Allan Rosenbaum

Allan Rosenbaum is a studio artist and former Professor of Ceramics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Rosenbaum’s practice is materially based and utilizes a range of analogue processes to investigate intersections between craft, art, and design. Rosenbaum has received Individual Artist Fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts in both Craft and Sculpture, three early-career project grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board, and he is a fFellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Art. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in public collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Taipei Yingge Ceramics Museum; the City Museum of Varazdin, Croatia; Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts;  Madison Art Center in Wisconsin; the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, GA; the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art and the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama; the City of Richmond Public Art Commission; and the Kamm Teapot Foundation.

Abol Bahadori

From his early beginnings in his hometown of Tabriz, Azerbaijan, Iran, to his teenage years sketching alongside masters in Paris, Bahadori’s story is rich in art experience. He graduated as a textile designer and obtained his master’s in digital application design for textiles from The University of Manchester, UK. Bahadori settled in his current home in the DC area in 1992, where he studied under the founders of the Washington Color School. A prizewinning hybrid media colorist painter, recognized as one of the 51 living and working artists who have shaped, inspired, and impacted the DC art scene — as per the 2024 District 51 Exhibit — Bahadori’s multicultural upbringing is evident in his vibrant, abstract works.  Currently, he works at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, where he began, and continues to, develop his unique contemporary series. He is frequently featured by The Washington Post, local media and at DC auctions—WPA, Hickok Cole, and Transformer.

Adjoa Burrowes

Born in Chicago, Adjoa J. Burrowes is a mixed media artist practicing in the Washington D.C. area. A printmaking graduate of Howard University and the Corcoran School of Art at George Washington University, her awards include a 2024 Printmaking Fellowship at Virginia Commission for the Arts, Art Bank Grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Made in VA exhibition award from the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Burrowes exhibitions include a commissioned work in Holding Ground: Artists’ Books for the NationalMuseum of Women in the Arts, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba (NY), Mary Howard Biennial Invitational, Tephra ICA (VA), and University of Hawaii, Hilo Center Gallery (Hawaii). Burrowes work can be found in collections at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Library of Congress Rare Books and Special Collections, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and Banneker Douglass Museum of Art.

Alice Wheelin

Alice Whealin is an Arlington, Virginia-based artist who works primarily in ink and watercolor. Whealin has exhibited her artwork extensively in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. She has exhibited at The Painting Center in New York and at the Museo Della Carta in Fabriano, Italy. She has artworks in the permanent collection of the Museo Della Carta, Fabriano, Italy and in private collections.

Whealin spent six years in a studio residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington, Virginia. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington,VA, the McLean Project for the Arts, George Mason University and the Mezz Gallery@Artisphere. Whealin works in Arlington, Virginia. Her most recent exhibition, Ebullience, was at the Fred Schnider Gallery (2024.)

Calliandra Marian Hermanson

Calliandra Marian Hermanson is a Baltimore-based printmaker, interdisciplinary artist and researcher. She completed her MFA in printmaking at the University of New Mexico in 2021 and has participated in artist residencies at the Penland School of Craft (NC), Walkaway House (MA), and most recently, Sable Projects (VT). She has been a visiting artist at Garden State Community College (KS), Fort Hays University (KS) and Towson University (MD). Her installation work has been shown in Baltimore and Albuquerque and her works on paper have been exhibited nationally as well as in Italy, Mexico and Australia.

Claudia “Aziza” Gibson Hunter

Ms. Gibson-Hunter is an abstract mixed media artist. She blends painting, printmaking, collage, papermaking, and assemblage to investigate themes of agency, memory, and spirituality. Acrylic paint and colored pencil are combined with commercial and artist-made papers. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Aziza graduated from Temple University (BS) and Howard University (MFA). Ms. Gibson-Hunter has been awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship Program Grant, from the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities, numerous times. Her work can be found in the collections of the Washington DC Art Bank and the US Embassy in Liberia. She has also held positions at Parsons School of Art, Howard University, and Bowie State University. Ms. Gibson-Hunter is a member of the Black female collectives Dandelion Black, THOUGHT, and WOAUA. She is a co-founding member of Black Artists of DC and operates a studio located within the STABLE art complex in Washington, DC.

