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2007-2008 Artist Mentors

Jason Brockert was born in 1971 as a native of Holliston, Massachusetts.  He saw his rural town turn suburb in the short span of a decade from 1980-90 and that transformation in large part fuels his current paintings.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994.  After a few years away, Jason returned to Providence in 1997 and still makes his home there where he works as both a fine art painter and painting faculty at RISD and is in his first year of mentoring at New Urban Arts.  Jason wants to bring an understanding of art as a language to his mentoring and to begin to realize what each person can say with their chosen language.  Jason's own language is painting and he has shown at various galleries throughout New England and has been awarded many grants and fellowships, the most recent being a summer fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Adrienne Benz grew up in metropolitan Chicago, and studied Civil Engineering as an undergraduate student in the foothills of Colorado. She received her Masters at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Architecture, and works for the local firm Truth Box, Inc., located on the Steel Yard compound. She recently finished building a custom house in Warwick, RI with her partner. Adrienne also works in several other disciplines including furniture and painting, and has completed several journal/painting adventures, using sumi ink and watercolor, in Mexico, which has become her way of documenting travel experiences and foreign architecture. She hopes to travel back to Chiapas, Mexico soon where she is applying for a Fulbright grant to work with the non-profit Na Bolom and the Locondona Indians of that region. Adrienne is inspired by quiet observation, allowing things to form a life of their own, and making ordinary found objects into art. 

McKenzie Burrus-Granger grew up in Astoria and Eugene, Oregon. She was raised on backyard blueberry bushes, jungle gyms and neighborhood adventure seeking. In 2000, McKenzie received her Bachelors in Fine Arts from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Since moving to Providence in the winter of 2003 she has: taken pictures, started a wedding photography business (A & M Photography), taken more pictures, taught a class at AS220, taken a class at The Steelyard, traveled alot, got married and taken more pictures.   

Carrie Cannon is originally from Rockville, Maryland and has lived in Providence for the past 10 years. During the day she works in web publishing and design for higher education and non-profit organizations. She attended Brown University where she studied modern culture & media, and visual arts – on accident. She works with a variety of mediums including screen printing, collage and photography and has been a dj and volunteer at Brown Student/Community Radio (BSR 88.1 fm). She also likes riding bikes, graph paper, and making lists.

Lauren Carter’s educational background is in sculpture, yet her more recent work explores multi-media art, sound art, and film. Through her artwork, she seeks the involvement of an audience. She brings this theme with her to New Urban Arts, where she is able to share her creative practice more directly. She has been a member of the New Urban Arts community since her graduation from Brown University in 2005 with a B.A. in Visual Arts. This year she will be working with students to create direct animations and 8mm films. When she is not at New Urban Arts, she spends her time working in her studio, watching her plants grow, and making pies.

Jean Cozzens is a poster maker, silkscreen printer, and emerging architect. She is originally from Philadelphia, PA, has now lived in Providence for 8 formative years, and can occasionally be found in Worcester, MA. Her many projects include: helping facilitate participatory art installations, collaboratively rebuilding a collective kitchen, persistently researching the architecture of everyday spaces, making screenprints of all shapes and sizes, practicing ways of interacting that undermine destructive power relationships, and mentoring at New Urban Arts! Jean is a recipient of a merit fellowship in design from the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied Architecture and Fine Arts. This is her third year at New Urban Arts.

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. Bremen’s spent several years at Lighthouse, a youth media non-profit in her hometown, working with high school students to create documentary, narrative, and animation films, as well as public service announcements and music videos.  This 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.

Ben Fino-Radin was born and raised in rural Ontario, NY and has recently relocated to Providence. He received his BFA in the hills of Alfred, NY at the New York State College of Ceramics. His work is deeply rooted in open source sharing folk communities such as knitting circles, do-it-yourself electronics kits, and "how-to" homepages. Ben volunteered at New Urban Arts in the Summer of 2006 during open studio hours. This being his first year as a full-fledged artist mentor, he will be working with students on circuit-bending, needlepoint, knitting, and crochet with hopes to reveal the organic nature of electronics, and the digital nature of crafts.

