Kyle Peets

Kyle Peets is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is centered on the narratives we create to cope will feeling small in the face of things that are bigger than us like failure, the unknown, and the sublime. He received his MFA in printmaking and sculpture from the University of Iowa and currently teaches photography, sculpture, video, and sound design at Southern Oregon University. He teaches skiing on the weekends.

http://kylepeets.com

Lara Palmqvist

Lara Palmqvist received her B.A. in biology and American studies from St. Olaf College, and her M.Th. in religion in peace and conflict from Uppsala University in Sweden. In addition to a residency at Marble House Project, her work has been honored with fellowships and awards from the the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Anderson Center at Tower View, Ox-Bow School of Art, Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center, and Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria. She is also the recipient of fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Kone Foundation, National Science Foundation, Rotary International, and U.S. Fulbright Commission, through which she taught creative writing at the Ivan Franko National University in Ukraine. In 2017, she will be a fellow at the Saari Residence in Finland, where she will continue work on her first novel. 

www.larapalmqvist.com

 

Laura Peterson

Laura Peterson is a Brooklyn-based dance artist creating work that challenges the limits physicality and redefines performance spaces. Laura’s work is influenced by the visual art of the 1970’s and since 2007, has included visually stunning installations that are developed simultaneously with the choreography.

Laura Peterson has had residencies and commissions throughout New York and other cities. She has been presented at US venues including Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Inside/Out, and other festivals and performed in Europe and South America. She is a Visiting Artist at Bowdoin College spring 2016. In 2014 Laura was a Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Her recent work, The Futurist was called “Visionary” by Danceviewtimes and is archived at the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts. In 2013, her work Forever was presented by The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and continues to tour in 2016. In 2012 she received Temple University’s Reflection/Response Commission and created dance for visual artist Nick Cave’s Soundsuits in conjunction with Balance Dance Company and the Boise Art Museum. Laura was a member of the HERE Artist Residency Program from 2009-2011 in New York where her dance and installation Wooden was developed. She has been presented and supported by the Queens Museum of Art, NYC’s River-to-River Festival, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and others. She has been commissioned by Pennsylvania Ballet, Hartford Ballet, and taught and has created repertory for universities throughout the US.

http://lpchoreography.com

Leslie Fry

Leslie Fry’s sculptures and works on paper are inspired by basic human needs: food, shelter, clothing, love, and consciousness. Her art has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the globe including Artists Space and Exit Art, New York; Kunsthaus, Hamburg; Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul; Windspiel Galerie, Vienna; Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Boston; and Centre des Arts Visuels, Montreal.

Public projects have been specific responses to architecture, history, and landscape. Commissions include Wave Hill, New York; International Sculpture Festa, Seoul; Tufts University, Boston; Kohler Arts Center, Wisconsin; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal; Housing Vermont and Burlington City Arts, Vermont; and Pinellas County Cultural Affairs, Tampa Public Art Program, and Broward Public Art Program, Florida.

Originally from Montreal, Fry earned a B.A. from the University of Vermont, an M.F.A. from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, and attended the Central School of Art and Design in London. She lives in Winooski, Vermont.

http://lesliefry.com

LeVan D. Hawkins

LeVan D. Hawkins is an LA-based poet, essayist, & performance artist now residing in the Chicago area. He has performed his published work at venues such as Links Hall, Highways Performance Space, USC, UCLA Hammer Museum, Disney Hall Redcat Theater, Henry Miller Library, Dixon Place Theater, New York International Fringe Festival, & Dartmouth College. A 2011 MFA recipient from Antioch University – LA, he has received fellowships from Millay Colony & the Dorothy West & Helene Johnson Foundation, and a Scholarship to the Norman Mailer Writing Colony. He is currently working on his memoir “What Men Do.”

https://vimeo.com/album/2505442/video/73109872

Lien Truong

Lien Truong’s paintings examine social, cultural, and political history, exploring the influences that bind the formation of contemporary identity and belief systems in a transcultural context. Truong has exhibited extensively in venues including the National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC; the Centres of Contemporary Art in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Art Hong Kong; Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; and the Oakland Museum of California. Truong received her MFA from Mills College and her BA from Humboldt State University. She contributes reviews and interviews for Diacritics, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The act of manipulating pigment over a support instantaneously embraces centuries of historical drawing and painting, art made integral with religious principals and cultural ideologies. I am at once undeniably seduced by the sensation and process of pushing material over a surface and at the same time curiously fixated on the present-day relevance and discoveries of these primordial acts. For me, the advancement of art and culture are parallel. Creating art becomes an illuminating act, one undertaken to understand contemporary doctrines by the study of evolving sentiments. My work examines the development and substance of our belief systems.”

http://www.lientruong.com

Lisa Fliegel

Lisa Fliegel is a writer and International Trauma Specialist, who served as a journalist covering the Middle East Peace Process. Lisa’s award-winning non-fiction has appeared in The Times of London, The Jerusalem Post Magazine, Response, Midstream, ARC, and The Tel-Aviv Review, among other journals. Her academic publications include New Directions in Youth Development, and The American Journal of Art Therapy. Lisa has her undergraduate degree in Hebrew Literature from the Tel-Aviv Teacher’s Seminary; and her writing is richly informed by a bi-lingual, multi-cultural perspective.