Chris Combs

Chris Combs is an artist based in Washington, D.C who creates provocative technology. His show Industry Standards (McLean Project for the Arts, 2023) featured works with reclaimed industrial components, reflecting on disruptive technologies, surveillance, and environmental destruction. Lossiness (VisArts, 2021) included seven artworks exploring human perception. The Algorithm Will See You Now (Transformer, 2022) addressed algorithmic bias and failings of “AI” products. Judging Me Judging You (DCAC, 2018) dealt with surveillance and control, and the 35 machines in Maelstrom (Rhizome DC, 2021) spread rumors about their visitors. Madness Method, a public art collaboration with David Greenfieldboyce, was part of 2021’s Georgetown GLOW. Chris is a recipient of the DC CAH AHFP program. He is a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and was a photo editor for National Geographic. He joined the Otis Street Arts Project in May, 2021.

Christine Lee Tyler

Christine Lee Tyler is a multidisciplinary artist based in Washington, D.C., and New York, who explores both 2-D and 3-D art forms. Her work reflects her experiences as a mature woman navigating the current political climate and emphasizes eco-feminism, often featuring female protagonists who escape oppressive systems by reconnecting with the natural world. Tyler earned her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2019 and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1998. That same year, she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a permanent installation in Elmhurst, Queens, and for a performance piece at the Queens Art Museum. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including commissioned sculptures for Granville Gude Park in Laurel, Maryland. This year, her art was showcased at Marc Straus Gallery in New York City and forthcoming at the Camp Gallery in Miami, Florida. She has also taught at several institutions, including Virginia Commonwealth University and Bard College.

David Allen Harris

David Allen Harris is a descendent of Underground Railroad Conductor Frank Wanzer, a fine art artist and musician. He grew up in the San Francisco bay area during the 1970’s where he was exposed to a variety of artistic influences which informed his own path of creative self-expression. Back then, sketching was his primary passion in art classes, but he also took a lot of science classes. In the 1980s, Harris left California and moved to Washington DC to attend school where he majored in Computer Science. During this period, his explorations of the creative process became evident in the expression of computer software algorithms. Upon graduation, he became a software developer and later took up photography. After 12 years of just shooting for the joy of composition, he was encouraged by artist Michael Platt to exhibit his work. In 2007, his work was on display in Artomatic, and would eventually show his work at numerous venues, including a solo exhibition at Hillyer in July 2023.

Elizabeth Coffey

Elizabeth Coffey works primarily with oil paint, lace fabric, and canvas to explore the tension between the seen and unseen, and its relevance to female identity. Her background in graphic design infuses her work with a strong sense of color, composition, and typographic sensibility. She received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2022, she was awarded a residency to The Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL), and received first place in the Radius 250 Biennial (Richmond, VA). In 2024, she was juried into the Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA) as a studio artist. Recent juried exhibitions include the Mid-Atlantic New Painting Biennial (Fredericksburg, VA) and Artfields (Lake City, SC). Her work has also been shown at the Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua, NY) and 1708 Gallery’s InLightexhibition (Richmond, VA).

Ellyn Weiss

Ellyn Weiss is a visual artist in two and three dimensions and an independent curator. She has had over 25 solo or featured shows and has participated in numerous juried and curated exhibitions. Ellyn works with a wide variety of materials; the materials used in recent shows include wax, oil bar, dry pigment, wire, plastic dip and tar. Weiss’s work has for many years been inspired by the imagery of biological and natural structures. Much of her recent work deals with the effects of global climate change. With various collaborators, she has created installations dealing with the effects of the melting of the polar ice cap (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2014; McLean Project for the Arts, 2015), the destruction of coral reefs worldwide (Artists and Makers, 2016) and the migration of infectious diseases (Otis street Arts Project, 2017). She is currently working on a project focusing on the climate change-caused migration of people. 

Esha Sadr

Esha Sadr is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher based in Washington, DC. Her practice spans sculpture, performance, video, installation, and text to explore themes of migration, collective trauma, memory, and resilience. Since 2012, Sadr has exhibited and performed internationally, including in the United States, Iran, France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Morocco, and beyond. Her long-term project, The Memorable Hands Museum, co-created with Ramin Etemadi, honors notable diasporic figures through cast sculptures and video portraits. Her work has been featured in institutions such as the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Kadıköy Sineması (Istanbul), Gunnersbury Park Museum (London), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and DC Arts Center. She has presented lectures and talks at the University of Bonn, Charles University Prague, ITI (Berlin), and the Interweaving Performance Cultures Center at Freie Universität Berlin. Sadr has published four books and over 40 essays on art and cinema. She is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group and has participated in numerous international panels and residencies.

