Thomas won the first place prize "The Best Paintings of 2000" competition, sponsored by The Artist's Magazine, the winning painting was selected from among 13,800 entries. Her career has been featured in American Artist magazine (Nov. 1996), The Artist's Magazine (April 1997), International Artist magazine (January 1999), in the books; The Best of Portrait Painting by North Light Books and in Portrait Highlights published by Watson-Gupthill.
Thomas has completed portrait commissions for leaders of business, government, academia and finance. In 2001, she was commissioned to paint the official portrait of the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Richard Danzig, for the Pentagon. In 2004, she traveled to New York City to paint New York Jets owner, Robert Wood Johnson, philanthropist and heir to Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals. Joy Thomas recently completed the official portrait of the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; it was unveiled in 2006 in Washington D.C.
A fine arts major in college at Murray State University, she continued her training at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Connecticut, The Loveland Academy of Fine Arts in Colorado and the Fechin Institute of New Mexico. Thomas received merit scholarships from the Pastel Society of America and the Scottsdale Gallery Association to study at the Woodstock School of Art in New York and the Scottsdale Artist's School in Arizona.
Ms. Thomas lives in Murray with her husband, Fredrick Thomas. Fred Thomas designs and creates hand carved museum quality frames, specializing in gold and silver leafing.
As a child growing up in Georgia, Wayne Bates knew nothing of the rich tradition of art and craft. His family moved to Athens when he was an adolescent, and he did his first carving there for a middle school art project. Today he looks back upon that experience as extremely important in shaping his later work, especially when embellishing his pottery with sgraffito at the leather hard stage.
Just before high school, Wayne's family moved to Jackson, Tennessee, where there was no art program available. In the following years he worked on local farms and gained additional skills that would prove helpful in his future art studies, such as welding, woodworking, and mechanics. In college, Wayne majored in painting but was also exposed to ceramics, and this led him on to graduate school where he immersed himself in the study of the creative traditions of various cultures and time periods.
Throughout the 1970's, Bates taught at the Philadelphia College of Art. During these years, he also served as ceramic consultant to the historic Moravian Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. There, he supervised the reactivation of the tile production, including the tile making processes and the glaze and slip recipes.
Wayne has spent his many years in the arts studying the history of ceramics and how the function, styles, techniques and traditions have changed, ebbed and flowed, throughout time. He looks upon his work as being part of a continuum, constantly evolving, multi-dimensional. Each pot is kin to the one before and the one after; thus the necessity to make many pieces. He is a purist who strives for clarity and sees the limitless possibilities of embellishing simple, elegant forms.
Scott Thile is a self-taught craftsman, whose 30-year background in the intricacies of piano rebuilding testifies to his long-time interest in woodworking and detailed craftsmanship. He had collected pipes from the time he was 16 and always dreamed of making his own pipes. In 2006 he began to fulfill that dream. Since then he has spent just about every spare minute designing and hand-crafting pipes, which he exhibits at pipe shows around the country, schedule permitting. 
Brent Scowden grew up in Western Kentucky. After three years at the University of Kentucky with no declared major he decided to take some art classes. There was no looking back. That next semester Brent enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh where he pursued computer animation. After receiving his associates degree he felt the life of an animator was not for him. He then enrolled at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota Florida where in 2001 he received his Bachelor’s degree. While studying illustration at Ringling College of A&D he fell in love with the human figure and oil paint. Seeking more knowledge he was led to New York City where in 2007 he received his Master’s degree from the New York Academy of Art. Here he received training and ideas from some great contemporary masters. Brent currently continues his traditional training with Costa Vavagiakis at the Art Students League and privately with his long time mentor Christopher Pugliese.
Jennifer Fairbanks was raised in Western Kentucky. In 1994 she received her Bachelor’s degree from Murray State University with an emphasis on painting and ceramics. During this time she also began to pursue training in classical painting techniques with portrait artist Joy Thomas. This interest led her to New York, where she was able to relocate in 1998 through a grant from the Kentucky Arts Council. Jennifer studied figurative and portrait painting with Ron Sherr and Mary Beth McKenzie at the Art Students Leaugue and the National Academy of Design. In 2003 she received her Master’s degree from New York University in Art Therapy. She has exhibited in numerous group and solo shows in New York, Kentucky and Spain. 