A B C D E F H I K L M O P R S T W
Photo of Jessica Held

Jessica Held

Visual Arts: Painting & Photography

Cincinnati native Jessica Held is a painter, photographer, small business owner, and teaching artist in rural Appalachia Athens, Ohio. She earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting and photography at Ohio University. Jessica has exhibited nationally and internationally with her first exhibit in Prague, Czech Republic while studying abroad. As a practicing professional artist, she continues to exhibit and publish her paintings, photographs, and collaborations. Recently, Jessica’s work has been exhibited in the Women of Appalachia Project and published in Women Speak books.

A continuous theme in Jessica’s work is concentration on both painting and photography.…

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Yasufumi Ishida

Multidiscipline: Storytelling, Japanese Traditional Theatre, Origami, & Kamishibai

Inspired by a movie “Patch Adams”, Yasu came to the United States to become a professional hospital clown. Earning a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre for Young Audiences, he also graduated from the Chavez Studio of Magic, the world’s most prestigious magic school. He beautifully imbues the essence of traditional Japanese culture into his magic and storytelling. Yasu has enthralled family audiences all over the United States, including performances at the Disney Summer Stage Kids in New York, the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. (the world’s largest festival of Japanese culture outside of Japan), the Florida Storytelling Festival, the Hawaii Book & Music Festival, the Tryon Super Tuesday Children Festival (NC), KIDabra International and Touhill Performing Art Center (MO).…

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Nancy Kangas

Poetry

Nancy Kangas is a poet, filmmaker, and teaching artist based in Columbus. In the 1980s and 90s, she edited Nancy’s Magazine, an intimate mix of poetry, comics, and advice; the full run of this zine was recently selected to be archived in the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library of The Ohio State University. She’s written and performed poetry-theater pieces, including a selection for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, and paired family slides with flash fiction for the online magazine, Ohio Edit. Her poems have appeared books and journals including Plume, Rattle, and Forklift, Ohio.…

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Douglas Laubacher

Visual Arts, Comics & Cartooning

I’m a cartoonist from Northeast Ohio. My comic strip “Unbound” runs in a handful of papers spanning Stark, Carroll and Tuscarawas Counties. I have nearly a decade of experience teaching every age group the art of cartooning and cartooning adjacent classes. I’ve taught students as young as 3 and as old as 93. I’ve taught in libraries, senior centers, museums, schools and community centers. I pursued Fine Art and English in College because ever since I was twelve I knew, this is what I wanted todo. I hold a BA in Fine Art from the University of Mount Union, am a certified substitute teacher and a member of the National Cartoonist Society.…

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Sara Lawrence-Sucato

Dance/Movement

Sara Lawrence-Sucato hails from Columbus, OH. She graduated with Honors and a degree in Dance Teaching and Choreography from Mercyhurst University (Erie, PA) and is currently studying for a Master’s of Science in Organizational Leadership from the same institution. Sara has worked in various capacities with The Dancing Wheels Company & School since 2006. She danced in the company for sixteen seasons performing works by noted choreographers Marc Brew, Nai Ni Chen, David Dorfman, Christopher Fleming, Catherine Meredith, Stuart Pimsler, David Roussève, Ginger Thatcher, Mark Tomasic, Michael Uthoff and Robert Wesner as well as by internationally renowned choreographers Donald McKayle and Dianne McIntyre.…

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Sierra Leone

Entrepreneur, Poet, Wholistic Urban Creative Arts, & Theatre

Poet, producer, activist, educator, and entrepreneur Sierra Leone captivates audiences with her unassuming ingenuity, profound insight, and comedic sense of “knowing.”

