Board of Directors

Meet our Board of Directors for 2023-2024

The Society of Canadian Artists board of directors is made up from 12 volunteer members from across Canada. Our Executive team consists of the President, Vice President, Secretary & Treasurer. Directors also chair various committees or are representatives for the geographical area in which they reside.

We are always looking for volunteers to fill various roles. If you are interested in being part of the board, please contact Manny Schulz, [email protected]

Executive officers

Manny Schulz SCA President & Director

Born in Winnipeg, Manny graduated from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture in 1981 and afterwards worked as a freelance artist. In 1985, Manny took a pause from his artwork to pursue his business career and obtained an MBA and an accounting designation. In 2016, following a 31-year hiatus from painting, Manny returned to his artwork and has exhibited his acrylic paintings in numerous galleries and juried competitions. Since 2020, Manny has had five paintings juried into Open International Juried Exhibitions curated by the SCA and in April 2021 was elected to the SCA.

Vacant Vice President

Andrea Howson SCA Treasurer and Director

Andrea is an acrylic artist living and working in Belwood, Ontario. She completed a Fine Arts program with Honours from Sheridan College and is completing a graphic design program at OCAD University. Although she is diverse in her subject matter, her current focus is on farm life. Her style of artwork is naturally fluid, dynamic, and often intensely colourful. Her paintings show movement, rhythm, and energy, and above all, bring her imagination to life on the canvas.

VACANT Secretary & Director

Committee chairs

Rick Cullis SCA Membership Chair & Director

Born and raised in the Hamilton Burlington area, as well as the Sudbury area, Rick taught for 30 years for the Halton Board of Education in both elementary and secondary schools with 20 of those years teaching Art to grades 2 to 13, as well as photography and computer graphics at the secondary level. Since 1980 he has worked through a variety of media including pencil, ink, water colour and a long period of working in acrylics. In 2017 the switch was made to oils. There is an enormous amount of technical learning to be had in oil painting, in order to accomplish durable and well executed paintings, and this is his current focus.

Nancy Overbury SCA Exhibitions Chair & Director

Nancy uses heavy buttery layers of impasto and thin translucent glazes of paint applied with spatulas and found objects to emulate depth and to capture movement and feeling. She lives in Montreal, Quebec, where she studied Fine Arts but considers her most valuable art lessons were learned while studying in Nîmes, France. There she discovered how the quality of light and sky influence mood and motion. Her sources of inspiration lie in the natural landscape of Southern Quebec and the Laurentian Mountains.

Mary Gartlan Communications Chair & Director

Born in Montreal, Quebec, to Hungarian Immigrants, she was influenced early on by European culture, and her Godmother, a French Canadian Artist. She first began teaching Sketching and Watercolor, in Ajax, Ontario, with The Durham Board of Education from 1980 to 1989. Mary became involved with The Oshawa Art Association, first as Secretary, thereafter, holding a variety of positions throughout the years, (Juried Show Chair, Special Events Person, President, 2nd Vice President, Past President), and recently recognized with a Lifetime Membership. She is currently an Associate Member of the Society of Canadian Artists and the Pastel Artists of Canada. Various works of her art can be found in private collections across Canada, United States, Australia and Europe.

Kristina Billinger Newsletter Editor & Director

Toronto area artist, Kristina Billinger, is largely self taught and has studied with well known and award-winning Canadian Artists including Gordon Harrison, SCA AIBAQ and Philip Craig. Kristina’s paintings are inspired by the photos she takes while on vacation with her family as well as by the many Canadian Landscape artists that have come before her including The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, Maurice Cullen and Clarence Gagnon. Kristina is a member of a small group of artists in Oshawa known as the Sweet Art Group of Artists (SAGA) where artists enthusiastically share their work and ideas, is a new Associate Member of the Society of Canadian Artists, a member of the Artist’s Network of Riverdale, the Oshawa Art Association (OAA) as well as the East Central Ontario Artist Association (ECOAA) and the Federation of Canadian Artists.

