R+WSofA Teaching Artist Application
We have an amazing group of teaching artists who help to make our programs so strong. You will find them teaching our Monthly Art Sessions, Art Workshops, Summer Art Camps and Asheville Art Retreat weekends. These artists are also available to teach Private Art Sessions or Art Birthday Celebrations.
www.aliciachatham.com
Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Alicia moved to South Carolina at a young age. She grew up in a family that loved and appreciated the arts. She was taken to art classes at an early age where she learned to draw and paint from life. Alicia attended the University of South Carolina and the University of North Carolina at Asheville where she earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in oil painting. Two of her pieces from her Senior Exhibition are on permanent display in UNCA’s Lipinsky Auditorium.
Alicia worked as a wedding photographer for many years while she completed her degree in art. She also created hand formed and hammered sterling silver jewelry. Her work has frequented many Asheville establishments and can currently be seen at the Kress Emporium, Tree Gallery, and the LOFT of Asheville. In addition to Asheville locations, Alicia’s work can be seen at Portfolio Art Gallery in Columbia, SC and Artisan General in Brevard, NC.
www.cleastercotton.blogspot.com
Cleaster attended Fordham University ~ NYC (liberal arts); San Diego City College ~ CA (art and technical illustration); Primal Art Center ~ NYC / Haiti (African and Haitian art history and folklore). She is a mentor, contemporary primitive multimedia artist, freelance photographer, naturalist, and advanced open water, PADI certified, scuba diver. Cleaster has successfully written grants and has prestigious citations and certificates to her credit.
Cleaster Cotton has over ten years experience as a resident teaching and touring artist, teaching academic education through the creative arts, which includes self-expression and communication skills to children K-12. She has facilitated numerous professional development workshops, coaching administrators and educators, utilizing SETSE, Self-Empowerment Through Self-Expression”! (Cleaster’s signature workshop series.) She is an original member of the team of educators that went to Europe and brought the Open Classroom teaching method to the United States. The wellspring of Cleaster’s work is holistic implementation of self-discovery and growth through the arts. As a cultural conservationist, she draws from multicultural life experiences, international travel, social documentation and a corporate background.
Mary Edson
Mary graduated from Warren Wilson College in 2008 with a B.A. in Social Work and Art. She has had the unique opportunity to study photography and poetry in Ireland and to teach art classes to Mayan youth ages 4-19 in Guatemala. Interested in using the arts as a tool for reflection and personal/social transformation, she believes that it is important for youth to feel empowered, to know that they have a voice, a means to express their thoughts, and that they are incredibly valuable members of their community. Equally, she feels that it is important for everyone to have the opportunity to experience creating something that is uniquely their own. She loves to teach, to share resources, knowledge and ideas. Seeking to support the visions of those she works with and to create a space where learning from yourself and others is encouraged, she is very excited to work with Roots and Wings School of Art.
Mary enjoys creating collage jewelry, listening to music, dancing, spending time outside- in water if possible, eating chocolate (among other delicious treats), and traveling!
Erin Fussell
www.erin-fussell.com
Erin Fussell grew up in Portland, Oregon and has made her home in Asheville for the last eight years. She received her undergraduate degree in Studio Art, recently returned from Penland School of Crafts where she was a winter artist resident in printmaking and is a member of the Asheville Darkroom Collective. As a creative and academic tutor and teacher for several years, she has helped kids of all ages cultivate their inner selves. Along with art making, she is a mean cook and takes care of an orange, three-legged cat.
www.kungfuclay.com
After attending a brief summer study at Haywood Community College in 1989 with Gary Cluntz, a passion for ceramics was discovered. Later, Jennifer Goff received a BFA with a concentration in ceramics and certification to teach from UNC-Greensboro in 1993. After spending many years teaching in the classroom, she chose to stay home with her children and work exclusively on a line of porcelain ware that is functional while sculptural. Each is fired a third time with a gold luster glaze to create fine china feel for the contemporary home. Most pieces begin on the wheel and are then hand sculpted making each creation one-of-a-kind. These little sculptures are intended for everyday use rather than to sit on a mantle collecting dust. She is happy to have the opportunity to bring joy and conversation to people’s tables.
