Faculty & Staff
Holly
White-Gehrt
Founder/Instructor
Holly originally went to college at New Mexico Tech to study chemistry and physics, but eventually found herself at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts in Paros, Greece. Although her conflict of interests between art and science continued for over a decade, art ultimately won out. While making a living in Materials Science, she earned a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art, having made a choice to pursue art. She graduated there with the Governor's Award for Thesis Work, but soon after realized that her art degree did not equip her with the drawing and painting skills she desired. She sought out more rigorous training and while living in Seattle, she discovered the Atelier Movement.
Holly studied in Seattle for over three years with Tenaya Sims at the Georgetown Atelier and for a forth year with Juliette Aristides at the Aristides Atelier at Gage Academy. She has also studied with Daniel Graves, Jordon Sokol, Colleen Barry, Michael Mentler, Anthony Visco, Zoey Frank, Nathan DiPietro, Fred Wessell, and Koo Schadler. Holly designed and taught the inaugural part-time classical atelier at Georgetown Atelier (with a waiting list of nearly 50 people for the two years she taught there), and taught classes at the Gage Academy as well.
The classical and representational training she received at both Ateliers finally allowed Holly to develop the skill, technique and ability she had desired when she sought out an arts degree years before. Holly has now joined the long and prestigious line of atelier master artists who provide the traditional and classical education to drawing and painting that is no longer offered at art schools and university programs. See our Brief History of the Atelier Movement to learn how Hill Country Atelier is directly connected to over 500 years of classical art training.
See Holly's work on our gallery page, at HollyWhiteGehrt.com, or on Instagram @whitegehrt.
Teresa Craighead
Executive Director
After two decades in executive management and publishing, Teresa has turned her interests to pursuing the arts and serving with non-profits. First attempting arts education at a public university, Teresa quickly discovered the drawing and painting skills she wanted to learn were no longer taught. She discovered Holly White-Gehrt and the Atelier movement and became an avid student. As the Atelier grew, Teresa and Holly teamed up to advance the Texas Hill Country Atelier and move to downtown Kerrville, where Teresa also lives and serves on the City of Kerrville's Main Street Advisory Board.
Teresa draws on her background in helping start ups build infrastructure to bring Holly's vision for a full-fledged classical art education to life. As Executive Director of the Atelier, she guides the business end of the school and oversees budgets, strategic planning and operations.
Teresa is also a ceramic artist and you can find her on Instagram @teresacraighead.art
Roger Parsons
Instructor
Roger was born in 1957 and raised in Evansville, Indiana. Roger enjoyed drawing at an early age, but art school was not in the cards. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1979 with a degree in civil engineering. Two years later, he took his first basic drawing class—and he was hooked! Roger took art classes and workshops, and painted sporadically as his engineering “day job” would allow. A stroke in 2011 changed his life dramatically and ended his day job. After months of rehabilitation he learned to walk again. Visual impairments caused by the stroke gradually resolved, and he began painting full time in 2012.
Roger claims Wilson Hurley and Arturo Chavez, with whom he has studied extensively, as his artistic lineage. He has also studied with Dan Mieduch, Michael Lynch, and Ovannes Berberian. Roger paints landscapes of the American West & Southwest, for which he has won several awards. Now he signs his work with a red dot as a stylized symbol of the blood clot that caused his stroke. His goal as an artist is to make the viewer feel like they are there or inspire the viewer to go there.
Awards include: 2011 Salon International, Merit Award for Western Genre, "Afternoon Glow", Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art 2008 Salon International, Jury's Top 50, "Wind Patterns" 2007 Salon International, "Caprock Fortress" 2006 Coppini Academy Fall Show, Best Oil Painting,"Vermillion Sunset" 2006 Salon International, Jury's Top 50, "Vermillion Sunset"
Find Roger's work on our gallery page and on Instagram @rparsons_fine_art
Tenaya Sims
Visiting Instructor
Tenaya worked in the video games industry and earned his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. He then left the games industry to dedicate five years of full-time study to classical drawing and painting. He attended the Watts Atelier for one year before apprenticing with Juliette Aristides for four years.
In 2008, Tenaya founded his own academy called Georgetown Atelier, which has grown in size and popularity, and is now part of Gage Academy.
Tenaya has exhibited his work at a variety of galleries and venues, including the Salmagundi Club, MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Krab Jab Gallery in Seattle, IX ARTS in Redding, PA, and is currently represented by Abend Gallery in Denver,
In 2016, Tenaya was awarded Best In Show at the highly competitive and prestigious International ARC Salon Competition.
Find Tenaya's work here. See his own art academy at Georgetown Atelier.
If you desire to achieve more skill and learn more technique than you are currently receiving, atelier training is what you need. Sign up for our newsletter and join our community of passionate artists. We welcome you to enroll in our life-changing art instruction.