A Governor’s Award winner and writer, Sierra is the president and artistic director of OFP Theatre and Production Company. For more than a decade, Ohio has benefited from Sierra’s vision of creative urban arts as a powerful artistic medium to bring communities together across racial, cultural, ideological, and economic divides. Her project “The Signature: A Poetic Medley Show” presents a hybrid of urban poetry, music, dance, and visual arts from local, regional, and international talent.…

Photo of Ami Majmudar

Ami Majmudar

Dance/Movement: Classical Indian Dance, Creative Writing, & Storytelling

Ami Majmudar inhabits many crossroads: Indian-American, first generation, multilingual, cultural, and ethnic minority. Ami’s work as dancer, teacher, storyteller, and author is an ongoing effort to connect her many paths and to share her experiences, her art, and her stories with others.

With a degree in English Literature from the University of California-Berkeley, followed by a Master’s degree in Education, Ami began her career as a high school English teacher. While raising her three children, Ami began writing short stories and then books. Her debut novel, The Torchbearers, published by Penguin India, was shortlisted for the Neev Book Award for Distinguished Children’s Literature.…

Photo of Eric Marlow

Eric Marlow

Visual Arts, Painting, Sculpture, Jewelry, & Recyclable Materials

Eric Marlow is a visual artist-painter, sculptor, jewelry designer, craftsman, and inventor. He thanks his mother for her encouragement early in life which evolved to make him the artist he is today. While in high school he won free art classes at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Eric attended The Ohio State University where he received his degree in Fine Arts and while in graduate school taught beginning drawing and sculpture classes. He has also taught jewelry making classes at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center.

As a teaching artist he begins his workshop by showing examples of his artwork and explores with students where his ideas comes from.…

Photo of Candace Mazur-Darman

Candace Mazur-Darman

Drama/Theatre

“You use a glass mirror to see your face. You use works of art to see your soul.”
George Bernard Shaw

For more than 35 years, Candace Mazur Darman (MEd, Univ. of Northern Colorado) has been a successful teaching artist in central Ohio. She is the founder of Dramatic Impact, a nationally acclaimed children’s theatre company. As a teaching artist for VSA Ohio, the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, and for education programs supported by the Ohio Arts Council, Darman works in inclusive classrooms to enhance teaching and learning through arts-integrated residencies and differentiated curriculum.…

Photo of Andrea Belser McCormick

Andrea Belser McCormick

Musical Theater, Dance/Movement, & Acting

Andrea McCormick is a performing artist and instructor from Cleveland, Ohio who has received her Bachelor of Arts from Wright State University in Theatre Studies, with an emphasis on Dance and Applied Voice. Beginning with ballet at three years of age, she also continued her studies in various dance forms, including tap, African folk dance, liturgical/spiritual, jazz, musical theatre dance, modern/contemporary, hip hop, and Latin ballroom.

Post college, under the stage name “Andrea Belser”, Andrea has remained extremely active in the northeast Ohio theater community, receiving 2008 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Juliette in “I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda” at Dobama Theatre, and nomination as 2012 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Pecola in “The Bluest Eye” at Karamu House Theatre.…

Photo of Jim McCutcheon

Jim McCutcheon

Music: Guitar

Jim McCutcheon, `The Guitar Man,’ earned the Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts in Arts Education (2017) as well as two awards from the Parents Choice Foundation for his recordings for children. With teaching experience ranging from Montessori (24 years) through colleges (he teaches at the University of Dayton, Wright State University and Miami University), Jim has presented his interactive `Fretted-Instrument Family’ programs for decades to audiences of all ages. Armed with a Bachelor of Science in Physics as well as a Master of Music in Music Education, Jim’s `Guitar Man Does Science’ shows combine these diverse skill sets for all ages in stimulating, participatory presentations for small or large groups.…

Photo of Ray McNiece

Ray McNiece

Drama/Theatre: Performance Poetry & Storytelling

Ray McNiece is the author of eight books of poems and monologues, most recently Breath Burns Away, New Haiku. He has created two solo theatre works: Dis – Voices From a Shelter and Us? Talking Across America; two music/poetry collaborations: “Mouth Music” and “A Rust bowl Hootenanny;” and an autobiography on stage: The Lives of A Poet. The Orlando Sentinel reporting on Ray’s solo show at the Fringe Festival called him “a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie. He has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.” In a review of Us?…