Tues-Sat, 10am-4pm
David Aloi
Writer
Los Angeles, CA
Patrick L. Jaimes
Visual Artist, Photographer, Architect
Puebla, Mexico
Tipper Newton
Filmmaker, Actor
Los Angeles, CA
Nataliia Nosyk
Plein Air Painter
Stamford, CT
Megan Mosholder
Visual Artist
Atlanta, GA
JB Burke
Visual Artist, Professor
Charlotte, NC
Thomas Strayhorn
Musician
Portland, ME
Jee Sim
Multidisciplinary Artist
Berlin, Germany
Ram Murali
Writer
London, England
Brody Condon
Interdisciplinary Artist
Berlin, Germany
Electric Blue Yonder
Multimedia Artists, Songwriters, Performers
Montgomery, AL
Diana Shpungin
Interdisciplinary Artist
Brooklyn, NY
Suzy Sureck
Multimedia Artist
New York, NY
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Novelist, Memoirist
New York / Chicago
Ransome
Image Artist
Rhinebeck, New York
Becca McCharen
Textile Artist, Fashion Designer
Miami, FL
Scott Ponemone
Figurative Watercolor Artist
Baltimore, MD
Ariel Delgado Dixon
Writer, Farmer
Philadelphia, PA
Allegra Hyde
Author
Oberlin, OH
Jeffrey Colvin
Writer
New York, NY
Timothy Goldkin
Print Maker
Portland, ME
Derek Lassiter
Vocalist, Composer, Producer
Oakland, CA
Dana Al Rashid
Architect, Visual Artist
Kuwait
John Mark Powell
Novelist
Sugar Grove, NC
Debra Hill
Narrative, Figurative Painter
Manhattan, NY
Paloma Vianey Martinez
Painter, Interdisciplinary Artist
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Rachael Allen
YA/Children’s Book Author
Atlanta, GA
Denise Burge
Painter, Fiber Artist
Cincinnati, OH
Ajaun Mance
Visual Artist, Author, Professor
Oakland, CA
Garrard Conley
Writer
Atlanta, GA
Tina Fakhrid-Deen
Theater Artist, Writer
Chicago, IL
Nonney Oddlokken
Artist, Author, Storyteller
St Rose, LA
Rebecca Dale
Composer
London, UK
Lavett Ballard
Mixed Media, Collage Artist
Willingboro, NJ
Jennifer Basile
Printmaker, Installation Artist, Professor
Miami, FL
Stephen Grossman
Sculptor, Painter, Architect
Hamden, CT
Diane Hebbert
Painter, Printmaker, Installation Artist
New York, NY
Kristen Arnett
Writer
Orlando, FL
Dionne Irving
Writer, Professor
South Bend, IN
Michael Shi
Photographer
Shanghai, China
David Aloi is a writer living in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in fiction from California College of the Arts and has worked at Grindr, Medium, ScholarMatch, and McSweeney’s. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Joyland, The Rumpus, Chicago Review, Flaunt, Water~Stone Review, CutBank, Foglifter, and The Offing. He has received support and fellowships from MacDowell, Lambda Literary Foundation, Willapa Bay AiR, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Tin House Summer Workshop, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. David is currently completing his debut short story collection, Loverboy.
Thomas Strayhorn is a singer/songwriter based in Portland, ME who writes simple, lyrically focused songs that are primarily driven by acoustic guitar, piano, and vocal harmonies.
Patrick L. Jaimes’s work focuses mainly on the territory and the dichotomy nature/culture, with a heavy focus on the animal issue and our relationship with other species, examining concepts of coexistence, power, control and domination. While mainly photography-based, his work incorporates maps, digital constructions, illustration, intervened images, text and video. He has been selected twice at the Photography Biennale in Mexico (2018 & 2023), received the Culture & Animals grant (2023), the FONCA Jovenes Creadores Grant (2012- 13 & 2018-19), the SACPC grant for cultural projects (2021), and has received 2nd prize at Plataforma Puebla 2019, honorific mention at Premio IILA Roma (2013), among others. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, Spain, Italy, Chile & El Salvador in venues such as Polyforum Siqueiros (Mexico City), el Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (Rome, Italy), Casa América (Madrid, Spain), Centro de las Artes de N.L. (Monterrey, Mex), Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho (Santiago de Chile), Biblioteca de México José Vasconcelos (Mexico City), Museo Internacional del Barroco (Puebla, Mex). It has also been published in L’architecture d’aujourd’hui (France), Baumeister (Germany), Arquine (México), C3 magazine (South Korea), Menelique (Italy), i.a.
Tipper Newton is an actor, filmmaker, and musician living in Los Angeles. Her recent short film, Wild Card, played festivals worldwide and received a Special Jury Award for Best Midnight Short at Palm Springs ShortFest. Her short film The Dangerous Type took home the 2021 “Best Shorts With Legs” prize at Fantastic Fest and premiered online as a Vimeo staff pick. As an actor, Tipper has had recurring roles on The Mindy Project and The Guest Book. When she’s not busy working in film and television you can find her being the frontwoman for her powerpop band Color TV.
Nataliia Nosyk is a Ukrainian-born artist, who settled in the United States after the start of the war in Ukraine. She paints in an impressionistic style and likes to explore the themes of light and shadow, reality and abstraction, simplicity of composition and layers of perception. She is inspired by sunlight, nature, and the happiness of life.
