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Discipline: Visual Arts Pete “”Pedru”” Perez has been a cultural leader and practitioner in the movement to restore canoe culture in the Mariana Islands for nearly 20 years. He and his wife Emma co-founded the nonprofit 500 Sails where he was its Executive Director and lead canoe builder until retiring in April 2024. The canoes he builds are based on the historic record that describes the Chamorro sailing canoes that were banned and lost during two centuries of Spanish colonial occupation of the Mariana Islands. Canoe building is an art that has its origins over 3500 years ago when the Chamorros settled in the remote Pacific, and they are decorated today using Oceanic motifs and traditional designs that come from Chamorro cave art and jewelry found in ancient graves. Since 500 Sails completed its first Chamorro “”Flying Proa”” in 2016, Pedru has sailed by canoe between the nearby islands and as far south as as Guam and Yap. His experiences on ocean inform both the design and decoration of the canoes he builds. |
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Discipline: Literature Peter R. Onedera is a storyteller from Sinajana, Guam. He speaks, reads, and writes in a bilingual format incorporating the indigenous language of CHamoru along with English. His talk story skills began in childhood from elders in his clan. Through the years, he created additional skills using situational scenarios, costumes, props, and puppets in presentations abroad and in schools. He has also written books, plays, poems, academic articles, and taught in the island’s school system from elementary to the University of Guam. He is also a noted playwright, having written over one hundred plays and staged and directed nearly half of them on Guam, Saipan, Northern and Southern California, Hawaiʻi, and in the Festivals of Pacific Arts in Palau, the Solomon Islands, as well as Guam’s hosting of the 12th FESTPAC in 2016. |
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Discipline: Visual Arts Peter manifests safe and creative spaces for ‘Brown Dance’ culture and the arts to thrive and grow equally in the traditional and contemporary expressions. Centering focus on Indigenous identities and voices in a moving dialogue addressing current local issues of urbanization and globalization. Through a NEA – Challenge America grant, Peter continues his journey towards articulating Pōhuli, reindiginization through the creation of his own movement modality and vocabulary reformed into the foundation of a new movement language paradigm for his dance company, Tau Dance Theater, the only professional dance company based in Honolulu directed by a Native Hawaiian. Peter is a 2022 recipient of the Western Arts Alliance, Advancing Indigenous Performances – Native Launchpad, was awarded a three-week Intercultural International Choreographer’s Creation Lab residency at Banff Center for the Creative Arts in Canada, and is round 2 Dance/USA Fellowship to Artists recipient. |
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Discipline: Folklife/Traditional Arts Pi‘ilaniwahine Smith is a Native Hawaiian contemporary artist and kumu hula, descending from a matrilineal genealogy of kumu hula within her ‘ohana. Her mother, Alicia Keolahouakamalama Keawekane Smith of Haleʻiwa, Oʻahu, is her kumu hula and the founder of the esteemed Hālau O Nā Maolipua. Smith’s ʻieʻie weaving is deeply informed by her practice of hula kuahu, where the ‘ie‘ie serves as a manifestation of Laka. She is recognized in her community as a hula practitioner who uses her cultural knowledge and experience as a form of political resistance and activism, advocating for the protection of ʻāina and Native Hawaiian rights. Through her use of ‘ie‘ie, Smith reclaims the connection between people and place, reigniting conversations of the sacred with the sacred through Ma ka ʻike ka hana, a traditional Native Hawaiian worldview where continuity of knowledge informs future generations. In 2024, Smith celebrated her artist debut with her solo exhibition, ʻIe holo ē, at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hamilton Library, Hawaiʻi and Pacific Collections. The exhibition featured a nine-piece collection, culminating in a rare kiʻi akua hulu manu. Today, Smith continues her family’s hula legacy as kumu hula of Hālau Mālamalamapiʻopiʻookalāpukakakahiaka. |
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Executive Director, Queerlective Inc Hello! My name is Randall Nielsen and I am a Queer Black artist and engineer living in New Hampshire. I move to Boston in 2010 to obtain a Bachelors in Engineering from Boston University. In 2014, I moved to New Hampshire for a lower cost of living. Since living in New Hampshire, I have met a lot of interesting Queer/BIPOC artists and saw a fantastic opportunity to engage and be a part of that community. This year I decided to take my art career seriously and started my art business From Strange Pieces. My primary media at first was digital illustration, but through some experimentation I developed a new process using resin and iridescent cellophane to create novel pieces that are celebrations of color and form and light. This year I have been working to grow my art skills and engage the art community. That initial work has led me to see a great opportunity for bolstering the already growing art community here in New Hampshire by forming Queerlective. Since then Queerlective has been working on building it’s foundation in the community here and providing ways for promote and support Queer and BIPOC artists. Running Queerlective has come with it’s challenges but it has been a very rewarding process given the fantastic reception from the community. |
