ART + ARCH
Every event we host is designed with intention, from the atmosphere we create to the way each session flows.
Welcome to Art + Arch 2026
An event for architecture and sustainably-created art.
Art and Artists
Beth Higgins
Beth Higgins is a mixed-media artist that is inspired by the intricate beauty of nature’s cycles and the interplay between organic forms and consumer remnants. Through her creations, she is celebrating both the resilience of nature and the potential for renewal in discarded materials. Her works are a fusion of diverse elements, upcycled wires, embossed aluminum cans, plastic bread tabs and other collected items - repurposed to create textured, layered canvases. I’m driven to discover new ways of finding beauty in the waste we create every day, while inspiring viewers to be mindful of their consumption. Beth has a BA with a dual major in Studio Art and Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. She started her career as a graphic designer and then became a home stager – always something creative. She has been a fulltime artist since 2020 and lives and works in Woodbine, Maryland.
CuratorReturn to Sender, Return to Spring, $550
18” H x 24” W
Acrylic mixed media with upcycled wires, return envelopes, aluminum can flowers with silicon desiccant bead centers, neo color pastels
The Treetop’s Second Story, $550
18” H x 24” W
Acrylic mixed media with upcycled wires, hand painted decoupage paper, aluminum foil candy wrappers, mesh produce bags
Renewal Among the Birches, $450
20” H x 16” W
Acrylic mixed media with upcycled wires, plastic bread tabs, mesh produce bags, hand painted decoupage paper
Garden Goddess, $450
20” H x 16” W
Acrylic mixed media with upcycled wires, embossed aluminum can and tab tops, burlap, hand painted decoupage paper
Beth Schwartz
Beth Schwartz is a Baltimore based mixed media artist and retired pathologist. Her art incorporates found objects, altered images, clay, beads, collage and paint. Mixed media provides an enormous sandbox to play in as each piece evolves. Decisions about materials and process are made in service to intriguing concepts or images, often inspired by travel, art history or literature. In addition to creating assemblages and mixed media paintings, Beth uses collage to embellish upcycled cigar boxes and journals.
Since 2018 her artwork has been in galleries and craft shows in Maryland and northern Virginia. 15% of sales is donated to Baltimore’s Health Care for the Homeless.
Artist
Mexican lottery: Dia de los Muertos or Jerry’s Song, $475
10 7/8” H x 10 7/8” W x 1 3/4” D
Mixed media assemblage on wood, inspired by the bright colors of Mexico
Mexican Lottery: El Cotorro, $475
10 7/8” H x 10 7/8” W x 1 3/4” D
Mixed media assemblage on wood, inspired by the bright colors of Mexico
For the Birds Art Globe, $250
12” H x 9” W x 8” D
Layered images of birds that I photographed in Japan, India and the Netherlands with found imagery, text, acrylic paint and textures.
Albertina, Art Doll, $600
15” H x 7” W x 5 1/2” D
Mixed media with clay, acrylic paint and vintage found objects
Connect the Dots Globe, $250
13” H x 8 1/2” W x 8” D
Mixed media on vintage globe
Duck and Cover Art Doll, $175
11” H x 5” W x 4 3/4” D
This headless, armless vintage doll entered my studio and sprouted a ping pong ball head, and wings of telephone wire.
Sandra Davis
Sandra Davis is a Maryland-based multidisciplinary artist whose work addresses social issues through acrylic paint, found paper, newspapers, magazines, fabric, and textile-based collage art. Her practice responds to contemporary concerns, including inequality, identity, heritage, environmental stewardship, and social justice. Themes such as equal pay, health disparities, housing, education, and the ongoing marginalization of people of color are central to her work, which often extends beyond traditional formats to include functional and wearable surfaces such as tabletops, tote bags, and textile-based pieces.
During her 27-year career at Bank of America, Davis’s artwork was featured in the company’s internal publications to encourage dialogue around racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd, and again in February 2024 in recognition of Black History Month. Davis has curated and co-curated exhibitions with the Women’s Caucus for Art, Greater Washington Chapter, since 2019 and helped develop the Do You Know Her? interview series. Her notable projects include Why I Vote (2020) and Pull Up a Chair, an annual exhibition focused on mental health and wellness. She currently serves on the national board of the Women’s Caucus for Art and is President for the 2024–2026 term.
