ArtsHub - Building Community, Resiliency & an Equitable Creative Economy

POSTPONED

The event has been postponed and the new date has not yet been announced. If you're interested in attending, please fill out this form so that we can keep you informed of the new event date.

 

The ArtsHub of Western MA invites artists and creatives, and arts managers of all kinds to join ArtsHub - Building Community, Resiliency & an Equitable Creative Economy: A Day of Connecting Artists, a day of workshops, panel discussions and community to be held on Saturday, September 23, 10 am to 2 pm at Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity, 130 Pine St, Florence, MA.  Advance registration is required.

This event is made possible thanks to the City of Northampton’s ARPA Community Recovery Projects grant.

 

 

Bios

Justin Beatty

Justin Beatty, ArtsHub of Western Mass DEI Consultant, works as a visual artist, cultural educator, Native American intertribal powwow singer, and powwow emcee. As a visual artist just is a recipient of the Valley Creates/Assets4Artist Capital Building Mini-Grant and a member of the Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance's inaugural New England Native Arts Entrepreneurial Cohort. In November of 2021, Justin curated the dual exhibits “November Red” in the gallery at the Paper City Clothing Company in Holyoke, MA & “SKY: Native Art Exhibit” at the 50 Arrow Gallery in the Eastworks building in Easthampton, MA. He is the founder of the Odenong Powwow. Justin also created the 5-College Native American & Indigenous Alumni & Community Network and sits on the Board of Directors for the Social Distance Powwow. He works with various Native American communities & artists throughout New England while focusing on raising the visibility of Native American & Indigenous artists in Western Massachusetts.

Justin Beatty is a multi-disciplinary artist of Native American (Ojibwe, Saponi) & African-American descent. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts with a concentration in Indigenous Policy, Culture, & Art, a self-created interdisciplinary curriculum through the University Without Walls degree program. As a visual artist, Justin's work includes digital art which he then prints onto canvas and museum-grade canvas paper, sculpting, drawing (pen & ink, marker, charcoal, pastels, and pencil), painting, & clothing. His current focus in visual art is primarily dedicated to taking a deeper look into the cultural, political, spiritual, and social issues affecting current Native American & First Nations people. Frequently alternating between challenging the stereotypes of Indigenous people as relics of the past and creating new images around traditional symbology, his work explores the tropes, misconceptions, and erroneous beliefs the general public often carries about Indigenous people in North America & the Caribbean.
 

Dee Boyle-Clapp

Dee Boyle-Clapp, Director of the Arts Extension Service at UMass Amherst, is a co-coordinator of the ArtsHub of Western Massachusetts. Dee teaches and oversees courses arts management online and on campus, leads training programs in artist-business and public art, and works at the intersection of art and sustainability and lectures on the arts and the role of cities, sustainability, and the creative economy. She is the co-founder of the Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative and serves on the Creative Economy Network, MassCreative’s Leadership Council, and has an honorary seat with the Community Development Coordinators, a project of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA). Dee co-edited the Fundamentals of Arts Management 6th Edition and wrote two chapters including Online Fundraising and Greening Your Nonprofit Arts Organization. She is a consultant for arts organizations and artists, and through Culture for Climate Action, is currently collaborating with Oketeau, DoubleEdge Theatre, Paper City Clothing/Artesana and the Clean Energy Extension on a project to refine a sustainability training program for arts organizations. 

Dee, a sculptor, holds bachelor's degrees in art and art history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, an MFA in Sculpture from UMass Amherst, and a Master's in Nonprofit Management from Regis University in Denver. She lives on an off-the-grid llama farm in Western Massachusetts.

 

Nayana LaFond

Nayana LaFond is a full time artist and artivist (Art-Activist) working in a variety of media including but not limited to painting, photography and sculpture. Her work can be seen in museum and private collections around the world. Nayana has been curating for over 15 years including as Chief Curator for The Whitney Center for the arts and Liberal Arts Gallery. Nayana is on the board of directors for Artist Organized Art, Be The Change and several councils for Indigenous Arts in Massachusetts. She has written several published articles on art and culture. Her current work "Portraits in RED" has reached wide audiences and has 2 touring shows starting in 2022, 4 solo shows in galleries and museums for 2022 and 2 planned for 2023 so far. More information about Nayana can be found on her website Nayanaarts.com or by Googling her.

 

 

 

Felicia Lundquist

Felicia Lundquist (she/her) draws on her lifelong commitment to social change leadership to bring people together, build trust, and develop shared understanding across differences. Just under a year ago, she joined the Think Again Training & Consulting team where she currently serves as the Training Manager, prior to that she was the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and an adjunct faculty member at Springfield College. She has over 20 years of experience in higher education ranging from admission to academic and student affairs. Felicia has co-created programs and initiatives such as the Hip Hop Leadership Summit, A SEAT (Social justice, Equity, Accountability, Transformation) At The Table, and numerous other academic and social support programs for first-generation students and students of color. Through her learning and teaching, Felicia has learned the power of a social justice analysis, grounded in Black feminist thought, for helping people let go of internalized shame and guilt and become ready to make change. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and Spanish and an M.Ed from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was recently appointed to serve on the Northampton, MA "Commission to Investigate Racialized Harms Perpetrated Against Black Residents and Workers" and also serves as a co-chair of the Community Engagement Committee of the Board of Directors for the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce. Her overarching goal has been to build a more positive, collaborative, and supportive community by connecting organizations, councils, and community members and supporting the needs of individuals and institutions in creating a more inclusive environment in a challenging climate. She's also the author of “Give and Take, the Love and Hate Relationship: Black Identity, Plantation Politics, and Leadership” in Black Women Navigating Historically White Higher Education Institutions and the Journey Toward Liberation.

 

Mollye Maxner

Mollye Maxner is the co-director of A.P.E. gallery in Northampton, and is a director, dramaturg for new work, choreographer, and educator who has made original performance work in collaboration with artists of many disciplines. Artistic highlights include Occupied Territories (Washington DC 2015 / Off-Broadway 2017 / Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Choreography) and Still Life with Rocket (Washington DC 2017 / North Carolina 2019 / Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Choreography and for Outstanding Production), as well as The Trojan Women (Franklin Stage Company 2011), Reading By Lightning (2005-2007), The Silicon Dance Project (2002), The Table Piece (1994-2010) and working as choreographer at American Players Theater in the summers of 2021 and 2022. With a dedication to the intricacies of theater craft and creative practice, Maxner is passionate about new work in theater and multidisciplinary performance and is the recipient of the Kenan Fellowship at the Kennedy Center, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant in Choreography, and a DanceWeb Europe Scholarship for Vienna’s ImpulsTanz Festival. She created and performed new work at A.P.E. in the early 2000’s, finding an artistic home amid the people and philosophy of A.P.E. 

 

Iohann Vega

Born and raised in Mexico City, Iohann has a background in music, journalism, and media. He moved to Puerto Rico, where he worked for 12 years as a producer, on-air host, news anchor, promotion coordinator, and music program coordinator, at the University of Puerto Rico’s Public Radio Station, WRTU.

Iohann moved to Massachusetts in 2011. He was the Media Literacy Coordinator at the Gándara Youth Development Center, in Holyoke, MA, where he worked with youth, teaching, and creating media content with social justice, and self-advocacy focus. Iohann is also the producer of Radioplasma, a local bilingual podcast and independent media outlet that focuses on arts, culture, and social justice stories and discusses topics of relevance and interest.

Currently, Iohann is the Director of Media Engagement with Holyoke Media.

Example of work and interview at Bombyx, YouTube https://radioplasma.com/2021/11/14/supaman/