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2009-2010 Artist Mentors
Adrienne Benz studied Civil Engineering at Colorado State University as an undergraduate and received her Masters at the Rhode Island School of Design in Architecture. She has taught in the Architecture Department at RISD and teaches an intensive design-build architecture studio for teens through RISD continuing education She recently finished building a community center with Monash University students in Australia through a design-build studio she taught there. Adrienne began painting a few years ago, using primarily sumi ink and watercolor as her medium of choice. Over time painting has become a place of stillness for her, a time for her to arrive upon and dwell beyond the reaches of her own preconceptions. Her work is produced in a time in which she is lost, a time of searching. Her finished works are maps, memories of a travel. She is intrigued by found objects; their displacement in space and time allows wandering. She maps their past realities and finds how they reside in the present by her interpretation of their travel. She is a collector of memories. This is Adrienne's third year mentoring at New Urban Arts.
Dylan Block-Harley was born in Providence and raised in Seekonk, MA. He likes to start books and forget to finish them, write letters and forget to send them, and make lots of new friends who he can later forget to send letters to. Usually his forgetfulness is a direct result of playing music - a habit he's been trying to kick since fifth grade when his dad bought him a drum pad in an effort to get him to stop using his brother's head as a bongo. Today he and his brother are in the beginning stages of starting a band in Providence, which mostly means they don't have a name or place to practice yet. After graduating from Earlham College this past spring, Dylan headed north to the woods of Maine and Canada where he has spent a number of summers leading canoe trips across lakes, down rivers and up streams for Darrow Camp. He is thrilled to be a part of New Urban Arts this year where he hopes to pass his love for music on to others, as well as meet new people who also want to live on a castle farm when they are 80.
Caitlin Cali was born and raised on Cape Cod, MA. After many travels, she is currently enjoying the sights and sounds of what has been fondly referred to as the Providing City; you guessed it, Providence, RI. She received her BFA in Printmaking from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and completed a year of graduate courses in Art Education at the University of Massachusetts before embarking on a dedicated journey towards letting the dark mingle with the light. She has taught art to students of all ages, most recently at the Nantucket Island School of Design and Art. She has worked as a printmaker and teacher at Pyramid Atlantic, Zea Mays, and lived/worked at the Edward Gorey House Museum. She now works at a non-profit organization providing residential services to adults with disabilities. She is trying to combine her passions for making art and helping others, because let’s face it, life is hard and art makes it better. This is her second year as an artist mentor.Alice Costas hails from Chicago, Illinois, where she wrote her fingers off at Young Chicago Authors and holed up in her high-school's homemade dark-room, located in the men's theatre locker room. She is a weaver, printer, photographer, writer, performer and baker. She is currently studying American history, creative writing and textile design at Brown and RISD. In particular, Alice has worked on several creative research projects regarding the intersections between the textile industry and the slave trade. She's interested in how art can make history accessible and present. She likes to swim, ride bikes, make music with her brother who is wonderful and brilliant, and draw with whatever implements are around. She loves fabric as an object and a metaphor. She is full of presentiment to be working for the first time as a New Urban Arts Artist Mentor.
Morgan Fagant is excited to be returning to New Urban Arts for her second year as a film mentor. As a graduate from SUNY Purchase with a degree in film, she has created numerous short films including a musical. She is excited to venture back into filmmaking and to inspire students to create. Last year, Morgan and her group of mentees participated in the Providence 48 Hour Film Project, where they had to create a film in 48 hours. She finds herself inspired by her family, her students and by observing people and her environment. Morgan also loves organizing production books full of ideas and enjoys creating quirky worlds for her films. She is a twin and is often confused for her other half. She loves to dance the tango and enjoys DJing. Morgan currently works with City Year Rhode Island and lives in Connecticut.
