The Opelika Art Haus is home to a vibrant community of studio artists. Each artist contributes his or her unique perspective and talent to our shared vision of creativity and connection.
Brown Elementary Studio
Carver Primary Studio
Jeter Primary Studio
Martin Elementary Studio
Pepperell Elementary Studio
OJHS Studio
Visit our studios to meet the artists, see their work, and gain insight into their creative processes.
Carver Primary Studio
Carole Bandy Carson is a certified interior decorator and a self-taught artist, from Opelika, Alabama.
Carson’s work pays homage to the past incorporating themes of family, history and faith.. Using vintage photos as her inspiration, her work embodies nostalgia and the human experience as it relates to African Americans. She enjoys documenting everyday southern life and has a strong admiration for black sharecroppers, the simple life, and the civil rights movement and the black church. Her paintings, which are largely figurative pieces of black women. The use of bold, bright colors outlined in black are reminiscent of the stained glass windows in the churches of her youth. These places of worship, her church and her friends’ churches, were the foundation for her relationship with people, her faith and her relationship with Christ. Her figures have a strong presence often with lots of attitude and personality just like the women that she grew up watching. Carole’s work can be described as colorful, full of life and representational without being overly realistic. Her figures are warm, thought provoking and often romanticized.
Carole is one of the Studio Artists at the Opelika Art Haus. You can find her these days, painting in her studio or teaching art classes in the gallery portion of the Art Haus.
Facebook: Carole Bandy Carson Art
Instagram: artistcarolebandycarson
LinkedIn: Carole Carson Artist
Carver Primary Studio
Martin Elementary Studio
Iain Stewart is a Scots born watercolor artist and a signature member of the American and National Watercolor Societies among other state and international entities. He has also recently been inducted into the Whiskey Painters of America.
His work has received numerous awards in international competition and hangs in many corporate and private collections.
Iain is a sought after watercolor instructor and juror and has been published in numerous books and periodicals. He has a 3 DVD set of instructional videos and is planning to shoot another set available in 2023. In 2021 his first book on painting; En Plein Air- Light and Color, was published.
Iain maintains a studio in Opelika, Alabama, and in addition to gallery work, is an Architectural Illustrator with an international clientele, and taught watercolor and design drawing at Auburn University where he received his degree in Architecture.
Website: stewartwatercolors.com
Facebook: Iain Stewart Watercolors
Instagram: @iainstew7
YouTube: @iainstew71
Martin Elementary Studio
Jeter Primary Studio
Sarah Scott was born and raised in Aotearoa, New Zealand, but moved to the United States in 2002. She is a self-taught watercolourist who participates yearly in the arts festival tent circuit, exhibiting in different states all over the USA. She has had gallery shows in a variety of locations (including Italy, America and New Zealand) and has exhibited with the Alabama Watercolor Society.
Sarah’s most recent paintings feature nature and figures entwined with personal writings from her notebooks, creating an updated and surrealistic art nouveau style. Most of her works involve mankind in nature, rising up, overcoming and walking forward.
Website: onestarfish.online
Facebook: Sarah Scott - Artist
Instagram: @onestarfish.online
Jeter Primary Studio
OJHS Studio
Leslie Reid Brasher is originally from Huntsville, Alabama. Her mother and her paternal grandfather were both well-known watercolorists, and this influenced her love of art. Leslie went to Auburn University for college, where she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. She met her husband, Jon, in the Auburn University Marching Band. They married and stayed in the Auburn/Opelika area, where they continue to be active in the community.
Leslie finds great enjoyment in painting with watercolors. She often paints pet, house, and flower bouquet portraits. She loves to paint just about anything, but especially the beauty she sees around her. She enjoys painting nature from life – painting fresh flowers as inspiration or sitting in a shady spot and painting the view before her.
Her greatest desire is to glorify God with her artwork, and she prays that by painting the beauty of His creation she is pointing viewers toward the Creator.
Website: lrbrasherstudio.com/
Facebook: Leslie Brasher’s Art /
Instagram: @artistlesliebrasher
OJHS Studio
Brown Elementary Studio
The Studio Sisters are a group of local artists who are amongst the first supporters of the Art Haus, forming a painting club who met regularly in the gallery space. They now share the Pepperell Elementary Studio.
Kathy Miller-Lowe
Kathy Miller-Lowe is an award winning artist whose oil on canvas works are guided by the dual principals of rich contrasts and broad brush strokes. Her love for the countryside and her travels have influenced her subject matter. Being primarily self taught, she has studied with many prominent national and international mentors. Her works have been featured in local and nation magazines. Her unique pieces ha e broad appeal to her patrons across the country and abroad.
Kathy is a lifelong resident of Auburn and the Lake Martin area and regularly gives back to the community she loves.
June Metts Hurston
At the young age of 59, June attended a beginner’s class in oil painting and hasn’t put her paintbrush down yet! June loves to travel and paints in oils from sceneries found on her journeys. Her high school sweetheart/husband of 55+ years, John, is her favorite photographer and she often uses her amazing talent to turn his photos into beautiful paintings. June loves gardening and flowers which are often the subject of her works of art. June also paints pet portraits and action shot of her children.
June has studied under several renowned artists such as Portrait artist Ronald Bayens,, Dr Gary Bodner, Nancy Franke, Jo Anne Williams Walker and Perry Auten among others.
Painting with her best friends (The Studio Sisters) has been a true joy. The Studio Sisters travel together, visit galleries, bounce ideas off each other, and simply ejoy one another’s company while they paint. They now have a studio at the Art Haus in Opelika where they paint together and inspire one another on a regular basis.
June is originally from Columbus, GA and has lived in several states but her home has been in Opelika Alabama for more than years.
Kristen Cusano Murphy
She is primarily self-taught but initially studied under Ron Bayens. Her focus is oil painting with a special interest in landscapes and sheep.
Brown Elementary Studio
Pepperell Elementary Studio
Sheri Schumacher is a textile-based visual artist and designer. Her studio practice explores narratives about cultural landscapes and records a sense of place through observation and material investigation. Discovery through the act of making is integral to her work, finding beauty in imperfection from repurposed garments and linens with a history of use. She works with a range of processes, including hand stitching, mending and fabric manipulation, creating textile assemblages from an intimate scale to larger site specific works.
Pepperell Elementary Studio
The Opelika Art Haus is a non profit organization located in Opelika, Alabama that operates by partnering with local and regional artists to build art as a foundation for community.
Our vision is to create working studio space, gallery exhibits and educational opportunities for those who love and appreciate the arts.