Nataliia studied painting at Dnipro State University in Ukraine and Saint Petersburg Academic Institute of Painting and Sculpture in Russia. Her art has been exhibited in Ukrainian art galleries, and she is now establishing herself as an artist in the United States. Her works have most recently been shown at a group exhibition in Greenwich, Connecticut. A few years ago, Nataliia created an online school, where she designs and teaches courses in drawing and painting.
Visual artist Megan Mosholder reacts to the social-political landscape through site-responsive installations. Her three-dimensional drawings, often enhanced by light, emphasize obscured elements within recognizable places correlating symbolism with lived experience.
A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design with an MFA in painting, Megan boasts numerous awards from institutions such as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. She is commissioned by leading corporations and included in public art programs, museum exhibitions, and art fairs. Interest in her installations led to international interest in her work, evidenced by her inclusion within the European Cultural Centre’s 2022 Personal Structures exhibition presented during the Venice Biennale and a public art space in Sydney, Australia (2017). These works speak to the power of site-specific work to make a lasting impression upon the viewer.
Her large-scale installations also express her tenacity. Following a September 2018 car accident where the gas tank ruptured and ignited, trapping her inside, she endured burns to over sixty percent of her body. While the event left indelible marks, it also provided new heights for her to reach.
Megan continues to create installations that relay her devotion to her work and the communities she engages. Currently, she is based in Atlanta, GA and has been working as a consultant to RangeWater’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program, an opportunity that has allowed her to advocate for fellow artists.
Jessica Burke (J.B.) is an LGBT+ artist and educator working in North Carolina. She is an Associate Professor of Art and Foundations Coordinator at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Working in both traditional and digital drawing media, she focuses on concerns at the intersection of identity, popular culture, and mass media. She has received numerous honors and awards for her creative research and her teaching. She has been invited to artist residencies in Oregon, New Mexico, France, Ireland, and Hungary. Her drawings have been published in Manifest’s International Drawing Annual (INDA) 13; Studio Visit Magazine; North Light Book’s Strokes of Genius 9: The Best of Drawing and Art for Everyone, a textbook from University Press. She was recently awarded a North Carolina Arts and Science Council Grant based on her recent digital media practice which reflects a dedication to drawing as a creative practice that is both innovative and responsive to cultural conditions.
Her work has been included in competitive group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally that include the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina; the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in Tallahassee, Florida; the Toshima Gallery in Tokyo, Japan; the LuXun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China; the Élysees Modern and Contemporary Art Fair in Paris, France and the Kepco Plaza Gallery Museum in Seoul, South Korea. Her creative work is in private, public and corporate collections that include the City of North Charleston, South Carolina; Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP; GLAAD, New York City; the City of Savannah, Georgia; Seminole State College, Florida and the National Living Treasure Museum in Yugawara, Japan.
Jee Sim is a Berlin-based artist working within the field of drawing, performance art, and music. Sim’s visual works and sound performances have been presented at venues including Seoul Museum of Art – Nanji in Seoul; Museum of Fine Arts Galerija Umjetnina in Split; panke.gallery and HAU 2 in Berlin; Arti et Amicitae and Steim in Amsterdam; The 4th Anyang Public Art Project in Anyang; Real Fine Arts, Park Ave Armory, and Brooklyn Museum in New York; Overgaden Institut in Copenhagen; The Center of Contemporary Art in Lagos; Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland; Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco; and Orange County Museum of Art in California.
Sim’s music compositions were performed at Jump!Star, a project supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Grant. Sim composed original soundtracks for the film Small Bird and Mr. Pig, which screened at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival and the Seoul Independent Film Festival. Sim’s vocal collaborations with Jee Day have been released on DFA and Beats in Space.
Ram Murali is a French-American writer of Indian origin. He was born in New York City.
After beginning his career as a lawyer in private practice in London and Paris, he subsequently worked for many years across all aspects of film and television development, production, and distribution.
Ram is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School. He has also pursued graduate studies in Filmmaking at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
His first novel, Death in the Air, will be published in June 2024 by Harper (HarperCollins) in the United States, Atlantic in the United Kingdom, Penguin Press in India, and Allen & Unwin in Australia.
Brody Condon (b. Mexico 1974) facilitates and documents game-like group encounters that explore dissociative phenomena. The work has been presented at venues such as MoMA/PS1, Los Angeles Museum of Art, New Museum/Performa, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Berlin Biennale, CCA Glasgow, and many others.
A traveling troupe of intrepid space folk explorers, Electric Blue Yonder (EBY) examines the mysteries of the universe and reports their findings through song. Described as “Real American Space Folk,” the band draws its inspiration from the psychedelic folk, surf, and cosmic country rock of the 60s and the Space Age prog/art rock explorations of David Bowie and Pink Floyd, all while shifting time to the early roots and parlor style guitar of the 20th century. The result is a genre-bending mix that captures a nostalgic familiarity while simultaneously transporting you into uncharted territory.
“We wanted to make timeless music that future generations will seek out,” said Beth about the band, describing their style as Space Folk. “We try to be genuine in our approach to songwriting and lyrics.”
MicroPARTY was initially conceived in the fall of 2019 while Beth and Johnny were on a cross-country tour as Electric Blue Yonder with their friend and collaborator Kimi Samson. They were performing at a small pub named “The Keg and I” in Chimacum, Washington. They’d played a long set and run out of rehearsed material when asked to do a final encore. Since it was getting on in the evening and the last song, Beth suggested “Little Jack,” the first ‘children’s’ song they had written for their nephew. After the show, Kimi very emphatically asked Johnny and Beth “What was that?,” and they explained that they’d written the song for their nephew but not sent the material to rehearse because they didn’t expect to perform it with Electric Blue Yonder. Later that evening while camping in the Olympic Peninsula, they discussed the possibility of writing more children’s oriented material. 2020 and the great shutdown was just around the corner and became an unfortunate blessing of time to develop the concept further.