www.gingerhuebner.com
Ginger Huebner is the founding director of Roots + Wings School of Art. She also works from her studio as a member of the Asheville River District Artists, creating works of art using the mediums of collage, chalk pastel, encaustic and other mixed media. Ginger thrives on doing commissioned work. She has collaborated with individuals, agencies and companies to provide unique pieces of artwork. Ginger’s work can be seen at K2 Home in downtown Asheville and at her studio by appointment. With a Masters in Teaching Visual Art and a Bachelor of Architecture, Ginger brings a unique perspective to the field of art education. She has taught a wide spectrum of ages in a variety of environments. She lives in Asheville with her husband Scott and two children, Mia and Felix.
www.afainbooks.com
Annie Fain Liden is a full-time studio artist from Asheville, North Carolina. She has studied with a number of fiber, paper, and book arts gurus at Penland School of Crafts and the John C. Campbell Folk School. She is known to sneak fiber arts techniques, particularly hand-embroidery, into her book designs and is a great believer in the blank book as a “place” to explore personal creativity. She is a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild and teaches regionally. Her business, A. Fain Books, specializes in hand-bound, custom-designed journals, sketchbooks and wedding books.
Sonya McAlisterwww.sonyamcalister.com
Sonya McAlister utilizes a combination of painting and installation to explore the history of still-life and how this genre relates to perception and temporality. By carefully selecting and transforming objects, she makes work that obscures what is physically present while referencing the two dimensional picture plane. This process creates an illusion that works metaphorically to communicate ideas about tangibility, temporality and physicality.
Sonya received her MFA from the University of Florida in May of 2009. She attended Ringling College of Art and Design, and completed her Bachelors Degree in Studio Art at Mars HillCollege. She has traveled extensively graduating high school from Carol Morgan in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Sonya recently moved to the Asheville North Carolina area after living two years aboard her sail boat in Saint Petersburg Florida.
Lynn spent the first 19 years of her life in the Washington D.C. area before the call of the wild beckoned her to the mountains of the southwest, where she earned a B.A. in Art Education from Fort Lewis College, in Durango, Colorado. She studied commercial design at the Maryland College of Art and Design and earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education at Adams State College, in Alamosa, Colorado. She has spent the better part of the last 25 years teaching both Art and Special Education. Her belief is that art increases self- image and positive attitudes in self, others and the environment and should be fostered in every child’s life. When not teaching children, she is spending time with her two teenaged children, Alison and Liam, partner Kevin and Golden Retriever, Mylee. The Asheville area has become a second home to her and her family and a source of inspiration for her art. She welcomes every opportunity to spend time in this beautiful community.
Lisa Nance moved to Asheville in 2001. In 2006 she graduated with a B.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She has worked as a security guard, a comic book illustrator, a muralist and a greeting card designer. Endowed also with half a pilot’s license and a carpenter’s tutelage, she works now as a bookseller, sushi chef and a free-lance artist. Lisa has had gallery shows at Gallery Minerva, Harvest Records, and PUSH Gallery locally; and others state-wide. In the work you’ll see airplane graveyards, free-floating Japanese landscape, basset hound masks, and Gus Grissom’s indelible presence everywhere. Lisa is excited to help you coordinate your own enthusiams, and to communicate them to others (and again, to yourself) through art education.
www.riverartsdistrict.com/studio-375/holly-de-saillan.html
Before graduating from the University of Northern Colorado with her degree in Visual Arts, Holly de Saillan discovered her affinity for clay in her high school years. Clay and mosaic have been her mode of artistic expression for thirty years. Her inspirations come from nature, contemporary folk art and (currently) artists Niki de St. Phalle, Antoni Gaudi, Raymonde Isadore, Joan Miro and Marc Chagall among many others. She has travelled and studied in Italy, Spain and France. She teaches ceramics and mosaic in varying capacities around Western North Carolina. She resides in Asheville with a cantankerous little dog named Chagall.
http://clayspace.org/clayspaceorg%20melissa%20weiss.htm
Melissa is a studio potter and member of the Clayspace Co-op in the River Arts District in Asheville, NC. She was born in NYC. She received her BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in 2000. In 2010 she completed the teacher licensure program through UNC Asheville becoming a certified K-12 art teacher. Melissa has travelled in Europe, Central America and all over the United States bringing a broad and global perspective to her art and teaching. She has lived in Alaska, Maine, Arkansas, London, Guatemala, and many places in between before settling in Asheville with her family in 2005.
