Featured Artists Exhibition
Six regional artists. One compelling exhibition.
This year’s Featured Artists Exhibition runs from November 1 - December 12 and features the work of 6 exceptional regional artists: Mike Hamm, Jo Hartwell, Jim Peters, Jenny Schu, Susan Smith, and Will Legg.
Gallery hours are Monday - Friday, 12:00 - 5:00 pm, or by appointment.
You’re Invited
Sunday, November 8, 2026 | 2 - 4:00 PM
Join us for the opening reception featuring the artists of A Not So Silent Night. Come see their work, meet the artists, and enjoy light snacks and refreshments as we celebrate their creativity and contributions to this year’s event.
Mike Hamm
Mike Hamm has had a love affair with ceramics for more than four decades, beginning with his pottery course in 1983 at Supermud Pottery and later Greenwich House Pottery, both in New York City. Over the years, he has gravitated toward ceramics in museums and galleries wherever he traveled. Mike spent 38 years on the faculty at Rutgers University and Michigan State University, where his career was outside the arts. In 2017, as he looked toward retirement, Mike started taking classes at the Greater Lansing Potters Guild, where he is now a member. His goals are to make mainly functional pieces that are both technically and aesthetically interesting. He has become fascinated with ash glazes and their movement across a pot’s surface. His journey continues.
Jenny Schu
Jenny Schu is a modern fiber artist who specializes in weaving and beadwork. The obsession to create with needle and thread began long before she could identify it, which led to her actively pursuing a BFA in Fiber Art at the University of Michigan. Since graduating from U of M in 2004 Jenny has led many different lives, her art practice being her only clear constant throughout the years. She reacts to the world around her, develops a concept, distills her feelings down to one word, a color pallet, and then creates. Jenny’s work has exhibited nationally, won awards and has galleries that carry her beaded jewelry. For the past 15 years Jenny has presented lectures and taught workshops frequently through various weavers guilds.
Will Legg
Will Legg is a photographer and electrical engineer based in East Lansing, Michigan. Currently finishing a degree in Electrical Engineering at Michigan State University, he also works as an Art Handler at the Broad Art Museum. Legg has been photographing Michigan for over ten years, with his work focusing on buildings, roadways, infrastructure, and landscapes. His photographs explore how these places reflect the people who inhabit them and the systems that shape them.
Susan Smith
Susan Smith is a mixed media artist whose practice is rooted in color, nature, and experimentation. Her interest in art began after a challenge from her husband to decoratively paint one of his handmade tables, an experience that sparked a lasting love of the creative process. Over the past twenty-five years, she has studied and worked in oil, acrylic, alcohol ink, watercolor, mixed media, and mosaic glass. Her work often begins with photographs, still lifes, or imagination, which she combines and transforms into original compositions. Much of her creative process develops directly on the paper, canvas, glass, or other surface, allowing the initial subject to evolve as she works. Environmental concerns also influence her practice, leading her to incorporate discarded materials such as old windows and leftover paint into colorful works of art and functional garden pieces.
James Peters
James Peters is a kinetic artist who specializes in creating mobiles from found, repurposed, and natural materials. His creative journey began in 1982 when he changed his major from Chemistry to Theater, setting him on a lifelong path in the arts. James spent decades working as a designer and IATSE stage technician in theater, film, and live events, beginning his career at Lansing’s BoarsHead Theater as a carpenter and technical director before becoming the staff lighting and sound designer. It was there that he discovered the mobile art of Alexander Calder and began exploring the connection between physics, movement, and art.
For more than 20 years, James created mobiles for friends and family before eventually exhibiting his work in a Seattle gallery. After returning to Michigan State University to work at the Wharton Center, he began taking his mobile-making more seriously. Today, James creates with materials gathered from nature, his travels, and found objects. Through the fluidity and movement of each piece, he finds a sense of balance and hopes to offer viewers a peaceful and thought-provoking experience.
Jo Hartwell
Jo Hartwell is a collage and mixed-media artist who was raised in London, England, and has called Lansing home since 1992. After emigrating to the United States in 1985, Jo’s career took many paths, including nursing, high school teaching, and ultimately academic advising at Michigan State University. Her love of art began early, inspired by her mother, who was an accomplished artist, and by the extraordinary museums and galleries of her hometown of London.
Although Jo had experimented with collage and pen-and-ink drawing for many years, her art took on a deeper meaning following the death of her wife in 2018. Creating became a form of therapy and a way to process grief. Her distinctive collage style emerged organically as she began moving and rearranging pieces of paper, allowing unexpected images and compositions to take shape. What began as a personal creative outlet has evolved into a meaningful artistic practice, where chance, intuition, and discovery play an essential role in the work.