Creative Roots: New Work by Artist Mentors Opening In Our Gallery: This Friday, December 7th from 5pm-7pm

Join us as our 19 artist mentors and 2 arts mentoring fellows introduce their creative practice to our students and the community through an exhibition of their artwork. The opening event is this Friday, December 7th, from 5-7 pm at 743 Westminster Street. The event is free and open to the public and will feature a waffle bar and artists drawing live!

This year, we are honored to have such wonderful artists dedicated to mentoring
our students. Here are brief biographies of a few:

Erik Gould, the museum photographer for the RISD Museum of Art and an actively exhibiting fine art photographer. He has exhibited his work throughout New England, including exhibitions at Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Hera Gallery and AS220, among others. His work is currently showing at the Danforth Museum in Framingham MA and at Real Art Ways in Hartford CT. In 2005-06 Gould teamed up with students at NUA to produce the Providence Project, a citywide photographic survey supported by the Rhode Island Foundation's New Works program. The project, which was exhibited at NUA, investigated the rapidly changing landscape of Providence, particularly documenting spaces and architecture affected by new development. For more information on Gould’s photographic projects, visit www.erikgould.net.

Bremen Donovan grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia and spent a year studying film and television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She is now a senior at Brown University, where she is exploring the potential of humanitarian and community based media. She is most inspired by storytelling and documentary film making, and is working towards developing her own approach as an artist focused most on collaborative process. his past summer she received a Watson Institute fellowship to work with refugees on the Thai/Burma border as an intern at the International Rescue Committee in Thailand. This is her second year as an artist mentor.

David Karoff has lived in Providence and worked in Rhode Island's nonprofit sector for over twenty years in organizations such as the Rhode Island Service Alliance and the Rhode Island Foundation.  Much of that time he set aside the making of art for other preoccupations.  Recently he's been making sculptures again, mostly in steel, some inspired by ideas he set aside to percolate years ago.  He enjoys the quirky, using found objects, and seeking ways to express his (supposed) sense of humor. He's known several students for whom NUA has been an oasis in an intellectual and psychic desert. Knowing that his best mentors took risks to get him to take risks, he looks forward to doing the same.

Christine Hochreppel is a staff photographer for a community-minded weekly newspaper company, East Bay Newspapers, based in East Providence, RI.  On the side, Christine occasionally shoots freelance assignments for the Boston Globe and is starting a new wedding photography business, Two Wedding Photographers. Christine grew up in Centreville, Virginia and now lives in Providence's Armory district. As a mentor, she hopes to help students learn the basic principles of photography while also learning more about who they are as artists and incorporating their personalities into their work.

Make sure you come on Friday to meet the rest of our great crew!

*****