We’re lucky here at Grove to be working amongst such talented people. From architecture and fine art to carpentry and web programming, our team has a lot to offer! We wanted to share the art and designs of five of our many passionate creators:

Ellie Yi
Ellie Yi is a hardworking production manager at Grove and also a talented illustrator. Ellie graduated with a BFA in Graphic Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She uses a range of mediums, including charcoal, acrylic, and computer illustration. According to Ellie, almost anything in her day-to-day life can serve as inspiration for an image or character, but the motivation to be a better artist is what moves her to draw. From creating playful characters to invoking emotions in the viewer, Ellie enjoys telling stories with her drawings. She is putting that energy toward a career in children’s book illustration and video game character design. Ellie is available for commissioned works.

More of Ellie’s work can be viewed on her blog.

Arty Johnstone
Arty is a production assistant at Grove - sanding cases with care in our woodshop. He’s also a drawing maniac who’s always got his sketchbook out. His main mediums are acrylic, pen and ink, and prismacolor pencils, but he’s been known to do the occasional wire sculpture. He’s interested in working quickly and capturing loose representations of the people, places, and objects that occupy his life. Inspirations for Arty include impressionist paintings, pop stars, and even trash bins and some of the more underappreciated parts of human anatomy. Arty loves the draw his friends and spend entire weekends holed up in his studio, beating his head against the wall about the myriad quandaries of painting. Arty was part of a two man show at the Cock gallery in Portland entitled “Attraction and Repulsion”.

See more work from Arty on his blog.

Mike Schultz
Mike works as a production assistant in the Grove woodshop and is an inspiring artist returning from a 15-month stay on the Thai-Burma border. Japanese sumi ink and oil painting are his preferred mediums. He’s made a wide breadth of work including a collaboration with photographer Sarah Wilmer of some haunting album art for the mysterious Connie Converse. Since returning to the US, he has been concentrating on narrative work reflecting his experience of living and working in a conflict zone. While living in Mae Sot, Thailand, Mike taught art to Burmese migrant youth and helped to establish the Puzzlebox Art Studio, a project of the Mae Sot based NGO Youth Connect. The first project of the Puzzlebox was to build a guesthouse from the ground up! Check it out here: Picture Book Guesthouse. Mike is available for commissioned works!

See some of Mike’s work and his process blog here.

Sean Michael Kelly
Sean Kelly is production manager and product designer at Grove, and he’s also passionate about his personal design projects. Sean creates a range of designs - mostly furniture and consumer products. His focus is on user experience. Growing up with a carpenter father and architect grandfather, he’s inspired by people and how they interact with the objects around them. Sean loves to explore the emotions that people experience around products and why people choose to surround themselves with certain items. One of his designs is a device that would provide an entirely new form of communication based on movement and light! Creating something from scratch and sharing new ideas with the world inspires Sean in his work.  Sean will be showing a design at the upcoming ShowPDX , and he recently helped assemble an outdoor bamboo sculpture in Las Vegas with BambooDNA.  His work has also been featured in PlyDesign: 73 Distinctive DIY Projects in Plywood. Sean is available for freelance, collaborative, and commissioned projects.

See more of Sean’s work on his website.

Max Brown
Max works as a designer here at Grove, and in his personal time, creates solid-lined and colorful comic-style tidbits. Max works mainly with pencil and paper, Illustrator, and Photoshop. He’s inspired by other comic and poster artists like Geof Darrow, Hergé, and Tyler Stout; but, most of all, he’s inspired by the animated show Adventure Time. Max loves visually manifesting anything he can dream up - he sees some storytelling coming up in his next project. Done with searching for the perfect fictional worlds, Max has decided he’s going to have to create them himself. Recently, Max has been working on his ongoing series of illustrations inspired by every David Cronenberg film (in chronological order), and has also completed a screen-printed poster for the Holiday Friends July tour. He enjoys poster work and is free for commissioned projects.

See his comic work at Computers are Crazy and explore his world on his website.

These are just a few of the amazing people working on the gifted Grove team! We’re so glad to be able to share their beautiful creations.

Written by Mary Yajko. She is a Grove customer support rep and crazed blogger originally from upstate New York. She enjoys opened minds, uncontrollable fits of laughter, and large amounts of french fries with ketchup.