Cassie earned a BFA in painting and a BA in art education from Indiana University in 1998. This will be Cassie’s 23rd year teaching elementary art. She has taught both in Nashville, Tennessee as well as the town of Franklin which is just 15 miles south and where she now calls home. In 2017 she authored a celebrated book on air-dry and homemade clay projects entitled Clay Lab for Kids: 52 Projects to Make, Model, and Mold with Air-Dry, Polymer and Homemade Clay. A year later, she wrote about her favorite subject to teach which is fibers in the book Stitch and String Lab for kids. Most recently, she wrote the book Art Teacherin' 101 which is filled with everything she wished she would have known as a new art teacher. You can currently preorder a copy on her blog. Be sure to stay updated via her blog and social media accounts: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Chris Francis is the Senior Leader/Teacher of art & photography, St Peter's School, Bournemouth. ArtPedagogy aims to promote reflective, authentic art and design teaching and learning, delivered with a spirit of 'serious mischief'. Our Threshold Concepts for Art provide the framework for this. We hope that these 'big ideas' will inspire and challenge, instigating thoughtful discussions and positive actions.

Eurekus is the brain-child of nationally acclaimed artists and educators, Tyler and Monica Aiello. The husband and wife team are celebrated for both their fine art and public practice initiatives that fuse the arts, sciences and communities. Monica is known for her collaborations with NASA scientists which informs her astro-geologically inspired paintings. Tyler is an accomplished builder and engineer and his sculpture draws from the worlds of biology, botany, chemistry and math. The couple spent their careers forging transdisciplinary connections for broader public engagement.

Since 2003, the Aiellos have pioneered innovative art and science initiatives - before STEAM & the Maker Movement were even recognized. They partner with NASA, districts, schools, colleges, libraries and museums nationally and personally work with thousands of learners and leaders each year. They were also early pioneers of Denver's RINO arts district where they owned the award-winning gallery Studio Aiello and community maker facility, the TarFactory. The Aiellos artwork is exhibited and collected internationally and their work has been celebrated in art, science and popular media. In 2015, they were honored at the White House as a US2020 STEM Mentoring Awards Finalist.

www.studioaiello.net

Twitter: @EurekusSTEAM

Facebook: @eurekus

Personal Art Practice:

Tyler Aiello - Biography

Monica Petty Aiello - Biography

Nancy is the CAEA conference manager and former CAEA president.

Regina Hill is a devoted mom, educator, and Christ-follower. Her passion is to inspire and encourage those around her. She has been an educator for over 15 years and has taught multiple grade levels. She enjoys using her gift of singing through the praise and worship ministry as well as preaching and teaching the Word both at church and to her online community of educators. In her spare time, she enjoys decorating, participating in creative projects, working out, baking, and spending time with her family. She is the author of The Prayer Journal For Teachers.

McKay Lenker Bayer is an art teacher and community artist living in Provo, Utah. She is interested in art that positively impacts communities and brings people together in unique ways. Besides teaching high school art full time, she runs an art project called tiny art show where she installs miniature art galleries in unexpected places. McKay also enjoys hiking with her dogs Winnie & Spud and biking around Provo with her husband Tylor.

Nery Gabriel Lemus was born in Los Angeles, in 1977. The subjects in his work range from issues of stereotype and immigration to problems in society that can lead to the failure of families, such as poverty, abuse and neglect. Lemus received his BFA at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California (2007) and his MFA at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California (2009). Lemus also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (2008).

His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; The Bindery Projects, Minneapolis, MN; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX. Group exhibitions include, Fútbol: The Beautiful Game, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Made in L.A. 2012, organized by the Hammer Museum in collaboration with LA><ART, Los Angeles, CA; dia a dia/ day by day, The 9.99 Gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala; OZ: New Offerings From Angel City, Museo Regional Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico; 2010 Border Art Biennial, El Paso Museum, El Paso, Texas; Common Ground, California African-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA and exhibitions at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Centro Cultural Paseo del Norte, Chihuahua, Mexico and the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico, among others.

