Meet Firstlight’s Teachers
(Soon to be updated to include Molly Smith, Tetra Wilkins, and Susanna Bernard)
Dennas Davis
Director
Illustrator, painter, teacher, and founder of Firstlight, Dennas has been a professional artist for over 40 years. He is the original illustrator of The Beginner’s Bible, and has worked for Disney, Forbes, Nabisco, and Betty Crocker. Dennas has over 5 million books in print worldwide in over 30 languages.
He has written 2 books for artists and parents: “9 Art Myths Totally Busted..” and the forthcoming, “I Am An Artist”.
Caroline Owen
Instructor
As a child, Caroline was a student at Firstlight for many years, only leaving after graduating from high school. She came back to us after earning her degree in animation. Currently Caroline teaches all of our cartooning classes as well as some KidsART and Foundations.
Jennie Schut
Instructor
Jennie Schut is an award-winning artist and teacher in oils and encaustics, a wax-based medium, in her home studio. She is founder of Fly Forward, an organization that aids creative and spiritual formation, awakening, and flourishing through a coaching/spiritual direction practice, small groups, retreats, workshops, individual art instruction and creative direction. Since 2006, Jennie has conducted groups and retreats based on material from her book, Waking Up Grey: An Exploration of Creative Awakening. She holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Middle Tennessee State University, a Spiritual Direction Certificate from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation, and is an Enneagram Certified Professional.
Susanna Bernard
Instructor
Visual artist, writer, and musician, Susanna is currently working toward an Associates of Fine Arts degree from Nashville State Community college and plans to complete education with a bachelor’s degree at a four-year university. Susanna has more than ten years of experience working with and teaching children in various settings. She has been with Firstlight since summer 2024 and teaches KidsART as well as Foundations.

Tetra Cierpke
Instructor
Tetra has been an oil painter for over 25 years starting by taking Art classes at the age of 7 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Belmont University. She is an artist captivated by beauty, on a mission to call attention to overlooked and underappreciated beauty moments. Whether through capturing the intricacies of a human face or the subtle shadows in a cloudscape she pursues these moments of beauty in a modern Realism style using mediums of Oil, acrylic, and digital Oil painting. She has been teaching drawing, acrylic and Oil painting classes since 2021 in a variety of places including private lessons and in Assisted Living Homes and has a deep love for fostering a love for Art in others.
Tesch Jerles
Instructor
New to Firstlight in 2024, With a degree in education, Tesch has been a public school art teacher and is also an accomplished painter.