Lisa founded and directed the award-winning Arts Incentives Program (AIP) in Boston. AIP was recognized by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), for its success in reducing disparities in minority contact in the Juvenile Justice System. In April 2015, Ms. Fliegel published a chapter on her program model, titled “Good Looking Out,” in the book: “Latanya: Gangs, Girls and Guns, Workbook & Leader’s Guide” (The Latanya Series).

Ms Fliegel’s current book “The Clinical Adventures of a Bullet Proof Therapist,” fuses the universal imperative of narrative journalism with the intimacy and singularity of a memoir. These narratives of healing are drawn from three disparate places where she has worked, that have faced seemingly intractable pain and conflict: inner-city Boston, Israel/Palestine, and Northern Ireland. Creating healing relationships at the intersections of these conflict zones, in a quest to learn from examples of positive change; frames this story with a distilled wisdom that can dramatically reshape how we interpret violence and achieve resolution.

http://www.lisafliegel.com

Martyna Majok

Martyna Majok* was born in Bytom, Poland, and aged in Jersey and Chicago. Her plays have been performed and developed at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Marin Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Women’s Project Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Round House Theatre, LAByrinth Theatre Company, The John F. Kennedy Center, Dorset Theatre Festival, New York Stage & Film, Yale Cabaret, The Playwright and Director Center of Moscow, Satori Group, Red Tape Theatre, and The LIDA Project, among others. Awards include the Helen Hayes Award's Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play or Musical, the inaugural Women’s Invitational Prize at Ashland New Play Festival, The Kennedy Center's Jean Kennedy Smith Award, Marin Theatre’s David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project Prize, National New Play Network’s Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, Jane Chambers Student Feminist Playwriting Prize, and The Merage Fellowship for the American Dream. Commissions from The Geffen, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Marin Theatre Company, "The New Yorker" website, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Foundry Theatre. Publications by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, TCG, and Smith & Kraus. Residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Fuller Road, Marble House Project, and Ragdale. BA: University of Chicago; MFA: Yale School of Drama. Martyna is currently part of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwright Program at The Juilliard School. She has taught playwriting at Williams College, Wesleyan University, SUNY Purchase, and as an assistant to Paula Vogel at Yale. Alumna of EST's Youngblood. Member of Women's Project Lab, The Dramatist Guild, and New York Theatre Workshop’s Usual Suspects. Martyna was the 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence. She is the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center.

http://www.martynamajok.com

Matthew Kennedy

Matthew Kennedy is an emerging, New England-based composer of engaging solo, chamber, and orchestral music that has been performed across North America and Europe. Matthew’s work has received critical acclaim including honors and commissions from ASCAP, BMI, Society of Composers Inc, Hartford Opera Theater, Dynamic Music Festival at New York University, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, bassist Robert Black, Performance 20/20 Ensemble, La’Ventus Quartet, Foot-in-the-Door, as well as residencies at the Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology’s Hill House Artist Residency (MI), Finger Lakes Chamber Music Festival (NY), Horned Dorset Artist Colony, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat, and the Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities. Recent activities include performances at University of South Florida New Music Festival, Northwestern University New Music Conference, North American Saxophone Alliance International Conference, SCI Regional Conferences, University of South Florida New Music Festival, and a presentation on graphic notation for junior high school students, in collaboration with Glen Adsit and Michael Colgrass, at the 2015 Chicago Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.
 
Matthew’s primary teachers have included Robert Carl, Michael Schelle, Larry Alan Smith, Elizabeth Brown, and Manuel Sosa. He holds degrees from The Hartt School (DMA), Butler University (MM), and Anderson University (BA). His music is self-published and licensed through ASCAP. Matthew is currently on faculty in the Creative Studies Department at The Hartt School where he teaches pre-college theory and composition, and teaches general music classes with the Hartford Public School System. He and his wife, studio artist Erin Kennedy currently reside in Newington, CT with their daughter two daughters, Ivy and Amelia.

http://www.kennedycomposer.com

Michael Broek

Michael Broek is the author of Refuge/es, winner of the Kinereth Gensler Award for poetry, forthcoming in 2015 from Alice James Books, and two chapbooks, The Logic of Yoo, from Beloit Poetry Journal, which has been adapted to a staged reading, and The Amputation Artist, from ELJ Publications. His poetry and essays have appeared widely in places such as The American Poetry Review, The Literary Review, Drunken Boat, Literary Imagination, Blackbird, Fourteen Hills, and others. He has been a New Jersey State Arts Council Fellow in Poetry and Bread Loaf Writers Conference Returning Contributor Scholar. He edits the journal Tran(s)tudies and is managing editor of Mead: the Magazine of Literature and Libations. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Goddard College and a PhD in American Literature from Essex University, UK. He lives and teaches in New Jersey.

