Lu Valena

Executive Director

Lu Valena is a working artist, researcher, consultant and energy healer based in Jamaica Plain, MA. They were raised in the woods of coastal New Hampshire, got a BA in studio art from Hampshire College and an Masters in Food History from BU. They are the former owner of coffeehouse and gallery Voltage Coffee & Art. Lu lives with their husband John and two extravagantly beautiful cats.

Cody VanWinkle

Art Director

Cody VanWinkle is from a few flyover states but has been in Boston since 2007. By education, he's a journalist; by work experience, he's an illustrator; by his own fantasies, he's a b-movie action hero. He spent five years illustrating children's books at the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute and was first officially published in 2017's And Lester Swam On. He loves comic books, making ice cream, knitting, and movies about robots with feelings.

Jordyn Bonds

Programmer In Residence

Jordyn Bonds was born in North Dakota and has been collaging since high school. She also makes music, software, and tea (in ascending order of quantity). She has very little formal training in anything herself, but values and admires the studied expertise of others.

Special Thanks To

Kai-ching Chang, Co-founder and Musical Director of the original manifestation of this initiative

Hannah Epstein, Graphic Designer, for creating our branding

Christine Fernsebner Eslao, Librarian In Residence, for designing our call number system

Participating Artists

An avid crafter, Carrie Adams lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her wife and feline familiar. You are likely to catch her reading on the beach, rearranging the furniture, or drinking anything bubbly.

Pedro Adams is a Brazilian student, author, screenwriter and director. He now lives in Natal, a seaside city, where he wrote and directed his first two short films, and also started to write as a career. Writing for Bait/Switch was his first international and English-language project.

Catherine Aiello is an artist working in printmaking, textiles and drawing. She's interested in using making as a way to connect with others and document the world around her, including social and interpersonal phenomena, in non traditional ways. She lives and works in Western Massachusetts. http://www.catherineaiello.com

Rebecca Aranda is an LA-based photographer. Her main area of focus is documentary photography; she shoots events and weddings as her day job and is working on long-term documentary projects in the meantime. She adores the Bait/Switch ethos and wishes she could come out to Boston to meet all the lovely artists involved. Until then, she invites you to follow her on instagram at @arandaphotos and say hello if you're ever in Los Angeles (she knows all the best places to get tacos and vegetarian food).

Melody Attarha is a stop-motion animator from Boston, currently based in São Paulo. Melody draws inspiration from early animators and likes to experiment with unconventional techniques. She also works with puppets, cut paper, and illustration. You can see more of her animated work at vimeo.com/melodyattarha.

Avi is a Boston based teacher and film photographer who has been shooting for 11 years mostly with her/their Canon AE1. Avi loves documenting every day life experiences, both with portraits and urban and rural landscapes. They also shoot collaborative portraits that are meant to empower and embolden her subjects especially for other queer folks or folks with other marginalized identities. As described in a website review: “Each photograph is a vibrant, unfiltered keepsake of an ephemeral moment given over to memory."

Blaine Bacchiocchi is a Fine Artist and Art Educator. She is currently finishing her Masters Degree in Visual Art Education in the Boston Area and resides in Buzzard’s Bay Massachusetts. Blaine has a life-long love of creative endeavors and enjoys working in a range of media. Her current project is a mixed media installation dealing with the role of Visual Art education as part of a holistic education practice, and in particular when it comes to the needs of social emotional students, with a little bit of psychological theory thrown in the mix for good measure. She enjoys finding layers of connections between issues and concepts that may otherwise seam disparate and exploring those connections through the use of 2D and 3D materials.

Born and raised in Boston, MA, artist Josh Baptista completed his Bachelor’s of Fine Art at Montserrat College of Art at Montserrat College of Art in 2002. Josh subsequently pursued his Master’s of Fine Art from American University in Washington D.C., graduating in 2009. Josh currently lives and works in Providence, R.I.

Aimee Belanger is a Boston-based illustrator, ceramicist, and art educator. She is interested in botanical and anatomical illustration, mystical symbolism, and discussing the cultural impact of memes with her brilliant and hilarious high school students. She is a resident artist at The Clay School in Lynn and the humble servant to an 11 pound tabby cat named Molly.

