Digital Pop and Remix Art, produced as Digital Print

Biography
Nathaniel Burks is a Pop and Remix artist and illustrator currently living in Malden, MA, hailing from Milwaukee, WI. His works are produced digitally, primarily with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and are produced as 13” x 19” prints, large format wheat pastes, and skateboard decks. He currently works as an AV technician, and received his degree in Arts+Technology from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Artist statement
Nathaniel Burks primarily makes as a Pop and Remix Artist. In his work he likes to explore, combine and collage the elements of branding exploitation, supply and demand seen in shoe culture, simulacra, cartoon figures, graphic design, and comic book elements to build clean, graphic, yet unstable compositions. His works are primarily developed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and are printed as digital inkjet prints.

The subjects in his work focus on comic book work, graphic design, and Japanese anime toy figures. He re-collages the elements of these toy figures into unstable yet sound compositions, and hides comic and graphic design elements in his pieces. In the selling of his pieces he likes to play with the concept of supply and demand seen in shoe and hype culture, producing a product that could be sold unlimitedly, but only reduced to a few iterations, as well as releasing art pieces in rarer colorways as well.

Website: Behance.net/thechptrsproject

Instagram: @thechptrsproject

Email: thechptrsproject@gmail.com

Photographer

Biography

Julián is from Chiapas, Mexico. A Washington Street member since 2023, he took photography classes in high school and most recently through the Brookline Adult and Community Education program (BA&CE).

Artist Statement

In my creative pursuits, I find purpose in observing the world more closely. My work delves into the emotion of longing --that quiet ache within us-- and the beauty of the present moment. In each photograph, I seek to prolong time, encouraging moments of lingering and fostering a comforting sense of continuity.

Instagram

@juliancancino_

Painter

Biography
I graduated from the University of New Hampshire with my BFA in 2007. After 6 years of bread baking in my twenties, I decided not to go to pastry school and to get my MFA instead. I returned to UNH in 2013 and received my MFA in 2015. After one semester of teaching I took a job at the Harvard Museums and found my way here.

Artist statement
My work is an exploration of the body’s expressive and constructive capabilities. I create images of the body making and reacting to emotional space. I like to demonstrate how gesture and muscular tension process and communicate internal dialogue. I use domestic objects and spaces, patterns and floral motifs to give the gestures of my figures context and projection.

Website
www.maggiecedarstrom.squarespace.com

Photographer

Photographs of people in their environment and of nature.

Website https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean

Photographer, working in film and digital media

Biography
I am a photographer and artist, living in Arlington. My background is in both art and science, and I often see the world through that dual perspective. After a BS from Carnegie Mellon, I learned darkroom photography at the Art Institute of Boston and continued my art training at The Museum School, where I received my diploma in 2002. When not making art, I have recently worked as an Education Volunteer and Teacher Naturalist at Joppa Flats Education Center (Mass Audubon), and have volunteered as a citizen scientist with Earthwise Aware.

Artist statement
I make photographs because I am curious. I ask a lot of questions when walking around – What is that? How would this look up close? How do these go together? – and my camera helps me investigate what I find. It serves as a collaborator, as we see the world slightly differently, and sometimes the translation my camera makes of the world helps me understand it better. I also enjoy calling attention to things most people might not notice, whether it’s a face in a parking meter or the juxtaposition of city and nature.

Instagram:

@jenerbe

Painter, draw-er, other.

Biography
Alex Feinstein lives in Somerville, MA. She studied painting (among other things) at Sarah Lawrence College. She works in oil and acrylic paint, pens, glitter, and whatever else is lying around. She has been making art since childhood, and has been a member of the Washington Street community since 2009.

Artist statement
Primarily working in painting and drawing, Alex’s work simultaneously reflects on past experiences and imagines potential futures - all equally as ridiculous as they are serious. Through an intuitive, process-oriented approach, her work absorbs elements of her unconscious emotions and takes on conceptual and literal meaning as the imagery emerges.

Website
operationhubris.tumblr.com/

Fiber and mixed media artist

The idea that drives my creative process is salvaging. On my bike rides through greater Boston, I find metal objects that have been discarded—wrenched from their stories, separated from their purpose—and create something new out of them. I combine traditional fiber arts, such as weaving and crochet, with repurposed metal to make something joyous from lost, deformed, damaged scraps. In other words, I take something that has been ruined or thrown away, validate it, react to it, and invest it with meaning. This process recognizes, in a general way, the value of anything—a life, a world, a family, a city, a place, a habitat, a culture—that has been discarded, damaged, and deemed less economically or socially valuable. For me, the process generates hope and honors each human being’s quest to create meaning in a world that thwarts such efforts.

I am an emerging artist who used to be a professor, but who in 2017, became ill with bipolar disorder and went on disability. Soon, I began exploring more creative outlets. I see my biography reflected in my artistic practice: just as I make art out of cast-off objects, I have had to create a new life for myself after illness caused me to discard my career and former identity. It’s a story of salvaging and rejuvenation, of rising up from the devastation of disease through artistic activity. To honor the significance of this shift, I’ve given tma-style.com/sheerah-s-artworkmyself the Artist Name “Sheerah.”

