Al Barker

Painter | Bordentown, New Jersey

Al Barker Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Born in New Jersey and raised in the New York Metropolitan area, Al Barker developed a deep appreciation for the outdoors through hunting and fishing. This passion led him to pursue academic studies in Environmental Science, earning both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in forestry, followed by a National Fellowship for Doctorate work. Barker’s career spanned roles in private industry and education, where he used his artistic talents to illustrate teaching materials. Inspired by renowned artists such as Milton Weiler and Don Stone, N.A., Barker honed his craft without formal art training and eventually became a full-time professional artist.

Today, Barker specializes in smaller-sized paintings, working in both oil and watercolor, as well as producing limited-edition etchings. His remarkable career includes over 50 major awards from prestigious exhibitions, including the Grand National American Artists Professional League (New York), Greenwich Workshop Galleries (Connecticut and California), Settlers West (Arizona), Gallery One (Ohio), and the esteemed Salmagundi Club in New York City, where he has been a member and exhibitor for more than 50 years. His work is featured in national miniature exhibitions across the U.S. and is part of museum collections, private collections, and even the White House fine arts collection.

Visitors can experience Al Barker’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Joe Seme

Painter | Wilmington, North Carolina

Joe Seme Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Joe Seme was born in New Jersey in 1946, but has lived most of his life in North Carolina. He is a 1968 graduate of Florida State University with a degree in English and a concentration in American Literature. He served in the Marine Corps and owned a nightclub near Sugar Mountain in the early 70’s. Entirely self taught, he began to paint full tine in 193. After 20 years in the North Carolina mountains, he now lives on a salt marsh in Wilmington. 

Seme is well known for his major ‘trompe l’oeil’ (fool the eye) realistic still lie paintings which are carefully researched and set up in his studio and may take three or four months to complete Many of these pieces utilize old books, decoys, guns and other sporting memorbillia from hunting and fishing, baseball, golf and equestrian themes, as well as favorite regional antiques, old corkscrews, tin toys, weathervanes, carousel animals and othe folk art. Joe is a consummate packrat and collector of ‘stuff’ which ultimately ends up in paintings. His studio is like a museum

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Visitors can experience Joe Seme’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Christine Rapa

Painter | Hampstead, Maryland

Christine Rapa Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Chris Rapa is an American painter, living in Catonsville, Maryland. Her contemporary Impressionist work ranges from conventional still life and landscape, to interior spaces washed in natural light, to collage and mixed media pieces which explore a theme. Recent paintings combine oil, cold wax, and collage elements, to give voice to Chris’ feminist values through vignettes of shared social experiences. Whether capturing a moment in plein air, the simplicity of fruit and flowers, or stitching together poetry and literary quotations in response to current events, Chris strives to make work that is visually appealing, engages the viewer, and opens a dialogue of meaningful conversation.

Exhibiting in national juried shows, and competing in plein air events, Chris has received numerous awards, including First Place in the 2023 Easton Plein Air Quick Draw, non competition artists division, and the First Place “Gino” award, at Paint It Ellicott City, 2023. Chris is a Signature Member of the American Impressionist Society, and an active member of the Oil Painters of America. In 2024, Chris was honored to became a member of the prestigious Washington Society of Landscape Painters.

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Visitors can experience Christine Rapa’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Clayton Pennell

Painter | Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Clayton Pennell Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Clayton Pennell is a naturalist, conservationist, and contemporary wildlife artist. His high-impact art portrays wildlife in a new light by taking a modern approach to classical sporting art. He developed this distinctive style during his time as a hunting and fly-fishing guide, where he mixed his love of the game he pursued and his love for classical sporting art and etchings in a new form of sporting art that is made with Ink, Acrylic Paint and 24k Gold and Copper. The 24k Gold and Copper paint he creates himself adds stunning affect and symbolizes the value sportsmen see in wildlife. Clayton’s work has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for conservation with his work having been sold to art collectors across the globe. As a true believer in conservation, he has dedicated a portion of all profits of his art sales to go towards conservation efforts. Clayton’s studios resides in the Piedmont and Blueridge of North Carolina.

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Visitors can experience Clayton Pennell’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Mary Pritchard

Painter | Chestertown, Maryland

Mary Pritchard Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Mary Pritchard received her B.A in studio art from Mount Holyoke College and has Master’s degrees in both art and journalism. She was in-house corporate art curator for Ashland Oil, Inc., and has been a consultant to companies such as Nationwide Insurance Company and the Power Authority of the State of New York, advising on the acquisition, installation and conservation of art. She coordinated special events and traveling exhibitions for a variety of artists including internationally known landscape painter Wolf Kahn.

Following a career in education administration at the University of Delaware, she returned to painting fulltime. An award-winning pastel artist, she is known for her landscapes of the Eastern Shore. Galleries representing her work include Bishop’s Stock, Snow Hill, MD; and the Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD.

