Team

Kelly Valletta is an artist, experienced art educator and one of the founding team members of TAC. She attended Pratt Institute where she received her Masters in Art Education. She believes that the arts can play a vital role in community engagement, and thoroughly enjoys sharing her broad knowledge of art with people of all ages.

Kira Silver has been involved with TAC since 2010. Beginning as an intern, she soon after became a weaving instructor. She learned weaving in January 2009 at Oberlin and hasn't stopped since. Other than weaving, she runs her business By The Baker, dabbles in screen printing, sewing, some major plant-loving and cat snuggling. Her background is in teaching both kids and adults alike, creating displays for Anthropologie and tackling a wide variety of freelance creative opportunities.

Howard Ptaszek has undergraduate degrees in Physics, and Mathematics and a Masters degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. He took his first weaving class at TAC in 2009, and has been weaving since, often showing his woven artwork in juried shows around the country. He likes to experiment with the weaving form, materials and processes.

Milo Godfrey (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist and experienced arts educator. Milo's roots as a performer inspires the social-emotional approach that they offer in all learning spaces. Milo is committed to chipping away at accessibility barriers to art making, and facilitating arenas where folks feel empowered to learn cooperatively. Milo has been a member of TAC's community since summer 2022.

Narkita is a research-based interdisciplinary conceptual artist whose practice spans photography, textiles, and printmaking. Her work explores themes of identity, memory, and loss. She also spotlights the capacity of her materials and the aesthetic to create meaning. Her exhibition record includes Pratt Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and BMoCA among others. She earned her BS in Public Relations in 2010 from Belmont University and a MA in Arts Politics at New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2022. Narkita has been involved with TAC since 2022.

So Ye Oh is an artist, making soft sculptures by using various types of fabrics. Through studies of developmental psychology from college and further research in graduate school, she focuses on themes of childhood and motherhood. She received a BA from the University of Michigan in 2016 and graduated from the MFA Fine Arts program at Pratt Institute in 2020. Starting as an intern in early 2020, she has been continuing to work for TAC, one of her big resources and inspirations for her current art practice.

Isa Rodrigues is a textile artist and educator from the South of Portugal and one of the founding team members of TAC. After receiving her MA in Textile Conservation, Isa moved from Lisbon to New York to work and learn from the textile collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Isa has been on staff at the Textile Arts Center since 2009, and was the founder and Director of the Sewing Seeds project. She likes to experiment with weaving and natural dyes, and her best ideas normally appear to her in dreams.