The Baltimore Ekphrasis Project – Author and Artist Bios

Elinor Abbott is a writer in Baltimore, MD. Her essays have been published by Adbusters, The Hairpin, Bright Wall/ Dark Room and other publications. You can find more of her writing at littlethousand.tumblr.com.

Carlton Anderson: I have been interested in art since I was 10 years old but it wasn’t until I had an internship at the American Visionary Art Museum that I fell in love with art and made it my passion. I assisted on the mosaic tiling project prominently displayed along the outside of the museum. After my internship, I continued to develop myself more as an artist in my spare time. I started my brand, HeartLife Clothing, which shows my love and enthusiasm for art on clothing, canvas, and other mediums including skateboards and backpacks. All of my clothing designs are handmade and screen printed in my studio. I believe my attention to detail shows people the love I have for my craft. My goal is to get people to think outside the box and see art the way I do – with intensity, passion and an open mind.

Amy Arthur’s poems have appeared in Blackbird, Birmingham Poetry Review, Unsplendid, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from Johns Hopkins University, where she works as an editorial assistant to The Hopkins Review.

Baltimore Hoop Love:  Jes Raschella and Andreas “Spilly” Spiliadis collaborate artistically in life and in business, making art out of their urban Heckel Farm and their circus ventures through Baltimore Hoop Love.

David Beaudouin, native to Baltimore, is a widely published poet and performer. He was the founder of Tropos Press, Inc. (1976-2001), one of the region’s most respected alternative literary presses, as well as THE PEARL (1980-2001), a Baltimore journal of the literary and “spontaneous” arts. He served for more than a decade as a literary panelist for the Mayor’s Committee on Arts and Culture and was instrumental in the creation of the Artscape Literary Arts Award. Published works include: Ten Poems (1973); Gig (1976); Catenae (1989); Ode to Stella (1990); American Night (1992); Human Nature (1995).

Jennifer Bishop has been living and photographing in Baltimore City since 1975. She published a weekly stand alone photo in every issue of Baltimore’s City Paper for 17 years (1977-1994).  She also worked as a staff photographer for the News American, and since 1981 has freelanced, shooting pictures for a variety of magazines, agencies, and institutions all over the world. In 2006, she started Maryland’s first Heart Gallery, a photo exhibit to promote adoption of children with special needs. Currently, she writes and shoots for projects that advocate for better lives for people with disabilities.

William Brown: I am 22 years old and art is my life; it’s a 3-dimensional reality, so I should never take it for granted. I have been drawing since I was 3 years old. I wish to one day change the world.

Jacob Budenz is a writer/performance artist/actor/witch living in Baltimore City. He is a resident actor for the Baltimore Annex Theater, and his writing has appeared in Potluck Magazine, Sein und Werden, JMWW. His work has been performed at the EMP Collective, The Johns Hopkins University, the Transmodern Festival, and La Xata La Rifa in Spain.

Dottie Campbell:  I have worked with a variety of media in my career as a visual artist. Photography has played an integral role in all of the work. Goucher College: B.A. in Visual Arts, emphasis in photorealistic painting. Maryland Institute, College of Art, Photography Certificate. Photographs shown at Maryland Institute galleries, BMA, and the Maryland General Assembly. Photographs referenced for drawings which toured Japanese Museums and Maryland galleries. Marketed line of fiber crafts with photorealistic images shown in three American Craft Council shows. Current work: large-scale digital color photographs. Won the National and International National Geographic Photography Contests. See more of her work at www.dottiecampbell.com.

Dayna Carpenter is a watercolor aficionado inspired by the rolling hills and vast skyscapes of her home state of Maine.  She is a graduate of the University of Maine, and has had her work displayed in a variety of locales, including the Maine College of Art, The University of Maine, Island Artisans Gallery, and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland.