Diana Shpungin’s work is dedicated to challenging ideas of drawing through sculptural and time-based forms. Her works are led by a heart-strong conceptualism, involving obsessive processes while exploring themes of memory, failure, loss, and repair, –employing optimism in a quest for empathy across identity lines. The use of graphite pencil is often the foundation of the work. Born in Riga, Latvia, Shpungin emigrated as a child to New York City. She received her MFA from SVA, NY and has exhibited extensively in both national and international venues including: Bronx Museum; Brooklyn Museum; Invisible Exports; SculptureCenter NY; Smack Mellon, NY; Aldrich Museum, CT; Bass Museum, Miami; MASS MoCA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson; SiTE:LAB; Futura Center, Prague; Galerie Zurcher, Paris; and Tomio Koyama, Tokyo. Shpungin was awarded the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture as well as residencies from Art Omi, BAU at The Camargo Foundation, Bronx Museum AIM, MacDowell, and Yaddo. Shpungin’s work has been reviewed in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art, Hyperallergic, New York Magazine,The New York Times among many other publications. Shpungin has been an Assistant Professor at Parsons: The New School for Design for over a decade.
Suzy Sureck is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural installations, video, writing, and drawing involve physical and metaphoric qualities of wind, water, light, shadow, and the poetics of luminosity. Suzy draws with light to create experiential ecologically considered immersive root projections, underwater installations, or aquatic interactive dance performances. Cross-pollinating disciplines, she merges technology and traditional media to bring nature’s wisdom to audiences experientially through audio, video, text, and image.
Suzy’s works have been exhibited in galleries, museums, sculpture parks, biennials, art foundations and alternative spaces in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Korea, Australia, and India. Recent works include projection performances under the night sky in the Hudson Valley, in Germany and in New York’s Lincoln Center. She has been awarded residencies at MassMOCA, Yaddo, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Art Omi and Arts, Letters Numbers. Her works have been reviewed in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Sculpture Magazine, World Art, Flash Art and. New Observations. Suzy received a Masters’ Degree in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy in Michigan and a BFA from the Cooper Union, as well as studying at The Slade School of Art in London. She lives and works in New York City and the Hudson Valley, she is an educator at DIA and Pratt Institute.
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is the inaugural George R.R. Martin Chair in Storytelling at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. She is a New York-based Singaporean novelist, journalist, and the author of the novel “Sarong Party Girls” (William Morrow, 2016) and the memoir “A Tiger In The Kitchen” (Hyperion, 2011). Both books were international bestsellers. She is the co-creator and co-editor of “Anonymous Sex” (Scribner Books, 2022) and editor of the anthology “Singapore Noir” (Akashic Books, 2014). The National Arts Council of Singapore has awarded her multiple grants in support of her writing. She was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, In Style magazine and the Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Chicago Tribune and The (Singapore) Straits Times among other places. Born and raised in Singapore, she crossed the ocean at age 18 to go to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Literature, music, social issues, and the African American experience of living in North America are the sources that shape the art practice of the artist known as ransome. In the making of abstract and figurative images he uses materials that are imbued with social, ancestral, economic, and historical language that precedes their artistic application. His colors, patterns, marks, and manipulation of space often recall the quilts created by the woman of Gee’s Bend, who are a major influence. While spontaneity is a large part of his making, there is also space for thoughtful observation in the ways in which acrylic paints, combined with an array of found, made, and purchased papers are arranged together to speak of the struggles and hope, pain and joy, and the soul of black folks in community.
Ransome was born and raised in an all-Black neighborhood in the small town of Rich Square, North Carolina called “The Hill.” Those early years were infused with music—soul, R&B, gospel, jazz and blues flowed from neighbors’ homes, churches, and the cars driving down the Hill’s dirt road.
As a teenager he moved to Bergenfield, New Jersey. Here the sampled sounds of rap music, with its remixing and recomposing beats became a compelling force in his practice. To paint and collage on the same surface, applying the similar spontaneity used by hip hop deejays and the resourcefulness of rural quilters, repurposing what is at hand, assembling, collaging, and creating became natural to his making. While made of the energy of contemporary culture, his work asks us to consider how the small and overlooked—or erased—details of culture and geography tell the stories and history of African Americans which is the history of all North Americas.
Ransome graduated from Pratt Institute and retired as a tenured professor from the School of Visual Performing Arts at Syracuse University to pursue a full-time studio art career. He received his MFA in Studio Arts from Lesley University.
Ransome has solo and group exhibitions at numerous museums across the country including The Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Maine, the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC, the University of New Hampshire, the Katonah Museum of Art in New York, The Sigal Museum in Easton, PA, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) Museum of Art in Winston-Salem, NC, and the Visual Art Center of New Jersey.
A 2022 recipient of the Pollock Krasner Grant. Other awards include the Hudson Valley Artist Purchase Award from the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, New York. Two recent residencies, The Gibbes Museums which includes a solo exhibit in late 2023 and a residency for the 2023/24 season at The Studios of Key West.
Becca McCharen (they/she) is a social practice artist and fashion designer trained as an architect. Their work creatively reimagines sustainable futures, climate optimism and celebrates the body as a site for collective social action and personal autonomy. She studied at the University of Virginia School of Architecture and is based in Miami, FL.
