Galaxy Artists

Adam's Art Forms: Crafts, Literature/Story Telling, Multidisciplinary Arts, Performing Arts, Theatre, Writing

Phone: 814-360-2969

Email: acswartz@gmail.com

Adam is a puppeteer and storyteller with a degree in Integrative Arts and a background in technical theater, visual arts, performance, education, and youth and family outreach. He designs, builds, and performs original puppet shows; he also creates puppets for other performers. He has been working as a puppeteer and performer since 1999. Adam has gained valuable insight and experience from professional trainings with Sesame Workshop and “muppeteers.”

Adam’s workshops, classes, and camps focus on helping participants learn the history of puppetry, use puppetry for storytelling, be more comfortable with theater and performance, and design and build original puppets. He often works towards a unique performance created by participants using traditional live theater, as well as film and video puppetry. He has had success working with children and adults of all ages and abilities in many settings. Adam also provides training for teachers and care givers using puppetry to promote social emotional learning and integrative arts in the classroom.

Adam is passionate about encouraging folks to explore and express their imaginations, and collaborating with other artists, educators, and community members.

Alexandra's Art Forms: Visual Arts, Ceramics, Drawing, Culinary Arts

Phone: 814-410-4941

Email: abbatiellopln@gmail.com

Alexandra is a sculptor and an installation artist. Her choice of medium is clay, but she often works with wood, metal, wire, and found objects. She enjoys creating within her personal work art that relates to how people become who they are, their personalities, identities, traits, experiences, and growth as a person. When showing in exhibitions, Alexandra loves making larger works and enjoys witnessing people's reactions upon discovering she was the creator behind it.

Since becoming an educator, her biggest passion has been teaching others. She wants to be able to reach as many people as possible so they can become confident in their abilities and see their improvement. She wants to show them their hidden abilities, helping them realize the many things they can do. Her favorite media, that she is most skilled in, is ceramics. As she tells her students, there is always so much more to learn! But she loves teaching ceramics, clay, and 3-dimensional work. She would say that her second favorite skillset is charcoal, as she loves teaching lessons on speed drawing and realism.

Alexandra also loves teaching about surrealism and expanding upon realism to make work that is unique to you and your ideas. As an educator, she has learned to be well-rounded and adaptive when it comes to different media types. She wants to give her students a chance to experiment with as much as they can.

Alexandra can also teach the culinary art of cake decorating. Alexandra spent time as a cake decorator and believes her sculptural and drawing benefited from that experience.

Alexandra is currently teaching at Southern Huntingdon High School/Middle school in the as an arts instructor.

Andrea's Art Forms: Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Painting, Drawing

Phone: 814-599-3042

Email: artacdarby@gmail.com

Andrea has been an artist her whole life. However, professionally, she has a degree in Fine Art with a focus on drawing. She has taken classes in drawing, charcoal, oil painting, ceramics, wood furniture, print making, and sculpture. Andrea’s personal focus in artwork right now is on multimedia artwork, in which she is combining diverse types of artworks to make a final product. Andrea ran her own art studio and event space for three years and then closed it during the pandemic. During the closing of that space, Andrea was offered a position with Southern Huntingdon School District to start teaching elementary art, rotating between three elementary schools. Andrea is in the process of getting her teachers' certification and her master’s in art education from Pennwest, Edinboro.

Andrea is most passionate about continuing to grow and evolve with her artwork. She creates because she feels she needs to create, not just because she wants to. Andrea’s goal in her work is to create art that is unique from her own personal experiences of moments and feelings that pull at her inner being. These feelings are best shown by images because words often do not give them justice. She desires to connect with others on a feelings level when they look at her artwork. Andrea hopes through her art teaching, she can help others find that burning desire inside of them to express their own personal creative journey.

Ann's Art Forms: Dance/Choreography

Phone: 814-404-1652

Email: vandanceinc@gmail.com

Ann makes and performs dance pieces, both solo and ensemble, inspired by literary works, historical events, people, tales, the environment, or current issues, to cast a new dimension to who we are as human beings.

