FEATURED ARTISTS
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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. |
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October 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Brianna Mercado is a professional dance artist, teacher, choreographer, and speaker based in New York City. Her journey is a study in contrasts – having experienced the deepest challenges and the greatest rewards. Brianna survived life-threatening bone cancer at the age of 15, then went on to receive a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley. After graduation, she pulled up California roots for a move to the Big Apple and ignited a career as a professional dancer, only to find out shortly afterward that a second aggressive cancer had invaded her body at the age of 22. Brianna’s performance credits include: TEDx, Isn’t It Romantic, MUNY’s Jesus Christ Superstar, MUNY’s Aida, Fuerza Bruta: Wayra, & a PHISH concert performance. She is represented by McDonald/Selznick Associates Talent Agency and teaches weekly dance classes at Peridance Capezio Center in Manhattan.
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September 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Alexis P. Suter is a three-time Blues Music Awards nominee. Her dance song “Slam Me Baby” put her on the map, and she became the first African American woman to sign with Epic/Sony Japan. In addition to being a featured artist in over 50 blues and roots festivals nationwide, Alexis and her band have been the opening act for the following artists: B.B. King, Etta James, Bo Diddley, Trombone Shorty, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Dickey Betts, Coco Montoya, Buddy Guy, Allen Touissaint, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Winter, Elvis Costello and for the 20 year reunion of the Muddy Waters Band. Television appearances include Legends, Imus in the Morning and The Artie Lange Show. The latest album, Be Love, hit the streets on May 18, 2019.
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July 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Marlene Wiedenbaum, PSA-MP, is an award-winning pastel artist from New York. She considers herself “a passionate realist, working with a palette of soft pastels, sanded paper, and a kneaded eraser.” Her award-winning paintings have been exhibited internationally, including the International Pastel Artists Invitational in Taipei, Taiwan and the Xian Art Museum in China. Her work is among six International Master Pastelists featured in two text books commissioned by the Taiwanese government. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, and, in 2012, Marlene was selected out of 1500 artists as one of 10 semi-finalists for the prestigious Basil H. Alkazzi Excellence in Painting Awards. As an Award-Winning Signature Member and MASTER Pastelist of the Pastel Society of America (PSA), Marlene is also an elected board member of the PSA Board of Governors, and she is a member of several other prestigious arts organizations.
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May 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Sandra Bertrand has been immersed in the arts all of her life, as a theater actress, playwright, painter, photographer, book reviewer, editor and art critic. In theater, her accomplishments are numerous. Her plays include Manikin, The Transformation of Aura Ruanes, Days and Nights of an Ice Cream Princess, The Sentry and the Laughing Ladies and many others. Her plays for television include Chameleon and Coming Attraction. She has been an O’Neill Playwright Conference finalist and her plays have been performed Off-Off Broadway at the Courtyard Playhouse, The Viridian and elsewhere. Sandra’s artwork has been selected for solo and group exhibitions in Connecticut and New York. She is a member and Public Relations Co-coordinator of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) . Sandra is Chief Art Critic for Highbrow Magazine and a contributing writer for GALO Magazine.
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April 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Kimberly Gerry-Tucker is an author, artist and vice president of The Art of Autism, a nonprofit organization supporting autistic creatives. She is in charge of the P.O.D.S. (People of Diversity, Speaking) Project, one of the many programs sponsored by this nonprofit.
After receiving an Asperger’s/Selective Mutism diagnosis in 1999, Kimberly stopped seeing herself as ‘less-than’ and felt empowered to write candidly about herself as a spectrum woman. Her memoir Under The Banana Moon was published in 2012. Her artwork has appeared in many books and on the cover of three. |
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March 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Katherine Kean is an award-winning painter from Los Angeles and a former visual effects producer, designer and animator whose film credits include The Fly, Ghost, Stargate, and Willow. Her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and have been acquired by many private and corporate collections. Her work has been presented in many publications and collections, including Bloomingdales in Santa Monica, CA, Schiffer’s 100 Artists of the West Coast II, and the National Weather Center 2015 Biennale.
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February 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Carol Roullard is a Southern California artist who has been an avid photographer since high school. Using a high-powered microscope, she captures an extraordinary, intricate world of dazzling, tiny crystals. Since retiring from the corporate world in 2010, Carol has sold her unique art locally, nationally and internationally, and her work has received numerous awards, including a first place finish in Clemson University’s “HOOKEd on Microscopy” competition. Her images have been featured in video, print and online publications. Carol has released a clothing and accessory line called Crystal Art Outfitters which features her colorful work. She has co-authored nine camera-related books with her husband, Brian Matsumoto.
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Photo Credit: Carolyn Fong
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January 2019 FEATURED ARTIST: Molly Smith Metzler is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Molly’s plays include Cry it Out (2017 Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2018 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award Citation), Elemeno Pea (2011 Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville), The May Queen (Chautauqua Theatre Company), Carve (The Juilliard School), Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist) and Training Wisteria (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, winner of three KCACTF Awards from The Kennedy Center). In television, Molly’s credits include Casual (Hulu), Orange Is the New Black (Netflix), Codes of Conduct (HBO), and Shameless (Showtime), where she is currently a writer & producer. In film, she recently adapted Ali Benjamin’s novel The Thing About Jellyfish for Reese Witherspoon/MWM/Made Up Stories/Universal, and she is now at work on films for Disney and Fox 2000.
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Featured Artists: 2018
Photo Credit: William Clark
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November 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Jonatha Brooke is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been creating and performing richly constructed, melodic songs with complex harmonies and poetic lyrics for more than two decades. She began her solo career in 1994, and her 1997 CD 10 Cent Wings earned Jonatha a review in Billboard Magazine. In 2014, Jonatha opened in her one-woman play My Mother Has 4 Noses off-Broadway in New York City at the Duke Theater. The critically acclaimed project documents the poignant journey of caring for her mother, who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's-induced dementia, during the last two years of her life. In February of this year, the show ran for three weeks at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis.