McCharen was awarded the Smithsonian National Design Award in 2021, was recognized by Forbes 30 under 30 “People Who Are Reinventing the World” and was honored in the OUT 100 as one of the LGBTQ’s communities’ brightest voices. Their work has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue and Elle. Collaborations include Beyonce, Intel, Disney, Reebok, MAC and MIT.
She gave a TED Talk on inclusive design, and has spoken at SXSW, Harvard, Parsons, MIT, CFDA, Pratt, Fashion Institute of Technology and Tulane. She has been an artist-in-residence at MASS MoCA and Blue Mountain Center, NY. McCharen curated ‘Queer Joy’ at the MoMA PS1 and her work was recently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Scott Ponemone has been exhibiting his artwork for over 40 years. His principal medium is watercolor because he’s enthralled with the luminous quality of the medium. His work focuses on what is it like to be human. This has been expressed since 2009 first with an exploration of hands at work (since the dexterity of our hands has helped defined our capabilities as humans), then the arms of his subjects and the objects the subjects hold above their heads that help define who they are and what they do, and since 2017 whole portraits of pairs of strangers who meet the viewers of their portraits eye to eye. During his career he has had 25 one-person exhibitions and has been awarded residencies in four countries as well as in the U.S. His most recent awards include 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Award; best of show at the 4th Biennial Regional Juried Art Exhibition, University of Maryland Global Campus; and election to signature status of the National Watercolor Society, the Watercolor Honor Society and the Baltimore Watercolor Society.
Ariel Delgado Dixon was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. Her first novel, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, was published by Random House in 2022, while her second novel, Sourland, is also forthcoming from Random House. Her writing has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Kenyon Review, The Idaho Review, Library of America, and elsewhere. She lives in Philadelphia and works in farming.
Allegra Hyde is the author of the story collection THE LAST CATASTROPHE, which was an Editors’ Choice selection at The New York Times. Her debut novel ELEUTHERIA was named a “Best Book of 2022” by The New Yorker and shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize. Her first story collection, OF THIS NEW WORLD, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Hyde’s stories, essays, and humor pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, BOMB, and other venues. She has received four Pushcart Prizes and her work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. She currently teaches creative writing at Oberlin College.
Timothy Goldkin has the intention of marrying fine art and commercial art. With a background in printmaking and alternative photographic processes, Timothy has innovated the historical cyanotype process into a larger format using photographic negatives as a base. His time spent with graffiti artists across the country has led him to expand upon the uses of the traditional wheat-paste process to create beautiful and unique pieces. Timothy has a passion for altering spaces through the creation of massive wall pieces that are impactful, boundary-pushing, and completely unique.
The artist’s experiences living out of a backpack as he traveled across the United States via freight train, hitch hiking, sailing and rubber tramping have inspired him to produce work that situates the viewer in a sense of place, a state of adventure, and a feeling of freedom. He believes in the power of history, interpersonal connection, and the kinship between person and place, as a means for collective growth and transcendence of the digitization that often consumes much of our everyday attention. Timothy’s work is influenced by both a love of travel and a reverence of home.
Vocalist/composer Derek Lassiter has been a mainstay in the Bay Area arts scene for nearly three decades. His music fuses elements of soul, jazz, R&B and gospel to render a surprisingly joyful account of the journey through dark days that ultimately deliver us back into the light.
His critically acclaimed albums and live performances have featured Bay Area heavyweights including pianist Tammy Hall, producer/percussionist PC Muñoz, composer/pianist Art Khu, and jazz legend Lady Mem’fis. He has been interviewed and played live on local radio and profiled in Julian C. R. Okwu’s book Face Forward: Young African American Men in a Critical Age.
Lassiter’s acclaimed 2006 EP Witness draws upon his own journey through a five-year period that left him spiritually and emotionally disconnected from the creative outlets that previously sustained, nourished, and inspired him: no music, writing, acting or photography. The collection of earthy, organic-soul songs garnered attention around the globe and ushered in a flurry of performing activity. However, his return-to-form was interrupted by a much more dire circumstance when Lassiter was hospitalized with life-threatening pneumonia in 2008. If given a chance to return to singing, he vowed to release the music that lay inside him.
Music Outside in 2016 was the resulting second album, premised on capturing and synthesizing the disparate influences from his early years that shaped his musical style.
Born in the South Bronx, Lassiter was exposed to soul and 60’s folk music while moving around the neighborhoods of that New York City borough in his first decade of life. Just before turning 12, he moved to the idyllic suburbs of Pennsylvania to live with his maternal grandmother, who took care of Derek and his siblings until becoming gravely ill. While she introduced him to Gospel at church andCountry/Western on her kitchen radio, it was Lassiter’s teen years in the foster-home system that further exposed him to an ever-increasing range of musical genres.After putting himself through college, Lassiter eventually settled in San Francisco, where he fronted several bands in the early 90’s and played many of the local clubs, including Slim’s, Great American Music Hall, Cafe du Nord and numerous intimate venues and private events. In 2010 he moved to Oakland to further explore variety int he art and music scene.
Jeffrey Colvin was born and raised in Alabama and now lives in New York. His debut novel, Africaville (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2019), received a Legacy Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and was named a best book by Vogue and the CBC. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Brooklyn Rail, The Millions, Rain Taxi and elsewhere. He has received fellowships and residencies from Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA), Vermont Studio Center, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Hambidge Center, Aspen Words, Blue Mountain Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and others. He holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University and has taught writing workshops at numerous community-based organizations. He was the 2021 Hodson Trust Fellow at Brown University and Washington College.
