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Harley Burns is an artist born in Bethpage, NY and raised in New Jersey. They are pursuing a Post-Baccalaureate of Fine Arts with a concentration in Painting at University of North Carolina Asheville. They received their Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and Spanish from James Madison University. Largely self-taught, they are a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in oils, along with clay, textiles, watercolors, drawing, and linocuts. Their work explores queer identity, our connection to the natural world, and a more expansive view of self-portraiture. Alice Neel, Milton Avery, and Bobbye Fermie inform their work.

Jess is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on textile/ fiber art using techniques such as weaving, embroidery and more to bring her visions to life. Currently creating from her home studio in Charleston, SC, her work is available through her small business Tactile Terrestrial.

Kimberly is an artist and writer whose work is inspired by her work as a psychotherapist, coach, and yoga /meditation teacher. Kimberly uses the mediums of film/video, photography and writing to promote wellness for women and creatives while also exploring the use of these mediums as a way to engage in mindfulness and creative self expression to enhance well-being. Kimberly has also been exploring the use of gouache and acrylic paints to capture moods and states of being with Black women in mind.

Kimberly holds a B.S. in Psychology from Towson University, an MSW from Howard University, a M.A. in Media Studies & Media Management from The New School and a PhD in Social Work from Fordham University. She was a fellow in the inaugural Media & Medicine program at Harvard Medical School where she focused on creating content addressing health disparities in Black women using yoga. Kimberly has also been a writer in residence at the Chateau Orquevaux Artist & Writer's Residency in Orquevaux, France.

Cara is an artist and graduate from the University of Oregon, where she studied art, textile design, and sustainability. A old soul and wise beyond her years, Cara brims with wonder and delight at the world. While in residence, Cara worked through writing her thesis which explored the past, present, and future use of textiles with emphasis on the transition from polymer-based to bio-materials.

Mixed media collage

Poet and writer

Artist

Laura is an award-winning innovator in science and climate communication based in Southern California. She worked for ten years as the Senior Science Editor of NASA’s Global Climate Change website, where she reported on sea level rise, ice mass loss, and regional climate impacts. She traveled to Greenland multiple times with a NASA suborbital campaign to report on the rate of ice mass loss around Greenland’s coastline. Laura has also taught college oceanography at Glendale Community College and contributed to Pearson’s Oceanography and Earth Science textbooks. Her essays have appeared in Huffington Post, TIME, Slate, and NASA, and she continues to advocate for women in STEM.

Jennifer’s love of horror stretches both in front of and behind the camera. As an actress, she’s appeared in film and television series, including The Vampire Diaries, Goosebumps, and Halloween Kills. As a screenwriter and producer, she’s built a filmography of short horror films that have played at numerous festivals, including Panic Fest, Telluride Horror Show, Nightmares Film Festival, and FilmQuest. These include the award-winning short films Here There Be Tygers, based on the Stephen King story, Hickory Dickory Dock, and Unbearing. Jennifer has also written several award-winning screenplays, including Spectrum, The Biting Time, and Nighttime Is No Fun Anymore. Her debut feature film, The Virgins, will be released this fall.

Zach hails from Pfafftown, NC. He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, majoring in Textiles, with a minor in the History of Arts and Visual Culture.

Shawn is a visual artist and art educator based in Asheville, NC. He’s spent the last eight years educating in the public, private, and charter school sectors. He’s passionate about art education as a way to help young people be fully expressive and become their authentic selves. He believes that art can also be used to establish deep, meaningful connections with others, and create inclusive, vibrant and strong communities.


His current chosen medium, digital photography, has been instrumental in allowing him to dive deeper into the exploration of the human social and behavioral modification known as masking - with a central focus on common traits of belonging, coping, safety and survival methods that exist between people. The initial artworks, solely autobiographical, gave him the necessary outlet to better understand his own complex life choices and varied experiences - hoping the work will inspire others to do the same. 

Liv is a musician whose passion and work expands from interpretation of Classical works to a folk rock writing style she explores in solo projects as well as with trio @belietheband.‍ ‍She is constantly expanding her mediums, and recently has focused more on visual art and art direction, as well as acting.