Kevin Gonsalves is from Providence, Rhode Island. He is an alumni of New Urban Arts, where he learned traditional black and white photography as a high school student. He also participated in the arts programs at As220 Broad Street Studio and Providence City Arts. A percussionist for more than six years, Kevin has enjoyed opportunities to travel and perform. At the age of 15, Kevin was one of two high school students from the US selected to play in a musical ensemble in Portugal, sponsored by Child Reach and Plan. He currently works at a nursing home and plans to be a teacher for students with special needs. Kevin is an independent film junkie, has a small Chihuahua named Yaya and dances salsa whenever he can. Kevin is still fascinated by the darkroom and continues to create new works, mostly fashion and portraiture photography. This is first year as an artist mentor.
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.
Sarah Greenfield grew up in the Midwest’s “Rust Belt” surrounded by decaying factories and corn fields, and now wonders if that’s what inspired her passion for rusty things and…well, anything made with corn. She recently graduated from RISD with a BFA in Illustration, and considers storytelling to be central to both her work and her life. She is currently obsessed with found-object assemblage, shrine-making, puppets, dolls, jewelry, and other three-dimensional mixed-media forms of expression. She is a collector, a lucid dreamer, an optimist and a good listener (big talker too). In addition to making stuff, she enjoys dumpster-diving, being a book/movie/videogame geek, playing the banjo, singing, antique-hunting, caring for plants, pets and people, and hugging a lot.
Julia Gualtieri has been involved with nonprofit and youth organizations in Telluride CO, Seattle WA, and Providence, RI since 2003. She holds a BA in Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz and and MA in Art Education from the Rhode Island School of Design. Julia likes to make things with other people, coordinate large scale collaborative projects, and ride bicycles with big groups of people. Julia also likes to bake, build forts, and collect heart-shaped rocks. http://www.jtgualtieri.comOsmery Guerra is an alumni student of New Urban Arts where she worked on fashion design, drawing and sewing. She showed an ambitious line, Pretty in Pink, in the annual fashion show at New Urban Arts, only five months after she first started designing! She also made her own prom dress. During summer 2007, Osmery attended a pre-college course at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where she further developed her sewing skills. Osmery is a graduate of Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, RI and is currently attending Community College of Rhode Island as an art major. She plans to attend FIT in 2010 and aspires to work in the fashion industry. This is her first year as an artist mentor at New Urban Arts. She wants to help students find their inner artist, like her mentors did for her. Osmery rarely has extra time on her hands, but when she does she enjoys going to museums and the movies, listening to music and cooking Domincan food.
Abel Hernandez is an alumni student of New Urban Arts and a graduate of Central High School. He has participated in many art and political programs around the state, including Providence City Arts, TruSkool Studios, RISD Pre-College, Providence School District Wide Student Government, and Providence Poverty Task Force with Mayor David Cicilline. He is an alumni of the 2007 Class of College Visions. He is a junior at the Rhode Island School of Design where he studies industrial design. This is his second year as an artist mentor at New Urban Arts, where he works with students on developing their drawing skills. He also rock climbs, dances salsa, builds bikes and works multiple jobs.
Lynn Kiang is a Graphic Designer from a little suburb called West Caldwell, NJ. She got tired of the little town and moved to a bigger town called Los Angeles for 8 years where she graduated from UCLA in Psychology in 2005, learned how to swing dance, and worked both as a freelance designer and as an in-house designer for a landscape architecture firm in Downtown LA. Lynn’s now back on the East Coast where she is working towards her masters in Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and enjoying the seasons again. Lynn loves all things type, design, photo, music, dance and film and enjoys mixing them up in a happy art pie. Speaking of pie, she has never baked a real pie before but is happy to be part of the New Urban Arts family and will be kicking portfolios into high gear this year with the fabulous juniors and seniors.
Rob MacInnis grew up in the friendly neighbor to the North - Canada! (Nova Scotia to be precise). He played music as a kid and didn't discover his love for visual art until well after high school. Since graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, he's lived all over - Ireland, Canada and now the US. He finds inspiration and everything from math equations to movies. It's his first time mentoring at New Urban Arts.
