FEATURED ARTISTS
Each month the editors choose an outstanding artist to feature from the following categories:
fine art, music, dance/choreography, photography, film, poetry/books.
Click on the photo to view the artist's page.
fine art, music, dance/choreography, photography, film, poetry/books.
Click on the photo to view the artist's page.
Photo Courtesy: Harriet Livathinos
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Harriet Livathinos (November Featured Artist) is a native Texan born in Dallas in 1939. She has traveled extensively throughout her career, living and working in Athens, Greece, Dallas, Texas, and throughout the Northeast United States. She received an M.A. in painting and printmaking from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Harriet has furthered her artistic education with coursework at the Art Students League and the Woodstock School of Art. Harriet’s work is in private collections in Greece and at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, as well as in Italy, England, and throughout the United States. She has enjoyed many exhibitions and prestigious awards in and around the Hudson Valley region of New York, East Hampton, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut. She is represented by the Carter Burden Gallery in New York City.
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Photo Credit: Richard Termine
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Diana Byer (September Featured Artist) is the founder and artistic director emerita of New York Theatre Ballet (NYTB) and director of New York Theatre Ballet School. A former professional dancer, she was a long-time pupil and colleague of Margaret Craske, who was director of Ballet Instruction at New York Theatre Ballet School until her retirement. In 1989, Diana founded NYTB’s community LIFT program, providing dance classes, scholarships, and services to homeless and at-risk New York City children. She has received the Helen Wieselberg Award from the National Arts Club, a Humanitarian Hero recognition from Good Housekeeping Magazine for her ongoing work with LIFT, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Martha Hill Dance Fund. A feature-length film, documenting Diana Byer’s journey of LIFT was featured at the 2022 Tribeca Festival and has been nominated for a 2024 News and Documentary Emmy Award.
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Photo Courtesy: Jane Eveshodioni Ugah
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Jane Eveshodioni Ugah (July Featured Artist) is a Nigerian visual artist from the rocky town of Ososo, Edo State. She holds a BFA from the University of Benin, Benin City. Jane uses nature as an inspiration and aesthetic. She paints surreal personalities embedded with the essence of the natural world. Her works evoke a sense of escape and a reflection on human relationships, cultural-religious mythology, and the ecosystem. She uses acrylic, oils, wax print fabric, and other mediums as a means of expression. She has been featured in group exhibitions including: “Identity - Who are you?” 1952 Africa Art Gallery, Lagos; “Spain-Nigeria Finals Exhibition,” Matrix Gallery of Contemporary Art, Abuja; and “Bloom,” R.W Norton Art Gallery, Louisiana. Jane lives and works in Abuja, Nigeria.
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Photo Courtesy: Carole Richard Kaufmann
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Carole Richard Kaufmann (May Featured Artist) is an artist based in New York City. Her paintings and drawings reflect her passions for feminism, art and politics as well as the people and landscapes she has discovered along the way, from Europe to China with journeys along the Silk Road, safaris in South Africa, and treks through South America and the Easter Islands, always in search of ‘Ch'i,’ the energy of life. Carole is a founding member and past president of the West Side Arts Coalition (WSAC), which was founded in 1979 by a group of visual and performing artists on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She is also a signature member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) and a member of the association’s Board of Directors. Her work is in many private and corporate collections worldwide.
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Photo Credit: Paul Filipkowski
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Kay WalkingStick (April Featured Artist) is a proud member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Of Cherokee/Anglo heritage, she is a painter of extraordinary power. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the Museum of Canada in Ottawa, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, The Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, DC, and many others. Hales Gallery represents her work in New York City and Europe. Among her numerous awards are the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, the Lee Krasner Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
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Photo Courtesy: Astrid Lempriere
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Astrid Lempriere (April Featured Artist) is an Australian-based visual artist specializing in relief printmaking using linocut to produce works on paper. After making some interesting career choices and multiple worldly adventures, Astrid found her niche as an artist. She immediately took to linocut printmaking, finding the precision of mark making addictive. Starting from a photograph, Astrid spends hours carving away to reveal a mesmerizing interpretation of the original photo. Since starting linocut printing three years ago, Astrid’s work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She won two commendations and judged her first local print exhibition. This feature is part of our "Celebrating Autism Awareness & Acceptance" issue.
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Photo Courtesy: Sally Beth Edelstein
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Sally Beth Edelstein (March Featured Artist) is an award-winning New York-based collage artist and writer who considers herself a visual archeologist digging deep into American mythology, excavating and examining the social fictions we as a society have subscribed to over the past 70 years. Her work has been shown at Arlington Art Museum, Museum of Sonoma County, Brown University, Heckscher Museum of Art, and Sally was recently the featured artist at The Art Center of Highland Park. Through both text and illustration her blog, Envisioning the American Dream, probes the ways that advertising and media steer our perceptions of race, class and gender.
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Photo Courtesy: Lisa Rivers
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Lisa Gilyard-Rivers (February Featured Artist) is a New York native-born, South Carolina-based artist whose work is influenced by the African Folk style of painting known as Gullah art. Recognized for its vibrancy and distinctive colors, Gullah art explores the culture and life of the people living in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida's Lowcountry, a region located along the southern coast that is deeply rooted in Black history. As owner of the Legacy Art Gallery in Beaufort, South Carolina, she is the first African American woman to own and operate an art gallery on the popular Bay Street. Her art has been featured in prestigious publications, and her work has been included in many exhibitions and in private collections throughout the U.S.