Exploring movement is how their process in the studio begins. Ann collaborates with the dancers to create moments of imagery, and then weave them together, fashioning the experience-in-motion into a unique story of living. She believes that dance communicates with our senses—yes, it can put us into a mood—happy, peaceful, agitated, sorrowful, etc.—but it can do much more, by delving deep into our awareness. Ann is drawn to the dark and mysterious side of human nature, to the romantic poets, to fairytales, and is constantly seeking parallels between the world of times long past and the world of today. Such parallels are the inspiration for many of their pieces. Sometimes, within the trials of their own life, Ann sees their way through the disarray in the story of another, in the dilemma of a romantic character, or the new-found power or inspiration of a heroine. These are the situations of life that Ann symbolizes in her pieces, so that others find meaning and movement in their own lives.

Ann is a modern dancer and choreographer. As a dancer in two modern dance repertory companies, Ann has had the opportunity to perform in significant and original pieces by more than twenty-five choreographers. These have afforded Ann the opportunity to study the creative process and choreographic technique of some of the most innovative and highly respected choreographers working today, and to absorb this information into their own process (as a choreographer). Ann's work is influenced by the Humphrey-Limon tradition and contemporary choreographers, Colin Connor, who was recently the artistic director of the Limón Dance Company, Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and David Dorfman. She continues to train and take classes to stay current from the Limón Company School, Luigi Jazz Centre, and Zena Rommett Floor-Barre©, where they have a teaching certificate.

Ann founded VanDance Inc, a contemporary modern dance repertory company, in 2001. In 2020, she received a Teaching Artist Certification from The University of the Arts.

Educational Philosophy

The exposure to dance as an art form provides young people through senior citizens with a greater understanding of their individuality and an ability to express themselves with creativity and skill. A thorough exploration of the elements of dance serves to widen a person’s options for creativity, whether applied to other creative endeavors such as music, theater, and writing, or to athletic or intellectual activities. Ann’s goal in sharing the art of dance is to provide students with varying degrees of exposure to dance, an understanding of the wide range of movement, and creative options available for expression. Ms. Van Kuren endeavors to provide the experience of self-realization, self-expression and satisfaction that results from the exploration of movement. More specifically, her goals in a movement exploration with students and teachers encompass: (1) goals for the mind, such as counting, direction, design, concentrating, remembering, verbalizing, imagining, problem solving, and understanding the laws of motion; (2) goals for the spirit, such as involvement, enjoyment, feeling, expressiveness, and socialization; and (3) goals for the body, such as improving flexibility, strength, energy, posture, rhythm, articulation, opposition, and locomotor activity.

Bruce's Art Forms: Music/Folk Arts

Phone: 814-237-1602

Email: bryfiddle@aol.com

Bruce Young is a folk artist specializing in traditional fiddle and dance styles. His expertise is the result of fourteen years of classical training followed by thirty years of folk music performance.  Mr. Young continues to play for and call at public dances across Pennsylvania with different bands to teach in his studio, Fiddle Fantastick.

Cathy's Art Forms: Music - Flute

Phone: 814-234-8786

Email: flutegarden1@gmail.com

Over the course of two decades, Cathy Herrera has performed in ten countries spanning three continents. Her doctorate in flute performance, coupled with a Certificate in World Music, leads her performances and teaching down many avenues. While a Fulbright scholar in Peru, Dr. Herrera studied a variety of Andean flutes and worked with Peruvian composers, which inspired her “Flute Garden”, a didactic recital. The world’s flutes, displaying many materials and dimensions, reveal opportunities for scientific, mathematical, practical, and aesthetic analysis.

Cynthia's Art Forms: Crafts, Dance, Digital Arts, Literature/Story Telling, Multidisciplinary Arts, Performing Arts, Poetry, Theatre, Writing

Phone: 814-404-6027

Email: cmmazzant@tempestproductions.org

Cynthia Mazzant is a member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, an independent labor union, a member of The Dramatists Guild, Inc, and a member of the National Dance Education Organization.

Cynthia is a Co-Artistic Director/Founder of Tempest Productions, a registered consultant artist for the PA Council on the Arts, an Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State University, and has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants for her work in creative drama and theatre-in-education. She is a co-founder and currently serves as the Artistic Director for the Central PA Theatre & Dance Festival and served as the CIU10 Regional Coordinator for Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation competition created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation for over 15 years.

Cynthia has spent the last 30 years working in Theatre-in-Education (TIE), Drama-in-Education (DIE), Conflict Resolution Through Drama (CRTD), and Social Emotional Learning Through the Arts. She has designed several residencies and workshops for students using theatre, creative drama, literacy, dance, music, and multi-media. Her work as a choreographer focuses on period dance (social and folk) as well as musical theatre dance. Cynthia works with all ages, toddlers to senior citizens.