Jadrian Miles loves math, art, computers, music, and everything that mixes them; he's also into cooking, travel, friends, and living in Providence, but those are more independent concepts. He is a PhD candidate in computer science at Brown University, trying to get computers to make sense of brain scans. Jadrian believes there is beauty all around us and will consider his job as resident math tutor well done if he can convey some of the beauty of mathematics to folks at New Urban Arts.
Dionte Noble is a graphic designer attending his senior year at Johnson & Wales University. He plans to graduate in May of 2010 with his bachelor’s degree in Computer Graphics and New Media. Originally from Long Island New York, Dionte is an entrepreneur, and started his own t-shirt line at the age of 19. This is his second year as an artist mentor at New Urban Arts. As he mentors, he hopes to grow not only as an artist, but as a person.
Carole Ann Penney grew up in the green state of Vermont. As a child, her favorite holiday was "Green Up Day" in which she, her brother, and mother would walk down their mile long dirt road and pick up discarded garbage. Her love for trash, found objects, and recycling hibernated through her college education at Brown University until she graduated in 2007 with a B.A. in Education Studies. Since then, she has discovered the wonders of the RI Recycling Center, a sewing machine named Silas, and the resourcefulness required to work as the AmeriCorps Program Coordinator at Providence Children's Museum. She sews plastic bags into wallets, makes purses out of milk cartons, and turns old pairs of pants into a fashionable purses. Well, with Silas' help. She is excited to be a first-time mentor at New Urban Arts. Check out her blog at http://connectthedotscrafts.blogspot.com/.
Filomena Riganti is in her third and final year at RISD studying landscape architecture, and spends a lot of time these days contemplating the meaning of making for her graduate thesis, decorating the façade of 743 Westminster in hot pink and, whenever possible, baking cookies. Originally from rural upstate New York, Filomena majored in environmental studies while in college at Vassar. From there, she spent several years working as an environmental educator at various places, including a nature preserve, an organic dairy farm, and on board a 100 foot sailboat. A good way to engage Filomena in conversation is to ask her about her favorite fish: the American Eel. She also loves to exchange favorite cookie recipes, so please share.
Caitlin Saharek grew up among the trees in the forests of Northwestern Connecticut, drawing pictures and building forts daily. She has lived in Providence since attending and graduating from RISD where she studied Illustration and printmaking. She also holds a degree in Graphic Design from Northwestern Connecticut Community College. She finds inspiration in nature, baking, bicycling, friends, puppies, and the printed word. This is her first year mentoring at New Urban Arts and can't wait to find out what happens next!
Dan Schleifer is an organizer, musician and educator. He is the founding Sousaphone player of the What Cheer? Brigade http://whatcheerbrigade.com. In 2007, he became the first studio study buddy at New Urban Arts, and this will be his third year in that capacity. Daniel also teaches music at AS220 Broad Street Studios. In 2006, he was the lead organizer of the Rhode Island Right to Vote Campaign, which, through a statewide referendum, restored voting rights to 15,000 Rhode Islanders on Probation and Parole.
Emily Ustach was born and raised in eastern North Carolina and has spent the past five years living in Providence. She is a proud graduate of Salem College, one of the oldest women's colleges in the nation where she studied art history, studio art and worked very closely with a local community based organization. She received her masters degree from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied Art Education with a focus on community arts education. She considers herself an amature artist - someone who is always learning and never becomes an expert. Previously she worked with New Urban Arts as the Interim Office Manager and as an Artist Mentor. Currently she is the Student Program Coordinator for Rhode Island Campus Compact. She is excited and looking forward to being back at New Urban Arts and working with the Studio Team Advisory Board.
