FEATURED ARTISTS
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“To create one’s own world takes courage.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe |
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. |
Featured Artists: 2026
Photo Credit: Gabriel Candiani
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Adassa (July Featured Artist) is a Golden Globe, Oscar, and Grammy-winning artist, best known as the voice of Dolores in Disney’s Encanto and as a featured vocalist on the Billboard #1 hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” She has performed at the Grammys, Oscars, American Music Awards, and American Idol. She regularly headlines Disney concerts worldwide and is currently a featured guest artist on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s world tour (2024–2026). As the global face of Disney’s Encanto campaign, Adassa led over 100 international press junkets and appeared monthly as a headlining guest at Comicons across the U.S., performing for thousands of Disney superfans.
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Karen Ghostlaw (July Featured Artist) is an internationally exhibited and published photographer, multidisciplinary artist, curator, editor, and arts advocate. Her work explores identity, perception, memory, reflection, and the relationship between humanity and the environments we inhabit. Working across photography, installation, mixed media, and alternative photographic processes, she creates visual narratives that encourage deeper engagement with contemporary life. Karen is the Editorial Director of The Pictorial List, Co-Founder and Vice President of the Pictorial Foundation, and a Signature Member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA).
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Photo Courtesy: Brigid Kennedy
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Brigid Kennedy (May Featured Artist) is a painter living in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Her degrees are from the University of Toronto (B.A.), SUNY Buffalo (BFA), and Yale University, School of Art (MFA). She has exhibited in museums, galleries and other unique spaces: Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden (North Salem, NY), daphne:art gallery, (Litchfield, CT); Castellani Museum (Niagara Falls, NY); ArtWalk/Hartford Public Library (Hartford, CT); Five Points Gallery (Greenwich, CT), Ely Center of Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT), to name a few. Brigid’s awards include Greater Hartford Arts Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship Grant, Fulbright Scholar Lecture/Research Award in Chile, and Connecticut State Commission on the Arts.
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Photo Courtesy: Ilise Harris
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Ilise Harris (May Featured Artist) has had decades of international makeup and hairstyling experience with a diverse clientele that has included celebrities, fashion and beauty brands, corporations, and indie films. She has contributed to iconic editorial and advertising campaigns and has worked with some of the world’s most influential fashion, fine art, and beauty photographers. For over 45 years, she has worked with high-profile personalities like Vogue's Anna Wintour, Mia Farrow, Liza Minnelli, Paulina, Jon Stuart, Gloria Steinem, Brooke Shields and others. Your Roots Are Showing marks her debut as a documentary filmmaker, expanding her practice as a visual artist into long-form storytelling. It’s also won multiple awards, as well as a recent grant from the Artemis Rising Fund.
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Featured Artists: 2025
Photo Courtesy: Nicola Kraus
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Nicola Kraus (November Featured Artist) is a New York City-based author and entrepreneur with 25 years’ experience in the publishing and entertainment industries and over six million copies of her books in print. She published her first novel, The Nanny Diaries, written with her then-creative partner, Emma McLaughlin, in 2002. In 2007, it was made into a movie with Scarlett Johansson, Paul Giamatti, and Laura Linney. In 2015, Nicola established The Finished Thought, a consultancy that helps to shepherd aspiring authors through the writing and publication process. Her most recent novel, The Best We Could Hope For was published in May 2025 and is excerpted in Sanctuary this month.
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Photo Courtesy: Ann Kittredge
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Ann Kittredge (September Featured Artist) is a lifelong performing artist. She has performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at major venues across the country, working with top producers and directors throughout her career. In theater, she has been acclaimed for her leading roles in both musicals and dramas. In the cabaret world, Ann has displayed her versatility with a repertoire ranging from Great American Songbook standards to jazz, classic pop, and contemporary musical theater. She recently expanded her career into the recording industry. Her debut album, reIMAGINE, won the LaMott-Friedman Award. Her critically acclaimed second album, Romantic Notions, was chosen as one of the top 10 vocal albums of 2024 by The Broadway Radio Show. You Sleigh Me, her latest album, releases soon.
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Photo Courtesy: Heidi Hutner
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Heidi Hutner (July Featured Artist) is an award-winning director, writer, and producer who is also a professor of environmental humanities and gender studies at Stony Brook University. A scholar of nuclear and environmental history, literature, film and ecofeminism, she is the winner of Sierra Club Long Island's 2015 Environmentalist of the Year Award. Heidi publishes widely as a writer and journalist on nuclear, environmental, environmental justice, and gender issues. Her current book project, RADIOACTIVE: Women and Nuclear Disasters, forms the basis of the documentary project. RADIOACTIVE: The Women of Three Mile Island is Heidi’s first film. Released in 2022, the documentary has won numerous international awards. It’s available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and on DVD.
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Photo Courtesy: Joan Elizabeth Meyer
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Joan Elizabeth Meyer (May Featured Artist) is a New York City-born-and-based artist who has refined her style and skills for over 40 years. Her paintings are oil on canvas or oil on wood assemblages. They bring surreal images to life in unique colors where her love of nature shines through in depictions of animal and plant life. Joan has an approach that suggests a futuristic scenario which blends the subconscious imagination and dream-like imagery. Now retired from full-time teaching, Joan creates new works at her Chelsea art studio. Her work has been recognized in Art in America, Miami Herald, Interview Magazine, Art and Antiques Collector’s Sourcebook, and was most recently featured in Forbes magazine.
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Photo Credit: Emma-Lee Photography
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Jane Bunnett (March Featured Artist) is a five-time Juno Award winner who is known for her creative integrity, improvisational daring, and courageous artistry. Her exploration of Afro-Cuban melodies expresses the universality of music, and her ability to embrace and showcase the rhythms and culture of Cuba has been groundbreaking. She has toured the world bringing her own special sound to numerous jazz festivals, displaying her versatility as a band leader, saxophone player, flutist, composer and pianist. Jane was nominated for three Grammy Awards, and two documentaries have been made about her work: Spirits of Havana by the National Film Board and, more recently, Embracing Voices.
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