 

Maureen Nolette

Through material, space, and form, Maureen Nollette’s work amalgams divergent philosophies regarding gender and labor. This deconstruction of societal norms, which examines the allocation of labels and ascribing labor’s worth, has been instrumental in shaping her work. Nollette’s material choices shift sinuously based upon the desired outcome; permanence is juxtaposed with temporal to deliver a thought, as frivolous is positioned with cherished to instigate more intimate, careful consideration. Installations, drawings and sculpture all connect to a larger framework which questions social constructs that insinuate debased gender and labor stereotypes.

Her work has been shown internationally and is held in public collections including Detroit Institute of Art Museum, Yves St. Laurent, MGM Mirage Hotel, and j.jill Retail Stores in addition to private collections. She has given lectures, workshops and demonstrations at School of Visual Arts in NY, Kendall College of Art & Design in MI, Calvin College in MI, ArtPrize in MI, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in MI, and Grand Rapids Art Museum in MI. Nollette was a Curatorial Board member at Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (UICA) in MI; thrice a Juror for Scholastic’s Art Awards in MI; curatorial projects include (a)wake, a group show for Women’s History Month and LIMIT(less) at UICA, both in MI. Nollette is adjunct faculty member at Kendall College of Art & Design, has taught through Grand Rapids Art Museum in MI, Studio in a School in NY, and Doing Art Together in NY. She is currently preparing for a solo show this spring/summer at Grand Rapids Art Museum titled Honorable Ordinaries.

http://www.nollettestudio.com

Nell Nicholas

Nell is a visual artist from England. She is midway through a Fine Art degree at City and Guilds of London Art School, and completed her Foundation Course in Art and Design at Falmouth University in Cornwall, England. She works as a freelance illustrator and globe painter for Bellerby & Co Globemakers. Her practice revolves around drawing and collage, and she is currently exploring the concept of "journeys", and our relationship with space and environment. Nell has exhibited work in various galleries around Europe.

http://nellnicholasart.blogspot.co.uk

Myung Gyun You

Myung Gyun You moved to the United States from South Korea and has been living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for just over a year. He was featured in Korean Eye 2012 at the Saatchi Gallery in London, which brought contemporary Korean art to the international audience that coincided with the Olympic Games. He participated in the New York’s 2013 Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship program by creating a massive piece for Socrates Park on Governor’s Island. He was also recently featured in an outdoor sculpture exhibition in Key West, Florida, as well as currently showing in a survey at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

http://www.koreaneye.org/artist/maeung-gyun-you

Nicole Kempskie

Nicole Kempskie is a multidisciplinary writer and theater artist. As a librettist and lyricist, she has explored her passion for writing about complex and interesting women of all ages with her musicals The Order of Things (Eugene O’Neill NMTC Semi-finalist), Mother of the Year (The York), It’s About Time (The Duplex; Off-Broadway Alliance Mentorship Project), and Helen on 86th St.; all with composer Robby Stamper. Helen on 86th St., adapted from Wendi Kaufman’s New Yorker short story, premiered in New York in 2011 and is published and licensed by Playscripts, Inc. It has been performed across the country and internationally. Her play, Come on Children, Let’s Sing (NYU), based on her experiences teaching in New York City, has been presented in part at the American Sociological Association Conference, the American Cultural Studies Conference, and the NYU Forum on Ethnodrama and Theater for Social Change. She is the author of 50 theater and film educational resource guides for BAM and Lincoln Center Theater that include works by Beckett, Pinter, Odets, Ibsen, and Shakespeare. As a professional actor, director, and choreographer she has trained with the SITI Company, The Moscow Art Theater, and the Gallatin School at New York University (M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies), and has worked for organizations and theaters such as Trinity Rep, The Huntington Theater, Theatreworks USA, North Shore Music Theater, the 24 Hour Plays, and many others. As a passionate advocate for arts education in New York City, Nicole has led workshops, master classes, and residencies for the Broadway Teaching Group, Broadway Classroom, City Center Encores, BAM, Arts Connection, Music Theatre International, The Paley Center for Media, and the Kaufman Center, and has taught theater, dance, film, and media literacy to thousands of students in New York City.

http://www.nicolekempskie.com