Artists-In-Residence
Gloria Drovre
2024 Spring Session II
Bilal Bikile
2024 Spring Session II
Katherine Reed
2024 Spring Session II
Beth Geraghty
2024 Spring Session I
Shannon Casey
2024 Spring Session I
Erin Edwards
2024 Winter Session II
Eli Backer
2023 Fall Session I
Arden Sawyer
2023 Fall Session I
Lila Steffan
2023 Fall Session I
Kieran Miles
2023 Spring Session II
Eric Tai
2023 Spring Session II
Mary Everitt
2023 Spring Session I
Amy Foster
2023 Spring Session I
Alicia O’Dell
2023 Spring Session I
Avery Hunter
2022 Fall Session II
Lauren Verdugo
2022 Fall Session II
Shan Wang
2022 Fall Sessions I & II
Cypress Manning
2022 Fall Session I
Ping Zheng
2022 Fall Session I
Gloria Drovre
2024 Spring Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Gloria Drovre
2024 Spring Session II
Gloria (she/her) is a wife, mother, grandmother, and a retired pastor from
Madrid, Iowa. She has been a fiber artist since her days of 4-H sewing.
Gloria has made large fabric installations in convention centers and synod
assemblies, as well as for high school play sets. She often focuses on art
that can be used practically. “For me, there is something of God in getting
to use something handmade, something of excellence, for everyday tasks.”
She approaches her work as a steward of God’s good creation.
Gloria works with many mediums, primarily weaving and acrylics. She is
digging deeper into liturgical art using paint and fiber – art for home and
worship space that points to God’s love, forgiveness, and the beauty of
creation and relationships.
Bilal Bikile
2024 Spring Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Bilal Bikile
2024 Spring Session II
Bilal Bikile is a writer and artist whose work spans Islamic theology, existentialism, futurism, cinema, and social critique. He views his creations as a call to witness the present day, sharing insights and experiences for the hope and betterment of society. While primarily a writer, Bikile also delves into filmmaking and visual art, recognizing the unique power of each medium in his quest for storytelling.
Katherine Reed
2024 Spring Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Katherine Reed
2024 Spring Session II
I am Katherine Reed, a poet of no renown from the Canadian prairies.
If you read my work as a whole you’ll find honesty in its guts, silliness introduced to insight, and deep delight with its eyes wide open. Stylistically rooted in observation, you’ll find most poems to be fairly short and no stranger to rhythm or rhyme. Contentwise I focus on nature, painful realities, spiritual matters, and patchwork bits taken from everyday corners of lived reality.
Poems occasionally invade against my will but habitually knock insistently at the doors of my brain as I participate in life and community.
I draw skillfully. Pencil is my first love but coloured charcoal and oil pastels are welcome additions to the party. Visual art has been a consistent source of personal joy.
Beth Geraghty
2024 Spring Session I
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Beth Geraghty
2024 Spring Session I
Beth Geraghty is a ceramic artist based out of Atlanta, GA. She graduated from SCAD with a major in Fashion Design and a minor in ceramics. Her work aims to explore the connections between nature and oneself. Her work has been displayed in ceramic competitions, such as, “Off the Wall” as well as a two-person exhibition entitled “Growth”. Her work can be found on instagram @vvg.designz.
Shannon Casey
2024 Spring Session I
Shannon Casey is a writer based in Seattle, Washington. Her writing revolves around exploring the intersections of faith & sexuality, healthcare & human flourishing, and grief & gratitude. A physician assistant by training, she formerly served as a faculty member in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington.
Erin Edwards
2024 Winter Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Erin Edwards
2024 Winter Session II
Erin’s passion for writing began at an early age in response to a vibrant imagination and extended periods of time alone. She started with crafting short stories which developed into a self-published book and a monthly subscription newsletter at age nine. When the fantasies of childhood gave way to the complexities of adolescence and adulthood, a personal journal replaced the fiction and became an outlet for Erin to process her thoughts and make sense of her life. In 2018, she unexpectedly became the primary caregiver to her partner Jen, who had developed a degenerative motor-neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Jen’s terminal diagnosis spawned a four and a half year long journey together into the liminal place between life and death, and demanded a return of imagination to cope with the isolation and exhaustion of caregiving. Through metaphors of bogs and bridges, toads and lily pads, Erin created a world for her and Jen that mirrored their difficult yet rewarding life and developed a spiritual practice that she continues to find inspiration and grounding within today. Erin lives in Shoreline, Washington, with her cat, Ofelia, and writes a “bog blog” on Substack for fellow caregivers, called Diamonds for Toads.