Se Jong Cho: I am a scientist by trade. I completed B.S. in civil engineering at Northwestern University in 2003, M.S. in environmental engineering in 2009, M.S.E in environmental management and economics, and continue to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. My research concerns mitigation of water pollution in the Upper Mississippi due to modern intensive agricultural practices.

Juliana Grace Converse is a fiction writer born in Washington, D.C., but prefers her new home in Baltimore City. She has been published in BlazeVOX and What Weekly, and was recently awarded first place in the F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing through NYU, and completes residencies twice a year in Paris.

Caryn Coyle lives in Baltimore and has been writing fiction for eight years. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Cobalt Review, Gargoyle, Three Quarter Review, The Journal (Santa Fe), JMWW, The Little Patuxent Review, Loch Raven Review, Midway Journal, Smile Hon, You’re in Baltimore among others. Her fiction has won awards from the Maryland Writers Association, the Delmarva Review, the Missouri Writers Guild, the St. Louis Writers Guild and the New Millennium. “Detour” was published by the Missouri State Poetry Society’s On the Edge Anthology, 2012.

Matthew Clarke Davis is a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts, focusing on oil painting, collage and illustration.

Marlayna Demond is a semi-recent graduate from UMBC, and is a photographer both for her alma mater and for her own business. While taking photographs professionally has always been the goal/dream job, taking photos for herself & just to be creative is now the goal when thinking about spare time. Marlayna also likes traveling to various cities to explore new places, or just catching up with friends at coffee shops. See more of her work at marlaynaphotography.com.

Tracy Dimond co-curates Ink Press Productions. Her MFA thesis, I Want Your Tan, will be released in May by Ink Press. She is also the author of Grind My Bones Into Glitter, Then Swim Through The Shimmer (NAP 2014) and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today (Ink Press 2013). Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Shabby Doll House, glitterMOB, Coconut, Sink Review, Dusie, Real Pants, and other places.

Jim Doran:  I love raccoons and limes.

Edward Doyle-Gillespie: I am a long-time Hampden resident. Holding a degree in History from George Washington University, and an MLA from JHU, I spent roughly ten years in the field of education. My writing has appeared in journals and books in US and other Western nations.

Christian Elder is an Industrial Designer for Stanley Black & Decker. He is a fun team mate who is dedicated to producing the best products possible within the boundaries set forth by his clients. Elder is known for innovative problem solving and deeply exploring the intricacies surrounding power tool ergonomics. His most recent product to market, DEWALT’s DCF620, is a perfect example of his creative spirit. While he spends most of his time digitally sketching and rendering products for others, his work here reflects a more personal endeavor to engage in fine arts. You can find a sample of his previous work on his personal website: www.cargocollective.com/christianelder .

Aurora Engle-Pratt is a writer, artist, and cat enthusiast living in Baltimore, MD. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of publications including Welter and Row Home Lit.

Cheryl Fair is a photographer/digital artist and filmmaker living in Baltimore MD. Her photographic style has been described as “Magical Realism” or “Colorful Photo-secessionist” Cheryl’s published work includes editorial photos for various newspapers and magazines, art photographs for exhibition in galleries, short experimental films, and music videos.

Katie Feild has been living in Bflat7 for years, and is approximately Gflat7 in height (though she hopes to spring to Fmajor any day now). she is enamored with sounds and mappings, enjoys puzzling over packaging, and treats each project she meets like a person. She loves love, and works and plays like the rest of you. And she’d prefer to hear all about yourself.

Sylvia Fischbach-Braden, a native of Indiana, is plorking (working + playing) on her M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publication Arts at University of Baltimore. She has a BFA in Painting from MICA. She lives with cat and husband in a Hampden rowhouse.

Jared T. Fischer of Baltimore, MD produces comics and writes for a variety of publications including Splice Today, Thought Catalog, and diverse online zines. He runs wu-wei fashion mag with his friends.

