Meet the Curators
Meet the amazing artists, activists, and community movers that are collaborating on Advocacy is Love, Creative Postcard Exhibition 2025 Fundraiser with The Womxn Project Education Fund.
Nacho Amor is a Queer Mexican-American still life photographer and Executive Director of GRID Gallery, a 501(c)3 non-profit; GRID Gallery champions the work of Queer BIPOC photographers, providing educational and professional development opportunities.
Amor has held experience digitizing the collections of cultural heritage institutions such as the Smithsonian, Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Brown University. When not working behind the lens, Amor previously served as Vice President of Folsom Street East, a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in New York City, which celebrates and supports the fetish, kink, and LGBTQIA+ communities by creating safe spaces and awarding grants to other nonprofits serving these communities.
Zo Baker is an artist, curator, and educator, exploring themes of memory, ritual, and culture through community-centered social practice. They’ve worked for the last 8+ years developing and facilitating programming that centers work with the arts and Jewish foodways. Zo is deeply invested in creating spaces that cultivate excitement for inquiry and a sense of play through making, talking, and always eating.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, Zo received their BFA in Sculpture from SUNY New Paltz in MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Zo’s work has been featured at the Museum of Jewish Montreal, in the New York Times, Vice Magazine, Pink Monkey Magazine, and Digest Magazine. They live and work in Providence RI.
Gabriela Cantú taught herself how to crochet during the pandemic and has been passionate about craft practices ever since. She is inspired by community organizing, her Mexican American heritage, and opportunities to learn new things. Gabriela earned her B.A. in Science, Technology, and Society from Brown University and her M.A. in Global Arts and Cultures from Rhode Island School of Design.
Peter Chung is the Executive Director of Young Voices, a role he has held since 2020. He began his journey with the organization in 2010 as a Program Coordinator, steadily advancing through various roles over the past 14 years. Under Peter’s leadership, Young Voices has successfully rebranded, expanded the organization’s growth and development, and strengthened its role as a champion for youth voice in public policy.
Prior to Young Voices, Peter worked at the YMCA of Greater Providence, leading after-school programs in elementary schools across Providence. Peter grew up in Fiji and Tonga before moving to the United States in 2006. His passion for advocating for children and youth has shaped his career in the nonprofit sector. In 2002, while volunteering with Save the Children Fiji, Peter founded Kids Link Fiji, a youth-led organization dedicated to protecting children’s rights. In 2008, Kids Link Fiji was recognized by UNICEF as one of its global child-led initiatives.
Peter studied at the University of the South Pacific, majoring in Geography and Demography. He has also completed leadership programs, including Leadership Rhode, INP’s Core Certificate Program, and RI Foundation Equity Leadership Initiative.
As an avid sports fan and an athlete, Peter raced outrigger canoes competitively, representing his home country of Fiji at the South Pacific Mini Games in Palau in 2005. In his spare time, Peter loves to travel with his family and is a foodie who never passes up the chance to try a hidden gem in the wall.
Karen Conway is an arts professional who has worked in various capacities: as curator, gallery director, educator, collections manager, research consultant at numerous institutions and galleries. This includes the Whitney Museum, Newport Art Museum, Heritage Museums and Gardens, and most recently the Jamestown Arts Center, Rhode Island. She has been Exhibition Director at the JAC for over 8 years. Conway also was on the Newburgh Arts and cultural commission where she was head of public art and percent for art. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Leeds and Harvard University, where she has been a guest lecturer.
Leela Corman Leela Corman is a painter, educator, author, and graphic novel creator, working in the realm of diaspora Ashkenazi culture, third-generation restorative work, and New York City history. Her paintings and works on paper have been exhibited in the United States and Europe.
Her books include the graphic novels Victory Parade, a story about WWII, women's wrestling, and the astral plane over Buchenwald (Schocken/Pantheon, 2024), Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012), which was nominated for the Eisner, the L.A. Times Book Award, and Le Prix Artemisia, and won the ROMICS Prize for Best Anglo-American Comic and the MoCCA Award of Excellence, and the short comics collections You Are Not A Guest (Field Mouse Press, 2023) and We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Planet, 2016).
