MYRANDA BAIR
is an artist, educator, avid rock climber, natural space advocator, animal lover, and suburban farmer. She was born in Dickinson ND, not so far from Rushville. Her family soon moved to rural Texas and raised horses and blackberries on their farm. She received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on environmental conservation and how community education can lead to a richer outdoor experience. For the past decade, her work has combined watercolor on paper with various natural elements contained inside antique cloches and display cases. This gives new life to forgotten materials while simultaneously illuminating the life of native flora and fauna. Currently, she is a faculty member for the College of Southern Nevada’s Art and Art History Department. Myranda raises funds for non-profit organizations through art donations and sales. Myranda has two French bulldogs, a wonderful husband, Craig and two daughters. She lives and works in Las Vegas, NV. More of her work can be seen at myrandabair.carbonmade.com
ELAINE BRADFORD
is interested in nostalgia created through processes and objects. Her grandmother taught her how to crochet and she has worked with the craft throughout her life. She began to use this and other traditional “women’s work” in her art for its connotations of personal history, hours of labor and concepts of comfort. She is also a collector, mining thrift and antique stores to find discarded pieces of unknown lives. She then transforms these objects with crochet, embroidery and collage, bringing them a new life. In her most recent project, Routine Fables, she collaborated with poet Sara Cress over the course of 2017 to create a new piece every week. Bradford would make a small mixed media sculpture and Cress would respond with a poem. The 52 works were produced and released weekly online. These sculptures and poems document the year in their lives, both good and bad, and the results can be seen at routinefables.com.
Bradford holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2003) and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2000). Her work has been included in shows both nationally and internationally. She was a founding member of BOX 13 ArtSpace, an innovative artist run studio and gallery space in Houston’s East End. She currently lives and works in Houston, TX. More of her work can be seen at elainebradford.weebly.com
JORGE MENNA BARRETO
is a visual artist and designer, living and working in Brazil. He attended courses in sculpture and painting with Professor Jailton Moreira in Porto Alegre in 1990 and completed his bachelor's degree in fine arts with a specialization in drawing at UFRGS, Porto Alegre, in 1997. Themes of desire and friendship are woven into some of his work, by bringing the viewer closer and making them the engine of the work. One of his most recent projects for the 32nd bienal in São Paulo, the Rastauro (Restoration) project, raises questions about the development of eating habits and their relationship with the environment, landscape, climate and life on earth. More of his work can be seen at jorggemennabarreto.com
CHLOE BASS
is a conceptual artist who works in service of an idea rather than in service of a particular material. Her projects usually take the form of performance, photography, installation, or writing. She is interested in using found objects, found situations, and found people, exploring the world around her to call attention to the power of the everyday. She was born and raised in New York City, and she divides her time between New York and St. Louis. More of her work can be seen at www.chloebass.com.
STEPHANIE SYJUCO
is an artist and educator whose projects involve everything from archiving cultural heritage, examining public access to information and knowledge, and exploring how economies affect both local and global communities. Her collaborative projects often utilize unexpected workshop formats in order to gather people together to discuss tough issues and co-create new stories. Born in the Philippines in 1974, she migrated to the U.S. as a young child and attended the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University. A long-time educator, she is an Assistant Professor in Sculpture at UC Berkley, where she is committed to supporting public education and working to build coursework that melds traditional craft forms with digital technologies and social engagement. She is a recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship Award, and she has exhibited widely. She lives and works in Oakland, California. More of her work can be seen at www.stephaniesyjuco.com.
RUSSELL ARTHUR BAUER
is an artist who lives and works in Albuquerque, NM. He received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in the Art & Ecology program, and his BFA from Michigan State University. He creates kinetic, performative, and allegorical sculptures by applying his knowledge of construction, electronics, and living systems. When the works hang from the wall he considers them paintings. As much work as possible is released into the public domain. His portfolio is available at www.rabaw.com. Major ongoing projects include the Edible Carnival www.ediblecarnival.org and the United States Chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Technology and Infrastructure www.PETTI.us.
DAVID BROOKS
is an artist whose work considers the relationship between the individual and the built or natural environment. It investigates how cultural concerns cannot be divorced from the natural world, while also questioning the terms under which nature is perceived and utilized. Brooks has had solo exhibitions and major projects at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Storm King Art Center; MoMA/PS1; the Dallas Contemporary; Tang Museum; deCordova Museum, MA; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; Galerie für Landschaftskunst, Hamburg; Nevada Museum of Art; Ballroom Marfa; the Sculpture Center, NYC; The Visual Arts Center, Austin; Cass Sculpture Foundation, UK; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; ASU Art Museum, AZ; and the American Academy in Rome, among others. From 2011 to 2012, Brooks’ Desert Rooftops, a 5000-sq. ft. earthwork commission from the Art Production Fund, was on view in Times Square. From 2017 to 2018, for the inaugural commission for the Trust for Governors Island, Brooks created a large-scale geologic installation. In 2020, for another inaugural commission from Planting Fields Foundation in Oyster Bay, NY, Brooks responded with his piece, Budding Bird Blind. He is the recipient of many honors, including the Rome Prize, a research grant to the Ecuadorian Amazon from the Coypu Foundation, and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Brooks lives and works in New York and is a professor at NYU Gallatin. More of his work can be seen at davidbrooksstudio.com.
KAYLA MEYER
is a graduate of the Iowa State University Landscape Architecture Program. She is passionate about creating better places and building community through landscape. She has worked with the City of Omaha Parks and Recreation Department organizing public outreach and park improvement projects and also as an Urban Design Fellow for the research and design collaborative non-profit Emerging Terrain collaboratively creating site-specific installations and events with participatory processes. Kayla continues to work in Omaha for a multi-disciplinary design firm where she focuses on site design for K-12 schools. Through her work, she hopes to strategically position design and, more specifically, landscape architecture as an opportunity to recover our own consciousness and health, our lost traditions and sense of community, our rootedness in the land, and our connectedness with one another. Learn more about her work here www.olsson.com/News/six-questions-with-kayla-meyer
THOMAS LOWELL EDWARDS
is a multimedia artist who creates sculpture and pottery with an aim to inspire dialogue about diminishing communal activities in our culture. Edwards received his MFA from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and his BFA in ceramics from the Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Technological University. When he traveled to Jingdezhen, China as a Windgate Fellow to be an artist in residence at the Sanbao International Ceramic Art Institute, the birthplace of porcelain inspired him. He became fascinated by ceramics as industry – particularity how remnants of industrial production were integrated into architectural elements throughout the city—and later continued his international research in production ceramics through an internship program in Germany. While there, he was able to work closely with a production potter and observe European Studio practice. Edwards has since set up his studio in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he currently resides with his wife and son. More of his work can be seen at tjclay.com.
MARY MATTINGLY
is a visual artist, who’s current piece Swale is a floating food forest for New York. In 2015, she completed a two-part sculpture “Pull” for the International Havana Biennial with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Mary Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the Palais de Tokyo. With the U.S. Department of State and Bronx Museum of the Arts she participated in the smARTpower project, traveling to Manila. In 2009 Mattingly founded the Waterpod Project, a barge-based public space and self-sufficient habitat that hosted over 200,000 visitors in New York. In 2014, an artist residency on the water called WetLand launched in Philadelphia. It is being utilized by the University of Pennsylvania’s Environmental Humanities program. More of her work can be seen at marymattingly.com.