Art Extravaganza at My Favorite Books

Discover a new local artist, learn about their work, and pick up a thoughtful, unique gift for yourself or a friend! There will be hand-painted feathers, wood collages, hand-made chess boards, hand crafted pens and bottle openers, color-along books, note cards, paintings, and more!

Ken Johnson is a native Floridian who studies, and writes award-winning books on, issues of culture and conflict. These interests are directly expressed through a very unique heritage art which he also practices – feather paintings! The feathers are representative of discarded people in our society. Like those who are publicly debased because of their race/ethnicity, religion, age, socio-economic background, etc.; Johnson seeks to use discarded feathers as a way to bring revitalization and a renewed sense of purpose. For him, each feather has profound intrinsic value and a unique story to tell the world. Using multiple techniques, Johnson is known for his fine level of detail and usage of artistic license.

Participating in sports, fishing, scuba diving and camping are a big part of Bruce Justham’s life. Designing software and computer systems was Bruce’s career until in 2014 when he was introduced to pen turning. The outdoor and design aspects of his life merged, and he found himself making pens and other items out of animal antlers, wood, and other materials.

Howard Ferstler is a retired FSU library bibliographer who has published four books, edited two more, and published over 150 magazine articles. These days he is an artist who first started out making furniture for his home in his well-equipped small workshop, and ended up making colorful collages with the left-over wood pieces. He uses a variety of dyes, paints, and woods (new and old), with his goal being colorful statements that relax the mind please the eye. He also has done artistic photography, offering both earlier pieces, mostly landscapes and flowers (many having been sold to two local banks years ago), as well as later ones done digitally, all involving flowers. Each of his creations are done simply, with no attempt made to overindulge the technologies.

Honey Hilliard’s artwork features fine art, often including birds, classic still life, botanical studies, landscapes, pop culture, portraiture, wildlife, people, pets and nature. Her paintings follow her muses, from dreams, day dreams, life experiences and colorful people. She uses oil and acrylic and other mediums such as gold leaf, texturizing mediums, sand, cabochons, metallic paints and oxidizing chemical agents. Honey’s earliest professional work includes accurate, detailed bird & wildlife paintings she created for the state of Florida. She also has created a color-along book, Looking for Butterflies. The illustrations are watercolor and sepia-toned pencil. It takes place at St. Marks Refuge, near Tallahassee, FL, with two little girls on a nature walk, hoping to see some butterflies.