Goshen Area artists

Discover local artists, venues, and cultural events

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“Right now, I am working on metal-worked jewelry

“Right now, I am working on metal-worked jewelry. The process of creating a piece starts out with sketches. I start out with a design on paper, and then I cut out that design and put it on a metal sheet. Then I begin to transfer that design onto the metal. I cut it out myself - I want my pieces to have a handmade look. I want them to be unique.
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When I collaborate with someone, I begin with meeting with them and asking what they want for a piece, what it’s for. A lot of times there’s a special meaning behind it, like engagement rings or whatnot. I collaborate with the person; It’s not just me telling them what their design is going to look like. I try to incorporate their ideas into it. Then we create the sketch together.
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Thinking back on my memories as a child. I was seriously most inspired by the creators in my life. Those were the people I looked up to. My grandfather’s a painter, my uncle does pastel painting. I saw a lot of that growing up, but it wasn’t until I got into high school that I really started to understand and really get into my artwork. My teachers were the ones I looked up to.
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I lived in L.A. I lived south of Houston. I just didn’t find that community there, the ‘people piece.’ There weren’t people there who wanted to support you. People were just out for themselves. They weren’t out there to help a group of people grow. I think that’s why I appreciate Goshen. We want what’s best for one another. That’s why I moved back to the area. I wanted to raise my daughter in that kind of environment. It’s just really supportive for artists, and I appreciate that so much.”

👋 Name: Lauren Morales
💍 Medium: Jewelry
💻 Facebook: Moon+Flower
⌨️ Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MOONFLOWERSTUDIO3

(2/2) “The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail piece was ma

(2/2) “The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail piece was made to honor and commemorate John Yoder’s retirement from being president of the Pumpkinvine for 30 years. He really got that going. Now it’s really an integral part of the Goshen-Middlebury-Shipshewana community.
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It took me a while to come up with the design, as often they do. The sculpture itself suggests the vine in Pumpkinvine. There’s a round part and a rectangle part that are intertwined. It looks really easy, but it was really hard to make that work. At the top of the sculpture is a kinetic element that turns. The ends of the kinetic element are textured like the spokes of a bicycle. The bench is connected to the sculpture. The bench part, the seating part, is very similar to some other benches that I’ve made. The interesting thing is that it’s connected to a sculpture; I’d never done that before. That became a technical nightmare at times. It was really hard to get that to work, but I got it to work. There were a lot of firsts with this.
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I’d never done a bench with a back on it. There are two circles that are connected - it looks like the center part of a bicycle. The circles are also textured to look like the spokes of a bicycle. I used paints on parts of the sculpture. The blue paint kind of relates to the sky. Also, I used copper wire-colored paint, which to me is kind of a pumpkin color.
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It’s interesting…a lot of my commissions are for people who are art-related or interested in art. The Pumpkinvine piece is different. It’s for people who are interested in art and the sculpture itself, but it also reaches out to a lot of people who are interested in biking, running, that sort of thing. It’s reaching out to a whole different group of the population.”

👋 Name: John Mishler
🎨 Medium: Metal Sculpture
💻 Website: https://www.johnmishler.com/(2/2)

(1/2) “I work in sculpture. My medium is metal s

(1/2) “I work in sculpture. My medium is metal sculpture, mainly, aluminum and stainless steel. Some of the surfaces are painted and some are textured. I’m also known for my things that are kinetic. Most of my outdoor work is kinetic. They have one or two parts that move in the wind, and they usually move through something so they look like they’re going to collide - but they hopefully never do. Some people would say my work is abstract, but it’s usually based on some theme. It isn’t just random abstractness.
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Doing the piece for Goshen College in front of the rec fitness center - that really kind of set my style the way I’m working now. That piece has kind of resonated with a lot of people. Where things are made up of parts but put together to make a total piece, that’s kind of become what I do. That piece led to other commissions that have gotten me where I am today.
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This is a great area to live in. The community in Goshen, with Goshen College and the community being interested in the arts, they’ve been very supportive and that’s been really helpful. When I started out, no one was really interested in what I did around here. I’ve noticed in the last 10 years that a lot of my commissions are in northern Indiana, down to Indianapolis, and in southern Michigan. That’s much more convenient. It’s really nice not to have to drive three or four days to deliver something, even though I miss those drives. It’s really nice to be recognized in the area.
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I’ve been doing this for what, 30-some years? There are a lot of young artists in Goshen, and I hope I can be a role model for them in some ways - that you just have to keep working at it and not give up.”