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Rebecca Evans, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware Marketing & PR Artistic Communications Director, Social Justice Artist & Activist, and Consultant Rebecca Evans is a Rehoboth Beach-based integrated communications director, social justice artist & activist, unconscious bias consultant and life coach, writer, and cofounder and co-owner of Diamond State of Mind, LLC. Rebecca also identifies as a proud parent, Black, queer-lesbian, multiethnic, multicultural, disABLED woman, who can be referred to as she/her/they. Evans promotes social and cultural equality, inclusion, diversity, and justice through all forms of artistic expression. She seeks to connect with underrepresented and isolated communities to locate artists, and provide an exhibition space, artistic supplies, and other resources to display an artists’ work, and further their professional and academic goals. Evans obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and Women Studies from Tufts University, and her master’s degree in Corporate Public Relations from Boston University. She has over a decade of experience in integrated communications and working and volunteering within the artistic community. She has written for non-profits, directed, and acted in plays in Central Jersey, and performed in New York City and Boston before moving to Delaware with her family and three seizure-alert service dogs. Through Diamond State of Mind, Rebecca, along with her wife, Natalia will provide unconscious bias training, consultancy, and coaching to individuals and organizations based upon their unique integration of the arts and communications strategies. |
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Executive Director, Arrowhead Regional Arts Council I am an enrolled citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, native American woman. I have an undergraduate degree from Bemidji State University in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance. My masters degree is from University of Minnesota Duluth in Tribal Administration and Governance. I worked for 20+ years in Tribal Government with the most recent position being Internal Audit Division Director. My most recent position prior to ARAC was for the Boys & Girls Club of the Leech Lake Area as the Executive Director. Since I have spent most on my career working with my own community it has been an eye opener of the extreme need for DEI work in the general community. I have had two specific acts of racism with the employer I joined. |
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Discipline: Folklife/Traditional Crafts&Visual Arts From the villages of Aoloau and Fagasa, Renisha Reid now resides in Vaitogi with her husband Tyrone and their four children—Jordan, Janae, Jesalyn, and Jrue. Her cultural journey began with music and dance and has grown into creating clothing, accessories, and crafts that reflect Samoan values and beauty. Inspired by the women in her life—her mother, sisters, aunts, and close friends—Reid blends creativity with community, honoring family, uplifting traditions, and sharing cultural pride with the next generation. |
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Robert Martinez, born in Riverton, Wyoming, draws profound inspiration from his Chicano and Northern Arapaho heritage. He graduated from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design in just three years, making him one of the youngest graduates at the time. Martinez’s work merges Indigenous Plains Ledger Art traditions with graphite-rendered figures, bold airbrushed acrylics, and brushed highlights on antique paper, resulting in powerful visual statements. Drawing inspiration from the hardworking people of the West, his art serves as a bridge between the past and present. A recipient of Wyoming’s Governor’s Art Award, his work is part of the permanent collections at The Plains Indian Museum at the Center of the West, The Brinton Museum, The Wyoming State Museum, The Nic, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. |
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Program Associate/ Volunteer Coordinator, Tieton Arts and Humanities |
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Customer Service Associate, ANIMARTERENO Collective Program Coordinator |
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Discipline: Photography Rudy Rivera is a Chamoru cultural practitioner raised in Santa Rita, Guam, who also specializes in graphic design, video, and photography. From his involvement within the different guma, he increased his traditional knowledge which led him to utilize his graphical skills to further promote his indigenous heritage. His preferred art medium is photography His photos capture stories of the CHamoru people, its cultural practices and traditions, as well as the beautiful scenery and its lanmarks around the Marianas Islands. Through his photos, he aims to encourage and safeguard the CHamoru culture, its image, and traditions practices. |