Dana Al Rashid is an architect and visual artist from Kuwait. She has created a unique style coined ‘Modern Miniatures’ in which she uses a modernized version of the ancient Persian miniature style to tackle contemporary and relevant topics. Her artwork also focuses on social issues, with historic building preservation, consumerism, low income expat workers, and the state of the world during the pandemic as common themes. Her artwork has a time traveling quality to it, with heavy referencing from ancient metaphysical manuscripts.
The artwork has been well received, having her own solo digital art gallery at the Khaleeji Art Museum, as well as being published in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Art & Object, and Kuwait times to name a few. She recently had a gallery concluding her residency stay at the Promenade Culture Center. She continues to explore and expand incorporating different themes and techniques into her artwork.
Dana also has a strong background in journalism. Her work is regularly published in local, regional, as well as international newspapers, magazines, and online publications. A regular writer in Al Jarida Newspaper, Sekka magazine and Unootha, as well as various contributions in Sail magazine, Sumou, Kuwait Times, Jeem, Madswirl, and many others. Dana tackles the social issues faced daily with a philosophical bent, be it in article or poetry form. She is bilingual and published work in both Arabic and English.
Mark Powell is the author of eight novels, including Small Treasons (Gallery/Simon and Schuster 2017)–a SIBA Okra Pick, and a Southern Living Best Book of the Year–and Hurricane Season (forthcoming in the fall of 2023). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Breadloaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, and twice from the Fulbright Foundation to Slovakia and Romania. In 2009, he received the Chaffin Award for contributions to Appalachian literature. He has written about Southern culture and music for the Oxford American, the war in Ukraine for The Daily Beast, and his dog for Garden & Gun. He holds degrees from the Citadel, the University of South Carolina, and Yale Divinity School, and directs the creative writing program at Appalachian State University.
From the intense, diverse energy of New York, Debra Hill creates powerful narrative works drawn from her imagination. Her work is bold, whimsical, colorful and symbolic. Her color palette is inspired by the intense light of the southern hemisphere of her youth. Under vivid blue skies, nature’s colors pulsate with life. She is drawn to the unnatural juxtaposition of images and fantasy. Whimsy is often expressed through symbolic use of native birds. If studied closer these become the energy, the clue as to the tone of the narrative. Debra uses the exotic floral natives, like the Waratah, some times morphed with the human form to create haunting yet striking images.
Originally from Sydney, Australia, she grew up a bare foot youth exploring nature in all its’ forms. A pencil or paintbrush her voice.
Debra then went on to study life drawing and portraiture at The Paddington Art School in Sydney. Her fascination with the figure combined with her passion for dance led to dynamic figurative pieces where the subject almost leaps off the canvas. Executed in oil on canvas her stimulating symbolic paintings are rich with vibrant color.
Early in her career she took to travel overseas, settling for a year in Mexico to devote to her art. Around that time her work became infused with an almost decorative carnival quality. This led to paintings now held in private collections internationally.
Paloma Vianey is an interdisciplinary artist from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico who currently lives and works in Washington D.C. She earned a BA in Art History from The University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from Cornell University. She has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2020, 2021, 2023), and the National Fund of the Arts in Mexico (2020). Vianey received a scholarship from the Institute of Mexicans in the Exterior (2018), was awarded the Municipal Youth Award in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico (2019), and the John Hartell Graduate Award at Cornell University (2021).
In 2018 Vianey realized a large-scale public art installation (22 ft x 70 ft) on the Americas-Cordova International Bridge along the U.S.-Mexico border. From 2021 to 2022 she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Antonio Gala Foundation in Cordoba, Spain. She was selected to be part of the 2024 Border Biennial at El Paso Museum of Art. Vianey has exhibited her work at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, the Antonio Gala Foundation, Amos Eno Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery, the Mexican Consulate at El Paso Texas, El Paso Museum of Art, The Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, and the Archeology and History Museum of El Chamizal. She currently teaches Painting and Drawing at George Mason University.
Rachael Allen is a scientist by day and kid lit author by night. She is also the winner of the 2019 Georgia Young Adult Author of the Year award, and her books include Harley Quinn: Ravenous (RHCB ‘23), Harley Quinn: Reckoning, 17 First Kisses, The Revenge Playbook, The Summer of Impossibilities, and A Taxonomy of Love, which was a Junior Library Guild selection and a 2018 Book All Young Georgians Should Read. Rachael lives in Atlanta, GA with her two children and two dire wolves.
Denise Burge has been a professor of Art at The University of Cincinnati since 1992. She works in a variety of media, including drawing, film, installation, painting, and quiltmaking. Her fiber-based work has been widely commissioned and collected; and was included in two Quilt National exhibitions. She has been awarded multiple Ohio Arts Council grants, as well as a nationally-competitive Joan Mitchell Foundation award (an artist must be nominated for this award. She has also carried out competitive residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Fine Art Work Center in Provincetown, and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. From 2006 to the present, she has been creating mixed-media video installations with Lisa Siders and Jenny Ustick under the name Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running; their most recent project was a year-long 2022 FotoFocus-funded residency at the Summit Hotel in Cincinnati. Burge is currently collaborating with Evan Carroll and Rob Jefferson on a graphic novel about Lafcadio Hearn. In 2022, a $10,000 research grant from the University of Cincinnati funded a trip to Japan to research Hearn. The first serial installment of the graphic novel is planned for release in 2025.