Eli Backer
2023 Fall Session I
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Eli Backer
2023 Fall Session I
Eli Backer (b. 1992, Seattle) is an artist, composer, and engineer. Her practice is not media specific, carrying threads of memory, loss, and community across sculpture, design, photography, glass, printmaking, film, textiles, ceramics, metal, and music. She is driven by the people and machines she surrounds herself with, and is interested in the communities they form, even when just between two people. Constantly creating visual and audio records of life around her, these run through or parallel to her work, lifting the everyday past solely formal and experiential. A practicing DJ of 15 years, Backer’s sets balance past and present, capturing musical friendships and memories, while creating common space and dialogue with the crowd around her. On or off the dancefloor, her work offers peace, places of rest, escape, and safety. She fervently believes that sharing what is closest to her heart allows others to feel less alone in their struggles.
Arden Sawyer
2023 Fall Session I
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Arden Sawyer
2023 Fall Session I
Arden is a writer and artist from Philadelphia. He studied Glass at RISD, and has since spent his time writing novels in Maine, driving forklifts and tractors in Pennsylvania, and surfing in California and Washington. He uses whatever materials he has to tell stories, from comics and zine-making, to low-tech film and low-budget theater, from assemblage sculpture to the written word, adapting found and second-use materials to create work which is made of the detritus of the world it reflects. In this reflection he attempts to paint impressions of an iconoclastic moment of normlessness, beauty, absurdity, and anxiety, where long-held axioms are given their overdue reconsideration, extremist ideologies are surfacing, the apocalypse makes promises on the horizon, and the self is engaged in a deep interrogation of the meaning of things. What does it mean to give your life to work? To have doubts about your cause? To love transgressively? To be out of harmony with how you are socially defined? To be alone? To have community?
Lila Steffan
2023 Fall Session I
Lila Steffan is a watercolorist specializing in earth pigments. Originally from Bellingham, Washington, she completed her BA in Studio Art at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and has spent the last year living and working in Vermont. Her paintings have been featured in group exhibitions at the San Antonio Art League and Museum, SPACE Gallery in Burlington, Vermont, and the Michael and Noemi Neidorff Gallery. Through her work, Steffan explores the impact of climate change on naturally occurring cycles of decay and regeneration. Steffan forages for pigments such as charcoal, hematite, glauconite and shaggy mane mushrooms, which she hand processes into watercolor paints.
Kieran Miles
2023 Spring Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Kieran Miles
2023 Spring Session II
Kieran Miles is a fiber artist and musician based in San Diego CA. While Kieran work in a variety of artistic mediums, he is most accomplished in his fiber arts creations with cut and sew/pattern work. He looks forward to the time and space to make and create during this residency at the Guild.
Eric Tai
2023 Spring Session II
Eric Tai’s art examines this period of time as an in-between space where imagination leads to reality, memories take shape to retell stories of the past, and life is the beauty between birth and death. Here, art is not merely material or content. It is the experience of beauty found in the mundane. His contemplative paintings invite viewers to continue the meditative, worshipful postures he’s begun through the moving of material on surface. The textures found in his paintings and drawings evoke landscapes from both the ethereal and the chaotic abyss. In essence, his art is an attempt at transcendence from the immanent frame beyond the self or the material, so that through means of making and experiencing, one may be tethered to the other.
He is interested in exploring the chaotic tensions that exist in our universe. We are simply treading terrains of malfunction and chaos while understanding that there are microscopic bonds that hold the universe together in the political, social, physical, metaphysical, and economic spheres. He has come to embrace the chaos and unexpected outcomes, all while looking for beauty that exists in the broken, chaotic slurry. Ideas of the sublime are almost always reoccurring in the narrative of his work, as he struggles with the natures of life, death, beauty, and grotesque.
Mary Everitt
2023 Spring Session I
Mary Everitt (she/her) is a visual artist and massage therapist in Portland, OR. She was born in California and raised in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her creative influences combine the physical and cultural landscape of her childhood and the human body within a story of belonging and becoming. Her artistic inspirations include Val Hubbard and Makoto Fujimura and her style is influenced by the colors and movement in post-impressionism. Mary had incredible art teachers and artistic role models in her childhood and teen years that supported her creative exploration of materials and expression. She taught art to elementary and middle school students and studied graphic design briefly before returning to the US to study massage. Following a desire to dive deeper into creating, she’s taken painting classes locally, gone to figure drawing workshops and continues to connect with local artists to develop her skills. She is trained in First Aid Arts arts-based tools for self-care; a set of resources to support community mental and emotional health.
She uses cold wax medium, oil and acrylic paints and other mixed media materials in her work. Her goal is to develop a body of work for healing and healthcare oriented spaces.