Kedrin Frias was born and raised in Providence, R.I. He first arrived at New Urban Arts as a student, while attending Central High School. He later returned to NUA ready to serve as an Artist Mentor during his sophomore year at Rhode Island College. Kedrin graduated with a Degree in Studio Art and an art teaching certification for grades K-12 in 2003. He has taught drawing, painting and various types of sculpture at New Urban Arts for over six year. He makes it his business to meet each of his students on their personal level, while corralling all of their talents into a group. Kedrin believes that “everyone can draw, it’s just that some people have forgotten they can.”

Erik Gould is the museum photographer for the RISD Museum of Art and an actively exhibiting fine art photographer. He received his Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Photography from Ohio University and a BA in studio art at SUNY Geneseo. He also holds a certificate in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design. 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. He was the recipient in 1994 of an Artist Fellowship from Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. 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.

Christine Hochkeppel 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. She graduated from Boston University's photojournalism program in 2005. While attending BU she served as the associate photo editor of the campus daily newspaper, The Daily Free Press, interned at the Photographic Resource Center and worked as a lab technician at the New England School of Photography. Christine's goal as a photographer is to capture people exactly as they are in their natural element. 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.

Jeff Hutchison was nurtured by the sunshine of Sunnyvale California. He surfed, danced and cycled his way through degrees in Psychology and Exercise Science at UCSB. Jeff now studies Cognitive Science at Brown University were his main focus is in exploring movement. When not hard at work in the laboratory Jeff can often be found dancing through the streets of Providence.

Gretta Johnson is senior at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she is studying film, animation and video. This past summer, she was an intern at Community Television Network in Chicago, and has previously led sculpture workshops at Mount Hope Learning Center and helped to coordinate the summer camp for students at Martin Luther King School in Providence. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Midwest is her homeland but she hopes to travel in search of new land in the next year or so. She enjoys drawing, animals, watching movies and collecting recipes.

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.

Stacy Magner graduated in 2006 from Emerson College where she studied Writing, Literature and Publishing. She was inspired to study poetry specifically through her participation as a high school student in Youth Speaks, a youth writing and slam poetry organization in New York. She continued her passion for written expression by working at a women's literary organization dedicated to furthering women's words. After being encouraged by the breadth and dedication of the Providence arts community, Stacy decided to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing this January, with a focus in the poetics, at Bennington College in Vermont. She hopes to fuse her graduate studies and her experience as a mentor at New Urban Arts to create something powerful and full of words!

Melissa Mendes has been living in Providence for almost a year. Before that she was in Massachusetts, at Hampshire College, where she made a comic called, "Adventures of a Kid", an illustrated story of a little girl with a very active imagination who never speaks and always wears a hoodie. Mostly Melissa likes to draw, read, teach, and talk about comics, but she also makes a living packing bags of coffee beans at New Harvest Coffee in Pawtucket. Other skills include making stuffed animals out of old T-shirts. She has plans to attend the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont next fall.

Michael Moretti is a self-taught artist and alumni of New Urban Arts, where he has formed a reputation for his elaborate tape art designs and the now infamous giant pac man costume. As a high school student he attended the competitive pre-college program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Last Spring, Michael collaborated with artist mentor Andrew Oesch to design and build an intricate three dimensional miniature model of the Steel Yard as an environmentally green space. His work ranges from drawing to silk screen printing. This is his first year as an artist mentor.

Carrie Sandman grew up in Tiverton, RI where she was first introduced to photography, ceramics, drawing and painting in high school. An artist mentor helped her work progress and she went on to attend Pratt Institute in NY where she received a BFA in photography. After graduation in 2003, Carrie pursued a career as a freelance photographer, which led to a job photographing children for a portrait company. One day she found herself making art with pre-school children and realized that art is a tool that can be used to help people express themselves. Currently, Carrie is pursuing a master’s degree in art therapy at Pratt Institute and doing art therapy with developmentally disabled children.

Kian Shenfield is a self-publishing writer and a semi-native Providenskian whose heart is presently lying in a field somewhere in the midlands of England. This explains his love for comedic science fiction as well as a good many other types of literature that intertwine over the genres of poetry, drama, and narrative. He has been involved in the NUA studio community for two years as a student and a project volunteer, and is currently in the process of a three-year-long identity crisis as he pursues a Mathematics degree at Rhode Island College. As a mentor, Kian hopes to create inspiring connections between diverse life experiences, identities, and creative styles, as well as empower future published authors through the world of underground media.  