Erich's Art Forms: Painting

Phone: 814-542-7146

Email: erichbreimhurst@gmail.com

Erich has been an artist for over 20 years, starting with drawing and painting, moving to woodworking, and back to painting. He is based in Huntingdon County, Central Pennsylvania. He has recently shown work at a local gallery and has sold wooden spoons and rings, as well as custom-made shelving units, tables, and benches.

Erich typically uses found materials: leftover or mistinted house paint with thrown away colorant, saturated colors from hardware stores, old fabric from thrift stores stretched on handmade frames, cardboard, ceiling tiles, plywood, and drywall. He has the same approach to woodworking, using branches and any type of discarded wood. Sometimes cutting his own boards from fallen trees.

Erich prefers abstract painting but does have a foundation in art history and theory from books and online videos, as well as continuing education classes. He is apprenticed with a carpenter and a woodworker, as well as working for his father’s construction since a young age.

He is passionate about reusing materials, not only for cost savings, but also to keep them out of landfills. Erich wants to bring beauty and color into people’s homes. He aspires to show that art can be local to rural and small towns, not just kept in museums in big cities, and to show that art can be accessible to everyone. He would like to pass on his love of art to those who might not have access to it.

Evgeny's Art Forms: Paintings, Sculptures

Phone: 814-251-3037

Email: zhe8ka@yahoo.com

Evgeny uses a variety of mediums for the purpose of telling a meaningful story. His primary focus in each residency– a meaningful personal story. He also enjoys large-scale projects, so that each contributing individual can be a part of their story.

Evgeny is primarily a visual artist– sculpture and painting. However, he is also interested in poetry and storytelling.

Grace's Art Forms: Literature & Storytelling, Multidisciplinary Arts, Music

Phone: 717-935-2777

Email: Fala@Juniata.edu

The Art of Communication & Storytelling: Designed for & with confidence and creativity. What & How?

As an artist, Grace leans into the strengths and needs of those with whom she interacts. Each audience awakens a synergy that is both unique and dynamic. Attentive to their lead, facilitate a welcoming classroom climate for conversation to unfold into learning.

How? Grace’s retreats are creative, interactive, reflective, and relational. Hopefully, artful learning becomes embodied. That is, retreats are as visceral as they are cerebral. As we cultivate ourselves into a community of learners, we begin to experience empathy and education on various levels-from the individual to the interpersonal and, in turn, into the global.
Level 1. Intra-personal Reflections. Creativity and play are integral to the choices we make.
Level 2. Interpersonal Dialogue. The listening heart-The Feedback Maze
Level 3. Community Engagement. Global Citizenry via creative expressions. 

Where & When? As a communication consultant and with a focus on creativity and leadership, Grace has worked with dozens of diverse audiences affiliated with education, government, health care, business & industry, library services and international affairs. To name a few, specifically: McNeil Laboratories (Johnson & Johnson), Armstrong Floors; The Department of Natural Conservation & Resources; Liberty Property Trust; Clipper Magazine; Mutual Benefit, and more. Also included in her background are professional affiliations with probation & parole; prison life; elder care; equity/diversity & inclusion; and state parks. Of special mention is seasoned expertise in knowing how to read and adapt to an audience without compromising content or values. Having been an educator, administrator, retreat facilitator, public speaker, storyteller and musician, Grace is now fortunate to live the art of communication and hopes to share her expertise with others.

Of the numerous teaching awards earned, Grace’s favorite are the ones selected by the students. On four occasions, she has won the “best teacher” award at Juniata College based on student votes. She also enjoys the “call backs” from various organizations, indicative of the heuristic value of the creative approach to her teaching and art shops. Always, Grace prefers to work with live audiences. Virtual connections will be relevant only if and when necessary. 

Titles of some of the teaching, artful retreats Grace offers: 

The Art of Invention-Next Stop: Shark Tank
The Listening HeArt: The Rhythm of our Responses
Creativity, Equity and Leadership
Storytelling: The Morals of our own Stories
The Art of Conversation & the Cultivation of Empathy
The Art of Public Speaking & Artful Listening
Central

Jason's Art Forms: Music

Phone: 814-571-5513

Email: vifyrv@gmail.com

Electronic music and sound design include but not limited to synthesis, sampling, circuit bending, DIY electronics and programming. Jason Turnipseed first started creating music with computers in 2001 on an old Windows 95 Pentium processor family computer. Since then, he has continued to explore various programs and electronic musical devices, such as drum machines and sequencers, from retro beatboxes to modern modular synthesis.