Her short comics have appeared in The Believer Magazine, Nautilus, The Nib, Bandcamp, and other publications. She is a Yaddo Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a Helix Fellow, a New Jewish Culture Fellow, and a recipient of the Koyama Grant, the Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant, and a Xeric Grant. She is a founding instructor at Sequential Artists Workshop. Raised in New York City, she now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she is an assistant professor at Rhode Island School of Design.
Melaine Ferdinand-King is a Providence-based cultural strategist and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University. She earned her B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College and is a program facilitator and curator of American archives and Black arts.
She holds graduate fellowships and affiliations with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Pembroke Center for Research and Teaching on Women, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.
In addition to her graduate work, Melaine is an independent arts consultant and writer committed to bridging gaps between academia and the Providence community. Since 2022, she's served as Curator-in-Residence of The Vanta Guild, Rhode Island's first Afrodiasporic photography collective. Her most recent offering, “Art and the Freedom Struggle: The Works of Mumia Abu-Jamal” is currently on display at the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.
She enjoys jazz and soul music, language learning, and comedy.
Rush Frazier is a Central Massachusetts native with over 20 years of organizing experience, currently the Executive Director of Youth Pride, RI.
Rush was Central/East MA Organizing Coordinator at Neighbor to Neighbor, where they worked with parents, doctors, clergy, and other concerned residents to bring comprehensive sex education to all Worcester Public School youth K-12.
They also worked to keep bus fares free throughout Worcester, now in its second year. In previous roles, Rush worked to end the death penalty in New Hampshire.
Rush was Co-Grand Marshal of the Worcester Pride Parade in 2018 and was awarded the Key to the City of Worcester in 2020. In their spare time, Rush is a DJ, practices herbalism, and loves to hike. They are a proud parent of two dogs and two cats.
Savaree “Sav” Hazard-Chaney is a 401-based self-taught artist whose work navigates the intersections of culture, community, and design. Through fibers,textiles and creative activations, Sav brings stories,memories and lots of nostalgia to life with a unique and vibrant perspective. Her passion for rug tufting led her to establish TuftxPVD, Rhode Island's first Black, Queer, and Woman-owned rug tufting studio.
The value of her experience and uniqueness of her work has propelled her into numerous gallery and activation spaces. With a strong commitment to community Sav hopes her experience and knowledge will help inspire not only the fiber arts community but also other young black entrepreneurs.
Kirstin Lamb is a painter living in Providence, Rhode Island and working in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. She studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with an MFA in 2005, and she received her AB in Visual Art and Literatures in English from Brown University in 2001.
Kirstin's work has been shown in venues across the country and abroad, recently showing at the Wassaic Project in Amenia, NY, Sarah Crown Gallery in Tribeca, NY, Overlap Gallery in Newport, RI, Geary in Millerton, NY, Cade Tompkins Projects in Providence, RI, Spring Break Art Fair in NY, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA and Providence College Galleries in Providence, RI, among others.
She has attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Bunker Projects, the Wassaic Project, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Ora Lerman Trust Soaring Gardens Artist Residency, and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. Kirstin recently completed a two-year contract curator position at The Yard, Williamsburg, a coworking space in Brooklyn that hosts solo and group shows quarterly, and has begun planning online and new curatorial projects in New England.
Her work is in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, and Providence College, Providence, RI, among others. Kirstin’s work is represented by Gallery NAGA in Boston.
Erin L. McCutcheon, Ph.D. is an art historian whose research focuses on modern and contemporary Latin American art, feminist artistic practices, and their connections with activist histories. She earned a Ph.D. in Art History and Latin American Studies and a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Tulane University and is currently the Assistant Professor of Arts of the Americas at the University of Rhode Island.
She is an award-winning teacher, having received the 2021 Junior Faculty Teaching Award at Lycoming College and the 2024 University of Rhode Island College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Excellence Award. She is also a mentor for the archive AWARE as part of their TEAM initiative dedicated to training a new generation of scholars to be attentive to the position of women as artists in history.