👋 Name: John Mishler
🎨 Medium: Metal Sculpture
💻 Website: https://www.johnmishler.com/

“My medium is music, for the most part. My style

“My medium is music, for the most part. My style is indie folk. Along with music, though, I’m an incessant crafter and have incorporated that into what I’m doing with music. I just sell it on the side. I make soap and reusable coffee filters and lip balm and salves and whatever I can to occupy my time.
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It depends on the shows that I’m playing. I am writing a lot of my own music. I do play a lot of bar gigs when I’m actually playing shows and do a fair bit of cover music as well. But I do perform my own music.
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Over time it’s just picked up more and more momentum. I’m getting to travel farther and wider to a lot of different places.
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I started Goshen College in 2006 and finished in 2010. I left Goshen a few times, but I keep coming back. There’s an artist organization I’m connected with called Dandelion Seed Collective. The people of Goshen and the artists that I’m friends with have really kept bringing me back. Goshen, to me, is my family - all around from artists to the community that exists in Goshen.”

👋 Name: Anna p.s.
🎶 Medium: Music
💻 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annapsmusic/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/annapsmusic
⌨️ Website: https://www.annapsmusic.com/
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC30o7arASB2tVFtmlaedA-A

“We do custom clothing, but we also do textile d

“We do custom clothing, but we also do textile design and we do embroidery. I like to do a lot of genres within that field. Last season, I did some things that were definitely art deco-inspired. That happens a lot, where I have customers who want something from a specific era or just with the feel of a specific era.
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I started out sewing in a factory locally. We used to have a band uniform company in Goshen, and I started out with that. I really liked everything about the fashion industry and designing. I did an apprenticeship with another master tailor, and what that means is you generally spend about three or four years on the art of tailoring and construction. Then you spend another three or four years on design - learning to draft patterns from scratch, whether it’s draping or flat-pattern design. So I did a full apprenticeship, had a good relationship with him, spent quite a few years with him. I was building my business on the side at the same time, and of course working several jobs. I was at Goshen College for about seven and a half years, and I was still tailoring during all of that time.
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I travel; I just last week I was in Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Madison. My clients are in New York City down through Atlanta into New Orleans, and then up. That’s actually new territory for me in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It’s just changed to where I can travel or clients travel to me. I’m settled in Goshen. I love the environment. I have this beautiful historic building that we’ve been working to refurbish. It’s a great environment. It’s a great creative space.
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I love it here. I love what’s going on downtown. I love the direction that we’ve gone, and I want to support that and I want to promote it. Nearly every client that I’ve had that’s come here to me has been very impressed with what an artistic town it is. The environment here has just been really good. I love to get out of town, but I like coming back.”

Name: Kevin Koch
Medium: Master Tailor
Website: https://www.kochhouseofdesign.com/
Facebook: Koch House of Design

“My current medium is acrylic paint on canvas. I

“My current medium is acrylic paint on canvas. In college, I focused on figurative sculpture. I’ve done bronze casting. I spent several years as a custom woodworker. Then I got into teaching, and that got me into watercolor and calligraphy and art history and all that. I co-wrote, edited, and produced a few freelance movies, too. Really, what got me back into painting was several years ago, I was encouraged to paint a rain barrel for the auction. It was the rain barrels that got me back into painting, and that’s when I got into teaching myself how to be abstract, which was a huge personal process for me to go through. The last six years, I’ve been doing the abstract art. I’ve gotten national attention, international awards, I’m selling some major pieces here and there. I’m in the process of revamping my website so it’s more e-commerce friendly.
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As an art teacher and having taught art history for so long, I really shifted away from teaching students how to memorize pieces. Because what interested me was how these artists lived - where they lived and when they lived and how that is reflected in what they made. That just opened up a whole new world of understudying art. As an artist myself, living in this time and age, it gave me huge freedom to not be academic in my artwork but to just express me.
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I grew up in South Bend, and I got the opportunity to learn how to teach in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area at a private school up there. So we moved up there and it was a cultural ‘Wow! This is so cool!’ People were nice, people were friendly. If you had an idea, they were just very inclusive - ‘Let’s give it a shot. Let’s see what happens.’ It was just very comfortable. But coming to Goshen was like the Twin Cities experience. There’s an acceptance. People generally want to work together. There’s just this real openness. I think that’s why there’s a lot of arts organizations and artists here. There’s this little bubble in north-central Indiana that attracts these creative people.”