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Discipline: Visual Arts Ruta’ Tauiliili-Mahuka is a painter and crafter from Tafuna, American Samoa. Trained in painting by her grandfather, she focuses on island seascapes as well as close ups of island flora and fauna. She is also a crafter and creates wire jewelry that incorporates coconut, lava and shell beads as well as sea glass harvested from local beaches. Her work aims at raising awareness about environmental issues by using nature as both subject and materials. Her goal is to engage the viewer and to try and strengthen their relationship with island environments from the tropical forests to marine ecosystems. |
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Discipline: Photography Samantha Teleso is a wife and a mother who photographs creative portraits in her free time. Raised as a U.S. Army brat, she moved to her ancestral home of American Samoa at 29 and ran a family photography business for several years before pausing to focus on her growing family. Teleso fulfills her passion of directing and photographing creative portraits that highlights American Samoa’s empowering women, breathtaking landscapes, and natural elements. Her goal to host a creative portrait event in American Samoa deems to connect its photography community and local businesses all for the sake of creating art. |
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A CHamoru born and raised on Guam, Sandra Flores’ work is inspired by the CHamoru cultural resurgence she has witnessed and the resulting explosion of indigenous expression across all art forms. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at Northwestern University. She spent many years owning her own businesses in art and in healthcare. When she moved to San Diego, California, in 2011, those business skills were valuable in helping her to establish and support organizations such as the Uno Hit cultural education program and the House of Chamorros from 2012 to 2020. Her reflections on this work were the subject of her weekly column in Guam’s Pacific Daily News from 2012-2016. She earned a master’s in Peace Studies at the University of San Diego in 2021. All of these experiences led her to the position of director of the Guam Arts Agency from 2021 to 2023. She continues her work independently, writing and working with the Guam arts community both on Guam and in the diasporic populations across the continental US. She sees art as a powerful tool for self-expression, outreach, and community building, giving voice and driving change for greater understanding and greater equity. |
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Discipline: Multidisciplinary Sapioamoa Taiulagi Galea’i, known as Sapi, was born and raised in American Samoa with deep roots in the villages of Fitiuta, Sapapali’i, Pava’ia’i, and Nu’uuli. She is of Samoan, Hawaiian, and Japanese descent. Sapi is married and, together with her husband, lovingly raises their four daughters and son. Galea’i holds dual degrees in nutrition science and psychology, as well as a master’s degree in education. For more than a decade, she served as program director for the American Samoa Department of Education’s School Lunch Program, crafting daily meals for more than 12,000 children across 35 schools. In 2024, she transitioned from institutional kitchens to her own, discovering that cooking was more than a task—it was a language of love, a canvas for creativity, and a powerful form of therapy. From her home kitchen, she founded and now owns Four Sisters Catering Company, Lumana’i Property Management, and is developing a foodservice training space set to open in 2026. Galea’i found that letting go of the success she once pursued made space for a passion that truly fed her soul. She treasures time with family and friends. When not in the kitchen, she enjoys meals with her father and husband, drives her children to school, sports, and dance, and ensures she carves out “me time.” Galea’i joy comes from creating something beautiful and nourishing, sharing it with others, and making lasting memories. |
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Discipline: Literature Sarah Capdeville is a queer, disabled, place-based writer and the author of Aligning the Glacier’s Ghost, which won the 2022 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. She was a finalist for the 2019 Montana Prize in Nonfiction, and her work has appeared in Orion, Fourth Genre, The Normal School, Flyway, and other publications. Capdeville holds an MFA in creative writing from Chatham University and studied resource conservation and wilderness studies at the University of Montana. For five seasons, she proudly served as a wilderness ranger in Montana’s Rattlesnake, Welcome Creek, and Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness areas. An editor with The Hopper and The Changing Times, Capdeville lives in Missoula, Montana, with her partner, a lanky greyhound, and an opinionated tortoiseshell cat. |
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Discipline: Crafts Sarojni Singh is an artist from Leone, American Samoa. She has a wide range of artistic expressions ranging from painting to jewelry making to flower preservation. She started a small business called “Roji Ella Handmade” where she creates earrings out of mostly polymer clay and adds a Polynesian twist. She has also collected local flowers in American Samoa, preserves them and turns them into jewelry and adds them to her paintings as well. Singh acknowledges that the Samoan Art class she took in college taught by her teacher Regina Meredith gave her valuable knowledge of Traditional Samoan art forms that still inspires her work today. |