Work in Progress

Stephanie Santana constructs narrative works that explore interior worlds, mythologies, navigational tools and resistance strategies within the Black diasporan experience. Working across fiber arts and fine printmaking, while frequently employing improvisational techniques and archival photographic imagery, her intuitive practice spans time and geography with the intent of unearthing useful information.

Santana has exhibited at The John & Robyn Horn Gallery at Penland School of Craft, Claire Oliver Gallery, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among others. Notable group exhibitions include The Power of Portraiture: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints (2022 - 2023) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and A Contemporary Black Matriarchal Lineage in Printmaking (2021) presented at Highpoint Center for Printmaking. She has received generous support from EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Windgate Foundation and The Print Center, and is the recipient of a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts. Her work is held in both private and public collections, including the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Getty Research Institute. Santana lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Winnie van der Rijn is a multi-disciplinary artist of opportunity. Her art practice includes textiles, sculpture, collage and collaboration (which she considers its own art form). She plays well with others. Winnie actively exhibits her work in juried group, invitational and solo shows throughout the US and internationally.

A life long learner, Winnie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 with a BA in Sociology. She has studied printmaking, sculpture, metalsmithing and Marxist theory. In addition, Winnie has explored weaving, machine knitting, bookmaking, altars, exploding picture boxes, automata, shoe making, millinery, sewing, fusing, stamping, metal weaving, resin, riveting, precious metal clay and mixed media. She is wildly curious about how things are made.

Her recently completed project 'How to Dismantle the Patriarchy' has shown in various locations including the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY), Dairy Arts (Boulder, CO), Museum of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, CA), The New Bauhaus (Iasi Romania), Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN) and the self invented Museum of Natural Consequences (New York, NY). Winnie has completed residencies at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, FabScrap in NYC, Chateau Orquevaux in France and MASSMoCA in Massachusetts. Two of her artist books are in the permanent collection of The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (Cynthia Sears Artist’s Book Collection) in Washington State.

Winnie, a seventh generation Californian, is currently based in Cambridge.

Gerardo Dexter Ciprian is a Dominican-American visual artist living and working on the unceded land of the Munsee Lenape, Schaghticoke and Wappinger peoples, also known as
The Bronx, NY. Their work explores migration, diaspora and myth-making and has been exhibited nationally most recently at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, C24 Gallery and Field Projects. Recent awards and residencies include The Bronx Museum Block Gallery Residency, Wassaic Project Residency, Vermont Studio Center Residency, Portal: Governors Island Residency and the BRIO award from the Bronx Council on the Arts. He’s a current TIDEL Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, was a 2021 Bard at Brooklyn Public Library Fellow and a 2015 AIM Fellow at The Bronx Museum. They served as the 2020/21 co-director and are the current editor & designer of OPEN DOORS, an arts and disability justice non-profit initiative. He was an Adjunct Lecturer at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College from 2022-2024, holds an M.Arch from the Yale School of Architecture (2009), and a B.S. from the University at Buffalo (2006).

Sadie Sheldon is a multimedia artist based in Brooklyn and New Orleans. She has been a member of the Aquarium Gallery, Majaks Theater, a board member of the Beaubourg Free School, as well as an MFA graduate from Tulane University. She has been an artist-in-residence at Basement6, the Birdsell Project, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, The Aquarium, Vermont Studio Center, Breck Create, Elsewhere Museum, Stove Works and was a 2018 recipient of the Pitch Night grant to exhibit at Grand Rapids Art Prize. Her immersive installations combine craft with unlikely materials to reflect our rapidly changing landscape, magnifying the effects of post-consumer materials and plastics on the natural world. Sourcing materials from the city in which it’s created, her works explore community identity from the things we leave behind.

Isa Rodrigues is a textile artist, fabricator and educator living between Brooklyn, New York, and her hometown Lagos, Portugal. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Art and Design, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, Ace Hotel Brooklyn, Heirloom Brooklyn and the Textile Arts Center. Isa is a founding team member of the Textile Arts Center (TAC), where she has worked as Co-Executive Director, and founded the project Sewing Seeds, a project that organized natural dye gardens in empty lots and community gardens in Brooklyn. She runs a textile fabrication business, 505 Textiles, through which she has created work for clients such as Altuzarra, Gabriela Hearst, Ace Hotel, M.Patmos, Thompson Street Studio, amongst others. She teaches textile materiality, weaving, natural dyeing, and other surface design techniques at TAC, Ox-Bow, Rhode Island School of Art, and Pratt Institute.

Nathasha Brooks-Harris enjoys telling stories in fabric and words. Her training in the Elder Craftsmen program and studying with an array of dollmaking and quilting teachers, including Helen Layfield, Elinor Peace Bailey, Susanna Oroyan, Sherry Goshon, Lesley O’Leary and others, prepared her for this artistic journey.

Brooks-Harris is the author of several romance novels and hundreds of short stories, as well as was formerly a magazine editor and entertainment journalist. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Writing, Art Appreciation, and Human Services classes.

Brooks-Harris holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University, a Master of Science in Urban Studies from Queens College, and a PhD in Public Administration from Walden University.

In her spare time, she attends art programs for older adults, as well as teaches various fiber arts classes to senior citizens.

Brooks-Harris lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and is an avid traveler.

Erin Rouse is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and children. She has been making brooms since 2016. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Verdana, Remodelista, Domino and others. In addition to making brooms, Erin is a natural dyer, sewer, weaver and craft enthusiast.

narkita is a researcher, writer and interdisciplinary conceptual artist whose practice spans the mediums of photography, text, textiles, installation, and performance. She earned her BS in Public Relations in 2010, and a MA in Arts Politics from the Department of Art & Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU in 2022.