What began as a personal love for capturing architectural details has grown into a thriving brand that now reaches both local and global audiences. From early sketches to commissioned pieces, this journey has been one of creativity, connection, and community. My husband Oskar and I are proud to call the Berkshires home, where we collaborate with local businesses and stay deeply involved in the community. Whether we’re showcasing our work at craft fairs, supporting nonprofits, or welcoming visitors to our brick-and-mortar store, our mission stays the same: to celebrate creativity and meaningful design in everything we do.

Lucia Shuff-Heck: Lucia is a queer identifying artist from Berkshire County. Her artwork utilizes the translucent quality of watercolor to create illustrative paintings with realistic texture and definition. Thin glazes of watercolor are built up through many layers to create vivid, sensory scenes which invoke feelings of place, either visited or imagined.

Jacob Clayton: Words cannot adequately express what it’s like to go through life in the wrong body. The turbulence of confusion, desperation, fear, and isolation creates a sustained trauma from which I had found very little escape. But that all changed when I began to depict the fracture visually, through art. Gazing into the lens of my own life’s complexities, my work is a journey to gather and assemble reclaimed pieces of a life lived for decades as a stealth transgender man and closeted gay man in America. Using photography, video, and mixed media I document the double standards, hidden curricula, systemic microaggressions, and profoundly destructive groupthink about gender identity, expression, and expectation – from every side. Through this imagery, I seek to better understand the truths about myself and the world. And to be understood.

Calyx Wildflower: I am a non-binary engineer-turned-artist residing in Lee, MA. I started art four years ago, and i work with paint, ink, and digital media.

Rachel Kaufmann: Rachel Kaufmann is a queer artist, creating work at the Muse studios in Housatonic Massachusetts. Inspired by life around her and her inner world, she depicts scenes with oil paint. She has been painting since she attended Bard College where she put on a show entitled Everland, a series of paintings that grappled with growing up using satirical fantasy. She is currently painting ‘Queer Scenes from the Berkshires’, paintings depicting queer events she has attended over the past two years. She currently identifies as bisexual, but views her queer identity as an ever evolving process.

C. William Dunsay: I'm a former New Yorker who has lived in the Berkshires since 1974. I taught in the Southern Berkshire Regional School District and currently am the Human Resources Manager at the Berkshire Food Co-op. I identify as Bisexual.

James Jasper: My work draws from literature, symbolism, and systems of meaning that accumulate over time. I am particularly interested in how myth, science, and cultural narratives overlap—how images can carry multiple, sometimes contradictory, histories at once. In this series, I reinterpret the zodiac through layered visual structures that combine anatomical figures, botanical forms, and celestial mapping. Each drawing operates as a composite: part diagram, part icon, part narrative fragment. The constellation points, geometric overlays, and restrained color function as a framework for organizing meaning rather than resolving it. Influenced by literary traditions, including those engaging with queer themes, the work treats the zodiac as a flexible and coded system—one that can be re-read and reassembled. These drawings are less about illustrating fixed identities than about tracing connections between bodies, symbols, and time.

Saemi: NYC-based Korean photographer. Over 10 years. I poetically explore emotions, creating narratives where delicate beauty and destruction coexist. Lesbian.

2026 Berkshire LGBTQ+ Pride Art Exhibit: Amplifying Queer Creativity

Becket Arts Center