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    Listen to Vic Barr ruminate about wood, and you’ll gaze at trees as if seeing them for the first time. “We are surrounded by trees, and most of us don’t really understand much about them. But they’re living creatures, too. The only difference between us and the trees is ... they have a lifespan of 400 years,” Barr explains. “I like to help people see what’s inside a tree, what’s under the bark.” 

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    Today Irek Szelag is a thriving local artist and the name in art conservation in St. Louis. He's owned his own business since 1990 and has worked with private owners and museums to make their prized pieces shine; all while somehow finding time to paint hundreds of his own masterpieces.

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    Zack Smithey’s art is work in process. A piece starts as an idea, corralled on the clipboard that is always within his reach. The thought percolates until Smithey is inspired to express it. He studies the results. Adjusts his technique. And repeats. Over and over, with each painting, sculpture and even his shipping-container home representing a single point in Smithey’s personal, non-linear, art education. 

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    Long before Robert Karleskint ran his own business, he was just a young man with a masonry background, a desire to help out in his community and an admittedly limited perspective on cultural differences. He volunteered with the local non-profit Mission: St. Louis for five years teaching people to do home repair on underprivileged families' homes. Karleskint did that until the opportunities in that area dried up, but he found a way to continue doing what he loved with a bit of a twist.

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    Each one of Mark Witzling’s oil and cold wax paintings tells a story. But the story is different for everyone who gazes at it. Where some see nature, others see religion. Or a still life. Or a figure. This is the beauty, and the challenge, of contemporary abstract painting. As Witzling says, “with abstracts, you remove the literal constraints. You’re not grading it against another image.” Instead, his work explores color, shapes and lines that are juxtapositions of intricacy and simplicity. 

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    For Scott McDowell, building birdhouses was always a hobby. It wasn't until his friends and neighbors started taking notice that he ever thought he could make a living out of it. “People would see them and tell me how much they liked them, and then they'd say, 'Boy, you should try selling these.'” And, ultimately, it was these little interactions that planted the seeds that would one day grow into his own small business. That flower bloomed in 1991 when McDowell founded Nature Creations.

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