Ajuan Mance is a Professor of African American literature at Mills College in Oakland, California. A lifelong artist and writer, Ajuan has participated in solo and group exhibitions as well as comic and zine fests, from the Bay Area to Brooklyn. In her art, illustration, and comics, Ajuan uses humor and bright colors to explore race, gender, power, and the people and places in which they intersect. Her work has appeared in a number of digital and print media outlets, including, most recently, The Women’s Review of Books, Blavity.com, BET.com, Transition Magazine, Buzzfeed.com, KQED.org, the San Francisco Chronicle, NYTimes.com, KPIX News, and Publisher’s Weekly.
Garrard Conley is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Boy Erased as well as the creator and co-producer of the podcastUnErased: The History of Conversion Therapy in America. His work has been published by The New York Times, Oxford American, TIME and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. Conley is a graduate of Brooklyn College’s MFA program, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow specializing in fiction. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Kennesaw State University. His second book, a novel, All the World Beside, will release from Riverhead/Penguin on March 26, 2024.
Tina Fakhrid-Deen is an award-winning playwright and educator. She is the author of Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents. As a result of her LGBTQ activism, she won the Windy City Times 30 Under 30 Award and COLAGE’s Outstanding Achievement Award. Her Jeff-recommended play, Dandelions, premiered spring 2023 through MPAACT at the Greenhouse Theater. Her Jeff-awarded play, Pulled Punches, was developed through the Women’s Theatre Alliance of Chicago and was premiered by MPAACT in 2022 at the Greenhouse Theater. In 2022, Fakhrid-Deen won Definition Theater’s Amplify Two Series, a two-year play commission, for her satirical play-in-progress, Black Bone. In 2021, she wrote and directed her first children’s podcast play, Sankofa: A Journey into Bronzeville’s Poppin’ Past for the Chicago Children’s Theatre and the Chicago Park District. Fakhrid-Deen is a 2022 Fulbright-Hays Fellow (Ghana/Togo), 2020 MacDowell Fellow, 2018 Kimbilio Fellow, and VONA Fellow in Fiction and Playwriting (2011/2017). She is also the recipient of Oakton College’s 2018 Ray Hartstein Award for Outstanding Professional Excellence in Teaching, where she teaches writing.
Described by Classic FM as ‘one of today’s most exciting young composers’, British composer Rebecca Dale was the first female composer to sign to Universal Music’s Decca Classics label, and her debut orchestral album went to No. 1 in the UK Specialist Classical charts. As a concert composer her work has been performed and recorded by ensembles including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, Welsh National Opera, Tenebrae, Voces8, soloists Steven Isserlis, Nicola Benedetti, Mari Samuelson and Angele Dubeau. She was commissioned to write the Church of England’s first Christmas single, and in 2023 her music performed at the Scottish service for the King’s coronation, and concerts of her work for choir and orchestra across the Netherlands including the Royal Concertgebouw. She also composes for screen, nominated for best original music in feature film at the Music & Sound Awards. She is an alumna of the MacDowell Colony, the Sundance Composers Lab and the ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop, and has judged for the Royal Television Society Awards and Ivor Novellos.
Nonney Oddlokken’s life was greatly colored and shaped by her agoraphobic aunt who raised her with her working class mother. Oddlokken states, “Unlike my mother, a cafeteria waitress, my aunt was unable to leave the house due to her mental illness. However, what could have been a catastrophic environment was turned into a world of magical realism. So colorful was my childhood, that it took me until the age of seven to realize how unique and peculiar our household was My entire childhood was filled with her daily magical creations: baby birds leaving Juicy Fruit gum at the windowsill, voodoo spells, a child named Toots that lived in the huge pear tree outside our door. Life was filled with magic and wonder… but secrets.”
It’s with the mixture of Oddlokken’s own childhood “fables,” Catholic references, Cajun folklore, New Orleans Voodoo and use of only the indigenous landscapes of Louisiana swamps and bayous and its flora and fauna, she created these stand alone art pieces that also piece together a larger Louisiana narrative entitled “Tiny, Little Fables.”
To best express Oddlokken’s vision, she created her own fiber art technique comprised of handmade paper substrates, stitched collage elements, finished with hundreds of yards of hand-stitched gold thread embellishments. The encircled eye symbolizes the enchanted people and creatures that live among us.
Lavett Ballard is a female mixed media visual artist, art historian, curator and author. She holds a dual Bachelor’s in Studio Art and Art History with a minor in Museum Studies from Rutgers University- Camden and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Ballard’s art has been commissioned as a cover twice for Time Magazine first in March 2020 for their special multi cover edition for the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage and in February 2023 for a cover and interior art for Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s essay about her book CASTE: Origins of our Discontent. Among her other accolades is a Yaddo Fellow Artist residency in 2021, in 2023 a NJ State Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, and in 2018 Pew fellowship nomination. Ballard’s artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and been used in film, television, and literary publications. Along with being acquired by many private and public institutional collections nationally and internationally.
Ballard views her art as a re-imagined visual narrative of people of African descent. Her use of mixed media collaged layered imagery reflects social issues affecting primarily Black women’s stories within a historical context. These photos are deconstructed and layered on reclaimed large and small aged wood fences. The use of fences is a symbolic reference to how fences keep people in and out, just as racial and gender identities can do the same socially.
