I am an islander from a tiny island of Saipan, Called Nrthern Marianas Islands.A US citizen, and an active artist uneer the Office of the Community and Cultural Affairs under Arts Council. I have been doing my variety of cultural ear head lei, bead making, coconut crafts and many recycle materials that i can teach our children.
Patrick Arthur Jackson, a Richmond, VA native now residing in St. Petersburg, FL, is a dynamic creative, producer, director, actor, and teaching artist deeply committed to connection through storytelling. A Morehouse College Drama graduate, he honed his skills at the British American Drama Academy and the Florida Studio Theatre Apprentice Program.
With a Certificate in Leadership from the Nonprofit Leadership Center and prior Fellowship in Advancing Racial Equity on Nonprofit Boards, Patrick serves as the Manager of Education, Outreach, and Program Design at The Woodson African American Museum of Florida. A versatile artist, he has showcased his talents across Southeast arts organizations, including directing acts of faith at American Stage and earning recognition as a 2023 Emerging Artist with Creative Pinellas.
Off-stage, Patrick is the host of The Black Hand Side Podcast, celebrating black culture, connection, and conversation. In addition to serving on the ministerial staff at Today’s Church Tampa Bay, he further engages with the community through The Black Excellence Collective, Actor’s Equity Association, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Grateful for the gift of storytelling, Patrick, the proud son of Cynthia B. Jackson-Ward and Patrick D. Jackson, envisions its power inspiring change globally.
Lopez is a prominent painter and muralist whose acrylic paintings are driven by color and convey a multi-faceted array of symbolic, cultural and feminine imagery infused with spiritual vision and incendiary composition, establishing her as a key artist in the Latina/Hispana/Chicana/Mestiza genre. Born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, she identifies as an artist of mixed Jicarilla Apache and European heritage.
An active and fulltime artist, she operated studio galleries in Las Vegas, Taos and in Santa Fe, exhibited in Contemporary Spanish Market and had the honor to represent New Mexico as the “official portrait artist, at the White House, in Washington D. C., in 2006, when NM provided the People’s Christmas Tree.
Relocating in 2003 to California, she maintained a public studio/exhibit space in Los Angeles. As a muralist, she produced individual, community and student-assisted murals as a teaching artist. She returned home to New Mexico in September 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I want to create a program based on cultural competency that will encompass major areas to help non BIPOC to be respectful and understand history.
Renato Olmedo-Gonzalez
Leaders of Color Professional Development Fund
2023
Salt Lake City, Utah
Rezina Habtemariam
Leaders of Color Professional Development Fund
2023
Seattle, Washington
Rezina Habtemariam
Leaders of Color Professional Development Fund
2024
Washington
Rico R Worl
Leaders of Color Professional Development Fund
2023
Juneau, Alaska
Rosie Saldana
Leaders of Color Fellowship
2021 - 2022
Tieton, Washington
Program Associate/ Volunteer Coordinator, Tieton Arts and Humanities
Ruby Barrientos
Leaders of Color Fellowship
2021 - 2022
Reno, Nevada
Customer Service Associate, ANIMARTERENO Collective Program Coordinator
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.
SheenRu Yong is a dance artist, choreographer, and the initiator of body_portal_theatre. She began dancing at Wesleyan University and then trained in New York City, Taipei, and Berlin where she was commissioned and inspired to choreograph evening-length shows, site-specific works, and community-based performances. While earning her MFA in Choreography at the Taipei National University of the Arts, she toured internationally with Legend Lin Dance Theatre. Through the platform body_portal_theatre, she works to research and develop the creative potentials of the individual, collective, and environmental bodies we inhabit.
SheenRu specializes in making interactive work with audiences and communities to create immersive experiences. Under the auspices of the LuoManFei Dance Fund and the Taiwan Ministry of Culture, she spearheaded FLOOD / turn the tide, a community collaborative effort to create conversations about water featuring local stories, experiences, and sites through events and performances in Hawaiʻi, Myanmar and Taiwan. Her series, THIN SKIN, which explored vulnerability and empathic resonance, was presented as site-specific performance installations, workshops, and exhibits in Hawaiʻi, Germany, Iceland, and Spain.
A Taiwanese American born and raised in the midwest of the U.S., SheenRu is happy to now call Hawaiʻi home.
Shiori Green is a student fellow for Just Cities and the Deeply Rooted Collaborative, currently pursuing a Master’s in City Planning at UC Berkeley. Shiori’s background in architecture combined with her passion for social justice is at the heart of all of her work. Currently Shiori is exploring the intersection of design and public policy through her investigation of cultural community development in Oakland. Using her skills in legal and policy analysis, combined with a desire to find ground truths, Shiori advocates for local governments to take an active role in ending systemic inequity and eliminating disparate harm in communities of color. Shiori’s experience in local government, New York City’s Department of City Planning as well as the City of Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development, informs her belief that local governments have the capacity to bring meaningful change in neighborhoods. Oscillating between work at the local government and work with community advocacy groups, Shiori aims to understand the various systems of power that can be used to bring about change in neighborhoods. Shiori enjoys bringing facets of art and design into all of her work, and believes in the strength of art based advocacy as catalyst for community organizing. Born and raised in Hawaii, Shiori values the strength of tight knit communities, and the joy that comes from sharing individual cultural values with others. Through this fellowship Shiori hopes to further investigate the lack of cultural infrastructure funding seen in Oakland today, and explore meaningful policy changes that are grounded in anti-displacement and community voice.
Sophia Felder was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska and has been a permanent resident of Denver, Colorado since 2010. Sophia is currently working to preserve statewide historical sites and structures as a Historical Preservations Grant Contract Specialist with the State Historic Fund based out of History Colorado. Sophia’s love of global cultures, history, and identity led her to complete an undergraduates in Anthropology with a minors in Spanish from the Metropolitan State University of Denver and will be continuing her education by enrolling in Adams State Universities Masters program in Cultural Resource Management. Her own cultural heritage has taken her to Colombia, the West Indies, and New Orleans to find the interconnectedness of these groups within the Americas and the greater global communities.
Stella Nall “Bisháakinnesh” (Rode Buffalo) is a multimedia artist and poet from Bozeman, Montana. A first descendant of the Crow tribe, her work is informed by her experiences navigating the world and often centers current issues pertaining to Indigenous identity, visibility and representation.
She graduated from the University of Montana in 2020 with a BFA in Printmaking, a BA in Psychology and a minor in Art History and Criticism. She now lives in Missoula, where she is represented by Radius Gallery.
Her work may be seen as murals across the western states, and has been acquired to permanent collections at Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC), The Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, NM), The Montana Museum of Art and Culture (Missoula, MT), and Montana State University (Bozeman, MT).
Steven Young Lee is an artist in Helena, Montana. He was the Director of the Archie Bray Foundation for 16 years until 2022. In 2004-05, he lectured and taught at universities throughout China as part of an educational exchange and spent time in Seoul, South Korea studying ceramic tradition and history. In 2005-6 he was a visiting professor at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C.
Lee has lectured extensively in North America and Asia. In the Fall of 2016 he was one of four artists featured as part of the Renwick Invitational at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. In 2019, he had a solo exhibition at the Portland Art Museum and in 2021, his work was included in “Crafting America”, at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
His work has been collected by the Smithsonian Museum, LACMA, the Portland Art Museum, the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Korea, and many private and public collections.