Church Goin Mule, or Marshall Blevins, is a southern artist who was born and raised across the south, her kinfolk came from the mountains, though she lives in the flatland swamp of Louisiana now. You can find her online at churchgoinmule.com

Chick Byrne earned a BFA in studio art from Denison University in 2009. His work is an amalgamation of several art theories; focusing on the divine aspects inherent in everyone. He currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jesse Caldwell: a photograph is a photograph is a photograph & i believe in making a photograph any way i can. is this my artist statement? i don’t know, there’s only this compulsion to depress the shutter button and try to make things stay still for once in my life.

Thibaut Camdessus: I was trained as a film director in Paris (BA Film Direction, ESRA 1983), and directed 3 short movies about art: Pollock, Klasen and Rocher. I was twice awarded (in 1992 and 1993) the Citère Grant (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to research how new media technologies could be applied to create art. I was then hired to design the world first stock market website (NASDAQ, 1995) and created the Market Site wall for for the NASDAQ IPO lounge in New York (now also a landmark in Times Square). I went on to create web sites for major brands (Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, Encyclopedia Britannica, Bayard) and the government of Taipei. From these experiences on data visualisation, grew the desire to control random feeds of numbers to create more “meaningful” abstract compositions. After several gallery shows in Singapore and Bangkok, I was invited as an Artist Resident at the Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts. This culminated in a retrospective of all my works at the Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center. For the Club Signature of the So Sofitel I created an installation around the 5 elements of the chinese Wu Xing. At the 2017 "Livre Paris" I was invited for a performance to create 80 artworks with the fair visitors.. For the past 10 years I have been writing l'Atelier de l'Aléatoire; a generative art application.

Laura Campagna is a story teller from Boston, MA. Also known as The Wednesday Witch, she is a practicing astrologer, tarot card reader and energy healer who posts weekly and monthly forecasts on social media. Laura's first novel, The Eleventh House, about a group of friends in New York City at the turn of the 21 century is forthcoming.

Julie Caves is a painter fascinated by sunlight, her paintings are full of ambiguity to allow the viewer to find themselves in the painting and she likes to see the paint before seeing the subject matter. She has an MA from Camberwell College of Art and completed the 2-year Studio Painting Programme at Turps Art School. She lives and works in East London and Margate, UK.

Kimi Ceridon is a food-lover with a background in technology. She combines her talents to create great food experiences with a bit of science and engineering. She holds a Masters in Gastronomy and Chef's Certificate from Boston University as well as Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. She left her cubicle to pursue a multi-faceted (read:confused and torturous) life as a writer, personal chef, culinary instructor, event planner and try-anythinger who loves to ride a motorcycle, get outdoors and urban homestead. Follow along with her blog about "Cooking & Confessions from a Midlife Crisis" at www.noreturnticket.kceridon.com

Pianist/composer Kai-Ching Chang likes to explore the possibility of sound to capture emotion and feeling on the subjects. Taiwanese and Bostonian.

Zaccharie Charvolin: I am a physically disabled artist, with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. My work tends to focus on describing what that means to me. My medium of choice is photography and digital manipulation / digital illustration.

chengchingyu is a Porto-based ghost, wandering in Portugal, born in Taiwan. Not yet an architect; not yet an artist.

Debbie Chessell is an independent artist who creates public art works, paintings and prints, and teaches across the South of the UK. She has been exhibiting for almost ten years and has pieces held in international collections including Dumfries House (Scotland, UK), St George's Hospital (London, UK) and the Suzzallo Library (Washington, USA). Her projects have been supported by O2, Mayor of London, SHEDx, Kingston Council and more - check out her current interactive public art project 'The Beehive' on her website www.debbiechessell.com

Deejayeetee is also known as Jesse Tokarz. Among other things, I’m an electronic musician living near Boston, MA with my wife and cats. You can find my music in the usual places, including deejayeetee.bandcamp.com, and I’m on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook as Deejayeetee.

Jaina Cipriano is a photographer, production designer and filmmaker in Boston, MA. Focusing on creating work that speaks to the subconscious, her work can be seen at Shelter in Place Gallery and in the next issue of GRLSQUASH. Her first short film, You Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon will debut online on October 31, 2020.

Noah and Jay De Amor are Blatino queer activists and social entrepreneurs from Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. When they are not focused on "putting more butts on bikes" at The Spokehouse, their community bike shop, they lend their voices to quirky parodies of some of the most iconic numbers from pop music and musical theatre. They are proud pet parents to Roxbury and Max, and unofficial gay relatives to countless neighborhood youth.

Disco Nap is an electronic dance/pop duo based in Boston. Band members Charlotte Huffman and Alison Murray are inspired by making bodies move.

