bios
Benjamin Cartwright is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of Kansas. His poems and prose poems have appeared in several journals, including Organization and Environment and Fract/ons. He also recently had a prose poem accepted for publication in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. He periodically interviews poets and writers in the Lawrence, KS area for his Kansas Blotter interview series. Recently, he interviewed Kansas poet Kenneth Irby, along with Kyle Waugh and Cyrus Console, the editors of Ken's newly collected poems The Intent On. Ken's interview and other recordings of Ben's have been sent to the PennSound archive. Ben was once paid to dedicate a building with a poem. He also once sold a 1978 Chevy Beauville 8-passenger van for a painting and a bottle of scotch. When Ben's father learned of the sale, he was quoted as saying "That guy got screwed!" Be sure to check out the Kansas Bathtub Writers Collective.
Michelle Cernuto received her BA in Painting and Drawing at San Francisco StateUniversity where she studied with painter, Robert Bechtle. Later, she went on to complete an MA in Multimedia Design, and a Teaching Credential in Fine and Multimedia/Computer Art. Michelle has also played in multiple musical acts, and has been fortunate enough to record at many great San Francisco audio studios, recording for multiple releases on labels such as Warner Brothers, 4AD, Matador, Reprise, Arista and SubPop. She has taught digital art at Mission High school in San Francisco, which led to working as faculty at Expression College in Emeryville, CA, and eventually to the position of Director of Motion Graphic Design (design/video/web) at Expression. Michelle went on to teach multimedia design at the Bay Area Video Coalition before working at her current position as Associate Director of Instructional Media at California College of the Arts. Michelle is raising a 7 year old daughter with a talent for art and music, and plays bass in an alternative Americana band called the Switchbacks.
Sarrita Hunn received her BA in Studio Art, Art History, and Philosophy from DruryUniversity in 2001, MFA in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in 2004 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2006). Through paintings, sculptures and social events, she investigates systems through which information is mediated and translates that information into new analog and digital forms. Hunn has exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Braunstein/ Quay Gallery, Richmond ArtCenter, Southern Exposure, Baton Rouge Gallery: Center for Contemporary Art, and with alternative spaces in Japan, Mexico, Germany and Denmark.
Travis Joseph Meinolf is an American textiles artist living and weaving in Berlin. He uses his arts and entertainment experiences to engage participants in the sensual, meditative, and empowering practice of weaving. The small, simple, primitive looms that he designs and produces have been used in group weaving projects in Parks, Galleries, Museums, Homes, and Universities. Through his teaching of the most basic production processes he provides the tools to experience a new paradigm─a political economy based on affinity, 'productive play', and consensual sharing of product simply because the act of making is its own reward. He is currently trying to establish a weaving school in Berlin.
Micha Michelle Melancon is a silly girl who commands an armada of sewing machines. She loves to draw and make big messes. If you stop by to visit, you may find her dancing between mountains of dirty dishes, paper and fabric scraps piled all through out her house. She has been known to possess deadly hording habits, as well as a serious case of the procrastinations. She loves all animals, except for cockroaches.
Toban Nichols is a deconstructivist artist living in Los Angeles. He completed his MFA in Digital Media and Videography at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been seen internationally in SCOPE New York, SCOPE Basel, the Digital Fringe Festival in Melbourne Australia, Les Territoires in Montreal, as well as The Seattle Art Museum. More recently he was granted a residency with the Experimental Television Center in New York, and awarded the Juror's Pick at the ArtHouse Film Festival in 2009 for his video entitled BATTLESTATIONS!!
Karen Olsen-Dunn received her BA in Experimental Psychology from San Francisco State Universtiy in 1988 and her MFA in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in 2007. Her work is a reflection on contemporary social complexities and their often-inherent instabilities, such as mass consumption, manipulated and exhausted environments, and cultural appropriation and deterioration. She creates collaged works with paint and ink, scanned drawings, appropriated digital imagery, and patterns of décor and textile. Deceivingly decorative, on closer inspection Karen’s work yields an absurd coherence that teeters on chaos--a refined representation of contemporary society in struggle.
John Rajcich grew up and down the Puget Sound. He graduated from Washington StateUniversity in 2000 with a BFA in photography and now resides in Edmonds, WA. John spends the majority of the time working for the man as a union sheet metal worker and tries to squeeze a little art out of what is left with his energy at the end of the day.
Zachary Royer Scholz studied mechanical engineering and geology before determining that art offered a more flexibly methodology to explore his varied interests. In addition to his own art practice, Scholz actively engages other artists’ work as both a curator and critic. He directed CCA’s PLAySPACE Gallery from 2006 through 2007, and subsequently founded the experimental installation art space Project 7. Scholz writes about art as a regular contributor to Art Practical, and has authored several monograph and exhibition essays. His works have been included in international exhibitions and are part of both Indiana State University’s permanent collection and Mess Hall’s Printed Materials Archive.
Kathryn Van Steenhuyse received her MFA in Fine Arts in 2008 from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and a BFA in Painting, 2001, from Washington University in St. Louis, Magna Cum Laude. She has participated in exhibitions at the Arkell Museum, NY; Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles; The Berlin Office, Berlin; Arts Benicia, Benicia, CA; Queen’s Nails Annex, San Francisco; Playspace Gallery, California College of the Arts, San Francisco; Crucible Steele Gallery at CELLspace, San Francisco; Arts Benicia, Benicia, CA; HEREart Center, New York; The Department of Photography & Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU; the Moore College of Art + Design, Philadelphia, PA. She was also a Fellow of The Career Development Program at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, 2006 – 2008, Philadelphia, PA. Van Steenhuyse currently lives and works in Wichita, KS