Gerardo Bravo

Born in Mexico City in 1964, Bravo lives and works between the United States and Mexico City. He studied at the Academia Nacional de Artes de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1994 to 1999. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, the Mexican Cultural Institutes in Ottawa, San Francisco and Miami, and in the VIII Rufino Tamayo Biennial at the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexico City, and It is part of numerous public and private collections such as the World Bank in Washington D.C., the Mexican Embassy in Berlin, the Museum of Oaxacan Painters in the city of Oaxaca, the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City and the International Bank of Miami Florida. to name a few.

Helen Frederick

Helen Frederick is recognized as a distinguished artist, curator, educator, coordinator of international projects, and as founder of Pyramid Atlantic. As an advocate for and an active participant in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area arts scene, she has served on the directorial boards of alternative art spaces, various local and national boards and national peer-review panels. She has and fulfilled speaking engagements around the world, always emphasizing collaboration across disciplines. Throughout her life her passion for diverse cultures and histories has led her to travel to observe the material cultures of many societies, their skills. and ideas and to make connections among disparate cultural traditions.

Hyun Jung Kim

In 2007, Hyun Jung Kim was invited to the 19th International Jewelry Art Symposium, where she collaborated with world-renowned contemporary jewelry artists, and her work became part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Turnov in the Czech Republic. Kim’s humanity and human rights themed works were recognized and invited for a solo exhibition, Blind in Art – ONE at the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C., and her work has been added to the collections of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations in NYC, the City of Riverside in California, Capital One headquarters in Richmond, NOVA AAPI Intercultural Center in Virginia, etc. Kim has a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in the United States.

Joan Belmar

Joan Belmar was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1970. He left Chile for Spain at the age of 24. He began painting professionally in Spain, using the Catalan name Joan for his first name John. He came to Washington, DC, four years later in 1999, was granted permanent residency in the US based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003, and became a citizen in 2010. Joan Belmar is well known for his unique technique of 3-D painting, in which he combines his former painting and collage techniques with both painted and untreated Mylar/paper strips in circles and curvilinear shapes. This technique produces variations in transparency, as light and the viewer move in relation to the work.  He was a Mayor’s Art Award Finalist in 2007 as an outstanding emerging artist in Washington, DC. The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities recognized him with an Artist Fellowship Program grant in 2009, and in 2011 he was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD. He is a two-time recipient of the Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in Visual Arts: Painting, in 2010 and 2013. Belmar’s work is part of many private and public collections, including the University of Maine Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection. In 2016 he won first place, from among 2240 received artworks, for best Original Work in the prestigious Osten Biennial of Drawing in Macedonia.

Julia Bloom

Julia Bloom is the director and curator of Freight Gallery, an alternative micro-exhibition space in a historic freight elevator in Washington, DC.  Bloom is a practicing artist whose selected exhibitions include Permission Slips at Addison/Ripley Fine Art and Inside Outside, Upside Down Invitational Juried Show at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; Micro-Monuments, a traveling exhibition at the Salzland Museum in Schoenebeck, Germany and the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC; and Sculpture Now 2014 at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC. Five of her drawings are on exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC. Bloom lives and works in Washington, DC. She studied piano and composition at Berklee College of Music, and visual art at the Boston Museum School and Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work includes drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Jun Lee

Jun Lee (Washington, DC) is a printmaker who works in large format woodcut, utilizing animals as metaphors to convey competition in our daily lives. Lee was awarded the Arts and Humanities Fellowship and DC Art Bank grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She has completed numerous artist residencies and fellowships and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: West Virginia University (WV), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), Big Medium Gallery (TX), Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (MD), American University Museum (DC), Highpoint Center for Printmaking (MN), Insa Art Center (Seoul, South Korea), Daimler Financial Services Atrium (Berlin, Germany). Lee received her MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) and her BFA in Illustration, and a Post Baccalaureate in Printmaking from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MN).