Frances Donovan's chapbook Mad Quick Hand of the Seashore is a finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards. Publication credits include Snapdragon, Oddball Magazine, and SWWIM. She once drove a bulldozer in a GLBTQ+ Pride Parade while wearing a bustier.

Mairen Doyle is a cartoonist, illustrator, and muralist from Toronto, Canada. Her main influences are space, disco, and Delia Deetz from Beetlejuice. Check out more of her work at www.mairendoyle.com, or on instagram: @wowflower1.

Denise Dynes is a wife and mother of four fantastic kiddos and spends her free time painting, practicing yoga, and napping. Her creative work is often personal, coming from a rich spiritual life and a desire to learn and grow. For kicks and giggles, she works as a receptionist for a swimming pool company in Phoenix, Arizona.

mk Eagle has been folding small squares of paper into even smaller squares for over twenty years. If she isn’t doing something with her hands, she probably isn’t paying attention to you. She lives in Louisville, KY with two cats who do not respect her artistic process.

Etienne Eisele is an interdisciplinary artist based in Switzerland.

Jesse Farber’s sound and visual works suspend the distinction between natural and synthetic, opening space for questioning this division. He has exhibited and been a resident artist throughout the US and Europe, and his audio works have appeared in album releases, film scores, live events, and broadcasts. Jesse lives and works in Berlin.

Aiden K. Feltkamp is a collaborative artist who loves to write opera libretti, poetry, and experimental short fiction. They work for the American Composers Orchestra as their Emerging Composers and Diversity Director, and they're the Artistic Director/Founder of OperaRox Productions, a non-profit that hires underrepresented classical music artists and creates socially relevant opera. Most importantly, they're a trans nonbinary coffee fiend.

Ivoire Foreman is a black, queer and trans maker and a mixer. They employ a melange of media, experiences, pop culture, childhood, time periods, sound, Trans magic, multiple mediums and uncomfortableness - each filtered through assemblage processes. The results are contemporary art that re(re)appropriates, reflects and distorts dysphoria and marginalization while offering validation through visibility.

Raised in rural North Carolina and now living in Brooklyn, New York, Zak Foster is a self-taught textile artist whose work draws on Southern textile traditions while incorporating found fabrics and natural dyes. He practices an approach to design that is intuitive and improvisational and he is drawn to preserving the stories of quilts and specializes in memory quilts. His work has been featured in various magazines, websites, and galleries. Learn more about his work in his monthly email, Motivation for the Maker, at www.zakfoster.com/newsletter.

Alia Hamada Forrest is a poet, though she often forgets this superpower as she is also a mother of two young children and the executive director of a nonprofit. She is originally from Phoenix, AZ, but has lived in Boston, MA for half her life. Although Alia loves working with people, her favorite hobby is being alone.

“FRKSE is Boston’s apex in the (under)current of esoteric rhythmic noise and hypnotic sampling...awakening elder mantras, inspiring the sacred and the paradoxical.” - J. Morse

Kyle Gerry is a freelance dancer and teacher based in New York City. He has worked most recently with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company, and has also danced dozens of works by Merce Cunningham, including several of Cunningham’s solo roles. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science and Economics.

Cord Gibson (they/them) is an artist, educator and aspiring community-worker living on traditional Ohlone land in Oakland, California. They try to move slowly in their fiber practice, allowing for natural upwellings. They believe that at least one of their ancestors was a rug-maker.

As a college administrator for over 30 years, Bob Gielow spends most his waking hours wordsmithing non-fictional email messages and policy/process documentation. During the weekends, he prefers taking walks with his family (and Sophie Fiona the dog), eating out and wordsmithing fictional short stories using non-traditional formats.

Mike Gintz writes, records, and releases music with his band Hex Map and his electronic project Mute City. His work is primarily inspired by climate change, social justice, and science fiction. For more music, visit http://mute-city.com

Alain Godefroid was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1949. He lives in Brussels, Belgium. Autodidact, Alain was born with a pencil and a brush in each hand. After a career as Art Director in advertising business he decided to live of his talent of painter and illustrator twenty years ago. He spends half of his time in his van travelling Europe on small roads. In love of nature he is fan of walking in the Alps. Beside his work of painting he became a specialist of digital drawing and finger painting on his iPad.

Marcelina Gonzales received a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2013. Born and raised along the Mexican American border her entire life, Gonzales, through her work, explores her identity in relation to her gender, culture, and memories. Ultimately she seeks empowerment as she works to destroy the expected social, political, economic, religious, and sexual role of a female living in today’s America.