2007-2008 ARTS MENTORING FELLOWS

Peter Hocking is the Director of the Office of Public Engagement at Rhode Island School of Design.  Prior to that, he was Associate Dean of the College and director of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University, he led an organization that's helped to define public service in higher education.  As an academic dean, he worked to integrate community practice with the academic curriculum. Locally, he's worked with dozens of non-profit organizations as a partner, board member and strategic planning leader, including New Urban Arts, Community Music Works, AIDS Project Rhode Island, The Rhode Island Service Alliance, Equity Action/The Rhode Island Foundation, and Southside Community Land Trust. He holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

Andrew Oesch lives, dreams, and rides his bicycle in Providence, RI. He spends most of his time working with youth of different ages, which mostly entails making exquisite corpse drawings and hanging out. He is a community based artist who has worked with various youth organizations around town including New Urban Arts, CityArts!, and English for Action. A really good day includes working in the garden, some coffee, a nap, and time spent working on projects with other day-dreamers. Sometimes it is hard to pull together these collaborations, but failure is an under sought after commodity. Past projects have included collaged sketchbook zines, Tape Art murals, maps of memory, and radio guided tours of the city. He is also known to play in the ¿What Cheer Brigade? but he wears a mask so it is kind of a secret

2006-2007 ARTIST MENTORS
Jesse Banks III
Heidi Born
Megan Billman
Jason Brockert
Lauren Carter
Jessica Chermayeff
Bremen Donovan
Richard Edouard-Denor
Kedrin Frias
John Tabor Jacobson (JJ)
Melissa Mendes
Charlotte O’Donnell
Andrew Oesch
Kate Sanders-Fleming
Carrie Sandman
Emmie Thelander

2005-06 ARTIST MENTORS
Jesse Banks III
Sara Berg
Erica Carpenter
Jeanie Chu
Jean Cozzens
Kedrin Frias
Eva Glieberman
John Jacobson
Anne McMahon
Charlotte O’Donnell
Adenike Omisore
Jennifer Rice
Arthi Sundaresh

2004-05 ARTIST MENTORS
Jesse Banks III
Sara Berg
Esther Chak
Grace Durnford
Kedrin Frias
John (JJ) Jacobson
Morolake Odeleye
Charlotte O’Donnell
Benjamin David Sault
Arthi Sundaresh
Nicky Tavares
Ellen Twaddell
Lynne Yarne
Tanisha Wallace

2003-04 ARTIST MENTORS
Sara Berg
Liz Luna
Jesse Banks III
Kedrin Frias
Erica Dennis
Curtis Evans
Rukmini Giridharadas
Erik Gould
Simon Moore
Antonio Peters
Tanisha Wallace

2002-03 ARTIST MENTORS
Jesse Banks
Lacey Browne
Faith Cannon
Vincent Chong
Kedrin Frias
Michael Friemuth
Flexie Giddings
Owen Muir
Kagnaone Som
Sheena Sood
Anissa Weinraub

2001-02 ARTIST MENTORS
Jesse Banks
Lacey Browne
Ilana Cohen
Shelley Povarnik
Kedrin Frias
Julia Grob
Melissa Koh
Marly Louis
Owen Muir
Roderigo Vega
Japhet Weeks

2000-01 ARTIST MENTORS
Kat Ball
Dominika Bednarska
Elizabeth Hoover
Karla Gallardo
Soyeon Lucy Kim
Marly Louis
Sara Schedler
Jason Yoon

1999-00 ARTIST MENTORS
Aixa Almonte
Natalia Almada
Elizabeth Hoover
Karla Gallardo
Luisa Guigliano
Natalie Lewis, Spontaneous Combustin'
Natalie Markward
Ning Sengsouvanh
Bobbie Watkins
Adam Weinstock, Spontaneous Combustin'
Windsor Williams

1998-99 ARTIST MENTORS
Justin Bernstein, The Theatre Project
Ana Fox Chaney, The Theatre Project
Helen Cymrot, The Photography Workshop
Elizabeth Hoover
Sarah Leddy
Fay Ryu

1997-98 ARTIST MENTORS
Marcus Civin
Tyler Denmead
Julia Kim
Malaika Thorne