Karlisima Rodas-Israel

Karlisima Rodas-Israel, is a Washington D.C.-based artist and muralist known for her bright, bold colors and Latin American influences. Born in San Salvador, El Salvador, she moved to the U.S. at age 14 and has since become a prominent figure in the D.C. art scene. She is known for her murals, paintings, and public art projects, often incorporating themes of culture, history, and the beauty of the natural world. Karlisima has received numerous awards for her artwork and has exhibited her work both locally and internationally, including solo exhibitions in London and Berlin. She continues to create murals and public art projects in the Washington D.C. area, often collaborating with community organizations and local businesses. 

Kate Fitzpatrick

Kate Fitzpatrick is an artist and educator based in Alexandria, VA.  Fitzpatrick received a BFA in Painting from Clarion University of Pennsylvania (1997), an MA in art education from University of New Mexico, and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from George Mason University (2020).  She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship (2016) where she spent a semester in India. Fitzpatrick is also an art educator who was honored by the Northern Virginia Magazine as a “Northern Virginian of the Year” (2014) for her creation and implementation of an art and yoga program for youth in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention center. In addition, Fitzpatrick received the Agnes Meyer Teacher of the Year award by the Washington Post (2013).   Fitzpatrick exhibits her work throughout the US and teaches for Arlington Public Schools.

Kirsty Little

Kirsty Little is a Sculptress and art activist who strives to find honest organic movement in both spheres. Formerly a circus aerialist from the UK for two decades, she moved to the United States in 2011 to begin her new path as a sculptor in the art world. She is drawn to working with themes of womankind, organic anatomy, and the struggling environment. She makes sculpture with porcelain, wood and wire, and mixed media. Her art activism works with communities and focuses on raising awareness of the plastic pollution disaster and the Women’s Equality crisis, through huge installations. She was an artist in residence at Otis St Studios and is a founding member of the Chevy Chase artists group. Her works have been shown at The Phillips Collection, The Athenaeum VA, The Fisher Gallery NOVA, Honfleur Gallery and the Katzen Art Center—American University DC, and IA&A at Hillyer. She was lead artist on the RightNOW project – a women’s equality interactive public art installation with over 1000 participants in MD. She is in the Guinness book of World Records with the most aerialists choreographed on silks. She teaches aerial skills at various studios in MD.

Lou Haney

Born in Decatur, Alabama, Haney received her BA from Rhodes College in Memphis and her MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. Haney has attended MacDowell as well as the Vermont Studio Center. In 2022, she was a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA.. Haney was the recipient of the Mississippi Art Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows in California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky and in over 70 juried group exhibitions. Haney’s work was shown at the Spring/Break Art Fair in New York City in 2022, 2023 and 2025. She had solo exhibitions in 2024 at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA and Spectrum Fine Arts in Seattle, WA. Haney currently teaches Studio Art and Art History at Piedmont Virginia Community College, Sweet Briar College, and Buford Middle School. The artist lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Mahari Chabwera

Mahari Chabwera is an independent artist making tapestry paintings at the intersection of mysticism and self-mythologization. She utilizes beads, oil paint, cowrie shells, tempered glass and fabric as painting elements to explore the nature of being, and the function of the self. Chabwera graduated with her BFA in Painting and Printmaking from VCU in 2017. In 2019 she was awarded the VMFA’s Professional Fellowship and in 2020 she received the Visual Arts Center Emerging Artist Award. 2021 – 2023 Chabwera facilitated Studio House, a work space for artists in East Baltimore that provided housing and professional development opportunities. In support of the project, Chabwera was awarded The Grit Fund from the Peale Museum, and a Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant. Chabwera’s work has been acquired by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and commissioned by UVA.

Mary Opasik

Mary Opasik is a Baltimore-based assemblage artist whose work transforms discarded and repurposed objects into imaginative sculptures exploring themes of transformation, memory, resilience, aging, and environmental stewardship. For more than three decades, she has created material-driven works in which everyday objects are given new meaning through unexpected combinations and associations.

Opasik earned her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Huntsville Museum of Art, Sandy Spring Museum, and Chateau de Rochefort in France. Her work has been featured in Found Object Art and Found Object Art II. In 2026, Opasik was named a Baker Artist Award Finalist in Visual Arts – 3-D. She is also a recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Grant for Artists.