Website: tma-style.com/sheerah-s-artwork

Photographer

Biography

Lauren Galluzzi is a photographer and artist working in Boston. She graduated with a BFA in photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and explores other creative mediums such as pottery and bookbinding. Her experience in the darkroom working with physical objects has inspired her to start exploring book making to create her own by hand, incorporating her own writings along with her photographs. Lauren has been freelancing her work through events around Boston, and collaborating with other artists for their own creative endeavors. Currently working as a bartender, her love for learning about other people plays a role in her portrait inspiration, revealing the lives of strangers and their stories.

Artist statement

Through the practice and study of photography, I explore childhood memories and melancholy, notions of home, and how people adapt to the environment around them. I am using allegories to express feelings of solitude, transcendence, nostalgia, and feeling stuck “in between” different worlds. Gravitating towards people, pockets of light and projections, a fantasy comes to life. I am interested in many different forms of photography, and love to experiment with alternative camera techniques to create magical realism. Self portraiture has been a catalyst for many of these ideas coming to fruition and has allowed me to feel confident in expressing the stories I want to tell.

Website:

www.laurengalluzzi.com

Instagram:

@galluziart

Documentary & fine art photographer, working primarily with 35mm, silver-based film

Biography
I seek to communicate the essence of Place in my work; and to give viewers their own 'decisive moment'. I began photographing at the age of 16, and after pouring over a Christmas gift, Ken Heyman's "All the World's Family," in 1983, I knew my camera would never be far from me! I work in 35mm format using silver-based and chromogenic film, developing my film and making my prints in a wet darkroom. Beginning with the writing and photography programs at Wesleyan University's Center for Creative Youth in high school, I continued to take formal classes in photography & darkroom technique throughout college. Upon graduating from New England College (NH) I moved to Washington, DC where I assisted a studio photographer, gaining experience in studio and darkroom management, and lighting technique. I've been an active and exhibiting photographer-member of Washington Street studios/art collaborative since 2008. As a member of The Art Connection Boston, I have photographs placed at TILL (Toward Independent Living & Learning) in Watertown, MA, Roxbury Community College, Bridgewater State University, and the Eliot Community Human Services in Malden. I exhibited in TEDxSomerville in 2012, and was an active SOS volunteer from 2012-2017.

Artist statement
Ken Heyman, Eugene Atget, James Nachtwey, and Mary Ellen Mark are my photographic mentors. I seek to photograph as beautifully as Lord Dunsany wrote, and hope to photograph well enough to be remembered after I die.

Website
www.flickr.com/photos/ananda/sets

Mixed media artist working with paint, wood, collage, and canvas

I have been making art for 7 years now. I started painting while I was in law school at Harvard as a form of stress relief, and have been showing my work in Cambridge and New York ever since. I’ve moved around a lot, and my work is a reflection of the places I grew up; from New York to Spain, South Africa to Kenya. I am originally from Haiti, and growing up surrounded by Haitian art has greatly influenced my work.

I primarily work in acrylics on wood or canvas and collage. My aesthetic teeters on the balance between the ethereal and the earthly. In general, I hope to make art that inspires dialogue on issues of faith, race, immigration, feminism, and the plight of the oppressed, but my most recent work is focused on the themes of family and memory.

Website
valeriepimparato.com

Instagram
vp_visualart

photographer (cyanotypes, solargraphs, pinholes, and film) and creative nonfiction writer

Biography
Originally from rural Michigan, Kerrie Kemperman has lived in Somerville more than two decades. She explores analog photography and alternative processes, and writes flash memoir essays. While her background is in black & white film photography, she’s been turning discarded tin cans into pinhole cameras since 2016 to make solargraphs (each one a multi-month-long exposure that captures sun-paths above a landscape). She also uses toy and vintage cameras (Brownie Hawkeye, Holga, and Sprocket Rocket), and she makes cyanotypes using plants, objects, and her photo negatives.

Her artwork has been exhibited at the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts; The Art Center (Dover, NH); the NAVE Gallery; and the Somerville Toy Camera Festival, among others. She has received LCC grants and fellowships, and was Somerville’s “Artist of the Month” in 2017. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and a BA in Art and English from Alma College.

Artist statement
I am drawn to the natural world, to ignored or forgotten spaces both rural and urban, and to the objects we leave behind or scatter around us. I grew up lonely in a rural place, and something of that experience remains inside me and compels me to document these spaces in a variety of ways. Most of my photography follows these impulses, even as my process or camera changes.

My solargraphs capture months of time in a single pinhole image, showing the changing course of the sun over a landscape as the seasons shift. My cyanotypes are focused more earthward, on places, people, and objects. Some of my creative choices are shaped by limitations, and some by environmental concern. I prefer to use what I have or what I can gather and divert from a landfill.

