• Read more about Joi N. Lowe

Joi Nicole Lowe is a Southern Maryland artist and certified Montessori Guide known for her vibrant artwork exploring themes of African American life, maternal relationships, and her connection to nature.       

• Read more about BLU MURPHY

“I see Black people as art.” I am a mixed media artist, educator, and photographer based out of Washington, D.C. I combine striking black and white photography with acrylic paint or fabric and upcycled frames as canvases. My artwork not only features my students, but celebrates and honors them as living pieces of art. My art is about them; the photography is them. The subject matter is always them. I like to connect them, placing them in Black history. There’s something beautiful about connecting the past and the present and teaching them visually in that way.

• Read more about Shaawan Francis Keahna

Shaawan Francis Keahna (b. 1997) is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Ojibwe and a Meskwaki descendant. His visual art has been to the Miikanan Gallery at the Watermark Art Center, All My Relations, Giizhigen Artists Incubator, the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The short film “a place on the edge of breath,” which he co-produced and was featured in, won best documentary at Bushwick Film Festival. His words are in Same Faces Collective, Tension Literary, Hoxie Gorge Review, Unstaged, and too many others to list here.

• Read more about Sylvie Bartusek

I am an artist and creative technologist based in Silver Spring, Maryland, with a passion for experimentation and community.  I love to work with interactive forms, from performing music shows, creating installations, binding books, to developping games.  I am also very excited about discarded objects and ephemera. 

• Read more about NancyNolet

Nancy Nolet relocated to Baltimore to obtain her philosophy degree at UMBC. Alongside her multi-decade real estate career, she is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at Towson University. For many years, Nancy explored various forms of artistic expression, but it was during a mixed-media workshop in her mid-twenties that she discovered her true artistic medium. Her work examines the interplay between raw materials and man-made industrial objects by constructing whimsical sculptures from salvaged materials.

• Read more about Frank L. Asher (FLA)

Resume of Artist Cumberland Resident since 2018 Frank Asher Landscape gardener/ garden artist/ writer. 1998- Present Guerrilla Gardener in Washington DC and Cumberland. Taking on public spaces that have been abandoned and adding plants and small pieces of natural art. Items with sticks/stones/jewels/mirrors, etc. 2000-2017 Fairies Crossing Focused on the inner city landscapes with native perennials and edibles. 2008-2013 OLD CITY green. Inner city nursery known as “The Green Beating Heart of Shaw.” Retail and community space built out of an abandoned lot that was once a gas station.