Season 6 | Episode 10 : Interview with Artist Merrilee Challiss

Holli Conger is a professional illustrator, found object artist and licensing artist in Winston-Salem, NC. Holli shares her journey through many different creative industries, working with agents, finding the work you would like to make and more!

I'm Kitty Smothers and I have been painting portraits and fine art professionally for over 26 years. I live in South Alabama with my husband, two daughters and two dachshunds. I earned a B.A. in Studio Art from Troy University, and later a Masters of Science in Counseling and Psychology. I apprenticed under world-renowned artist Nall Hollis, constructing frames for his intricate paintings and learning drawing and painting techniques. I founded the Pike County Art Guild where local artists collaborate, learn and support one another. I believe the art community should be a place where all artists feel encouraged and cheered on. My artwork started as personal portrait paintings until people began asking me to paint portraits, places and pets for them. I also love painting scenes from around the countryside and gardens. I have a crazy passion for painting and my favorite thing of all is handing over a piece of artwork to a happy client.

Casey Roberts is textile artist and poet living in Perry County. Trained by artist June Carlton in painting and their great-grandmother in sewing, they started in visual art before turning to garment-making. Their art is informed by growing up queer and remaining in the rural Black Belt of Alabama. Incorporating antique textiles, painted elements, and doll-making into wearable art and more is of particular interest. We are the sum of time: the resilience, the degradation, the patina all testify to a present informed by the past. Textiles are not only a shield from time, but a window into its passage.

Challiss’ circuitous art journey includes working a stint as a window decorator in Berlin in 1992, working with a team to paint endangered species murals for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tennessee and Alabama, and teaching art (mostly drawing) to all age groups. Challiss received a “Window of Opportunity Award” from the Leeway Foundation in 2000, an Alabama State Council of the Arts grant in 2005, was included in the Juror’s Pick / New American Paintings, Southeast Edition 2015. Challiss has exhibited her work in Portland, Oregon and Phnom Penh, Cambodia among other places in the Southeast.. Challiss collaborated with scientist, Dr Rick Strassman, on illustrations for his latest novel, released December 2024, Altered States: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Trauma, Psychedelics, and Spiritual Growth, published by Simon & Scheuster.

Hi, my name is Shawn Fitzwater, the artist behind Fitz Signs & Murals. ​ Growing up I always enjoyed drawing and sketching. I would draw anything from cartoon characters to design layouts for my dream home. These self-taught skills from a very early age have molded me into the artist that I am today. Never could I have imagined that I would be making a living through art! ​ In early 2018, I decided that I wanted to try and paint a mural on my children's bedroom wall. This was the first time attempting something at this scale and I also had very little experience using a paintbrush! Painting was a whole new world to me as I had always been a pad and pencil kind of guy. I also thought that this would be fun to do as a business, painting kids walls and nurseries because I enjoyed painting colorful characters.

yumedyne is an artist based in Huntsville, AL, whose work is a bold exploration of symbolism, mythology, and raw emotion. They blend street art aesthetics with surreal, dreamlike narratives, using vivid colors, layered textures, and expressive figures to create immersive compositions that challenge the viewer's perception of reality. Their works evoke a sense of mystery, rebellion, and introspection, incorporating cryptic text, iconic imagery, and abstract elements that feel both personal and universal. Whether painted, drawn, or sewn, their style exudes a punk-like DIY energy that is at once chaotic and deeply intentional.

Christina Wegman is a mostly self-taught Huntsville artist and small business owner. Born in 1985 in Northridge, California, she grew up in Madison County and has lived and traveled across the US, Canada, and Europe (including several years of splitting time between Alabama and Germany). Her work has been displayed by the Huntsville Art League, Arts Huntsville, and many other galleries and businesses in and around town such as the Huntsville Botanical Garden, Church Street Wine Shoppe, Harrison Brothers, and Alabama Goods. Her work has also been displayed in Decatur, AL at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center and The Cupboard. She has painted two murals in Downtown Huntsville, including the very popular Alley Cats on the Clinton Row Color Walk. In 2018, she had the honor of being selected to be the Panoply poster artist, and later in the year collaborated with the Huntsville Historic Foundation on the Color Me Huntsville coloring book released in summer 2019 and did a second coloring book with the Historic Foundation in 2021. Her contemplations on her many interests often combine to form new styles and themes, but after running a gallery in Downtown Huntsville over the course of 4.5 years, a large amount of her work focuses on Huntsville scenes and historic landmarks, as well as the beauty and poetry of North Alabama in general. Christina is an avid reader, language learner, pianist, nature-lover, and supporter of local businesses and artists. Her interests extend to architecture and creative place-making; her goal is to pursue projects that allow her to transform her ideas into reality, and expand her understanding of her interests and her world.

Sam Roberts is a Birmingham born interdisciplinary artist, informal educator, and curator. They graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with their Bachelor of Fines Arts. Sam currently works as the Youth Program Coordinator at Studio by the Tracks, the assistant gallerist at Canary Gallery, and as a teaching artist with UABs Artplay and various independent partnerships. Their creative process blends organized chaos with research, helping them explore themes of healing trauma, identity, neurodiversity, processing, and connection. Through a balance of conceptual planning and intuitive practices, Sam delves into layered approaches to art, using their work to process emotions, thoughts, and understand the world around them. They've been heavily experimenting with upcycling fabrics into new things and various mixed media processes.

Rosie Fitzgerrel is a landscape and figure painter and graphic designer whose paintings study the influence and interruption of natural world by humanity and presents the meeting of these two elements as a neutral observer. Her vibrant works are primarily created with vinyl emulsion paint, as well as gouache and oil pastels. The abstraction of components within her work is informed by her experience as a graphic designer.