Website https://www.kerriekemperman.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kerrie.kemperman/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kerriekemperman/

E-mail
kerrie.kemperman@gmail.com

Ariel Kessler works in a range of media including painting, collage, printmaking, and ceramics. Her work uses lively, colorful imagery to create a whimsical world. Combining traditional approaches with an emphasis on color and texture, she explores themes of memory and storytelling, home, nature, and isolation.

Biography
Ariel grew up in a family of artists and musicians. She was encouraged to discover her passion in whatever way, and she found it in the visual arts. She dealt with the loss of her father and the diagnosis of multiple learning disabilities both at an early age by working in mixed media. Art gave her the opportunity to experiment and express herself.

In 2019, Ariel was invited to be an artist in residence in Iceland. She has studied art through numerous programs in cities including New York City, Santa Fe, Savannah, and Portland, Maine. She has exhibited her art all over the U.S., as well as in Mexico and Japan. Her work can be found in public and private collections throughout the world.

Ariel received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010. She lives in Watertown, MA.

Website
www.arielkessler.com

Instagram
@ariel.kessler

Facebook
facebook.com/arielkesslerart

Candid documentary fine art photography

Biography
Lee Kilpatrick has been photographing most of his life, starting with near-obsolete cameras discovered at yard sales as a child, and developing further in his high school's photography club. His photography was on hiatus during college; but inspired by a trip to Japan, he joined a local darkroom collective, and when that closed, joined the Washington Street as a photography member. He is now the director of the organization.

Lee’s recent exhibitions include “More Than One,” (with sculptor Jill Comer), panoramic photographs showing group activities across the emotional spectrum, and “A Case Of You,” documenting his sister who died at 42 after years of mental illness and alcoholism.

Besides showing at Washington Street, he has exhibited at Willoughby & Baltic in Somerville, and has participated in group shows at the Griffin Museum of Photograph, Danforth Art, and other venues in the Boston Metro area. He was the ARTSomerville artist of the month in January 2006.

Artist statement
My work is documentary candid fine art photography in both digital and film. I usually depicts people in everyday but intimate situations; though one might say I photograph people, the real focus is people’s interaction — and lack of interaction — with their environment. Along with conventional formats, I use panoramic photography to present a closer view of the subject set in a wide view of the environment.

Website
www.leekilpatrick.com/

Facebook
www.facebook.com/leekil

Twitter
twitter.com/LeeGrandK

Fiber Art, Drawing, Mixed Media

Biography
Lauren is an artist and art therapist living in Somerville, MA. She has been a member of Washington Street Studios since 2008. She uses her space for working in fiber arts, drawing, and mixed media. She also meets with participants of her art therapy private practice in her studio. Lauren is an assistant professor of art therapy at Lesley University. Her research interests include the unique therapeutic benefits of craft materials and methods for art therapy practice, and how craft activism can support art therapy participants in being agents of social change, and how craft can provide a medium for engaging in art therapy with social justice aims.

Artist statement
In my personal art I explore themes of identity, connection, and communication through drawing, embroidery, and mixed media. Using subject matter from personal experiences, I explore the relationship between the internal/private and the external/public. I try to illustrate the complexity of emotionally charged situations, using both humor and the meditative properties of the processes, to find a deeper sense of understanding. Working in different mediums allows me to find new ways of exploring similar themes and each medium has unique properties that serve to deepen these themes for me through the process of making the pieces. For example, I often choose to work in embroidery because it is a deliberate and meditative practice that allows me time to reflect and process difficult emotions– the slow process provides a sense of control and intimacy.

In my collaborative and community-based art making I specifically employ fiber arts practices such as embroidery and quilting because of their long history as activities that bring individuals together to share stories, address community issues, and even serve as a form for social and political resistance against oppression.

Website: www.laurenleone.com

Instagram: @_lauren_leone

Poet

Biography

Anna M. Warrock's publications include From the Other Room, winner of the Slate Roof Press Chapbook Award, and the chapbooks Horizon and Smoke and Stone. Her work appears in the anthology Kiss Me Goodnight, Poems and Stories by Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died, a Minnesota Book Award Finalist, for which she also wrote the introduction.

Her poems have appeared in Visual Verse, The Madison Review, Harvard Review, The Sun, Phoebe, and elsewhere. They have been set to music; performed at Boston's Hayden Planetarium; and presented by Row Twelve, the contemporary chamber music group. She has conducted seminars on understanding grief and loss through poetry. Her poem “Remembering My Mother’s Face” is inscribed in brick in the Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority subway station. Her awards include fellowships and project grants from the Somerville Arts Council, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and The Cumberland Poetry Review’s Robert Penn Warren Award. The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have published her op eds.

Artist statement

Poetry sits in the car, listening to the radio’s love songs, hip hop, concertos. And now the news, has something been stolen? On the other side of the street, a man with a peach in his hand and a woman with a gun in her purse pass each other on the sidewalk. A policewoman comes up to the car and taps on the window with a pen, a ticket book in her other hand. A bus passes, close and loud, and the cop turns. Poetry puts the car in gear.

Website
www.AnnaMWarrock.com/