Liz Gotauco (@cosbrarian) is a librarian, singer, and cosplayer from Rhode Island. A former theatre performer and costumer, she now spends her days recommending books to teens and creating characters out of unconventional materials. She has two black cats named Miles and Louis and can't stop re-watching The Good Place.

Billy Hafferty is usually found eating nachos. Pre and post nacho eating he might also be seen running trails, riding bikes, or writing about any and all combinations of the three. His life goal is to convince Lou Bega to release Mambo #6.

The farther I go/ the less I pack./ I need the space to collect all the things/ I might find. - Olivia Hamilton

Nora Hanasy-Cheers was born in Budapest, Hungary and has lived in Australia for over 30 years. She completed a Bachelor of Education degree majoring in Visual Arts. She has been an art educator teaching Secondary Visual Arts for over 16 years and recently went part time to devote more time to her art practice. She works with a variety of mediums preferring to layer and mix her approach when interpreting themes and subjects. Her main medium is collage and assemblage art using discarded and found materials.

Rezaul Haque is a photographer based in Boston. He's passionate about art, design, and technology, and hopeful that together they can change the world.

Melanie Hardy is a vegetable and flower farmer by profession, and sometimes visual artist. When she's not at the farm, she can be found tending to her home garden, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, spending time outside, obsessing over fiber arts, and cooking feasts for friends/family. She lives in a small town with her longtime partner and a trio of senior animals.

Fran Harrington is a 34 year old graphic designer living in Jamaica Plain. He is the Media and Technology Manager for the International OCD Foundation. In his free time he is an avid soccer supporter.

Lex Harwood: I have spent a lifetime exploring the world through different modalities in art. Most recently I settled in on the North Shore of Massachusetts with my fiancée and opened Helen's Bottle Shop, a natural wine shop. Another avenue for creativity.

Max Havas is a musician and actor. His EP “The Rough Patch” was released last year. He currently lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Specializing in sculpture, puppetry, and computer modeling, Thom Haxo is an imaginative artist who served as an associate art professor at Hampshire College for many years. His works have been exhibited several places, including the Holter Museum of Art, the Boston Public Library, and a commission for the James Brendan Connolly Memorial in Boston. Haxo has worked on set, puppet, and mask design for such projects as The Skriker by Caryl Churchill and I Stand Before You Naked by Joyce Carol Oates. Haxo received a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute and an M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and currently lives in Massachusetts.

Marilyn Holmes is an artist and art therapist originally from Louisville, KY. While she currently works as an outpatient counselor and art therapist in southern Illinois, she still enjoys the opportunity to work as a digital illustrator from time to time.

Eliot Hudson has just finished his first novel and is currently seeking representation. He’s read at the Popsickle Brooklyn Literary Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and was shortlisted for the Solstice Shorts Festival 2019 (Arachne Press)—to view more of his publications please visit his website: EliotHudson.com. Additionally, he writes music and his award winning song “Sinners in Church” is currently available on iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube.

Claire Johnson is a visual artist based in Scottsdale, Arizona with a background in Business. Her creative process focuses on detailed, psychedelic visuals with an elegant flair. A love of illusions, intricacy, and the bizarre has influenced Claire’s art in all forms, including Art Cars, sculptures, drawings and paintings.

Don Johnson is an artist who loves to play with shape, line, and layers. He earned a BA in Fine Art and Business at Augustana University, and a MFA in Fine Art at the University of Idaho. Don is currently a working artist in Denver, Colorado.

A writer since her 1st grade writing assignment about a whale (and shaped like a whale) became so thick the stapler couldn’t handle it, Jennie Kelly has long been a lover of words and their interactions. Recently, she has been experimenting with the interplay of words and physical objects and spaces, a craft she calls graffigraphy. In real life, she works as a business consultant for operational efficiency and enjoys recreational sleeping in her spare time.

Faye Kennelly is a New Orleans-based, yankee-raised Art Therapist and Ceramicist. Her work both invites and simultaneously repels physical intimacy and touch, it’s intuitive, evocative, curious and animated. Faye believes that making art is dangerous and revealing and this is likely why she’s always done it.

Evan King is a computer scientist and musician currently based in Japan. Raised in the high-desert mountains of rural New Mexico, he holds a BS in Computer Science from UNM. His most recent work in music explores the use of algorithmic composition, found sound and modular synthesis.