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Photo Credit: Daryon Haylock
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Camille Thurman (January Featured Artist) is an accomplished composer, esteemed saxophonist, vocalist, and unique interpreter of the jazz tradition. Camille was the first woman in 30 years to tour and perform full-time internationally with the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as a saxophonist/woodwind doubler (2018-2020 season). A respected bandleader, she has headlined numerous notable concert venues and jazz festivals worldwide. In May 2020, Camille founded “The Haven Hang: Young Lioness Musician Q&A/ Virtual Mentorship Series” for young women musicians. The initiative is to mentor, share advice, and support young women pursuing careers in music and the performing arts.
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FEATURED ARISTS 2023
Photo Credit: Jill Baratta
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Sonia Stark (November Featured Artist) has always worked in a variety of mediums and styles in acknowledgement of their equal validity and in appreciation of the multi-dimensionality of art. However ostensibly different, her drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures are intricately related, both thematically and aesthetically. Sonia is a signature member of the National Association of Women Artists, an organization where she formerly served as president and member of the Board of Directors. She has exhibited her artwork across the United States and has received numerous awards for her paintings, designs and illustrations.
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Photo Credit: Stephen Mosher
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KT Sullivan (October Featured Artist) is a cabaret icon and Broadway performer who currently sings and plays piano every Tuesday in the lobby of the historic The Algonquin Hotel in New York City. In 2012, KT was named artistic director of The Mabel Mercer Foundation, which produces the annual Cabaret Conventions at Lincoln Center. Besides regular appearances in such New York venues as The Laurie Beechman Theatre, BIRDLAND, 54 Below, and Café Sabarsky, she stars annually at The Pheasantry in London, and has been showcased at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Spoleto Festival, Chichester Festival, CLUB RaYé in Paris, and Adelaide Festival in Australia.
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Image: Encyclopedia Britannica
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Willa Cather (September: Celebration of an Artist ~ 1873-1947) was an American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains. Today Willa Cather is one of the most important American novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. Seen as a regional writer for decades after her passing in 1947, critics have increasingly identified her as a canonical American writer, the peer of authors like Hemingway, Faulkner and Wharton. As part of our September issue celebrating "Arts in Education," this feature celebrates the female protagonists in Willa's most notable novels 150 years after her birth.
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Photo Courtesy: Cassie Fireman
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Cassie Fireman (July Featured Artist) is a singer-songwriter based in New York. Prior to launching her solo career, she played with an all-female rock band called The Panty Droppers, and then co-founded the band Dirty Mae with her husband, Ben Curtis. Dirty Mae performed throughout New York City, touring 12 states, playing over 90 shows and winning the Battle of the Bands at Grassroots 30th Annual Festival, which led to playing live onstage with “Donna and The Buffalo” at Shakori Hills, as well as being hand-picked as a performer for the Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz's Underground Sunshine Fest. The tour came to a halt in 2020 due to the pandemic, and Cassie began writing prolifically. Cassie’s debut solo album Feel Like Gold was just released.
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Photo Courtesy: Elaine Franz Witten
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Elaine Franz Witten (May Featured Artist) is a multi-award-winning, classically trained sculptor. Hallmarks of her bronzes are beautiful form, illusion of movement, creative use of negative space, and use of indigenous stone bases. Elaine’s art has been exhibited in over 150 national and international exhibitions as well as museums and reginal solo shows. Her bronzes are in public and private collections in the United States, Canada, and in the private collection of the former King of Saudi Arabia. In 2013, she became a purveyor of sculpture to the U.S. State Department for use as Presidential gifts by President Obama. Elaine is a signature member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA).
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Photo Courtesy: April Dawn Griffin
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April Dawn Griffin (April Featured Artist) started painting at age eight, and her passion for this medium blossomed for decades. April is an autistic artist with deteriorating eyesight. However, she shares, “It weirdly doesn’t stop me from painting." Her metal work speaks to synergy in the forest. She used her paintings on metal – particularly her work on large saw blades – to draw attention to potential clear-cut logging. April appeared in the film CONNECTED: A Film About Autistic People, which provides a heartwarming look into the lives of individuals on the autism spectrum as they gather for the International Naturally Autistic People Awards in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Self-Portrait
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Laura Dodson (March Featured Artist) is an award-winning photographer, writer and educator based in New York City and Athens, Greece. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute. Her works have been the subjects of seven international, one-person exhibitions, and her art has appeared in numerous group shows. Laura currently teaches digital photography at Queens College, City University of New York and writes portfolio reviews for LensCulture magazine. Her photographs are included in several private and public collections. Her most recent exhibition was "Fictional Narratives" at Alex Ferrone Gallery.
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Photo Courtesy: Cherry Lane Theatre
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Bridgette Wimberly (February: Celebration of an Artist ~ 1954-2022) was commissioned and produced by a number of prominent theaters Off-Broadway and across the U.S. This list includes Cherry Lane Theatre, Hackney Empire-London, Opera Philadelphia, Apollo Theatre, Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, and many others. Her poems were published in six anthologies of poetry by the poetry group Cave Canem from 1999 to 2008. A partial list of her community associations and activities included member of the Board of Directors at Cherry Lane Theatre, lifetime member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Foundation for the Arts Artspire Artist, and member of The Dramatists Guild. Bridgette’s first play, Saint Lucy’s Eyes, starred Ruby Dee and received numerous notable awards.
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Photo Courtesy: Franki Love
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Franki Love (January Featured Artist) is an award-winning singer-songwriter and classically trained pianist who began playing the piano when she was four years old. She garnered success at the LA Music Awards as "Female Singer-Songwriter of the Year" and winning "Single of the Year" for her song "Shadow." In 2013, Franki successfully funded her next album release, which was dedicated to her mother who passed away from cancer in January 2013. She was mentored by legendary music producer Phil Ramone, who encouraged her to start writing the album while grieving the loss of her mom. Otias was released in 2017. Franki's latest album, The Moon, was released in 2022. This is a new age instrumental/piano album with healing frequencies and was also on the Grammy ballot.
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