👋 Name: Thomas Zuber
🎨 Medium: Painter and Art Educator
💻 Website: https://www.zuberart.com/home.php
⌨️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trzuber

“I’m a designer, which applies to a lot of thi

“I’m a designer, which applies to a lot of things. Our studio, LightBox, specializes in visual identity and branding. Logos, primarily, but branding encompasses all kinds of services including graphic design and web design.
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What I love about design is that it’s so collaborative. Each project is pretty unique. The scope also changes quite a bit. Who the client is changes what the experience is like. There have been some that are more passion projects, others that feel more just like hard work. But it’s always a unique experience, which makes it really exciting and fun.
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I have been in and out of Goshen since the early ’90s. The last time I left, I was swearing it off - I didn’t think I would come back. But when we did, it was to be near family. My wife and I were having kids, and we came with this idea of being here three to five years, kind of get through the early kid stage with some help and then move to a bigger city. That’s what we wanted to do, but I think Goshen has been such a great place - I’ve done a complete 180. It’s been very supportive of the arts, very supportive of small business and entrepreneurship. I’ve had opportunities open up for me that I did not imagine at all, including even just being a business owner.
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I love the artist community here. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate on the Mayor’s Arts Council. We have these great events like Arts on the Millrace. You see it everywhere, especially downtown and also some of the artwork you see around town, like some of John Mishler’s sculpture works. I feel like it’s a really vibrant community. New artists continue to be attracted to our community.”

👋 Name: Rafael Barahona
🎨 Medium: Graphic Designer
💻 Website: https://www.thelightboxcollective.com/
⌨️ Facebook: LightBox - Goshen
📱 Twitter: https://twitter.com/lightboxgoshen

“My medium of choice is oil painting on canvas.

“My medium of choice is oil painting on canvas. I’m classically trained in realism. I think I’ve steered away from that now that I’m out of school and I’ve kind of gotten my own voice and broken the rules. I’m a little bit more of a figure abstract artist; I love the figure. The figure is my subject, but I feel like I’m kind of pushing the boundaries and abstracting that more than I was classically trained to do.
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I started Young At Art five years ago when I first moved to Goshen. I had my daughter, who was 2, and at the time I was doing art with her. I knew Goshen was an art community - that’s why we moved here. I thought there might be somebody else out there who wanted to do art with their little kids. I started Young at Art, and it took off. The community has been more than supportive. It’s more than I could have ever imagined, to be that supportive.
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We were living in Elkhart. We knew we wanted to move, and I knew I wanted to move to Goshen. This was before I was even part of the community or even knew anyone specifically. I just knew Goshen as an art city - a city that appreciated that and it was everywhere and there was an abundance, and there were artists who lived here and they were in communication and helping. Just a vibrant community. So when we were moving, I was like, ‘Well, we’re moving to Goshen!’ It was mostly the school systems and also the art that was provided here and the studios and the people. It’s kind of bizarre - I’ve never loved a city like I love Goshen. And it’s the people, it’s the businesses, it’s the uniqueness. It’s amazing.”

👋 Name: Amanda Wagner
🎨 Medium: Oil Painting and Youth Art Instruction
💻 Facebook: Young at Art

“Broadly speaking, my artistic medium is just he

“Broadly speaking, my artistic medium is just helping make amazing musical experiences for people. Whatever form that plays out, whether it’s through my own creative music or through helping other people make their music, whether it’s in my recording studio or in a live music experience. That’s how I see it all coming together.
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Primarily, Shiny Shiny Black is a band composed of my wife and me. My wife and I write together and get some help occasionally from people like my friend Jonathan Reuel to help the songs come to life. Then I kind of put all the finishing touches on. Our primary focus right now is really trying to grow and expand Shiny Shiny Black and make that kind of the main thing that we do. It’s a weird time to do that, but here we are!
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The fact that I’m in my mid-40s and still doing this and I’ve never quit - that’s probably the thing I am the most proud of. I feel a deep soul satisfaction that I’ve not let anybody kind of push me off of that. I decided when I was a kid this is what I wanted to do with my life, and I’ve stuck to it. That has not been easy, but I think because it hasn’t been easy, I have even more pride in, ‘That’s what I do.’
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Goshen is an absolutely integral part of my becoming and maturing and growing as an artist. Starting with The Electric Brew, doing ‘pay what you want’ concerts in the mid-’90s, when I was still too young to get into bars and that whole scene and really didn’t have money to be going to big arena shows. That created an opportunity for me to see music live and see people who were doing it at kind of a humble but sustainable level.”

👋 Name: Nate Butler
🎶 Medium: Music
💻 Website: http://www.shinyshinyblack.com/
⌨️ Facebook: Shiny Shiny Black
📹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ShinyShinyBlack
🌐 Website: https://www.nimblewit.com/