Jennifer Basile (b. 1973, Manhasset, NY) earned her Master of Fine Arts in Painting & Printmaking at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (1999), and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Printmaking at the University of Miami (1996). She is in her 20th year as an art educator at Miami-Dade College. Basile’s love for the environment is rooted in her childhood when she discovered its avenues of escapism and meditation. Throughout her extensive travels and perfected talent, she has combined this passion with the long sought-after tradition of landscape renderings which she adopted and transformed through her printing practice. In time, she has developed a narrative around advocacy and awareness using her art as a platform to discuss the pertinent issues affecting the world we live in.
Jennifer Basile has been represented by LnS Gallery since 2017 and has presented major solo exhibitions including The Power of Print: Iconic Images of the American Landscape (April 27 – August 3, 2019) and Lasting Impressions: A Cessation of Existence (September 16 – November 19, 2022). She has also been the recipient of numerous grants, residency, and public art projects including Disappearing Treasures (2021), viewable at the Underline at Brickell Metrorail Station (Miami, FL).
Stephen Grossman is a visual artist working primarily in sculpture, drawing and painting in New Haven, CT. He was trained as an architect and received his BArch from The Cooper Union in 1986. His work focuses on the movement of the human body in relationship to architectural space. He has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, Aldrich Museum, Real Art Ways, Artspace New Haven, New York Studio School Dumbo Sculpture Studio, Weir Farm Trust Gallery, Schweinfurth Art Center, Mt Ida College, Giampietro Gallery, Kenise Barnes Fine Arts, Garage gallery, Ejecta Projects and other venues. In 2023 he was an artist in residence as a fellow at the Ballinglen Foundation in Ballycastle, Ireland. In 2020 he was an artist in residence at Streamways in Rockingham, VT. In 2006 he was a visiting artist at the Weir Farm Historic Trust. In 2002 he received an NEA grant for his public art project “Fencing”. He has taught visual arts at The University of New Haven and Southern Connecticut State University. In addition, he has curated exhibitions at the (untitled)Space gallery in New Haven including a Sol LeWitt wall drawing installation in 2001. He served on the board of Artspace New Haven from 2002 to 2009 and was president of the board from 2004 to 2007.
Dianne Hebbert is a Nicaraguan-American artist based in New York. She works primarily in painting, printmaking and installation art. As a Miami native she attended New World School of the Arts before she earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Purchase College and her MFA in Printmaking from Brooklyn College. Hebbert is a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center fellowship and residency, Visual Muze Governors Island residency with the West Harlem Art Fund, Trestle Art Space residency in Brooklyn, and a residency with Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She was selected as a Smack Mellon Hot Pick Artist in 2017 and an Emerging Leader of New York Arts 2016-2017 fellow. In the fall of 2019 she created an installation at Fordham Plaza in the Bronx for the Department of Transportation and Chashama. Her solo exhibitions include Hunter Project Space and the Old Stone House of Brooklyn. Hebbert, and is currently a Chashama Space to Connect artist.
Kristen Arnett is the queer author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the New York Times bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She was awarded a Shearing Fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, has held residencies at Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and the Millay Colony, and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize recognizing mid-career writers of fiction. Her work has appeared at The New York Times, TIME, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, Guernica, Buzzfeed, McSweeneys, PBS Newshour, The Guardian, Salon, and elsewhere. Her next book (an untitled collection of short stories) will be published by Riverhead Books (Penguin Random House). She has a Masters in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and lives in Orlando, Florida.
Dionne Irving is originally from Toronto, Ontario. She is the author of the novel Quint (7.13 Books), and a short story collection The Islands (Catapult Books) which was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner and Hurston Wright Awards. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Story, Boulevard, LitHub, Missouri Review, and New Delta Review, among other journals and magazines. She teaches in the University of Notre Dame Creative Writing Program and the Initiative on Race and Resilience.
Michael Shi has been recognized throughout his career with numerous international awards and exhibitions. His work has widely received critical acclaim. Michael Shi is an established photographer, who has been exploring the medium for almost three decades. Not only has he been awarded the First prize in PX3 (The Prix de la Photographie Paris), but he has also been recognized and awarded positions in IPA (International Photography Awards), FAPA (Fine Art Photography Award), and MIFA (Moscow International Foto Award).
In addition to this, Michael is the first photographer in the history of the illustrious Shanghai Symphony Hall to have a solo exhibition at this distinguished venue. He has also had a solo exhibition for his body of work in Long Island City, New York. Following on from this Michael’s photography has been showcased at prestigious group exhibitions around the globe including PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai, “The Chinese American Dream” in New York, as well as Dubai, France, Greece, Czech Republic, Prague, etc.
Alongside his photographic practice, Michael is also the Co-Founder of Sunrise Art Group, an art education company that has trained over 2,000 students all over China.
The Studios of Key West’s mission is to support artists, inspire creativity and build community.
The Studios was founded with the vision of bringing world class artists to the island, connecting them with local audiences and artists, and offering space for both to explore their creativity. We’ve hosted Pulitzer prize winners, world renowned artists and musicians, and introduced thousands of students to different ways of seeing and working. Our Helmerich Theater stage bristles with talent, music from our rooftop concerts flood into the neighborhood, and every month hundreds of people visit The Studios to take in new experiences and catch up with old friends.