Michèle Colburn

Michèle Colburn is an artist who has been living and working in Washington, DC for over 35 years. Born in DC, Colburn received a BA in Art History from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MFA from American University. A recent dual national, American and Swiss, Colburn has held professional positions with the Hirshhorn Museum and Embassy of Switzerland, and has been an art teacher, teaching artist, and adjunct instructor since 2012. Colburn has received grants from the Puffin Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center; the Mu’ong Artist Residency in Hoa Binh, Vietnam; and the ACI Residency in Umbria, Italy. Colburn participates in numerous group exhibitions locally and nationally and has had three solo shows.Two were with MOCA Arlington, and one with the International Peace Museum in Dayton.

Prescott Lassman

Prescott Moore Lassman has been pursuing photography seriously since college, when he took a summer school class with acclaimed street photographer Thomas Roma. Since then, he’s studied at the International Center for Photography and Photoworks at Glen Echo with many wonderful teachers, including Karen Keating, Patricia Voulgaris, and the late Tico Herrera. Lassman has a masters degree in philosophy and wrote his thesis on Jungian symbolism and psychology, which he incorporates into his photographic practice. Indeed, he views his photographic approach as a cross between a sporting event and a psychological expedition, always searching for those Jungian moments of synchronicity that have a message to communicate. Lassman’s work has been exhibited and published widely nationally and internationally. In addition, his work is included in the permanent collections of the DC Art Bank, the DC City Hall Art Collection, and the DC Library’s People’s Archive.

Raimi Gbadamosi

Raimi Gbadamosi is an artist, writer, and curator working in music, websites, writing, and audience participation to create debate, instead of representing preconceived concerns defined by specific social, cultural, and political talk. Doctorate in Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, London, England. Recent national and international shows and events include Aardklop, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 2018; Words Festival, NIROX 2017, South Africa; A Romulus, Rebus, Priest Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017; Cemetery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, 2015; Banquet, South Hill Park, Bracknell, United Kingdom, 2011;  Exchange Mechanism, Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Ireland, 2010; ARCO Madrid, Spain 2009; Tentativa de Agotar un Lugar Africano, CASM, Barcelona, Spain 2008; and Human Cargo, Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2007. He is a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group “‘Afroeuropeans’,” University of Leoón, Spain; and the “Black Body” group, Goldsmiths College, London. Gbadamosi is an ambassador of The Republic which negotiates the meeting of language and social constructions.

Reginald Pointer

Reginald Pointer is an educator, ceramic artist, printmaker, illustrator, and wordsmith born in Washington, D.C. MFA, Florida State University; BFA, Howard University. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Art In The Time Of Corona: A Global Project, Vol. 3 (2022), Dab Art Co, Los Angeles-Mexico City – Austin; National Small Works Exhibition, Washington Printmaker Gallery, Washington, DC, 2019; Visual Voices: True Narratives, Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2018; Face 2 Face & In-between, The Blackburn Gallery, Washington, DC, 2006; and Before and After, Dunbar Art Gallery, Grambling State University, Grambling, Louisiana, 2000. Pointer has taught at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, The Clay House, Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Grambling State University, and Penland School of Crafts. Currently, he is the Ceramics Program Coordinator at Howard University’s College of Fine Arts, Washington, DC.

Sabiha Iqbal

Sabiha Iqbal earned her Ph. D in economics from the University of Maryland and was a professor of economics for 27 years. Shestudied painting with Mira Hecht at the Corcoran School of Art and Design and Natasha Mokina at the Winter Palace Studio, The Yellow Barn and most recently at The Art League where Susan O’Neill helped her develop new techniques in gesturedrawings. She has shown her work in group and solo shows at the Athenaeum, Women’s National Democratic Club, CorcoranGallery, The Writer’s Center, The Watergate Gallery, GlenviewMansion, Target Gallery, and the Yellow Barn. She is represented by the Studio Gallery. Her first group show, Ekphrasis, at the Writers Center was a memorable turning point for her and opened the world of self-discovery and limitless possibilities using the medium of poetry to express her joys and concerns of the world through moving figures.

Sean Riley

Sean Riley is an artist living and working in Washington, DC. In 1999, Riley received his BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In 2004, he received an MFA in sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Northeast including: Danese/Corey in New York City, TSA NY in Brooklyn, NY, Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA, Lamont Gallery in Exeter, NH, Arthur Ross Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, The Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY, and several others. He has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. Riley has been an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center. 