With a love of retro technology, Jason searches for obscure and limited technologies for “old-school” approaches. He would like to teach people how to comfortably navigate computer music software and devices by teaching concepts found in every Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to demystify all the esoteric buttons and knobs.

Outside of conventional music, Jason has a fondness for the experimental. He believes music can be found in nearly everything, even things that don’t make sound. Jason expresses a belief that sampling is not limited to recording existing sound but can also entail gathering patterns for sound from various data collection formats, statistics, or naturally and mechanically occurring drones.

The journey through sound and music is not one of mastery, but of exploration, experimentation, and observation. Sometimes it is just fun to experiment with new techniques with no proof that the sound outcome is going to be good or bad. Jason would like to go into the teaching world with an encouraging word that the idea of “doing it right” does not exist in the creative process of making music. It is your process, if you are doing it at all, then you are doing it the way that is right for you.

Jenna's Art Form: Children's Literature

Phone: 814-243-5493

Email: JennaLynRice1@gmail.com

As a former elementary teacher, Jenna worked to help preschool and kindergarten-age students achieve their potential through storytelling, illustrations, and beginning writing. She is a newly self-published children's book author, wanting to create meaningful experiences through text and inspire a new generation of writers. 

Jill's Art Forms: Dance, Choreography, Yoga

Phone: 814-237-0658

Email: jillabrighton@gmail.com

Jill teaches a variety of dance styles to children and adults. Jill began dancing at age four and graduated from Penn State University in 1991. She has extensive experience teaching diverse populations, including children with special needs and senior citizens, is an active practitioner, and instructor of Pilates and Yoga. Jill has danced professionally in Michigan, New York, and with the Pennsylvania Dance Theatre for many years. Jill has been the Director of the Central Pennsylvania Dance Workshop since 1994. 

Jill's Art Forms

Dance, Choreography, Yoga

Kari's Art Forms: Fiber Arts

Phone: 814-753-2554

Email: kroslund@gmail.com

Kari discovered their love for fiber arts while raising a small herd of sheep in rural Pennsylvania. This allowed them to combine their formal art training in an exciting new medium. Kari received their BA in Studio Art, with a teaching certification from Lycoming College. Kari credits their education in fiber to other wool growers and fiber enthusiasts Kari has met as they moved throughout Pennsylvania and New York.

In 2020 and 2021, Kari was awarded the Individual Artist Decentralization Grant and the Community Education Art Grant from the New York State Council for the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts for three projects that focused on examining regions and communities through sourcing materials from a specific area. Kari has participated in exhibitions both nationally and internationally, exhibiting a level of mastery in natural dyeing, felting, surface design, and natural fiber construction. Most notably, Kari was selected to participate in the Gold Standard of Textile Art at the Westbeth Gallery in New York City and the Korean Fiber Art Forum at the Suwon Museum of Art in Suwon, South Korea. Teaching several workshops in different settings has helped to grow Kari’s teaching style and provided me with a broad level of experience.

Kari is drawn to capturing natural wonders and enjoy the process of layering a variety of materials such as wool, silk, wire, wood, and paper to capture places or moments. As Kari introduces the viewer to a tactilely enticing juxtaposition of various textures, Kari invites the viewer to examine subtle, yet delicate details found only when we stop and ponder. With sourcing and legacy as the foundations of their creative process, Kari often incorporates drawing attention back to people, places, and raw materials. In sharing their work, Kari tells the story of how each body of work celebrates the various fiber traditions, communities, and rural landscapes.

Kelly's Art Forms: Visual Arts, Painting, Ceramics

Phone: 814-599-7025

Email: cunninghamkel21@gmail.com

Visual arts is an intimate endeavor to discover yourself at your core as well as how you perceive life and to experiment with the most successful ways of expressing those discoveries. To use your mind and your hands creates a sense of accomplishment that touches us at our most basic desires.

Ceramics has been Kelly’s most enjoyable medium to work in. She has spent a great deal of time with acrylic and watercolor painting, as well as graphic design. From clay to technology, she finds meaning and passion in different ways at each end of the spectrum. Where she also likes to stay is, outside of this and that, is engaging others in experiences to see where their self-expression shines the most. Kelly enjoys working with all age groups to create their own curated experiences for people to have an opportunity to experiment and find what they feel most successful at, as well as what is the most enjoyable.