Joe Kitsch is a conceptually-oriented artist who works in a wide variety of media, getting inspiration from popular culture and the sciences. He thinks bees are out of this world. (See what I did there?)

Ariel Knoebel is a writer based in Boston, MA. She is interested in exploring gender in the kitchen, the history on your dinner table, and where she can find the world's most perfect grilled cheese. For a taste of her work, check out sipandspoonful.com.

Alison LaFrance has traveled to many places in the past few years, living for a time in France. Her preferred medium is printmaking (intaglio and silkscreen), but also loves pen and ink. Themes of Alison's work include the supernatural and its effect of the self.

Krisztina Lazar, a Visionary artist living and working in California’s Bay Area, creates images of Pop Shamanism, portals and visions that speak to today’s cultural climate of the occult, magic, psychedelics, meditation, pop, nostalgia, and the environmental movement. Originally from Cleveland, OH, she completed her undergraduate Bachelor of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University in 2004 and her MFA graduate degree in 2011 at the San Francisco Art Institute New Genres department. Her paintings have been exhibited in group and solo shows throughout the United States and Europe, most notably at the H.R. Geiger museum in Gruyere, Switzerland.

Deb Lehman graduated with degrees in English and Theater. She has lived in Chicago, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Kansas, Boston, Montana and the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia where she currently resides with her husband of 48 years and four cats.

Kelly Lenza is a portrait photographer and maker in Chicago, IL. They're often found posting selfies, fat advocacy, photography, and food they made on their Instagram profile, @LividLipids. You can find their portrait work at www.BloomPhotographyChicago.com.

Lauren Leone is an artist, educator, and art therapist living in Somerville, MA. She uses fiber art, drawing, and mixed media to explore themes of connection and communication. Lauren is an assistant professor of art therapy at Lesley University and works with art therapy participants in private and community-based settings in Somerville and Boston, MA.

Joshua Lewin is a cook and creator with a preference for right over wrong, and views action to be the purpose of thinking, and public iteration the fastest way to progress. As the chef and owner of Boston area restaurants, Juliet and Peregrine, and the director of of Juliet Media Verse, Lewin is aspiring to something; he just doesn't know what. Curious for more?: ofJuliet.com

Stefanie Lubkowski is a Boston-based composer who writes for various chamber ensembles, voice, wind band, and electronic media. She studied composition at Connecticut College, New England Conservatory, and Boston University. Stefanie creates sound worlds guided by harmony, punctuated by melody, and inspired by literature and the natural world.

Enrico E. Manalo is a Boston-based poet and conflict resolution practitioner working toward racial equity. He is also the lead producer and host of All Aces On Air, a conversational interview show that elevates voices engaged in the work of racial equity through their various disciplines, fields, and passions. In his free time, Manalo can mostly be found listening to audiobooks while walking his dog, Chunk, or else cooking up a storm.

Adrianne Mathiowetz is a studio portrait and documentary photographer, and is a staff photojournalist for hyper-local magazine Scout Somerville. She is a photo graduate of The Salt Institute of Documentary Studies, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Bust, The Guardian, Vice, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, Forbes, the Star Tribune, amongst others. She lives in Medford, MA with her serious husband, hilarious son, and two perpetually starving cats.

Suzanne McLeod builds, paints, draws, and sews all sorts of things in her Arlington MA studio. She's inspired by daydreams, night dreams, and by her work as a psychotherapist. Finding her best way - whatever the medium - to respond to the call of the moment at hand brings her great satisfaction, and then more wandering and learning.

Zoë McDonnell is a multimedia visual artist and a professional in the sustainability sector. She is from Sonora, CA and is living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her artwork investigates her interest in the temporal nature of materials, memory and the body's experience of space.

Javier Mendoza was born in Mexico in 1984 and started taking photographs at the age of 14 in a self-taught way. In 2001 he started computer science studies in the local university and after graduating his love of the arts led him to move to Ecuador where he enrolled in the Photography and Imaging- Art Center. Since then he has been exhibited in galleries and art festivals in Ecuador and Mexico.

Ali Mohammad is interested in lots of stuff and likes to build and to learn. At the moment, he's experimenting with coffee. Ali is from Iraq, Kansas and Cambridge (in that order) and has a doctorate in artificial intelligence from MIT.

Second-generation visionary artist and experimental animator Lisette Murphy makes art about the ineffable. Lisette hosts an on-going creative death cafe, The Art of Dying, and offers instruction in things like remix art, improv animation, and the role of the unconscious in the conscious creation of art. She is currently creating a psychedelic graphic novel based on the surprise mediumistic experience she shared with her husband & the spirit of her deceased father.

