Creative Support for Individuals-Round 2

Carolyn Aarsvold: Carolyn is a musician and retired music educator, specializing in strings, woodwinds and piano. As an educator, she taught orchestra, band, and elementary music in both public and private schools. As a musician, she has performed with various symphonies and opera companies in MN. She currently performs with the Central Lakes Symphony Orchestra, and directs the Calvary Lutheran Bellcanto. She was also the owner of Geneva Beach Resort in Alexandria for 23 years. Carolyn has represented both Otter Tail and Douglas Counties on the LRAC board, and currently volunteers for the Legacy of the Lakes Museum, and the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce.; Carly Caputa: Caputa is an experienced marketing and communications professional with a history working in the performing arts and nonprofit industry, who currently works as the marketing manager at the Jungle Theater. She is a passionate and artistically driven individual with a BA in fine/studio arts and communication from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Caputa also has a volunteering background with a focus on community and art education, including reviewing rural communities' high school musicals for Overture's Jerry Awards (Madison, WI); marketing consultant to start-up community theater; nonprofit liaison and event planner for YPWeek (Wausau, WI); costume designer for UW-Marathon County; and most recently volunteering for/serving on Art Buddies advisory board.; Colleen Casey: Casey is a lifelong learner, a community organizer, and a veteran administrator of arts, education, and human services programming. She is also an artist in multiple formats including literary arts, visual arts, and mixed media. She considers her teaching to be an art form and first "cut her teeth" in arts in education when working with the History Theatre. She has also worked in various capacities for Small Change Original Theater, Penumbra Theater, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, and Three Rooms, a woman-owned, collectively operated art and fine craft gallery that operated out of south Minneapolis and Edina for several decades. In addition, she was a community editor with the Saint Paul Almanac, and has won various awards and fellowships for her writing such as the Loft Native Inroads fellowship in 2009, a Beyond the Pure grant and fellowship in 2011/2012, and A Creative Community Leadership Institute fellowship in 2011/2012. Just before the pandemic started, she became a full-time graduate student in the School of Urban Education at Metropolitan State University where she is pursuing an initial teaching license in English language and communication arts (grades 5-12) and an add-on license in ESL (K-12). In addition, Casey is an advocate for disability issues and access as she is a person and an artist with a disability. She worked as staff with the Minnesota Council on Disability to help organize the State of Minnesota's 25th anniversary celebration of the Americans' with Disabilities Act (in 2015) and worked for two years with a leading Metro Area research and evaluation company planning and executing the Olmstead Quality of Life Survey for the State of Minnesota. Casey has a degree in art history from the University of Minnesota (2002) and a certificate in social media from Takoda Institute (2013). She anticipates completing her initial teaching license in English language arts in the fall of 2023.; Katharine Horowitz: Horowitz is a theatrical sound designer and composer in Minneapolis. She has designed critically acclaimed and award winning shows for the Guthrie Theater, Creede Repertory Theatre, The Jungle Theater, Artistry, History Theatre, Theatre Mu, Mixed Blood Theatre, Pillsbury House Theatre, Park Square Theatre, Great River Shakespeare Festival, Second City Theatricals, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, and many others. Horowitz is a professional member of the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association, and a 2017 McKnight Theatre Artist Fellow at the Playwrights' Center.; Georgette Jones: Jones teaches is a theater educator and speech coach at Lac qui Parle Valley High School, where she also teaches language arts and ESL. She attended Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall for theater arts and communication arts education. Jones also performs regionally with her singing partner, Lee Kanten. She is the current chair of the board of directors for Southwest Minnesota Arts Council.; Laura Mabrouk: Manning is an author of short stories and a former character actress. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a speech communications degree. She has interned or volunteered for several nonprofit organizations over the course of 30 years including an internship in the YMCA's Metro Internship Program, volunteering at the Lao Family Community, and doing work for AmeriCorps. She is currently living on disability.; Ana Musachio: Musachio is a visual and performance artist based in Minneapolis. Musachio is involved with Minneapolis Hoop Jams and has helped to bring hula hooping and flow dance to the Art Shanty Projects, Minneapolis Open Streets, and Springboard for the Arts. They have also performed at In the Heart of the Beast Theater and Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont. They have participated in residencies at The Vermont Studio Center and The Omega Institute of New York. Musachio is a graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa.; Laila Simon: Simon is the current communications coordinator at Ingebretsen's Nordic Marketplace. Throughout her career, she has focused on both Nordic-American culture and the arts, often in tandem with each other. A writer herself, Simon values promoting and lifting up artists and small business owners in retail and education environments. In her previous position at Nordic Northwest in Portland, OR, she was in charge of all programming and focused on traditional and contemporary craft classes for the public. She graduated in 2015 from St. Olaf College with a degree in English and has published her own poetry and nonfiction. As someone who highly values art, she would love to see the logistics of how these connections get made and the possibilities for positive local impacts.