ArtistCulture in Red, $350
8” H x 10” W
Collage, repurposed fabric and paper scraps on canvas
Two Figures on Black, $350
10” H x 8” W
Collage, repurposed fabric on canvas
Two Figures with Buttons, $350
10” H x 8” W
Collage, repurposed fabric scraps
Poppy a Flower of Remembrance, Hope and Peace, $1,500
42” H x 38 3/4” W
Textiles
Erwin Timmers
Erwin Timmers is Co-founder and Director of the Washington Glass School and one of the DC area’s leading ‘eco-artists’. Recycling, waste and how they relate to society are recurring themes in his work. Erwin’s main medium is one of the least recycled materials; float glass or window glass, and he has had to develop new techniques to exploit the properties of this material. His approach to art is multi-faceted, incorporating metalwork, innovative lighting and glass design. His sculptural artwork has been on display in an increasing number of local, regional and national galleries. He has received multiple public art commissions and is also featured in numerous private collections. He has been featured in numerous books, notably “100 Mid-Atlantic Artists” by Ashley Rooney, “Cast” by Jen Townsend and Renée Zettle-Sterling. Montgomery County honored Erwin Timmers as the county’s “Outstanding Artist” in 2018.
ArtistBlue Wave, $600
10” H x 12” W x 1” D
Cast recycled glass, steel frame
Untold Frequency, $1,500
20” H 16” W x 4” D
Cast recycled glass
Watered Down, $2,500
49” H x 13” W x 4” D
Cast recycled glass, steel frame, LEDs
Marc Salans
Marc Salans is a self-taught artist based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He grew up in Paris, France, attended college and law school in the United States, and worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice for 30+ years until his retirement in November 2025. In anticipation of retirement, he entered and was accepted into his first juried art show at the Maryland Federation of Art’s Circle Gallery in Annapolis, MD, in October 2025.
Salans’ home studio is a collection of flotsam and jetsam: a smashed car mirror, twisted and rusty metal wire, discarded pieces of lumber, even confetti from a paper shredder. He sees beauty, or the potential for it, in all of these found objects. He aims to use these discarded, broken, worthless, and seemingly useless man-made objects to create compelling works of abstract art. Creating something out of nothing, making order out of chaos, transforming trash into treasure. This is his answer to the destructive forces in the world, like violence, extremism and prejudice. Jonathan Larson, creator of the musical Rent, said it best when he wrote the lyrics: “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation!”
ArtistUntitled I, $900
29” H x 28 1/2” W x 7” D
Found wood
Untitled II, $1,500
34” H x 49” W x 10 1/2” D
Found wood
Untitled III, $1,200
50” H x 34” W x 5” D
Found wood
Joanathan Bessaci
Born in Lyon, Jonathan Bessaci grew up in an artistic environment that nurtured his creative sensitivity from an early age. He discovered graffiti in 1995, shaping his sense of composition and visual language, and went on to study applied arts and photography. After dedicating himself to painting in the early 2000s, he exhibited in France, Canada, and the United States.
A turning point came in 2012, when he began cutting and assembling road maps to create portraits and compositions that transform cartography into a language of memory, movement, and collective history. After moving to the United States in 2016, he expanded his practice into sculpture, using recycled cardboard to build animal figures that embody emotion and narrative. In 2024, he was invited as an artist-in-residence to the Lucca Biennale, where he created a monumental cardboard sculpture. Today, Bessaci explores the intersections of geography, memory, and materiality across paper, photography, and sculpture.
Artist
Doberman, $3,000
26” H x 12” W x 18” D
Recycled cardboard, hot glue
George Washington, $3,000
20” H x 16” W x 1 1/2” D
Precision-cut Washington, D.C. road maps
Gorilla, $3,500
27” H x 12” W x 18” D
Recycled cardboard, hot glue
Linda Popp
Linda Popp is a former art teacher and art coordinator for Baltimore County Public Schools. She is a member of the Hamilton Arts Collective, the Towson Arts Collective, Creative York, Creative Alliance, Maryland Art Place, Goxxip Girls Collective, Maryland Federation of Art, York Art Association, and the National Association Of Women Artists. Linda exhibits her work in several other galleries on the East Coast. She has had assemblage workshops and presentations at Stevenson University, Towson University, Tennessee Art Academy/Beaumont University, the National Art Education Association Conference, Pennsylvania Art Education Association, and elsewhere. She has been featured in Bmore Art Magazine, Uppercase Magazine, Studio Art Magazine, and ART SEEN Magazine. In 2025 she was the artist in residence at St. James Academy in Monkton, teaching narrative found object assemblage sculpture to preK-Grade 8 students.
ArtistWe Can Only Look From Behind Where We Came, $720
38” H x 16 1/2” W x 4” D
Vintage found objects: child’s record, clock, Cinderella figure, carved bird, rocking horse, cowgirl, ladybug toy, piano keys, doll shoe, crab shell, hair roller, etc.