Sharon Fishel

Sharon Fishel is a visual artist who is the Director of the ArtReach Program, an in-gallery and outreach art educational program at the McLean Project for the Arts, a non-profit visual arts center that exhibits the work of emerging and established regional artists. She has also taught for many years for both The Corcoran School of Art (2000-2004) as well as an Adjunct Professor at The American University from (1992-2003). Previously, she worked as the Principal Instructor for the Art Reach Program at The Whitney Museum of American Art (1978-1983). She holds an M.F.A. from Queens College, CUNY, an M.A. from New York University and a B.F.A. from The Hartford Art School at The University of Hartford.

Sheila Crider

Sheila Crider is currently based in Baltimore, an artist who lived and worked in nearby Washington, DC for most of her career. She started her practice as a visual artist with “The Original Response Handmade Envelopes and Books” in art fairs and craft markets. In the mid 1990’s, she began to submit work made from hand dyed papers to open calls to seek exhibition opportunities. In 2009, she was awarded the first of many public art projects. In 2022 and 2017 she received $10,000 fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her work is included in many public and private collections including Art In Public Places (WDC), The African American Museum (Dallas, Texas), The James E Lewis Museum (Baltimore, Maryland), The Library of Congress Print Collection, The State Department Print Collection, The DC Public Library Collection, Ranger Italia (Serengo, Italy) and The Mino Washi Museum (Mino, Japan). To learn more about the artist visit her website. 

Sookkyung Park

Sookkyung Park established an Arts & Crafts studio in 1982 and maintained the studio for 25 years in South Korea. In 2011, she emigrated to the U.S. in her 50’s and received a B.A. in Studio Arts from University of Maryland, College Park in 2016. After graduating, she joined the HMAA GW (Han-Mee Artists Association of the Great Washington DC). She was selected in several regional and international juried exhibitions. Her works have been featured in many publications, including The Washington Post, The Korea Times, East City Art, Bmore Art, MAP, WSG news, AA&CC, Maryland State Arts Council and etc. She was awarded the Best Award twice from the CAGO (Contemporary Art Gallery Online) for 3-D Category Part in 2020 and 2021. Park is currently the Member of Washington Sculptors Group, President of the HMAA GW and TU MFA Candidate in 2023.

Taina Litwak

Taina Litwak has a BFA in Printmaking and a BS in Biology. She recently retired from a long career as staff scientific illustrator with the USDA at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Her focus on science communication is a manifestation of her concern about the state of our planet’s ecosystem, while her paintings and installations are a more personal form of expression. In 2023, Litwak began a series of installations that focused on plastic waste, presented at Artomatic in 2024, which evolved from an exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts titled “The Ritz” in 1983. These installations incorporate a series of paintings begun in 2020 which express her concerns about climate change and biodiversity loss. Her work has been featured at group shows at the Touchstone, Foundry and Crows Nest Galleries, Maryland Federation of Art, Addison-Ripley, the Katzen Arts Center, and the Washington Women’s Arts Center.

Tom Wolff

Tom Wolff studied painting at the now defunct School of Practical Art in Boston, and Arts Students League in New York. He studied photography at George Washington University, Color Theory at Harvard University, Linear Design at MIT, and photography at Photoworks at Glen Echo Park. Wolff has worked as a freelance photographer, adjunct professor at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, and professor at Photoworks, Glen Echo Park. His work has been published in Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Newsweek, House & Garden, Garden Design, Smithsonian, Audubon, New York Times Magazine/Sophisticated Traveler, etc. His work was featured in “Listening to the Prairie,” a traveling exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, the Municipal Arts Society of New York, Spectrum Gallery, Under the Influence, 2005, The R Street Gallery, PORTRAITS, 2006,  Washington, DC, and Organization of American States, 2006, and the Hillyer Contemporary Art Space (IA&A at Hillyer). His works are in the collection of the Baltimore Museum and Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.

Virginia Van Horn

Norfolk native Virginia Van Horn is a longtime member of the southeastern Virginia art community. She received her BFA in printmaking from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and her MFA in sculpture from the Visual Studies Program of Old Dominion and Norfolk State Universities. She also studied and exhibited in Urbino, Italy as part of a program sponsored by New York’s School of Visual Arts, and most recently was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Virginia currently teaches at the Governor’s School for the Arts. Inspired by her childhood as a champion rider, she is fascinated by animal imagery, especially horses. Her work has branched out from equestrian images to explore new and different combinations of animals, both wild and domestic, only to return to images of the horse in her most recent work.