The Associated Artists of Butler County is beginning the new year with a new look.

The Art Center has taken on a big city feel with the opening of walls and the newly exposed hardwood flooring. "We have some big plans for the new space," said AABC President Larry Sassone, who talked of an acoustical coffeehouse of sorts in the near future.

"We have been working really hard, you would not have recognized this place on Wednesday," said Penny Ashley, who also noted that the Art Center was to be painted this week.

Several area artists are featured this month at the Associated Artists of Butler County Art Exhibit, which opened Friday. The show features digital photographs, ceramic sculpture, watercolors and a host of mixed media offerings.

Katherine Mickle, assistant professor of photography at Slippery Rock University, displays her digital photographs in the Rittelmann Gallery.Her "Passage" is a digital print on vinyl, measuring roughly 2 feet, 6 inches by 4 feet, 6 inches."My favorite medium is photography. People often believe photographs to be real, to truthfully reproduce reality. However, it is as much a construct as any other art medium," Mickle said. "Nothing is objective; it's always filtered through someone's frame of reference. How people perceive and derive understanding is of particular interest to me," she said."The piece titled 'Consumed' shows images of canning jars with various overlapping images."I wrote the poem located with the eye inside the 'Jam' many years ago, and haven't published it until now," Mickle said.Mickle's work is for sale for $200 to $300.In the Members Gallery are the Watercolor works of Lotte Herwig-Erhardt."I was born in 1938 in Germany and graduated there in history and German literature. I immigrated to the United States in 1966. I enrolled in some art courses in the early '70s at Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA," she said."I most enjoy painting on location or from the model, striving to transform the impressions my eyes perceive into color, rhythm, and shape," said Herwig-Erhardt.

The watercolor floral "Amaryllis" is one of the artist's favorites. "It combines traditional representation with its modern breakup. I like to convey an expressive mood rendering it in strong harmonious colors," she said.Her first experience with watercolor painting was in 1989 in a course taught by Tom McNickle at the Hoyt Institute in New Castle. Of her 15 works, all but one are available for sale between $150 and $250.Exhibiting in the Underground Gallery is a collaborative collection of Anastasia Surrena and Danielle Martinez."Our show is very diverse and focuses on America," said Surrena. "My favorite painting for this show is titled "Native." It is a 3-foot by 3-foot acrylic painting."I grew up in Montana on an Indian Reservation until the age of 6 and I am very passionate about Native American Culture and History. This painting reflects that passion," she said.Also on display in the main gallery is a corner exhibit featuring information of The Age of Aquarius weekend, Feb. 11 and 12. A Woodstock Ticket and concert posters along with some of the items for purchase that will commemorate their fund-raising weekend are exhibited.