Drag My Feet To Slow The Circle Down, $620
27” H x 17” W x 5” D
Vintage found object: tambourine, shoe form, child’s shoe and sock, eight o’clock coffee bank, noisemaker, bird, carousel figure, compact, Let It Be record, etc.
Sugar And Spice And Everything Nice, $690
16” H x 17” W x 5” D
Vintage found objects: child’s oven, bride and groom, ballerina, ice skater figures, lipstick, compact, buttons, trivet, ashtray with female figure/moveable legs and fan, etc.
Nichole Leavy
Nichole Leavy is a Mixed Media artist with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and graduate studies in Art Therapy at George Washington University. She also has a background as a muralist and faux painting artist. Her classical training and accumulated skills are combined to create meticulously crafted mixed media sculptures.
Her symbolically rich body of work centers around mysticism, family and pop culture. The imagery is drawn from personal experiences as well as those shared in our collective consciousness.
Nichole is always on the hunt for interesting materials to use in her art. Thrift stores, estate sales, and even the roadside have held hidden treasures disguised as junk.
ArtistBaroque’n Wings, $975
15” H x 57” W
Upcycled keys from an antique pump organ, wood
Stacked, $975
29” H x 41” W
Romance novels (plus two other books) in an upcycled frame
Flourish, $1,250
41” H x 29” W
Discraded toys and acrylic paint in an upcycled frame
A Conjuring Song, $900
36” H x 13” W x 6” D
Guitar, colored pencils, acrylic paint, found brass and plastic objects, moss
Altan Erginkoc
Altan Erginkoc has been working on gourds for about four years. His gourd lamps are made from Spanish, African or Mediterranean gourds. Each of them is unique in creation, and not one is the same as another.
Erginkoc is inspired by gourd lamps made by artists from Japan, Turkey, and France. He makes table lamps and ceiling pendant lamps in various designs and with different painting techniques, as well as by carving. The gourd lamp has many dimensions. The thicker the gourd, the better the artwork and durability. He designs patterns for each gourd based on its thickness and shape. He uses different sizes of drills and dremel’s to make holes and shapes on the gourd. Once the design is complete, the rest is about painting, beading, or varnishing. The output will change depending on the light source you use. The beads don't show up clearly until the light is switched on.
ArtistThe Pit #1, $190
10” H x 6 1/2” W
The Pit #2, $225
14” H x 6” W
The Pit #3, $275
14” H x 5 1/2” W
Sandi Wilson
Sandi Wilson is a professionally trained commercial photographer who discovered she could beautifully meld the art side of her photography by working with Encaustic (beeswax and dammar resin), allowing her to transfer images and embed organic materials within, creating textural pieces. She enjoys creating large-scale acrylic paintings and regularly incorporates metallic and gold foil gilding to add luminosity and subtle structure. The use of cold wax and oil has given her the freedom to achieve greater color depth and movement in some of her compositions.
Having attended the University of Victoria arts program and graduating from Western Pacific Academy of Photography with honors, she has sold her work nationally and internationally and has been a part of numerous gallery shows in Maine, France, Vancouver, B.C., and Baltimore, MD over the past 23 years. Sandi has been commissioned to do many “Bio Paintings” both by individuals and corporations, with the desire to personalize their history through fine art. Some, such as several for CEO Kevin Plank of Under Armour and Sagamore Farms, Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital creating an expansive triptych for their Alpha Commons lobby, St. John’s College High School in D.C for a series of six large panels for their new library, as well as creating a diptych for the new Baltimore Southeast Community Development Corporation building.
ArtistFirst Snow, $475
12” H x 24” W
Encaustic, birch bark, gold leaf, mixed media on wood panel
Jefferson Memorial, $475
12” H x 24” W
Encaustic, birch bark, gold leaf, mixed media on wood panel
Lincoln Memorial, $475
12” H x 24” W
Encaustic, birch bark, gold leaf, mixed media on wood panel
Annapolis State Senate, $475
12” H x 24” W
Encaustic, birch bark, gold leaf, mixed media on wood panel
10 Artists
37 Pieces of Art & Sculpture
Artwork will be available for purchase on February 26th at the BELL Architects, PC office in Washington, DC, with proceeds benefitting the artists and The Hill Center.
Purchases may be made during the event with Hill Center staff on-site. For next-day sales (February 27th), please contact Diana at diana@hillcenterdc.org or call 202-549-4172 (main) or 202-499-6446 (direct) for your purchase.