Amy Foster
2023 Spring Session I
In her artwork, Amy Foster (she/her) explores the intersection of hospitality, nature, and spiritual relationship. With historic ties to iconography and botanical illustration, Amy finds that homemade egg tempera paint best allows her to express her unfolding understanding of God’s character. Amy is an active member of both the artistic community and, as a Christ follower, the faith community of her native city of Pittsburgh. She is a trained spiritual director with a particular interest in retreat leadership. Amy established Contempera Studio in 2020, and under that name, she practices visual hospitality through the artwork she produces for home and liturgical use.
Alicia O’Dell
2023 Spring Session I
Alicia O’Dell (she/her) is a multi-practice artist and curious explorer. She views her art practice as a meditation to expand her perception of self and the world. Alicia’s work explores the conversation between the natural world and the human experience.
A trained metalsmith, she spent a decade designing and fabricating jewelry under the brand of AEO designs, a line of contemporary wares inspired by the perpetual exploration of familiar and unknown landscapes. Recently, Alicia transitioned her practice to exploring fiber. The limitation of learning a new medium brings an open curiosity that has led her to also experiment with wood, sound, and video.
Alicia was born and raised in Wenatchee, Washington. She served in the Peace Corps in Ecuador and Malawi, completed a metalsmith residency in Portugal, and has lived in all four corners of the US. Her travels continue to be a great source of inspiration and learning.
Avery Hunter
2022 Fall Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Avery Hunter
2022 Fall Session II
Avery (he/him) moved to the U.S from England in 2004 at the age of 18 and found a surprising abundance of creative opportunities in the Twin Cities, MN. Before leaving England, he studied Drama, English Literature and General Studies, with additional work in Religious Studies (predominantly Christianity). He has since pursued painting, drawing and alternative photography as a profession, participating in several art fairs, shows, group exhibitions and his first solo exhibition “Finding Myself in Color”, displayed at the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain this past summer. Avery received his Associate of Fine Arts from Minneapolis Community and Technical College in 2010 and continued on to earn his Bachelor’s in Studio Arts from Metropolitan State University in 2021. As an artist, he has pursued different themes pertaining to his identity as a Jewish transman living with neurodevelopmental, psychological and physical disabilities. Avery is a husband, father to two children with special needs and currently working as a teaching artist through an organization that amplifies the voices of individuals with disabilities utilizing the creative arts.
Lauren Verdugo
2022 Fall Session II
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Lauren Verdugo
2022 Fall Session II
Lauren (they/them) is a Southern California based artist and furniture maker. They received their AA in Arts and Humanities from Chaffey College in 2017 and in 2021, completed their BA in Applied Design at San Diego State University with an emphasis in Furniture Design and Woodworking. Lauren is an instructor at both The Maloof Foundation in Alta Loma, CA and Allied Woodshop in Los Angeles, CA. Lauren’s work ranges from furniture to sculpture with no limitations on mixing media. Found objects, steel, wood and cardboard are all in constant experimentation. They are a recipient of a 2020 California Arts Council grant, an Art Council Award from the School of Art and Design at SDSU, and has been featured in various Southern California based art publications including Woodworker West Magazine and Curious Publishing. Lauren was also featured in the Shaping Wood, Shaping Artists exhibit at the Chaffey Community Museum of Art in January 2020 and displayed their work most recently at the Ontario International Airport in Ontario, CA.
Shan Wang
2022 Fall Sessions I & II
Shan (b. 2000, United States) received a B.F.A in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA) in 2022. She works with acrylic media as well as sculptural and functional ceramics. Shan exhibits her work in group exhibitions nationally. She has worked as an Education and Curatorial Intern at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (Washington, DC) to develop new educational resources. Her most recent exhibitions include The Figure: In Passing, in the spring of 2022 and GROWTH: Sculpting Memories, in the summer of 2022, both in Savannah, GA. She is currently living and working in Plain, Washington.
Cypress Manning
2022 Fall Session I
- Group:Artists-In-Residence
Cypress Manning
2022 Fall Session I
Cypress Manning is a queer + trans writer, artist, and educator from Taos, New Mexico. They received their MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in 2019, and were a 2022-23 Hugo House Fellow. They are in a two-person cribbage league with their mom, and live in Seattle with their partner and cat, Riso. They teach creative writing.
Ping Zheng
2022 Fall Session I
Ping Zheng (she/her) received MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016 and a BFA in painting from the University College of London, Slade School of Fine Art in 2014.
Her works have been exhibited at Kristen Lorello Gallery, New York, NY, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY, the Chinese American Arts Council/Gallery 456, New York, NY, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY and DDP(Dongdaemun Design Plaza), Seoul, South Korean, “ASYAAF: Asian Students and Young Artists Festival” among other venues.
She has completed artist residencies at AADK Spain, in Blanca, Spain, Monson Arts, Monson, ME, the Rancho Linda Vista Arts Community, in Oracle, Arizona, and the Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson, Vermont among others.
Zheng was born in 1989 in Zhejiang, China and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.