Amanda Nadig is a textile artist who finds inspiration in keeping with and breaking away from traditions in quilting. Each uniquely composed quilt combines colors, shapes, textures and patterns discovered in all types of found fabrics. Amanda has been a high school art teacher in the Chicago Public Schools since 2003.

Abby Neale is an artist and educator based in Boston Massachusetts. She’s a teacher at Boston Public Schools. She creates zines, community arts, and installation as Lavender Menace Press. Her work offers people a micro liberation that inspires resilience in people committed to social justice. Thematically, her work links nature, history, and activism.

Alex Norby is an art therapist, educator, and artist living in Somerville, MA. She is interested in the intersection of creativity and bodyfulness in her clinical work, and emphasizes process, presence, and transition in her painting. Her current favorite form of expression is found in the kitchen- baking pies with a very fat lattice.

Jeremy Ogusky is a studio potter, husband, father, hard worker, RPCV, collaborator, and passionate fermenting evangelist living in Boston, Massachusetts. He strives to create work that has use.

Hey I'm Chase Palmer, a graphic designer and artist from Chattanooga, currently in Virginia. I edit things, I love my future wife Kelly, our two cats, and I'm writing this at 6 AM after driving for basically ten hours with my future wife and two cats. Basically, I love doing everything and always wanna keep encouraging everyone around me to try everything too. <3

Based in the wooded northern hills of central Massachusetts not far from H.P. Lovecraft's imaginary town of Dunwich, illustrator Kim Parkhurst combines the familiar with the strange to conjure the cozy but eerie feeling of scary stories and regional legends. Surrounded by forgotten forest cellar holes and overgrown slate-stoned cemeteries, she keeps the fantastic and phantasmagoric close to her heart (in a shoebox under the floorboards.)

Natalie Partipilo is a long-time creative writer engaging in hobby writing and small projects. Her inspiration comes from real emotion and classical music. She resides in Portland, OR and is learning how to incorporate more creative projects into her life.

Darrel Perkins is an American printmaker, illustrator, and educator from Providence, Rhode Island. Subjects tend to depict the human form to portray a narrative scene, frequently with nautical, literary, or philosophical tones. He currently teaches Visual Communication at American University in Dubai.

Elijah Peterson lives in Providence, RI, works in Boston, and writes from somewhere in between. Most of his literary efforts explore the layers of memory, experience, and performance that are inherent in living as a trans person and a religious convert. He is a proud amateur.

Armed with pencils, ink, paint, found objects, canvas, discarded materials, and recurring marks. I strive to create a language and exploration reflecting my personal journey in today’s world. My work has been shown across the United States. Michael Robert Pollard was born in Queens NY in 1970, raised in NYC, Tucson, Arizona and the San Francisco Bay Area. Pollard has resided in Chicago since 2004. A good art and sports town.

Gabriela Rocha is a brazilian writer living in São Paulo. She has been a lawyer and a journalist who nowadays writes and works as a freelancer reviewer and editor. Gabriela is a feminist and mother of a girl.

Elena Rossen is an artist, musician, educator, and coach living in Somerville, MA. Their work spans across different modalities, from cyanotype printmaking to figurative painting to songwriting, and often addresses their experience as a queer and neurodivergent artist. They see art as a way of being, of moving through and making sense of the world, and a vital means for community connection and activism.

Anna Ryan is a folk artist passionate about telling stories and sharing the beauty of nature in general and the Sonoran desert in particular through painting. She loves bright color, light, and collaborating with other artists—especially the ones in her family. She lives in Arizona, where she rummages through her father’s wood sculpting shop and steals his best scraps to paint, for which she’s very grateful.

Jenna Rycroft lives on the North Shore with her wife and most handsome cat. You'll likely find her reading on the beach, finishing a puzzle, or playing guitar.

John Savoia (b. 1986 in Boston, MA) is a fine arts photographer based in Boston. His work explores the idea that everything we create is a form of self portraiture, with a direct focus on personal connections to the body that break down cultural and societal norms of beauty, privilege, and power. He lives with his inspirational spouse, and their two cats in the scenic getaway of Jamaica Plain.

