Rcs: Rocking Chair Sessions

Amanda Sanfilippo Long would like to acknowledge the following correction: towards the end, she mentions the “High Line” as an exciting upcoming project coming up for Miami-Dade County, she meant to refer to the project as Miami’s “Underline”, which is a similar project to New York’s High Line, both projects designed by James Corner Field Operations. www.theunderline.org Amanda Sanfilippo Long is the Curator & Artist Manager of Art in Public Places, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. One of the first public art programs in the country (est. 1973), 1.5% of public land construction costs are allocated for the purchase or commission of artworks. With over 700 works of art in the collection, the program has gained international recognition. Amanda is the Director of the South Florida Cultural Consortium, and the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Fringe Projects. Amanda initiated and directed Art in Public Places’ co-presentation of the Creative Time Summit Miami, 2018. Amanda has held po

Jose Luis Garcia is a Photo-Based Artist, who lives and works in Miami, FL. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Art from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida and his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Florida International University. He has exhibited locally in venues such as the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Coral Gables Museum, O Cinema Wynwood in partnership with ArtCenter/South Florida, Bakehouse Art Complex, Laundromat Art Space and Turn-Based Press. http://www.avantgarci.com/about

Natalya Kochak was born in New York and has since spent time in many different places, from Alabama to Chicago, Berlin to Beijing. She graduated with her BFA and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now resides in Miami. Natalya is currently a professor at Miami International University in the visual arts department. She was an artist-in-residence in 2018- 2019 with ProjectArt, teaching displaced teenagers and students from underserved school districts twice a week at the Model City branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library System. Recently, she finished doing a mural for the non- profit Raw Project that places artists in under served schools across the United States to brighten the walls and promote student engagement.

Franky Cruz (b. 1984, Dominican Republic) received his BFA from the New World School of the Arts, Miami, in 2011. He has participated in residencies at HomeBase Project, Berlin, and the Airie Residency at the Everglades National Park, FL, where he explores conservation issues as part of his interdisciplinary practice. Most recently, Cruz completed a residency at Elsewhere in Greensboro, NC. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Miami galleries and spaces including Spinello Projects (2016 & 2014), Dorsch Gallery (2015), and Primary Projects (2011), among others. Cruz currently lives and works in Miami, FL. https://www.instagram.com/toolooselautrec

Yanira Collado lives/works in Miami FL. Education, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Collado was awarded first place in the 2013 South Florida Biennial at the Art and Cultural Center/Hollywood, Hollywood, FL and was a recipient of The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, 2018. Group shows include, 10 – A Decade at Dimensions Variable, Fragment at Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL, FL, Penumbras: sacred geometries at Project Row Houses, Houston, TX 2019. http://yaniracollado.net/

Oscar Rieveling is a conceptual artist based in Miami, Florida. His works address questions drawing upon his Mexican heritage and investigation of ritual, folk tradition, and colonial legacy. In parallel with his artistic practice, he serves as Education Manager for The Wolfsonian-FIU. He completed his BA studies in the History of Art and French at Cornell University. https://www.instagram.com/oscar.iii

Colombian-born, Miami-raised, Mateo is a photo-based artist. Growing up amongst a predominantly Latin culture, observing the striking humanistic similarities within the city serve as a muse to create work that emphasizes the beauty found within life. Being drawn to the peculiar exploration of the human experience, Mateo uses the camera as a tool to navigate through conversations that develop through organic interactions between people and the environment. Focusing on the premise that process is more important than product, the main drive of the artist rests within establishing a relationship with his subjects so that they, through dialogue unravel a guarded trust and thus illuminate their true essence. https://www.mateosernazapata.com/

Rhea Leonard (b. 1991) born and raised in South Florida, is an African American artist that utilizes drawing, printmaking and sculpture within her art practice. She explores topics highlighting the Black body and how society affects Black psychology through her detailed, and poignant figurative works. She received her MFA from Florida International University and her BFA from University of Florida through New World School of the Arts College. Her work has been on display at Red Bridge Studios, The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood as well as with Art Africa Miami and RAW PopUp. She has also been a participating artist in the Contemporary Art Program LAB with Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. As a 2018 recipient of the Betty Laird Perry Award, her work is part of The Betty Laird Perry Emerging Artist Collection at the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum. She is currently a resident of The Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami, Florida. https://cargocollective.com/rlart

My passion for Fiber Art started at a very young age. Creating with wool was only natural in my native country of Uruguay, where the number of sheep far exceeds the number of inhabitants. My beginnings were in tapestry and knitting. Quilting, free style embroidery, yarn bombing and fiber installations followed my ever-evolving fiber path. After graduating with a B.A. in Law in Montevideo, Uruguay and moving to the United States, I saw a chance to pursue my passion for art and creating. I attended Parsons School of Design in NYC, so that I could fulfill my creative side. I am now a 2020 candidate for MFA in Visual Arts from Miami International University of Art and Design. https://evelynpolitzer.com/

Nicole Maynard-Sahar is an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in the Wynwood Arts District of Miami. She most recently participated in the official studio tour of Art Basel Miami, Smash and Grab at Locust Projects, La Pinta Art Fair, Between the Legible and the Opaque: Approaches to an Ideal in Place curated by Adler Guerrier (on view through March 31, 2020), and New Work at the Bakehouse Art Complex curated by Justin Long. She earned awards at the University of Pennsylvania for painting and color theory. Originally from Boston, Maynard-Sahar relocated to Miami in June 2017. https://maynardsahar.com/

