Creative Support for Individuals-Round 2

Heather Cassidy: Cassidy is a landscape designer/fiber artist/maker residing in rural New York Mills. She previously served as an arts retreat coordinator at the New York Mills Cultural Center where she gained experience reviewing artists' applications to the retreat program, serving as host to the artists, and liaison for the guest artists. Cassidy has a deep connection to the Kalevala puppet pageant, where she has been a stilt puppeteer, artist, set designer, and sewer for the past ten summers. Through her husband, a sculptor, she has been able to see public art installations, gallery exhibits, and sculpture walks all over the country. She has a profound appreciation for the role art plays in building community and supporting rural economies.; Jackelyn Jenson: Jenson is a graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead with a degree in English. As a writer with more than 25 years of experience, she has worked as a business editor, freelance magazine writer, and a children's book author. Sharing her knowledge of writing, Jenson has volunteered for the Detroit Lakes School District, teaching a variety of youth writing programs. After volunteering at the local schools for many years, she obtained her Minnesota teaching license and now teaches middle school writing at Holy Rosary Catholic School in Detroit Lakes.; Darryl Murphy: Murphy is the chief executive officer for Black Wolf Press, LLC and the creative director for On-Point Photography where he has assisted artists and stage performers with establishing legal business entities, promoting their work, or otherwise invested in the intersection of art and business since 2015. Murphy is a 2017 Anoka-Ramsey Community College associate of arts alumnus that possesses a distinct history and he enjoys looking for ways where he can make the greatest impact.; Naomi Smith: Smith is the senior graphic designer at Essentia Health. She previously worked at the Sivertson Gallery; was a member of the Sister City Project with Petrozavodsk, Russia; and was a member of the Society of Children's Books Writers/Illustrators. Smith graduated from the University of Minnesota, Duluth with a BA in graphic design where she was awarded the Howard W. Lions/Alice Tweed TouhyAward for Outstanding Undergraduate, the Chancellor's Purchase Award, and the Mitchel and Sheissel Memorial Summer Scholarship. Smith has worked for the past 20 years in design, and with local artists and photographers.; Sarah Stengle: Stengle is an artist who makes books, sculptures, and drawings utilizing a wide range of materials. Her work is intimate in scale and refers to very ordinary, familiar objects and images, transformed through the intervention of her artistic vision. Familiar objects are augmented either by being used as a substrate for her artwork, or by being treated as symbols rather than artifacts. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is included in numerous collections including the Brooklyn Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Beineke Rare Book collection at Yale University, The British National Library, and the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard University. She has taught sculpture at Lehigh University and at Rutgers as part of the Glass Book Project. She is represented by CENTRAL BOOKING in Brooklyn, NY. ; Douglas Sween: Sween is a recently retired theatrical designer/technical director. Sween has designed and/or built for nearly 200 stage shows over his more than a forty-year career. He is continuing a lifelong artistry in stained glass. He has served on the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council's grants committee in the past and is interested in learning about other artists' thought processes, inspirations, intentions, and needs.; Michelle Wingard: Wingard is an installation based photographer, curator, and arts educator. She is professor of art and gallery director of Bethel University's two exhibition spaces. In her fifteen years of programming exhibitions, Westmark Wingard has worked with many artists in a diverse range of media. She has served as a curatorial mentor for the Emerging Curators Institute (ECI) from 2019 to the present. Her photographic and curatorial projects often seek to create experiential and participatory opportunities exploring themes of memory, grief, memorial, perception, and interconnection. She has curated several exhibitions and has also exhibited her own photographic work locally and nationally. She is the recipient of the Jerome Travel Grant (2015) and the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant (2017 and 2019). Westmark Wingard holds an MFA in photography from Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY).; Ping Yao: Yao was a software engineer working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis before retiring. She was actively involved with the diversity council. She graduated From the University of Minnesota with a master of science degree in civil engineering. She loves arts and literature and is a avid writer in her spare time.