Joel Schenk relocated from Detroit to Cambridge in 2005 and, disregarding a transient year on the beaches of Southern California, has been at home around Boston ever since. Studies in Composition with Paul Brust at the Longy Conservatoire concluding in 2009, Joel has since sought to balance composing and concertizing with a wide array of other activities, including swimming, bicycling, playing ping-pong and taking Amtrak to the majority of its extremities. He currently resides in Jamaica Plain

Ben Schultz is a dilettante living in central New York. He makes computers do math, makes banjos make noise, draws cartoons and rides bikes in the woods.

Parker Shatkin is a multimedia artist focusing on unease and the absurdity of daily rituals and routines. Her work often takes the form of photography or is otherwise recorded as a way of blurring the line between what is and isn’t real, in an effort to synthesize internal and external sensations. She is currently based in Northern Colorado.

Sidestep Complex is a married musical collaboration creating intuitive multigenre music by weaving the epic violin tracks & experimental composition of Liz Anaya Sheils with the intricate raps & hip hop production of Scatterboxx. Our mission is to bring together visionaries, musicians, & creatives of all kinds in epic collaborations of love, revolution, & genuine self-expression. We write about our psychedelic romance, post-apocalyptic adventures, and the unfolding of the collective cosmic consciousness and we believe that a cross-cultural body of work can open minds and give folks the opportunity to connect with each other.

Dr. Julia Skinner is a food historian, professional fermenter, academic, and mixed media artist living in Atlanta, GA. Her work focuses heavily on community and identity, and she tries to weave in community building and healing into all of her work as a chef, an artist, and beyond. You can find her food related work on social media @rootkitchens and the rest of her work at @bookishjulia

Sarah Dickenson Snyder has written poetry since she knew there was a form with conscious line breaks. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019). Recently, poems appeared in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com

Natalie Stein grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is currently a student at KCAI where she is pursuing her BFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Fiber studio. Her work has been shown in the independent zine Hey Lady! and at the Ghost Gallery in Seattle.

TheFlyTy (Tyler Robinson) is a genre-bending Singer/Songwriter who was featured on Season 1 of NBC's The Voice, he was raised in Brazil and California and is currently living in Seattle. He Is a self-proclaimed Genre-bender but draws a lot of musical inspiration from jazz, R&B, EDM, Soul, Funk, and Disco. Collaboration is a goal for him and so far he's been featured on songs with SoulChef, Nieve, Abrio, and Korey Wade.

Emily Thibodeau picked up a pencil (or more likely a crayon) at an early age and has not stopped drawing since. She enjoys drawing bicycles, animals and animals riding bicycles. She is a former bike shop owner and current graphic design student at Massart.

Vanessa R Thompson never listened when her mother she told her to stop playing with her food. She grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut on a steady diet of 1980s horror films and feminism, seasoned with a dash of disordered eating and splash of punk. Now working out of Salem, MA, she uses items of consumable comfort; food, ephemera, and toys, in her analog photographs that range from abstractions to absurdities. Her work peels back their symbolism, leaving nerve endings exposed.

Taylor Torres is a Latina artist born and raised in the Sunshine State, now based in St. Petersburg. Capturing the fleeting moments of those in front of her, Taylor uses film photography to document life in the Sunshine State within the ever changing Florida DIY Music, Art, and LGBTQ+ scene.

Alexa Turnbull: I am exploring how the body communicates, navigates and deconstructs built barriers and structures in our environments. I understand that everything exists on its own shadow. The shadow may seem intangible, just out of reach, but it is truly there.

David Turner lives on a small acreage in Illinois with his partner and their menagerie of animals. He finds pleasure in simple things like cuddly kittens, a well cooked egg or a fine cup of coffee and good conversation. When struck by inspiration he enjoys using his 8x10 large format camera to make paper negatives in his makeshift bathroom darkroom. His work can be found on Instagram @tungstensun or his website david-turner.com.

Jennifer Turpin is an artist, educator and musician living in Allston Ma. Primarily working in fiber, Jen likes to explore a variety of materials, techniques and alternative presentations in her art practice. When not creating visual art Jen is typically playing music or hanging with her cats Lizzy and Bigsby and husband Adam.

Sophy Tuttle is a visual artist born in Colchester, England and currently residing in Medford, Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and is currently working on an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from the University of Hartford Art School. Influenced by artists such as Walton Ford, Mark Dion, and Alexis Rockman, Sophy uses visual storytelling to reimagine the future, resituate our position in the web of life, and create new narratives that explore regenerative, resilient culture-building among all forms of life.