With decades of experience as an arts administrator, curator, and educator Christopher Barake is the Deputy Director for the Doral Contemporary Art Museum - DORCAM. He is co-founder of Art Industry Movement and was curator at KER Art + Design Gallery and ConcreteSpace. Barake is also an academic administrator for the Department of Art + Art History at Florida International University. He began his career at FIU in 2007 where his previous duties include coordinating an artist-in-residency program and community-based collaboratory art projects. He earned his Master of Fine Arts in Curatorial Practice, along with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Sculpture, and Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Florida International University. www.dorcam.org

I use household items and industrial materials to explore identity, gender, displacement and the concept of home. My work is of an intuitive nature, rooted in the painterly and the language of abstraction- though it often defies a singular categorization. These hybrid works are based on the idea of stretching the medium beyond traditional interpretations. The objects I employ are marred by overuse, they speak to their history or demise in order to form and shape narratives between early childhood in Cuba and the present. Chaotic, humorous amalgamations of materials and disparate objects sometimes serve as stand ins for the figure or the self, challenging the threshold between stability and instability as they transcend boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation. Household Plants, fishing line, discarded clothing, broken furniture, wood, and other unconventional materials provide clues as to a city's inhabitants while commenting on our relationship with interior and exterior spaces. www.claravar

Lucia Del Sanchez is an artist and designer from Miami, FL. Through sculpture and painting Sanchez seeks to build a new relationship with her hometown. In collaboration with her father, Oliver Sanchez, she has produced art shows and programming at Swampspace Gallery since 2008. This independent and non-commercial art space engages a wide range of tastes and often functions as an educational resource for the youth. Sanchez studied abroad at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Holland and the European Exchange Academy in Germany. She attended The Cooper Union in New York City and received a B.F.A in Fine Arts. Lucia Del Sanchez is of Cuban and Slovenian descent and traces her story, breaking down its historical narrative with an eye to archeology and the archive. She employs collections, observations, and word play to produce temporal poetics and protracted self portraits.

Kim Yantis is a visual artist whose work is fueled by collaboration, sewing, and design. Her current project with Lucinda Linderman, "Suiting-up for the Future,” is a wry runway show and workshop series of sustainable workwear and utilitarian accessories that act as “Wearable Tools for the 21st Century.” Together they create demonstration pieces, allegorical costumes, take-away postcards and performance works.Garments and accessories are available for purchase and commission. http://www.kimyantis.com/ https://www.instagram.com/suitingupforthefuture

Paris-born Karelle Levy was raised in Miami by a Swedish mother and Tunisian father. She spent her childhood surrounded by arts and crafts, music, dance and fashion, which all play a role in her designs. Levy studied textile design at Rhode Island School of Design, where she knitted and wove fabrics for garments and costumes worn during her art performances. The costumes became the impetus for KRELwear, a fashion-forward collection of couture and ready to wear. As Levy’s textiles evolved, her art grew more intricate and developed into large-scale, site-specific installations and two-dimensional works. Playing with a vast array of yarns and colors to create her signature fabrics, she knits shimmering, glow-in-the-dark rainbows and patchwork landscapes inspired by aerial views during frequent air travel. https://krelwear.com/

Aaron Glickman is a writer, actor and filmmaker. Through his contributions to SocialMiami, he has had opportunities to document many fascinating people and organizations in the fields of philanthropy, the arts, fashion, design and real estate including Carolina Herrera, James Rosenquist, Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, Russell Simmons, Nicole Miller, Christian Louboutin, Lin Arison and many more. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Miami Theater Center (MTC) and is on the Executive Committee of the National YoungArts Foundation. He recently founded Current.Miami, a digital media platform that tells hyper-local stories through the use of video. http://current.miami/

Barron Sherer is a time-based media artist with a background in moving image archival practice and research. He currently works in Miami with a focus on altering and repurposing archived films. In the early 2000s, he was curator at Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives where he programmed moving image festivals, public access activities, researched collections and managed photochemical conservation. He is the recipient of awards, fellowships, and residencies including a 2017 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, a 2019 Experimental Media Artist in Residence at Signal Culture and a 2020 Oolite Arts at Anderson Ranch Artist Residency. Sherer’s new studio project, Moving Image Alliance is a 2019 Knight Arts Challenge finalist. https://vimeo.com/barronsherer

Ade J. Omotosho is a writer living in Miami and the Miami editor-at-large for Burnaway. He has held curatorial positions at Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. For Burnaway, he has written on subjects including the photographic history of the Black male nude and the work of emerging artists in Miami, and his review of Paulo Nazareth’s 2019 solo exhibition at ICA Miami was included in Stranger, Harder, Brighter: The 2019 Burnaway Reader. https://burnaway.org/author/ade-j-omotosho/

Dímitra Pantoulia is a Conservator of Antiquities and Works of Art, trained in Athens, Greece. After she finished her studies in 2009, she worked for the Library of the Hellenic Parliament and then for the Byzantine Museum in Athens. In the US, she started working for the Caryatid Conservation Services in Miami, under the conservator Stephanie Hornbeck, until she accepted the position of chief Conservator on Field Museum at Chicago, in February 2017. During that period, Dimitra was conducting condition and conservation assessments, conservation treatments and maintenance of three-dimensional artworks. https://www.pantouliaconservation.com/

Toña Vegas, (Caracas, Venezuela) is a multidisciplinary artist working with mixed media, printmaking, digital processes and site-specific three- dimensional works. Her work reflects on the visibility of an energetic underlying matrix present in every apparently distinct element of nature us humans included. https://tonyavegass.squarespace.com/