Rachel Olivia Berg (Mnicoujou Lakota, Mexican, and German) interdisciplinary artist, art advisor, teacher, and the founder of LivArtfully Design Studio. She holds a BA from Princeton University and a MA in Art Education from Columbia University Teachers College. Since 2004 she has designed, developed, and created custom large scale commissions in notable commercial projects across Turtle Island, working with art consultants and interior design firms. Berg expanded her studio practice in 2023 to engage with research based methodologies that explore Indigenous ontologies, histories, healing, and cultural relationships to nature and ecological stewardship.

She is the recipient of the 2024 Empowered Artist Award by Arts Mid Hudson and was a 2023 Emerging Artist Fellow with the Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, NY.  Her work is held in corporate art collections including Virgin Hotels, Mountain Shadows Resorts, Spotify, Kimpton Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels, Jane Street, and The Ritz Carlton; In health care spaces such as Cohen’s Children’s Hospital, NY and Oyate Health Center for Indian Health Services in Rapid City, SD. She lives and works in Moh-He-Con-Nuk (Hudson River) Valley in New York with her husband, son, dogs, and cat. She is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tri

Donna Francis is an American photographer born in New York City who has been experimenting with photographic techniques, printing processes and archiving methods since the early1980’s. Francis is fascinated with the photographic processes that build and erode time. Her practice deftly combines a systematic method of recording, forgetting and finding. Francis engages themes of identity and resilience through her series of nude and wrapped bodies, abandoned buildings, forgotten graveyards, and man with gun multiplied.

Her large scale installations and extensive series of prints have been exhibited nationally and internationally with Apalazzo Gallery at Palazzo Tiepolo in Venice 2024, Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh New York (2024 and 2023), Apalazzo Gallery Brescia, Italy (2023), Time Space Limited Hudson NY (2023), Delta Axis Memphis Tennessee (1993), Artist in the Marketplace (1990), and Fashion Moda, Bronx N.Y. (1988).

Her work is in collections including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City and La Escuela de Diseño in the Dominican Republic. Francis received the Olympus Camera Award (1991) from Woodstock Center for Photography, Artists Space Grants in (1988 and in 1991) and the Altos de Chavón Cultural Foundation Artist in Residence Award.

Daniel Giordano (b. 1988, Poughkeepsie, NY) is an artist based in Newburgh, NY. Daniel earned his MFA from the University of Delaware in 2016. He participated in the AIM Fellowship at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2021 and EmergeNYC fellowship at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in 2015. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2023); Turley Gallery, Hudson, NY (2023); JDJ, New York, NY (2023); Ann Street Gallery, Safe Harbors of the Hudson, Newburgh, NY (2022), among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Grimm, New York, NY (2024); The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Bronx, NY (2024); Helena Anrather, New York, NY (2023), among others. Giordano's work has been featured in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Sculpture Magazine, Cultured Magazine, Upstate Diary, Two Coats of Paint, and White Hot Magazine, among others.

Nicole Hixon is a sculpturally based public and installation artist whose work explores the intersections of ecology, ancestry, and collective care. Her large-scale living sculptures merge repurposed industrial materials with organic matter, creating immersive environments that honor cycles of growth, decay, and renewal. Hixon is the Village of Warwick’s Artist-in-Residence for 2025 and was a 2024 Fellow at Ann Street Gallery. She is a recipient of the Orange County Arts Council’s Sustainable Arts Program and has received multiple grants to support her practice—the most recent backing a new Divine Feminine sculpture for Upstate Art Weekend 2025. Rooted in her mixed heritage and shaped by personal experiences of motherhood, loss, and resilience, Hixon’s work centers healing through connection—both human and ecological. She partners with municipalities, youth programs, and local organizations to create site-responsive works that evolve over time, cultivating spaces of remembrance, environmental stewardship, and transformation.

Carmen Lizardo is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the connections between identity, immigration, race, gender, and class. Her work, rooted in photography and expanding into mixed media, uses autobiographical references to challenge dominant narratives and amplify marginalized histories, diasporic experiences, and the complexities of cultural heritage. Born in the Dominican Republic, Lizardo holds both a BFA and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, with support from organizations such as the New York Foundation for the Arts, Academy of Arts and Letters, En Foco, Arts Mid-Hudson, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

Lizardo has participated in residencies at the New York Foundation for the Arts and Women’s Studio Workshop, and she is set to continue her conceptual investigations during upcoming residencies at The Studios at MASS MoCA, Ragdale, and Project Space at Visual Studies Workshop. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, includingat the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University, the NARS Foundation, BRIC, and ArtsBridge. Lizardo's artistic contributions have been featured in publications such as Gum Printing: Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, and Hyperallergic. Notably, her public art projects include a commission for the Metropolitan Transit Authority at the 181st Street Station in New York City, along with community and youth outreach programming. Lizardo served as a tenured Professor of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she developed a passion for teaching and mentoring emerging artists. She has since transitioned to a full time studio practice to further explore her creative research.

Manda Martin is Director of Development & Communications at Safe Harbors of the Hudson, where she leads organizational fundraising strategy and institutional storytelling and marketing. With over 15 years of experience in nonprofit arts and culture, in roles spanning producing, administration, external relations, fundraising, and strategic consulting, her superpower is helping artists and organizations articulate their purpose, strategize for the future, and realize their most ambitious visions. Manda is passionate about the essential role of arts and culture in our lives and communities, and making the cultural sector more equitable for all working within it.

