About Joy Yarbrough:
Joy Yarbrough, a native of Palmyra who now lives in St. Louis, is bringing her very unique art to Hannibal’s Alliance Art Gallery for the month of October. When asked about how she began doing her “drawing with scissors” silhouettes, she said her journey has been a path not of her conscious planning but directed by others put in her path.

Growing up, her father very much wanted her to be a teacher like several other members in her family. At his insistence she went to college and majored in education but also took art classes. During her senior year she interviewed with a representative of Hallmark who was on campus and was offered a job at their headquarters in Kansas City. She was also doing pastel portraits at Six Flags where her supervisor told her she was taking too long and suggested she try cutting silhouettes. After a week’s practice she began making silhouettes for the theme park’s customers. Joy was on the verge of quitting her cutting art, when a gentleman she met at an art fair in Florida offered to bring her silhouette paper that had been his deceased wife’s. So she again continued on this path. And once again someone led her to another opportunity to grow her business when they told her about the historic reenactments they were doing mostly in Illinois and they thought her art form would be a great addition to these events because families often had silhouettes cut of their loved ones because photographs were rare.

About Pat Kerns:
Pat Kerns is the a founding member of the Alliance Art Gallery and the only artist at the gallery who has been there from the beginning. During her time as a featured artist she decided to create work based on her husband’s favorite painting. During the last several months of his life he told Pat “That’s the best painting you ever did” or “that is my favorite painting of yours”. This meant so much because he had never said anything like that before about any of the hundreds of paintings she has done. That work was done from flowers she purchased from a vendor at the Central Park Farmers Market. After doing the background and letting it dry she held each flower and painted it on the canvas so she could see its details closely. The same process was used in these latest works, with each flower held in honor of her husband and to remember the people that had brought her bouquets after is death in June. Many of the flowers were from their own gardens…a bouquet from the garden grown by a bride to be for her own wedding, others from former students and good friends.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday on October 12 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm with an artist’s talk at 6:00 and a free drawing for artwork at 6:30.

This event is free and open to the public.