He is a recipient of a California Community Foundation Fellowship, a COLA Fellowship Grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles, and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Fellowship Award. He is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.

Gel Plate Monotypes:

This workshop covers hand-printing monotypes from home using gel plates. Participants will each receive their own 3x5" gel plate to work with, and can use materials they may already have on hand to print with, such as acrylic paints, brushes (or brayers), paper, etc. Stencils can be made from paper scraps or even finding things in nature, like leaves and flowers. Gel plates are very sensitive to details, so anything placed on them will leave an imprint! This method of monotyping is great for home as it does not require a printing press and is easy to clean up. Gel plate prints can be works of art on their own or serve as a background for mixed-media pieces! Participants will also receive a recipe on how to make their own gel plates from home!

Daniela Barbani, MFA, is an L.A.-based artist. Utilizing screen printing and relief printing methods on non-traditional surfaces, her work explores and deals with the topics of the wildland-urban interface and society’s effects on local urban wildlife. Previous exhibitions include Gallery p3, Cactus Gallery, Occidental College, Azusa Pacific, Sanda University, California State University, Channel Islands, California State University, Northridge, Eastern Kentucky University, California State University Long Beach, and the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art.

Stephen Childs, MFA, has worked as a preparator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the UCLA Hammer Museum. He has exhibited his artwork throughout Los Angeles, including at the Riverside Art Museum, Los Angeles International Airport (in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs), and the I-5 Gallery at the Brewery, among others. He is Exhibitions Director overseeing notable exhibitions by artists: Tim Bavington, Judy Pfaff, Devon Tsuno and Christian Hosoi.

Krystal Johnson, Project Manager, Arts Education Partnership

Krystal conducts research on pressing arts education policy issues, contributes to AEP’s publications and provides support for AEP convenings. Krystal comes to Education Commission of the States with experience in education, legislative tracking and management. Krystal is dedicated to helping kids gain access to learning opportunities that match their learning styles; and she hopes to advance equity through her work researching and convening leaders to address pressing arts education policy issues.

Cassandra Quillen, Project Manager, Arts Education Partnership

Cassandra contributes to AEP’s reports and publications, and provides support for AEP convenings. Prior to this position, she worked as a communications specialist with Education Commission of the States and AEP. With an education background in art history and a strong belief in the transformational qualities of learning, Cassandra is passionate about her work and dedicated to sharing research and resources on the arts in education with stakeholders across the country.

William Catling, MFA, was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. He decided at an early age that art was what he wanted to do for life. Catling taught high school for 10 years, then moved to Southern California to begin teaching at APU in 1991. As an artist, he attempts to address the loss of our natural sense of being human—that is, our deeply intuitive sense of ourselves. He believes we have become disconnected from the natural rhythms of life.

The figures Catling makes are rough, cracked, aged, reflecting suffering and the internal capacity to connect to others outside oneself. Such suffering can evoke the viewer’s empathy and self-transcendence. Viewers can embrace the condition of the figures, thus engaging themselves in the process of reconnecting by joining in the transcendent element of the work. The work does not eliminate the body’s suffering but presents it as a condition for spiritual uplift.

Brent Everett Dickinson is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist based in Los Angeles. He has presented exhibitions, performances, and screenings of his work around the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Essl Museum, Vienna; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; Chelsea Music Festival, New York; Cornerstone Music Festival, Chicago; This Red Door, New York/Berlin; and an exhibition intervention with the work of Wayne Adams at the Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon College.

In 2017, Dickinson founded the Marcel Maus Hermeneutical Think Tank which functions as a Deleuzean machine, working to interrupt, antagonize and de/re/contextualize Dickinson’s solo work. Both in the MMHTT materials and his solo projects, Dickinson’s work explores properties and structures of meaning formation utilizing a radical entanglement of Christian theology, critical theory, and experimental comedy. The work utilizes these entangled elements, not as sources of content per se, but as a system of methodologies whose indeterminate interdynamics present the conditions within which novelty and charisma are potential emergent properties.

Dickinson had a solo exhibition at the HJ Miossi Gallery at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo and completed a short narrative film entitled "Transfiguration on Forked River Mountain."