Previously, Manda was Strategy Director at LaPlaca Cohen, a management consultancy where she led strategic planning projects for cultural institutions across the country and internationally. She has also served as Director of External Relations for SPACE on Ryder Farm, an artist residency in Brewster, NY, and as Producing Director for acclaimed Brooklyn theatre ensemble the TEAM, with whom she developed three world premiere productions and toured on four continents. Manda originally hails from Ohio and lives in Newburgh.

Jonette O’Kelley Miller is an independent art historian, curator and freelance writer. As a former actress/dancer she continues to be intrigued by the power of the visual, and performing  arts. She sees both mediums as being able to provoke change along with instilling reflective joy. Jonette recognizes the duality of visual culture in its ability to expose injustices, as well its ability to also substantiate them. Her research addresses the impact of historical, racist stereotypes on people of  color. 

Previous projects include: presenting “Eastman Johnson’s Slavery Paintings: Beautiful Stereotypes” at the 2024 CAA conference, co-curating “Cause We Be Complicated: Dialogues of Black Artists” at the ADS and Ann Street Galleries; keynote speaker: “Representing Ourselves: Survey Works by African American Artists,” online exhibitions: “Treasures from the Earth,” “Truth-Telling: Voices of First People,” and “19th Century Stereotypes vs. 19th Century Reality.”  As a contributing writer, Jonette wrote “A Primer on Visual Racism” for 24 Views: What They Think of Us, and was honored to be a guest editor of The International Review of African American Art, Vol.30.2 published  by Hampton University. Her chosen theme was “The Evolving Imagery of The Black Woman.”

Jaime Ransome (she/her) is a Hudson Valley-based curator, writer, and art history educator specializing in immersive, community-driven exhibitions that bridge historical art movements with contemporary themes. Ransome has curated exhibitions across galleries and public spaces, including international juried shows, unique and evolving installations, and community-driven projects. Now working independently, she collaborates with institutions to create impassioned exhibitions with exciting programming that challenge conventional gallery standards and engage diverse audiences. Working with a range of galleries to develop immersive, thought-provoking exhibitions, Ransome focused on uplifting BIPOC, queer, and female artists, ensuring that underrepresented voices are not only included but centered in contemporary art spaces.

Seph Rodney, PhD, was born in Jamaica, and came of age in the Bronx, New York. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times and is a former senior critic and opinions editor for Hyperallergic. He has written for CNN, NBC, Art in America, American Craft, and Spike Magazine. He has penned catalog essays on Gary Simmons, Lisa Corinne Davis, Pope.L, Teresita Fernandez, Sarah Oppenheimer, and Meleko Mokgosi, among others. His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in May 2019. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize and in 2022 won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. He is also a curator of contemporary art and has co-curated Get in the Game, the largest exhibition that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has undertaken. It opened October 2024. He lives and works in Newburgh, NY.

Throughout her career, Jackie Skrzynski (skrin-ski) has been making art that challenges the perceived boundaries between humans and nature. The woods near her home provide inspiration and a sense of connection with a larger natural system. Skrzynski’s work has been recognized with numerous national and international exhibitions, publications, grants, and residencies. Her awards include a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, a New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) SOS grant, and four Orange County Individual Artist awards. She contributed a chapter to the anthology “Reconciling Art and Motherhood” and has had her own artwork appear in several publications. Recent residencies include the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hortus Arboretum, and Black Rock Forest. Beyond her studio practice, Skrzynski is interested in bringing art to the community in creative ways. She founded PUG Projects, through which she curates temporary art exhibits in transitional spaces. Skrzynski also created the immersive landscape experience, the SILENT WALKS, which she has led in various natural settings since 2009. She is an active member of the creative community in Newburgh, NY.

Jean-Marc Superville Sovak is a multidisciplinary artist whose work critically fabulates around silent histories absent from dominant historical narratives. His current projects include There Are NO Black Shakers; A Contemporary Folk Opera funded by a NYSCA Support for Artists grant, and a-Historical Landscapes, altered 19th-century landscape engravings, several of which are included in the permanent collections of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art and the Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. His participatory performance works include retracing steps on the Underground Railroad at Hudson Valley historic sites, and organizing a Burial for White Supremacy.

His public art includes a memorial to some of the first Africans to arrive in Rhode Island which is now in the collection of the Newport Historical Society. A Bard College graduate (M.F.A. Film/Video) Jean-Marc has exhibited at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, BMCC’s Shirley Fiterman Art Center, RecessArt, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Arts Westchester, Socrates Sculpture Park, Katonah Museum of Art, and the Manifesta 8 European Biennial. Jean-Marc has been a Visiting Artist/Lecturer at Bard College, SUNY New Paltz, Columbia University, Vassar College, and in 2020, he was guest curator at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. He lives and works in Plattekill, NY.

Hannah des Cognets is the Director of Learning & Engagement at Storm King Art Center, where she leads a dynamic team responsible for public programs, visitor learning and interpretation, school and teacher programs, and artist residencies.  Her prior roles include teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University and The Ohio State University, as well as production work at David Zwirner gallery. With an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, Hannah brings a creative, process-oriented approach to her work as an arts administrator.