You’ll find that the Key West community is very welcoming to new people (especially creative ones!) – and there is never a shortage of things to do. Your time is yours to do with as you choose, of course, and we respect that you’ll need plenty of time to dream, reflect and create. We do ask that you join us at two events during your residency:
Depending on the time of year, a group of about 20-40 friends and community members gather together for an informal potluck and a chance to meet our residency artists. Guests bring a dish to share (bring whatever you’d like – from chips and salsa to your favorite recipe). About halfway through the night, each of the residency artists takes few minutes to introduce themselves and talk about their work or what they’re working on in Key West (remember, it’s very casual, so no PowerPoint presentations necessary!). Writers often like to read a very short bit of their work and artists often like to open their studios to show what they are working on – but neither is necessary, whatever you feel comfortable with.
Friends new and old are invited to join us for each month’s First Thursday Open House event, when we keep our lights on late and throw our doors open to celebrate the newest work in our galleries. Stop in to say hello, relax with a glass of wine on the rooftop terrace, tour the third floor artist studios and see the just-installed exhibitions in the Sanger, XOJ, Zabar Project and Zabar Lobby Galleries.
Key West is an island community, two miles by four miles wide, at the very end of the road. Most people get around on bicycle or foot, and the neighborhoods are compact and filled with lush gardens and tropical plant life. There are Cuban groceries and café con leche on every other corner, and a mix of Latin and Caribbean influences everywhere. Known for blue skies, open water and mangrove islands, and 80 degree days in winter, Key West is removed from the American mainland by 120 miles of bridges and small islands.
Long a home to artists and creative people, the ghosts of Hemingway, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Mario Sanchez, and Shel Silverstein still haunt our Old Town neighborhood. Flowers bloom year-round, and fruit trees proliferate. And on any given day, it’s not unusual to run into modern-day creative people, such as Judy Blume, Billy Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Meg Cabot, Terrence McNally, John Martini, Seward Johnson, or Annie Dillard.
For a small community, Key West is rich in cultural events, creative projects, and celebrations of every kind. The population is diverse and compassionate, and takes to heart the island’s famous motto: One Human Family, which reflects The Studios’ commitment to living together as caring, sharing neighbors dedicated to making our home as close to paradise as we can. Our creative community is proud of this special sense of place. We embrace an independence from the mainland, celebrate our tropical and Caribbean influences, and seek out artists and cultural leaders wanting to do the same—and gain the benefit of exile in the Conch Republic.
Through generous sponsors we are able to provide the following extras to use during your residency:
BEST OF KEY WEST RENTALS. Generously provided your linens, bedding and towels.
FORT ZACHARY TAYLOR STATE PARK. We’ve got a pass for you to use during your stay.
KEY WEST YOGA SANCTUARY. The Yoga Sanctuary offers retreats and many classes in different skill levels. Yoga space is outdoor. More info on discount.
YOGA ON THE BEACH. Meet at Ft. Zach beach at 7am to flow with Nancy and Don. PEARs get your first class free!
KEY WEST PUBLIC LIBRARY. We’ve partnered with the library to offer you a library card to use during your stay. Key West Library has an extensive catalog of books and other media, plus e-books and audiobooks available for download.
LAZY DOG ADVENTURES. Kayak and paddle board tours, rentals, lessons and classes, paddle yoga, paddle fit, and fun boat adventures. They’ve generously offered paddle passed for PEARs!
WE*CYCLE. The fun way to get around town! Public transportation with 2 wheels. They provided your conch cruiser.
The Studios accepts applications on a rolling basis from January-May of each year for the following residency season. The season runs from October-September. There is a $45 application fee to apply which supports the program.
Applications are evaluated by selection committees comprised of working artists and professionals in the applicants’ respective fields of discipline under the five categories: Visual Arts, Literary Arts, Media Arts, and Musical Arts and Performing Arts.
Acceptance to The Studios’ PEAR Program is based on the merit of past work and the potential for creative, intellectual and personal growth through the time and space to imagine new artistic work, engage in valuable dialogue and explore island connections.
Key West’s official motto, “One Human Family” reflects our commitment to living together as caring, sharing neighbors dedicated to making our home as close to paradise as we can. To that end, we encourage artists of all races, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities to apply.
A limited selection of short length (4′ or less) specialty hardwoods (mostly Cuban Mahogany) can be purchased from the Woodshop. Email woodshop@tskw.org for inquiries.
For a wider variety in wood types and length, we recommend our friend on Big Coppitt, Mike. He has a great selection and is nearby. His phone number is (305) 797-5747.
Address: 6810 Front Street, Key West, FL 33040
We’re located in Safe Harbor Marina on Stock Island, just down the docks from Hogfish Bar & Grill.
Shop Time Rates
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With one of the tallest buildings – and most spectacular views – in town, the Hugh’s View rooftop terrace serves as The Studios’ creative space in the sky. The terrace sits four stories above street level and offers panoramic views of the island. The Kitwald Stage glows in the golden twilight of our sunset performances.
Hugh’s View offers:
—Smaller audience sizes
—Outdoor environment
—Intimate experiences
—A rooftop bar that opens one hour prior to show time
With original seating from its days as a Masonic temple, the Helmerich Theater has been updated to also include floor seating. As a black box theater, the set up is intimate but professional, and sets the stage for concerts and performances that leave guests feeling like they really got to know the performer.
Helmerich Theater offers:
—More space and comfortable chairs
—Indoor comforts
—Intimate experiences
—A walk-up counter bar that opens one hour prior to show time
The period for applying to 2021/22 residencies is now closed. We will begin accepting residencies for the 2022/23 season, which runs from September 2022-August 2023, in January 2022. If you would like to be notified by email when the application period opens again, please fill out this form.
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