Yvonne Valdemarca studied Fine Arts in Durban, South Africa and went on to work in the advertising industry before discovering teaching Art at the High School level. She moved to Canada and has been fortunate to set up a home studio and get back into painting and drawing. She usually works in acrylics and watercolours, but often some collage creeps in and then dabbles with some digital art too.

Edso Valena: I am a jack of many trades and a master of few and have tackled a number of jobs in my years (some of which being the “new guy” played a role). My current artistic endeavor is trying to find an adoptive home for a musical-comedy that very much celebrates the lives of four well-meaning dogs. I’ve recently relocated to Worcester, MA with my wife.

Lu Valena (they/them) is an artist, researcher, and consultant whose work explores concepts of expansion, the space in between, and the role of narrative in unexpected places. In recent years, their artwork has appeared at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, the Shelter in Place Gallery, the Visionary Art Collective, and Level99. They live in Jamaica Plain, MA.

Meghan van Alstyne is a visual artist based in upstate New York.

Angelica Vanasse is an American bred, UK-based creative practitioner living in Lancashire, England with her partner and their springer spaniel pup Douglas Buttons. Angelica works as an engagement and learning specialist in museums and galleries alongside exploring creative processes rooted in photography, drawing, writing and sculpture. Cakes are one of her favourite creative mediums.

Lilia Volodina (b. 1988) is an interdisciplinary visual artist, musician and playback theater actress, originally from Russia, who currently lives and works in Cambridge, MA. They like to explore themes of identity, connection, and various aspects of trauma in their often surreal and other-worldly work. In the past year, they started doing experimental semi-improvisational drawings in order to lower their own barrier of engaging in art-making, and are very pleased with the results.

Cody VanWinkle spent five years illustrating children's books at the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. In 2017, he was published in And Lester Swam On, written by 21 rambunctious second graders. Someday, he would like to combine his passions for making ice cream and knitting.

Sandy Van Winkle: I am a retired fire department data analyst, map maker and grant writer. My creative interests lie in watercolor and writing, but I am also an avid reader and reviewer of new fiction, particularly debut authors. My greatest creative achievement has been raising two outstanding young men who make me proud every day.

Ann Venezia is a visual artist based in Jamaica Plain, MA. Follow her @ann_venezia.

Miranda Viskatis dabbles; in illustration, photography, watercolor, music, philosophy... A natural dilettante. She is curious about the world and what there is to know about it, which sometimes dizzies her to an incapacitating degree. Thank God for deadlines, otherwise she’d never complete a single thing.

Gabriel Vituri is a São Paulo-based journalist, researcher, and photographer. He is currently pursuing a doctorate degree focused on the structures of violence and police organizations as well as working as a freelance writer and editor. In 2017, prompted by the birth of his daughter, he began developing his artistic practice as a photographer, exploring the themes of intimacy, cohabitation, encounters, and domesticity.

Pedro Vituri is a composer, producer and instrumentalist based in São Paulo, Brazil. He produces music for visual media, composes and plays guitar in his own projects and is influenced by a wide range of stimuli, from street noise to contemporary art exhibits. Vituri is an associate producer at www.capitaofoca.com and you can find more of his work on www.pedroviturimusic.com

Sarah Waddle: Small-town girl with big aspirations to make little things that interrupt peoples' day-to-day grind. Thinks rain is just the sky telling you to slow down. Likes: animals, pasta, writing and film/photography.

Nick Ward is figurative painter and printmaker who creates portrait based works that explore timeless stories through the internet obsessed eyes of today. Originally from a small town outside Portland Oregon, Nick currently resides in the outskirts of Boston, MA with his wife, daughter, and their scrappy dog. His work has twice earned him Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants for painting.

Georgia Warren is an artist, educator, and lover of cheese. When not knitting, she can be found hiking with her family or in the pursuit of something delicious. She lives in NY.

Sam Herschel Wein (he/they) is a Chicago-based poet who specializes in perpetual frolicking. Their second chapbook, GESUNDHEIT!, a collaboration with Chen Chen, was part of the 2019-2020 Glass Poetry Press Series. He co-founded and edits Underblong. Recent work can be found in The Adroit Journal, Shenandoah, and Sundog Lit, among others.

Donna Wolfe is a life-long sketcher, currently staying relatively sane in pursuit of joy. BFA UMASS Amherst. Hospitality emeritus. Funky grandmother.

Zofia Zoltek is knitter and poet based in Warsaw, Poland. They studied theology, Polish language and literature, and history. They like rats and hedgehogs but not hamsters.