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Vogue M. Robinson is an author, poet, performer, teaching artist, and creativity enabler who deeply values people who put truth and heart into words. She inspires and empowers others by leading through example and providing resources that help artists create work they can take pride in.

Robinson served as Clark County, Nevada’s poet laureate from 2017 to 2019 and is the first Black woman to receive the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award. She is the author of the poetry collection Vogue 3:16, Vol. 1. Her work is influenced by Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Patricia Smith, Suzi Q. Smith, Danez Smith, and her grandmother, Martina Carpenter.

Her poetry has been featured in numerous anthologies, including The Beautiful, Legs of Tumbleweeds, Wings of Lace, Sandstone and Silver, and A Change Is Gonna Come. Known for being humorous, vulnerable, and empowering, Robinson’s writing and performances resonate deeply with her audiences.

When she’s not writing, Robinson enjoys spending time with her family or experimenting with fluid art techniques. Learn more about her work at www.vogue316.com.

Arts Manager, Cheyenne River Youth Project

An enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. During the Indian Relocation Act, his Até (father) was sent to California, where Wakinyan was born and raised — and where he learned the art of graffiti, which inspired him to experiment with multiple disciplines, mediums, and styles. Over the years, Wakinyan has participated in multiple art shows and graffiti jams, taught graffiti workshops, designed and sold his personal art, and worked as a commissioned artist. He continues to enjoy painting graffiti and creating multimedia art.

In 2016 Wakinyan moved back to South Dakota to dedicate his life to the betterment of the Lakota people. For two years, he worked as a youth mentor with Generations Indigenous Ways, a year-round Lakota youth camp that strives to educate and empower Lakota youth with the knowledge and skills their ancestors possessed, incorporating those traditional ways and teachings with western science methodology. Wakinyan also has worked with the Oglala Lakota Cultural & Economic Revitalization Initiative, which hosted the Indigenous Wisdom & Permaculture Skills Convergence in Slim Buttes on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

As CRYP’s arts manager, Wakinyan is responsible for leading operations at the Waniyetu Wowapi Institute & Art Park, a multidisciplinary, community-based initiative that seeks to strengthen the connection of Lakota youth and the Cheyenne River community to traditional culture and life ways through art. The institute incorporates the Lakota Art Fellowship program, the Teen Art Internship program, the award-winning RedCan invitational graffiti jam, the free public art park, and a variety of community classes and events. Wakinyan has also led CRYP’s Food Sovereignty, Native Wellness, and Lakota Culture Internship.

Visual Artist, Curator, and Artistic Director, InterUrban ArtHouse

I am a mostly self – taught artist born and raised in Kansas City, MO. I come from a creative family on my father’s side. He, his mother, and all of his 4 siblings are / were visual artists or musicians. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute briefly, found that it wasn’t for me, and went on to create and participate in the arts on my own terms. Much of my early work was afrocentric, focusing on masks, adornment, and the diaspora, while still remaining largely abstract. I showed in mostly Black spaces or in spaces that centered people of color, as the more mainstream venues seemed so out of reach. I worked retail, went to culinary school, and became a chef, all while trying to keep up my art practice. I participated in, and eventually became Director of GLOW, a body painting company of painters and models. About 6 years ago, I received a call from the Founder of the Interurban ArtHouse. I’d produced a show for her in the past and she was looking for someone to help her run the organization. I am now the Artistic Director for the InterUrban ArtHouse and in charge of exhibitions, programming, and off site corporate curation.

A native of Bamberg, SC, Xavier Blake earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Newberry College and a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from the University of South Florida. He spent over two decades at South Carolina Educational Television, working with creatives and communities creating and amplifying representative content, leading to important community conversations.

Driven by his passion to infuse diversity into leadership and content creation spaces, he most recently held positions as the Community Programming & Engagement Coordinator at Nickelodeon Theater and the Content and Engagement Manager at WMHT. He also serves as a creative mentor for the South Carolina Arts Commission, The Art of Community: Rural SC, which helps advance creative placemaking initiatives in rural South Carolina.

Blake believes that centering historically marginalized voices is imperative to build the kind of society where everyone is able to thrive.