Manny Schulz SCA Social Media Chair

VACANT Webmaster & Director

VACANT Publicity Chair & Director

VACANT New Member Liaison & Director

VACANT Fundraising & Sponsorship Director

Eugene Jankowski SCA Quebec Representative

Eugene holds a degree in Psychoeducation from the University of Montreal. Since a very young age, he has been involved in the arts, first as a painter and then, for the last thirty five years, as a stone sculptor. He has shown his works internationally as well as nationally. He is the founding President of the Association for Stone Sculptors (ASPM), and is also member of: the Conseil de la Sculpture du Quebec, the board of directors for the RAAV, and the board of directors of CARFAC.

Karen Fox SCA Ontario Representative

Throughout my life, art has been my one enduring passion and driving force. I excelled in art school as a teenager and studied Illustration at Sheridan. I have had a successful career earning a living as a commercial artist in newspapers and magazines. I have since continued my life’s path and personal self actualization by transitioning to fine art painting in oils. I am a representational painter and I have lived in Ontario for my entire life. The subject matter I choose to paint is what inspires me the most - images that catch my eye and must be recorded. All around us is history. And today’s current life will surely become tomorrow’s history. Our environment is rapidly changing and my ambition is to capture the quintessential Canadian history, environment and way of life – especially the Canadian small town before sub-divisions and urban sprawl block our view and eliminate these treasured historical images.

Sharon Fox Cranston SCA Atlantic Representative

Sharon Fox Cranston is a visual artist based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is multidisciplined and works in oil, acrylic and pastel. A Signature member of the Society of Canadian Artists, the Pastel Society of America, and a designated Master Pastelist of Pastel Artists Canada, Sharon has been creating fine art professionally for over 20 years. Her impressionistic style actively challenges the viewer to interpret the work for themselves. Sharon’s focus is on the texture, colour and rhythms of the rural landscape. “Creating art brings me joy, it gives my visual perception of the world a voice. I enjoy challenging myself to grow, to experiment, to explore new ways of looking at the world. Each one of my paintings is a visual record of where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, and how I’ve tried to express that moment to others.”

Elisabeth Sommerville SCA Western Representative

Elisabeth Sommerville graduated from the Alberta College of Art in Calgary winning the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize. She moved to Vancouver in 1965 to start her own award-winning graphic design business, Sommergraphics. In 1985 she was hired as design consultant by British Airways in London, working with U.S.-based Landor Associates in developing a new corporate design. On her return to Vancouver, she enrolled at the University of British Columbia for a Studio Art Degree while continuing to freelance. Courses in etching, serigraphy and plate lithography led her to a new stage in her career when she joined Malaspina Printmakers Society on Granville Island to learn the art of stone lithography. Over the next 20 years, she became well known for her detailed, precise and beautiful limited edition prints of wildlife. Her skill and artistry continued with egg tempera paintings and then with coloured pencils, a medium particularly suited to her meticulous drawings. Elisabeth attained SFCA Signature Status with the Federation of Canadian Artists and became an Elected Member of the Society of Canadian Artists in 2020. She was recently promoted from Associate Member to AFC Signature Membership with the world-wide Artists for Conservation. Her work is in collections in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and the U.S.A.

Marissa Sweet Past President

Marissa's art is more than just brush strokes on canvas; it represents a profound message of reconnecting with nature and finding solace in its embrace. Through her paintings, she endeavors to evoke nostalgic memories of serene moments, providing an escape from the relentless demands of modern life. Marissa has served on the SCA Board for 6 years, in various roles as President, Vice President / Social Media Director and Newsletter Director.

Mary-Dawn Roberts Director at Large

As an artist I document within my art, the times and places that I have walked within throughout my life. My central focus for most of my career has been the Canadian landscape and its flora. Since colour and pattern have long been my focus, I search and find those elements abundantly within nature. As I work with diligence and passion for each piece, I am ever looking for those crystal moments that open and guide my path. Throughout my early life with Agriculture Canada, then teacher in the Lincoln County Board, painting was always my thread and special place. Plein air painting in oil filled many weekends for about twenty years including exhibiting successfully in juried and judged art shows. In 1984 I chose to be a full time artist and in 1990 built our home and Garden House Gallery in Guelph. About that time I switched mediums to watercolour and subjects of lush and colourful flowers and gardens. Even though my watercolours were very successful, I was drawn in future years to the pattern of my cottage landscape, then the Canadian landscape . Since I am allergic to the solvents in oil I continue to embrace the strength of nature with the power of acrylic painting.