Her writing has appeared in Nierika (2016), H-Art (2020), OnCurating (2021), The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico Since the 1980s (2023), Art Journal (forthcoming), and the catalogue for Si tiene dudas… pregunte: una exposición retrocolectiva de Mónica Mayer (2016), for which she served as a curatorial research assistant. Her current book project examines the intersections between art, the women’s movement, and motherhood in Mexico City.
Lindsey Ramirez / Born and raised in Rhode Island, I grew up thinking creativity wasn’t for me - unlike my brothers and most in my family, I couldn’t draw to save my life! But over time, I realized creativity isn’t confined to canvases or pencils; it’s in how we solve problems, build connections, and live authentically. My journey has been anything but conventional: after thriving in the corporate world in New York City, I took a leap of faith, booked a one-way ticket, and embarked on a solo journey across Asia and Europe. From teaching English in Thailand and Japan to coding apps in Barcelona and New York, I’ve embraced change and found inspiration in every twist and turn.
Today, back in my hometown, I channel that adventurous spirit into my role as Director of the Rhode Island Women’s Business Center, empowering women entrepreneurs to chart their own paths. I see creativity in every business plan, service, product and bold step toward a dream. Outside my 9-to-5, you’ll find me expressing myself through my tattoos, bright and bold outfits that pop in professional spaces, or cycling through the streets of Pawtucket & Providence.
Being part of Advocacy is Love excites me because it celebrates the creative energy that connects us all. I’m honored to help bring together artists who, like me, believe our values shine brightest when expressed through authenticity. True love & art advocates, inspires, and persists.
Anisa Raoof is the Grants Program Manager at the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and co-lead of the Rhode Island Arts and Health initiative, focusing on integrating the arts into strategies that promote community well-being and resilience through programming, conversations, and collaborations.
With a passion for design, film, and finding innovative ways to connect with the community, Anisa has partnered with numerous individuals and organizations to build and support programming for all ages. Her work includes serving as Executive Director of the Providence Children’s Film Festival, founding and publishing the family website Kidoinfo (2007–2017), and as a contributing member of The Media Education Lab. She holds a degree in Psychology with a minor in Painting from the University of Rochester and is fascinated by how we see and interact with the world. After college, she was part of a research team focused on child resilience and adaptability before launching her own design company, creating jewelry and metal home accessories, and co-founding the Providence Craft Show.
A Buffalo, NY native, Anisa moved to Providence with her husband in 1999, drawn by its cool studio spaces and creative community. In her free time, she enjoys making things, reading, attending in-person art events, and watching movies in theaters. Her latest challenge and inspiration is learning to play guitar, writing music, and performing with her band, The Persisters.
A native of Bristol, Rhode Island, Kendall Reiss grew up exploring the rocky shoreline of Narragansett Bay. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA where she received a BS in Geology, which provided the visual training and hands-on approach she now uses as an artist, scholar, and educator. Kendall returned to school to combine her fascination of the natural world with the study of jewelry. In 2011, she received a MFA in Jewelry + Metalsmithing from the Rhode Island School of Design. Kendall is currently a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, MA, where she serves as Chair of the 3D Department.
International presentations of her work include: Finnish jewelry triennial, KORU8 with exhibitions at The Finnish Forest Museum and The Oulu Art Museum in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Her work was exhibited in Jewelry & Nature at Tincal Lab in Porto, Portugal, as well as nationally for New York City Jewelry Week, at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, Greenville Center for Creative Arts, and locally for the Society of Arts & Crafts, Boston, Bristol Art Museum, and Haskell Public Gardens. Kendall presented her ongoing research project, BEING [with] TREES at the 2024 College Art Association conference in a panel led by Martina Tanga; Learning from Trees: Artists & Climate Solutions.
Art activism and community focused projects have become an important aspect of Kendall’s practice. Notably, Research BIPOC History, an evolving, community-driven project dedicated to recognizing and honoring the lives of Black and Indigenous people who resided in and around present-day Bristol, RI between 1680 and the Civil War. The project was awarded $35,000 in funding by Tufts University Springboard program in 2024.