Mary Wilson was born and raised in Worcester, MA, and returned "almost home" to Providence in 2008. She received her BA in English from Bard College in 2006. Mary primarily writes poetry, but has also been known to write prose, criticism and very, very short fiction. Most of her work is an attempt to apply language to those things which resist it; the forgotten, unknowable or unsayable conditions which we all encounter or dwell in at one point or another. It is entirely possible that Mary finds herself dwelling in these conditions more often than what may be considered average, and is compelled to write poetry for this reason. Nevertheless, she is a firm believer in writing's potential to be both liberating and grounding; a way of seeing and creating meaning in a world of infinite interpretations.2009-2010 ARTS MENTORING FELLOWS
Emmy Bright is an artist and educator whose interests extend beyond the studio and classroom. Her work in arts education spans the field: artist and arts administrator, board member and teaching artist, art teacher, researcher, program evaluator, and theorist. She most recently taught art and literacy at the Kildonan School in Dutchess County, NY.
In Chicago, she managed large-scale arts education initiatives and worked in afterschool and community projects with a number of organizations and schools. She worked as an observation specialist and professional development coordinator for Project AIM at the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College, Chicago, where she observed arts integrated classroom projects and shared field notes with Teaching Artists. Some of her reflections were published in AIMprint: New Relationships in Arts Learning.
She holds a B.A. in Art History from University of Chicago, many hours in the School of the Art Institute studios, and an M.Ed in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. There she focused on the arts, identity, gender, and childhood. For the Alumni of Color Conference, sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Emmy created an interactive blackboard installation providing a visual forum for the ideas generated at the conference. In 1999, she received a Perry Hearst Prize from the University of Chicago for combining study with social responsibility, along with a Princeton Project 55 Fellowship for community work in Chicago.
Her past two summers have been spent working in papermaking and printmaking residencies at The Penland School of Crafts. Her creative practice has a dual focus: one eye in the studio and the other one in social spaces like the community and the classroom. In both, she values the process of work unfolding, often unexpectedly. She likes to play with the found and the funny and with others. Her studio work has both sculptural and print strands and occasionally performances. In the field, the classroom, the community studio, she works in collaboration with others. In such 3 collaborations, new chemistries emerge and with them, new aesthetics and ideas. She has studied, exhibited, taught, performed, coordinated, and created in all of the places where she’s lived, New Haven, Chicago, Cambridge, and Dutchess County, NY. She is thrilled to be joining the New Urban Arts community of creative practitioners as she moves to Providence in the fall.
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 New Urban Arts ready to volunteer as an Artist Mentor during his sophomore year at Rhode Island College. Since then he has remained an artist mentor at the New Urban Arts studio, graduated with a degree in studio art and an art teaching certification for grades K-12. He works full time at the Paul Cuffee Charter School serving students with learning disabilities. He has worked with various youth organizations including the Steel Yard, CityArts!, and English for Action.
He makes it his business to meet each of his students on their own personal level, while corralling all of their talents into a group effort. Kedrin believes that everyone can draw, it’s just that some people have forgotten they can. “I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t improved both in their artistic skills, and their personal life by being mentored at New Urban Arts.” Because of this assurance and faith in New Urban Arts, Kedrin seeks to pass on his fervor to the incoming new staff. “I want to have our new mentors love what they do here, and have that be apparent to our students, who will then continue to make that apparent to our neighboring communities.”
2008-2009 ARTIST MENTORS
Jane Androski
Adrienne Benz
McKenzie Burrus-Granger
Caitlin Cali
Zachary Clark
David Colannino
Morgan Fagant
Ben Fino-Radin
Erik Gould
Julia Gualtieri
Abel Hernandez
David Karoff
Dionte Noble
Erica Palmiter
Jen Rice
Melissa Small
Lane Taplin
Emily Ustach
Isaac Wingfield
Meredith Younger
2007-2008 ARTIST MENTORS
Adrienne Benz
Jason Brockert
McKenzie Burrus-Granger
Carrie Cannon
Lauren Carter
Jean Cozzens
Bremen Donovan
Ben Fino-Radin
Kedrin Frias
Erik Gould
Christine Hochkeppel
Jeff Hutchison
Gretta Johnson
David Karoff
Stacy Magner
Melissa Mendes
Michael Moretti
Carrie Sandman
Kian Shenfield
Andrew Oesch, Fellow
Peter Hocking, Fellow
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
