Arts Education

Katharina Aymeloglu: Aymeloglu is a painter and illustrator currently based in Minneapolis. She creates gestural oil paintings that are intimate studies of inanimate objects. Her illustrations are whimsical and crafted using a mix of traditional and digital media. She received a BA in studio art from Wesleyan University. Beyond her work as an artist, she has more than six years of nonprofit experience, including work with grant writing and revision.; Racquel Banaszak: Banaszak is an Anishinaabe visual artist and public historian. She is a muralist and mixed media artist who seeks to bring healing and joy to Native communities through her artistic practice. As a communications specialist for Native Land Digital, she advocates for Indigenous communities through digital storytelling and mapping. She is pursuing her master of heritage studies and public history degree at the University of Minnesota. She earned her bachelor's degree in visualization from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and studied Indigenous visual culture at the Ontario College of Art and Design.; Jian-Jun Chen-Edmund: Chen-Edmund is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has authored book chapters for the Handbook of Assessment Practice and Policy in Music Education and the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education. She has also published in the second, fourth, and fifth International Symposia on Assessment in Music Education Proceedings. Chen-Edmund received her PhD in music education from the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) and her MFA in music and music education at Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, NY).; Kurt Engh: Engh is a Minneapolis based theater producer, writer, and actor. He produced and wrote Only Ugly Guys at Open Eye Theatre, which Cherry and Spoon called "funny, clever, inventive, and very modern." He produces Running Errands, a short play series at Bryant Lake Bowl. He has worked offstage at The Great Northern, the Public Theater, the Guthrie Theater, and the Contemporary American Theater Festival. Engh has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and Tri-M Foundation.; Luverne Seifert: Seifert is the coartistic director of Sod House Theater and has been acting and directing professionally for more than 30 years. He received a National Fox Fellowship for distinguished achievement in 2017, a McKnight Fellowship for theater artists in 2003, and an Ivey Award in 2009. He has acted nationally at South Coast Rep, Berkeley Rep, Arizona Rep, Trinity Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Arts Emerson, the Wilma Theater, the New Victory, and locally with the Guthrie Theater, Children's Theater, and Ten Thousand Things. He is certified in European clowning at the Burlesque Center in Locarno, Switzerland, and at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Etampe, France.; Laura Sivert: Sivert currently leads the Cargill Gallery team at Minneapolis Central Library where she works. In this position, she helps local organizations develop and display their voices through art and community programming. She previously taught art history at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and has served on Minnesota State Arts Board panels.