Kendall lives in Bristol, Rhode Island where she owns and operates the local arts initiative, Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio. The business exhibits the work of contemporary artists and jewelers, offers private instruction and small group classes in jewelry making and metalworking, and serves as Kendall’s studio. Operating her own business has informed her pedagogy; at SMFA, Kendall was the Senior Thesis Program director from 2019-2022. She currently teaches a course in Art Entrepreneurship through the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
Michael Rose is an art gallerist and writer based in Providence, RI. Since 2014, he has served as the gallery manager at the historic Providence Art Club, where he oversees an ambitious exhibition schedule spread across three unique gallery spaces.
Under his leadership, the galleries have added an annual Community Invitational Exhibition, a College Biennial, the Art Club's National Show has become one of the most competitive in the region, and the galleries have received six consecutive Best of Rhode Island awards for Best Gallery in Providence.
In addition to his work at the Art Club, Michael also writes the popular weekly Inside Art column for GoLocalProv.com, profiling artists around the state. He also produced New England Art News, a weekly Substack newsletter to share resources and events with artists and art enthusiasts around the region.
Michael earned his BA in Art History from Providence College and his Certificate in Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts from New York University. Learn more about him at www.michaelrosefineart.com, or follow him on Instagram at @michaelrosefineart.
Jordan Seaberry is a painter, organizer, legislative advocate and educator. Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, he came to Providence to attend Rhode Island School of Design, and later, Roger Williams University School of Law. Alongside his art, he built a career as a grassroots organizer and legislative advocate, helping to pass multiple criminal justice reform milestones, including probation reform, the Unshackling Pregnant Prisoners Bill, and the statewide Community-Police Relationship Act.
Jordan serves as Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, and as an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design. He previously served as the Director of Public Policy at the Nonviolence Institute, as the Community Leader Fellow at Roger Williams University School of Law, and as the Chairman of the Providence Board of Canvassers, overseeing the city’s elections.
He has served as artist in residence at Skowhegan, Yaddo, the Verge Center of the Arts, and elsewhere. His work is in collections including the RISD Museum, the Crystal Bridges Museum, the deCordova Museum, and others.
Darcy Sly is a 2010 graduate of Mass Art's 3D Fine Art department, with a focus in ceramics. Her sculptural work is inspired by the ephemeral nature of the physical world, and how inanimate objects can reflect human beings' power and shortcomings. Her 2D work explores similar themes, as well as the impact of touch. On occasion she documents the actual world around her, in the form of landscape and still life paintings.
Jason Tranchida‘s creative practice is a multi-disciplinary intersection of art, design, and curatorial projects. Born in Detroit and living in Providence, Rhode Island, his project-based art practice includes objects, installations, video, and digital explorations. His creative agency LLAMAproduct specializes in graphic and exhibit design, creative direction, and event production. His work draws heavily on his foundation in architecture and stage design.
Most of Jason’s curatorial work is in collaboration with partner Matthew Lawrence. Their collaborative practice is interdisciplinary and centers around curatorial projects and performance events that amplify the work of queer artists and forgotten LGBTQIA+ histories. Artists featured in their assignment-based publication, Headmaster explore themes of gender, queerness, and masculinity. As creative director of the publication, Tranchida has received two Print Merit Awards from the Society of Publication Designers.
Their current collaboration, Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza, is a multimedia documentary-musical retelling of the events of the Newport Navy Sex Scandal – a Navy-sanctioned raid on homosexual activity that sparked national scandal shortly after the end of World War I. Scandalous Conduct is currently in production and will premiere in September 2024.
Valerie Tutson has been telling stories in schools, churches, libraries, festivals and conferences since 1991. She draws her stories from around the world with an emphasis on African traditions. Her repertoire includes stories and songs she learned in her travels to South Africa, her experiences in West Africa, stories from African American history. In addition, she is gaining quite a reputation for her exciting retelling of age-old Bible stories.
She graduated from Brown University with a Master’s Degree in Theatre Arts and a degree in a self-designed Major-Storytelling as A Communications Art.
Betha Wood, founder of Salon Bianco, is a trailblazer in the beauty industry, known for her incredible styles and gender-affirming salon experiences. As a mentor, public speaker, session stylist, and political makeup artist, she advocates for equality and uplifts marginalized communities.
Betha also founded PVD House, a queer-friendly affordable housing and community therapy initiative, reflecting her dedication to creating inclusive, safe spaces for all.