Currently, he serves as the Executive Director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture, the city’s local arts agency. Xavier is committed to collaborating with citizens, the cultural community, and city government, with the mission of enhancing the quality of life for all residents, attracting tourism, building sustainable and equitable pipelines for artists, and connecting our diverse cultural community.

Arts & Culture Manager

Yasmin Ruvalcaba is a Portland-based director, writer, consultant, and arts advocate. She centers her work around advancing equity, honoring mentorship and education, and promoting community outreach and engagement. Yasmin is currently working at Centro Cultural as the Arts & Culture Manager. Previously, Yasmin has worked with Advance Gender Equity in the Arts as the Grants Program Director and Bag&Baggage as the Problem Play Project Manager. She is also honored to be a co-founding member of Moriviví Theatre.
Yasmin has also engaged with her community through directing. Through her time at Williams College she directed El Nogalar and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. In Portland, she has directed The Tempest (Bag&Baggage). She was also honored to be the assistant director of Wolf at the Door (Milagro), La Ruta (Artists Repertory Theatre) and La Isla En Inviero/The Island in Winter (Bag&Baggage).
Yasmin is also an active writer in the community. Two of her monologues, Carmelita and Ruega Por Mi, were featured in Theatre Diaspora’s Here on This Bridge: The -ism Project. Yasmin has also had the opportunity to workshop her work with the Northwest Theatre Workshop. Yasmin also premiered a Dia de los Muertos performance, EL JIMADAOR, in partnership with Bag&Baggage and Centro Cultural in 2020.

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation. She has produced and exhibited works in the US, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Philippines. She has engaged Manila-based artists, call center agents, jeepney drivers, and artisans in projects that explore labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation. Since 2017, she has worked closely with professional sign spinners in southern California, Las Vegas, and Denver and developed collaborations between sign spinners and professional dancers, conversations between sign spinners and contemporary art curators, engagements with audiences, and participation in professional sign spinning competitions. More recently, she and Emmanuel David have developed, “”We Are Coming,”” which unearths the stories of a group of Filipinos, known as the Filipino Rough Riders, who performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in the 19th century.

Grants and Services Manager

Yurika Isoe is the Grants and Services Manager at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. Yurika partners with executive leadership, including Executive Director Adriana Gallegos to administer transformative grantmaking to excel recovery, innovation, and growth of the artistic sector to the highest potential in Southern Arizona. Yurika has managed the equitable distribution of over $2.3M of Federal CARES funds in the COVID-19 pandemic and advocated for increased direct investments to artists resulting in a 20% increased investments in artist-led community initiatives. By spearheading applicant service initiatives, Arts Foundation’s grantee profile averages 75%, non-white grantees.

Prior to joining Arts Foundation, Yurika served on the Board of Directors of Warehouse Arts Management Organization (WAMO) as Vice President- a creative spacemaking organization overlooking the acquisition and renovation of commercial property into artist studio spaces and galleries. As an artist, she works in sewing/embroidery through a circular economy lens and organized art events by participating as a cooperative member of SUBSPACE Arts Collective. Yurika has a BBA from the University of Arizona- Eller College of Management. Yurika holds space in an intersection of identities as a Japanese-Okinawan Muslim born in the settler-colonial United States.

Discipline: Interdisciplinary

Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene is an Ijaw Urhobo Nigerian dyke poet, performer, author, dancer, playwright, visual artist and fashion designer. Etaghene is the author of For Sizakele, a novel that addresses African lesbian/bisexual identity, love, intimate partner violence, and gender. Yvonne’s writing is published in five poetry chapbooks; and her poems, essays and fiction featured in various journals/anthologies.

Etaghene has shared her visual art in five solo art exhibitions. Etaghene created Ankara Queen by Yv. Etaghene, a fashion line exploring the nexus between Nigerian aesthetics, gender expression and self-acceptance. Yvonne hosts the NIGERIAN DYKE REALNESS Podcast.

Yvonne received a B.A. from Oberlin College, a Master’s degree from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Etaghene is a Svane Family Foundation Inaugural Artist in Headlands Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Fellowship. www.myloveisaverb.com, www.nigeriandykerealness.com