Our Faculty

Karen Pellis

Karen Pellis holds a BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA from Montclair University in New Jersey. She worked as a ceramic artist in San Francisco and loves both wheel throwing and hand building. Karen has many years of teaching experience and enjoys working with children and adults.

Robert L Caldwell

Robert Louis Caldwell is an award-winning artist nationally renowned for his wildlife and architectural oil paintings. His work has appeared in numerous national and international exhibitions, including the Society of Animal Artists, Art and the Animal and Birds in Art, and is represented in the permanent collection at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. Robert graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.F.A.

We are very fortunate to have his expertise for our Teen and Adult Drawing and Painting Classes.

Meg Foster

After receiving her BFA in Art Education from VCU, Meg taught in Chesterfield County Public Schools for over 13 years. With a passion for teaching art to young children, she was recognized by her fellow teachers in 1996 and was awarded Teacher of the Year at Harrowgate Elementary in Chester, VA.
Before taking time off to stay home with her two young children, Meg was the art teacher at Robious Elementary for 7 years. As a way to return to her passion of teaching, she started with after school classes; “Arthaus Kids,” in the fall of 2008. The dream of ArtHaus Visual Arts Studio came together when the new studio opened in September 2010.

Donna Campbell Allen

Donna Campbell Allen first gained national recognition as an illustrator for the best selling novella, The Special Guest, A Christmas Story, but recently as a portrait painter receiving the Best in Show Award in the NAP 2011 Richmond show for her painting titled “Lin”. Donna’s work has been exhibited in national and international shows including the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society’s International Show and in the homes of many private collectors. She has been commissioning portraits in watercolors for over 10 years. Donna graduated with top honors from The IVY School of Professional Art.

Kirk O'Brien

As a member at the Richmond Visual Arts Center, Mr. Kirk O’Brien has had work published in national magazines and displayed at the Smithsonian Institution. He loves nothing more than the complete distortion of the human figure afforded by the cartoon medium and sharing this creative art form with others.
What makes a successful cartoon: “Good drawings combined with a funny concept,” O’Brien says. “You are telling a story with the pictures. … The words shouldn’t stand on their own without the pictures. …You should be able to grasp the story from the pictures. The words just flesh it out. You can have a comic strip with no words — you can’t have one with no pictures.”

Barbara Rothenberg

Barbara received her BFA from VCU in art education, and has taught art for close to 35 years. She most recently retired from her position as the lead photography teacher at Midlothian High School. She continues to teach art and photography part time at both ArtHaus Visual Arts Studio and Midlothian High School. We are thrilled to have an instructor of Barbara’s caliber at ArtHaus.

Libby Clark

Libby Clark has a BFA from VCU in sculpture with a minor in photography. She has worked with advertising agencies, portrait studios and multimedia production companies around Richmond, Virginia for over 25 years. She participates in art & craft shows when time allows.
She has always enjoyed teaching film photography and now digital photography and Photoshop Elements to those wishing to capture and/or work with images they may already have.
Libby is an active wedding and event photographer, but loves to spend time at her home in the country searching for the perfect scene in nature to snap.

Julie Brooks

Julie received her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia , PA., majoring in Fashion Design. Upon graduating from Moore, she worked as a design assistant at the clothing manufacturer Jones N.Y. Julie worked closely with the knitwear designers, completing four collections a year from conception to production. Currently Julie is the creator of a small handbag line called “Caffeine”.  The handbags are made from recycled coffee bean bags and are sold locally as well as out of town.
Julie also enjoys working with oil pastels, soft pastels and watercolor. We are thrilled to have her join us at ArtHaus.

Maja Bality

Maja graduated with honors from VCU in 1998 with a BFA; focus in ceramics. She was a recipient of the 2nd Annual Dr. Louis Harris Purchase Award and has shown in numerous gallery exhibitions including 1708 Gallery, The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, Artspace Gallery, Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, and the Filippo Gallery at Randolph-Macon College. Maja has also taught Design for Art Foundation (AFO) at Virginia Commonwealth University and has numerous works work in both private and public collections. She enjoys teaching and sharing her love of ceramic design with others.

Ashley Dowdy

Ashley received a BFA from VCU in photography, with a minor in illustration, and after working as an Event and PR Photographer in Washington D.C. she returned to Richmond for a second BFA in Art Education.  She spent 6 years teaching middle school art classes in Chesterfield County Schools and the past two years teaching Photography at Midlothian High School.  In her free time she loves taking photographs but also enjoys working on drawings, paintings, and mixed media art.

Paloma Wall

Paloma is a recent graduate from VCU with a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Painting and Printmaking. She has many years of experience working with and teaching children both at the YMCA in Richmond, and at the Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville. Paloma also volunteers at Mesa Vista Therapeutics in Powhatan, VA. There she assists children and young adults with special needs in a program designed to enhance both physical and neurological therapy while horse back riding. Paloma truly enjoys sharing the creative process that the visual arts allow with children of all ages. We are thrilled that Paloma will be joining our faculty for the summer of 2012.

Ali Pfautz

As The Story Lady, Ali Pfautz travels throughout Metro Richmond entertaining children with her original tales and songs. Mrs. Pfautz has more than 20 years experience in the performance arts. She teaches locally for school enrichment programs and has taught for Christian Youth Theater, CYT. Whether it’s a dance theater class, or a storytelling workshop, Mrs. Pfautz weaves together words, music and movement to get young people excited about performing. Teaching at ArtHaus Visual Arts Studio is one of her favorite summer activities!

Elizabeth Salim

Elizabeth Salim has been a colored pencil / pastel portrait artist and teacher for over 20 years.  She studied at Art Institute of Atlanta and took classes at VCU. In recent years she has studied at the workshops of Daniel Greene, NA, John de la Vega, Tim Chambers, and Jonathan Linton.  Elizabeth continually strives to grow as an artist through personal study and practice. She is an active member of the Portrait Society of America. To see more of her work, please visit ebsalim.fineartstudioonline.com.

David Landis

David Landis graduated from VCU with a degree in Mass Communications / Advertising. He owns and operates his own graphic design studio (Landis Productions, LLC established in 1994) producing print, media and graphic design. His package design work has been presented to Sony, Disney and Warner Brothers. In 2008, he launched the site http://www.DesktopGremlins.com which is a free easy-to-build papercraft download site that has welcomed over 100,000 visitors from all over the world. The site features his own original papercraft creatures of wonder alongside art commissions for companies like NAMCO-Bandi (Pac-Man, Soul Calibur V, etc.), ZeptoLab’s Cut the Rope, WIRED’s GeekDad.com as well as YouTube’s Space Lab.