Artist Brenda Ramseier, whose work is being featured at the Warsaw City Hall Art Gallery, is shown with one of her award-winning pen-and-ink drawings. Photo provided by Brenda Ramseier.

By Darla McCammon
and DeeAnna Muraski
Guest Columnists

WARSAW — We take a break this week from our Art in America series. We are excited to introduce our artist exhibiting at the Warsaw City Hall Art Gallery: Brenda Ramseier.

As a reminder, the art gallery is free to attend and helps showcase artists in our area, continue to educate the community and create awareness of art.

Ramseier is a retired elementary and middle school art teacher at Maconaquah School Corp. located in Bunker Hill. However, she has not stopped teaching art; she simply has a new venue. In 2015, she renovated a pole barn on her property located in Silver Lake in order to teach art classes to all ages. Now she is her own boss, able to have her own time table and techniques to present. Her objective with the studio was to create a fun, welcoming and inspiring space — even the name, “The Art Giraffe,” evokes smiles. The Art Giraffe ties in perfectly with her motto to “stick your neck out and try something new.”

Ramseier is an accomplished artist with many awards to her credit. She enjoys creating in multiple mediums but currently enjoys pen and ink along with watercolor as her favorite. Two very coveted awards she received were the Hoosier Women Artists competition and the Hoosier Art Salon. The Hoosier Women Artists award was created in 2008 to recognize, celebrate and create awareness of female artists in Indiana. The artwork is prominently displayed yearly in the Statehouse and governor’s residence with thousands of dignitaries and residents being able to view the selected pieces. Last year, more than 230 pieces were submitted and only 30 made the cut to be displayed. The Hoosier Art Salon is equally impressive. This year, it celebrates its 100th anniversary with total cash prizes awarded of $50,000 to winning artists. The chosen artwork is displayed yearly from August to October in
the Rapp Gallery at the Indiana State Museum. This is a “juried” art show, which means many pieces do not make the cut to be judged.

While Ramseier has won many other awards besides the two prestigious ones mentioned above, those two alone are enough to generate interest. We are very fortunate to have Ramseier displaying her work at our Warsaw City Hall Art Gallery, located at 102 S. Buffalo St., Warsaw. The gallery is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Her work will be displayed from Tuesday, April 2, until Friday, June 14. We encourage you to view the artwork of our local artistic gem, and you might even sign up for one of her art classes.

Darla McCammon is an artist, columnist and author. DeeAnna Muraski is executive director of Operation Read USA Inc. Send an email to the mother/daughter team at either [email protected] or [email protected].