Kelly's Art Forms

Visual Arts, Painting, Ceramics

Lynne Anne's Art Forms: Ceramics, Pottery

Phone: 814-321-2385

Email: lynnanneverbeck@gmail.com

Lynn Anne Verbeck attained her Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics from the State University of New York in New Paltz, NY, graduating in May 2011. She possesses extensive expertise in all technical facets of pottery craftsmanship. Lynn Anne imparts her knowledge in various pottery techniques, ranging from hand-building to mold-making and slip-casting. Her proficiency extends to wood firing, as well as electric, gas, and soda-firing methods.

Originally hailing from Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, Lynn Anne was born and raised in this rural region. Growing up amidst its serene landscapes nurtured her deep affinity for the natural world, which is evident in her artistic creations.

Following the completion of her undergraduate studies at Penn State University, Lynne Anne relocated to New York City, where she established a studio. For 17 years, she resided, taught, and marketed her artwork in the city. This urban environment, immersed in the vibrant arts scene, broadened her perspective, and enriched her artistic journey. With her wealth of experience, Lynn Anne is well-equipped to guide and inspire emerging artists.

Maeve's Art Forms: Multidisciplinary Arts

Phone: 814-933-7821

Email: openmusicpa@gmail.com

Maeve graduated from Penn State University with a BFA, specifically in Integrative Arts, in 2018. She has experience with ceramics, fiber arts, found sculpture, acrylic portraiture, and landscaping, along with ample knowledge of important movements in art. She would be very comfortable with hosting art workshops in these areas. She has shown in art galleries, as well as local arts festivals.

Outside of this, Maeve has been an active musician with a focus on percussion and beat making. Her foundation in music is in concert percussion, which also includes marching percussion, winter drum line competition, and jazz ensembles. Maeve started learning percussion in elementary school and has kept up her own practice and studies since then. She can read sheet music and compose with notation. She has moved her focus from marching percussion to jazz to midi focused/synth focused beat making. Using tools like Ableton lite, Pro Tools, and Garage Band, Maeve has developed a curriculum and practiced around music production. Her professional success includes playing at several local music festivals, organizing local music shows, and sound engineering for shows.

Maeve is most passionate about fostering creativity in schools, as well as helping others break loose from rigid ideas surrounding creative expression to overcome internal blocks. She enjoys helping others develop as artists or musicians. There is always an opportunity to learn which new technology can help make creativity more accessible to people who would otherwise not consider it.

Olivia's Art Forms: Visual Arts

Phone: 814-599-2285

Email: o.m.mays91@gmail.com

Conceptual art is something Olivia has struggled with. Olivia was stuck trying to create “original” artwork and concepts. During their master’s program, a fine arts professor told them that there is nothing "new” or “original” in today’s world. We take our experiences and feelings and use that to create our “new.” That really stuck with them as an artist and an educator. Olivia now tries to create work that evokes thought and contemplation in the viewer. Even if the viewer interprets their art differently than their intended meaning, Olivia considers that a success as it shows the viewer finding some connection with their art. Olivia is very passionate about creating an experience for their viewers; to evoke an emotional, mental, or physical connection. This connection is what Olivia feels makes art. If their artwork forces you to stop and look, Olivia did what they set out to do.

Currently, Olivia is working with watercolor, gouache, oil paints, pastels (usually used in street paintings) and installation art. They are trained in traditional drawing and painting techniques but have been experimenting with mixed media and pushing the boundaries of traditional techniques. Olivia does have experience of paper making, fabric dying, wood working, acrylic paint, oil paint, watercolor, gouache, fiber arts, and mixed media. They have created works for the State College Arts Fest in the Italian street painting section for five years. Olivia's focus there has been creating realistic portraits using chalk pastel. The interaction between the artist and the viewer during the street painting is amazing and unique. Being able to interact with your viewer is not something that is common in the art world. This interaction feels like performance art, which Olivia loves!

Terry's Art Forms: Mosaic Murals, Tile Art

Phone: 814-237-6670

Email: terryjtiles@gmail.com

Terry holds a BFA from the University of North Texas and an MFA from Penn State. She served on the faculty of Penn State Altoona from 1995 – 2002. Since that time, she has been a rostered artist for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.