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Visitors can experience Mary Pritchard’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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David Orrin Smith

Painter | Seattle, Washington

David Orrin Smith Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

David Orrin Smith is honored to attend the Waterfowl festival for his second year exhibiting, his first as a selected artist.  His work includes scenes and wildlife from the natural world, drawn and painted en plein air, outside from life, in all conditions and atmospheres.  His background includes time at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, WA, as well as The Ryder Studio in Santa Fe, and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where he received his master’s in Landscape Architecture.  David works in graphite, watercolor, oil, colored pencil, and a variety of other drawing media to observe and share the experience of being in a specific place at a specific time.  His fascination with birds and animals was a natural extension of his rigorous en plein air watercolor landscape painting practice – spend enough time outside and the animals present themselves as readily enthusiastic subjects.  His work has won awards and invitations all over the United States as well as recently gaining international interest for his portraiture practice with the Royal Portrait Society in London.

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Visitors can experience David Orrin Smith’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Nancy Tankersley

Painter | Easton, Maryland

Nancy Tankersley Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Nancy Tankersley is a versatile and accomplished fine artist whose career spans portraiture, figurative, marine painting, still life, and landscape — a creative journey that has taken her from the intimacy of the portrait studio to the open air of some of the world’s most celebrated painting destinations.

Beginning as a portrait artist, Tankersley developed a rigorous foundation in observation and technique that now informs her approach to all subjects. A former gallery owner and one of the founding members of Plein Air Easton — among the most respected plein air events in the country — she has been deeply woven into the fabric of the American art community for decades.

She is also a frequent judge at top plein air festivals nationwide, bringing a practiced and discerning eye to the evaluation of outdoor painting at its finest.

Since 2007, Tankersley has shared her knowledge and passion through teaching at the local, national, and international levels, mentoring artists across a wide range of experience and backgrounds.

Her work has earned recognition at the highest levels of the fine art world. In 2026, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists — an honor reserved for artists of exceptional mastery and contribution to the genre. She has been invited twice to exhibit at the prestigious Master’s Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in New York City, one of the oldest and most esteemed artist organizations in the United States. In 2019, Tankersley was named the Featured Artist at the renowned Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, and in 2023 was spotlighted by Fine Art Connoisseur magazine in the “Today’s Masters” feature— a fitting tribute to a career defined by curiosity, craftsmanship, and an unrelenting love of painting.

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Visitors can experience Nancy Tankersley’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

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Bruce Woodward

Painter | Sykesville, Maryland

Bruce Woodard Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

Award-winning artist Bruce Woodward has painted the mid-Atlantic, from the Chesapeake Bay and Eastern Shore to the Appalachians of western Maryland, for over four decades. His work pays tribute to the legacies of vanishing landscapes and ways of life, preserving the stories of disappearing farmlands and their structures as well as those of dwindling numbers of watermen, their workboats and lifestyles. His watercolor and acrylic paintings record with authenticity and atmosphere these transient images. His personal relationship with the natural world has led to recent work which embraces man’s intimacy with nature in a different way, through the sport of fly-fishing, celebrating our human connection with the natural world through recreation. He beckons us to walk where he has walked, to see what he has seen.

Bruce has particular skill in bringing his sensitive perceptions of landscape and waterscape to expressive reflection on the spirit of a place, capturing the light and atmosphere of a fleeting moment in time. Color, light, and texture take on luminous impact in his work.

Art educator as well as artist, Bruce holds advanced degrees in art. He is a signature member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society and has exhibited in numerous solo shows and exhibitions at galleries and other venues, including solo shows at the National Institutes of Health and the National Wildlife Federation Headquarters Gallery. He has participated in the prestigious Easton Waterfowl Festival for over thirty five years.

Bruce divides his time among commissioned pieces of work, pursuit of his own works of interest, and the teaching of painting. His Cedar Run Studio, at the edge of Piney Run Lake in central Maryland, affords him much opportunity to interpret the beauty and unique appeal of the area’s diversity and to chronicle through painting those sights that give us pause and bring us to peaceful reflection, that take us to a moment in time.

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Visitors can experience Bruce Woodward’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

Explore more Waterfowl Festival artists here

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Kelly McNeil

Painter | St Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Kelly McNeil Among Distinguished Artists at 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival

I have been an International Wildlife Artist for about the last 25 years.   I received a Diploma in Communication and Design / Editorial Illustration in from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1983 and a Bachelor of Design / Illustration in 2012 FROM OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. 

I have sold and shown my work internationally from, Canada to the USA, Tasmania, Russia and Turkey. I have shown my work in Wildlife Sows such as The Waterfowl Festival, Easton ML, The South Eastern Wildlife Exhibition, Charleston, SC, the Golden Turtle Wildlife Festival, Moscow, Russia and  The Buckhorn Fine Art Festival, Buckhorn, ON.

My galleries are in Niagara Falls, Orangeville, and Ottawa, ON, and Jackson Hole, WY, USA. 

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Visitors can experience Kelly McNeil’s work at the 55th Annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, this November.

Explore more Waterfowl Festival artists here

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