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October 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Amy Hempel is the author of four collections of stories: Reasons to Live (Knopf, 1985), At the Gates of The Animal Kingdom (Knopf, 1990), Tumble Home (Scribner, 1997) and The Dog of the Marriage (Scribner, 2005). These were assembled as The Collected Stories (Scribner, 2006) and won the Ambassador Award for Best Fiction of the Year. The volume was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Harper’s, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Harvard Review, The Southampton Review, GQ, The Quarterly, and many others.
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Photo Credit: Svelta Atanasova
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September 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Karen Bernard is a cross-discipline performance artist, choreographer & founder of New Dance Alliance, an arts service organization whose mission is to actively promote emerging forms of innovative dance, music, video and interdisciplinary performance. She has been invited to tour in Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, St. John’s, Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa and Quebec City. Karen received a BAX 10 award for her invaluable service to artists in the founding and development of the Performance Mix Festival. She is a co-founder of E|MERGE Interdisciplinary Collaborative Residency at Earthdance.
Jennifer Dunning, a critic for the New York Times, has described Karen as a “spellbinding performer with unusual themes.” |
Photo Credit: Anne de Carbuccia
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July 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Anne de Carbuccia is a French-American environmental artist and founder of the Time Shrine Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raise awareness about vulnerable environments and cultures. Anne travels to remote places in the world, creating and photographing temporary installations (TimeShrines) that document and preserve the memory of endangered places, animals and cultures. Her project titled ONE: One Planet One Future uses artistic photographs taken by Anne on her expeditions to raise awareness on human-caused threats to the environment (war, pollution, toxic waste, trash, etc.) in order to encourage sustainable behaviors and lifestyles. Her images have been exhibited in museums and other public institutions in Europe and the U.S. and are part of several private collections. Anne's work is permanently exhibited at Westbeth Center for the Arts in New York City and in Milan, Italy.
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May 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Adison Evans is a saxophonist known for her work with Beyoncé, Jay Z and Demi Lovato. She draws on her influences, travels and life experience as well as those who have influenced her both musically and personally. Her music exudes a love for jazz, R&B and positive affirmation. Adison made her debut in the pop world playing in the 2013 Super Bowl with Beyoncé. After graduating from The Juilliard School, she toured with Beyoncé in the “Mrs. Carter Show World Tour” and, afterward, with Beyoncé and JayZ in the history-making “On the Run Tour.” In 2016, she released her debut album, Hero, a tribute to those who have shaped her into the young woman and artist she is today. Her new album, Meridian, will be released on July 6, 2018.
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April 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Tanya Fredman is an artist and community art educator who makes art as a celebration of life and people. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Tanya moved to Israel in 2011 and currently lives in Kibbutz Shluhot. Tanya received her studio art degree from Brandeis University and did postgraduate work at The HaMidrasha School of Art in Israel. She has exhibited in many locations in the U.S., including The Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art and The Jewish Education Project in New York, NY. Tanya works with people of all ages to create murals and public art installations that transform spaces and impact communities. She helped create the art program at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda, painted murals with immigrant youth in Israel, and currently works in the education department at the Mishkan Museum of Art in Ein Harod, Israel.
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Photo Credit: Garth Woods
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March 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Najwa Parkins is a jazz vocalist, bandleader, songwriter, composer and educator from Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Temple University with a B.M. in jazz studies and vocal performance. In 2011, she released her self-produced, debut album, Not the Next Someone Else. Najwa has performed as both a vocalist and trombonist throughout the U.S. and in Europe. She has shared the stage with a wide array of artists and has performed as both a featured vocalist and trombonist with Phil Woods and the Festival Orchestra. Najwa can be seen and heard on the Emmy Award-winning television show, Alex and the Kaleidoscope, which premiered in March 2014. In the winter of 2016, she toured nationally, portraying Rosa Parks in the Mad River Theater Works production of “Walk On: The Rosa Parks Story." Najwa currently leads her own trio and quartet and is an adjunct faculty member in the vocal jazz department at Temple University.
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February 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Linda Adelstein Watson was born and raised in New York and currently resides on Long Island. She attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City. After raising a family and continuing to battle a rare bone disease, Linda turned to her art as a way to heal herself and to inspire others. Linda's work has appeared in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She created the cover artwork for the blues album, "Please Save Your Love For Me," released in 2015 by award-winning performer Ebony Jo-Ann. The following notables are proud owners of Linda’s portraits: Nick Ashford (gifted to Ms. Valerie Simpson), Marc Broussard, Taylor Dayne, James Jamerson Jr, Danny Kean, Gladys Knight, David Letterman, Jeffrey Osborne, Patrice Rushen, Paul Schaeffer, Ann & Nancy Wilson (Heart).
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January 2018 FEATURED ARTIST: Elisa Pritzker is an American artist who was born in Argentina and has lived in Ulster County, NY for over twenty years. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions and renowned venues, such as MoMA, Queens Museum, Dorsky Museum, and the National Institute of Art in Taipei Taiwan, to name a few. She was selected the U.S. representative artist for “The Pyramids of Naxos,” Greece (international project for the 2004 Olympic Games). She has received numerous awards, including two U.S. Congressional Awards for achievements and service in the area of Community Arts and Culture and the Ulster County Executive Hispanic Heritage Award (NY). Her work has been highlighted in the Huffington Post, CNN (in Spanish), PBS Channel, and her "Eclectica Store" was showcased in The New York Times.
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