Fitz Fitzgerald once experienced rapture on the I-83 overpass near the city prison in Baltimore when he sensed that everything runs on love and electricity. He recently won the mummified squirrel award for his participation in the haiki LED project.

Eric D. Goodman is the author of Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus Books, 2011), winner of the 2012 Gold Medal for Best Fiction in the Mid-Atlantic Region from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Tracks takes place on a train from Baltimore to Chicago. He’s also author of Flightless Goose, a storybook for children, and Dead and Buried (Blue Heron Books), a thriller. Eric is a regular literary contributor to Baltimore’s WYPR, and his work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Pedestal Magazine, The Potomac, JMWW and Scribble, among others. Learn more at www.EricDGoodman.com or connect at www.Facebook.com/EricDGoodman.

Juliette Goodwin: My work considers how things age — the stages of plants and flowers through life spans and seasons, how an aging digital captures light and object. I also think a lot about maps, the really old kind, and secrets revealed through them about the society in which they were created, and wonder if the maps I make are sharing a secret, too.

Alina Grigorovitch lives in Baltimore where she writes, draws, and runs the Baltimore Writing Hour, a public writers’ group. See more of her work on newtothepublic.com.

Tracy Hauser: I read more than I clean, I leave the house with wet hair. I listen to tough long songs in the car cause that’s what it’s like to teach. I grade papers with a purple pen, eat hummus sandwiches, miss Keith Oberman on the news. I record live rock shows to steal future story content. Filtering’s my favorite word cause “uninventive” is my least. Keeping a wall nearby is handy for knocking my head ‘till I can find the right words to describe. I’ve been published about thirty times, lately in magazines like the Rusty Nail and Chatsworth Press.

A. J. Hayes writes poetry, dabbles in visual art and publishes fiction under the name A. Jarrell Hayes. He lives in Baltimore, where he runs small press Hidden Clearing Books, LLC. Find out more at www.ajhayes.com.

Matt Hohner, a Baltimore native, holds an M.F.A. in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where he won the 1996 Ted Berrigan Scholarship and the 1996-97 Honors Scholarship. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Baltimore Review, Dancing Shadow Review, The Potomac, Lily, The Mom Egg Review, Truck, The Five-Two, and Free State Review. His chapbook, States, was published by Third Ear Books. For four years Hohner hosted the monthly poetry reading series “Second Saturdays” at the Red Canoe Bookstore & Café in Baltimore. Hohner is a former English teacher for Baltimore County Public Schools.

Lorraine Imwold works primarily as a printmaker. As a self taught artist Lorraine seeks growth and development in her art through subject matter. In each series she explores balance and line, as well as the way that life is reflected in her art. Whether her subject is an abstracted view of something every day, or is capturing the darker moments of days gone by, Lorraine strives to create art that adds to the texture of life. Lorraine takes commissions regularly and welcomes the collaboration with each new client.

Dave K. is Baltimore’s second favorite local author, and also a Gothic castle in northern Slovakia.

Ashlie Kauffman received her MFA in Poetry from New York University and is currently completing a fiction MFA at the University of Maryland. Her recognitions include a Semi-Finalist nomination for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship for Younger Poets and an Independent Artist Award in Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She is Senior Poetry Editor of the online literary journal jmww, manages the Remington Village Green community garden, and teaches at the University of Maryland.

Sanzi Kermes’ art practice media: screen print, letterpress, painting, sculpture, installation.

Dylan Kinnett is the founding editor of Infinity’s Kitchen. His work has been published by Industry Night, Otoliths, Seltzer, and others.

Leonard Kogan is an artist who lives and works in Baltimore, MD. Exhibitions of Leonard’s works include “Wall flowers” in Herzliya Museum, “The After Light” at the Andy Warhol Factory in New York, “SUR/FACE/S” at the Nexus Project Gallery in New York, a show at the museum of Yanko-Dada in Israel, “Project Diversity” at the Sputnik Gallery in Brooklyn and others. Leonard’s art has been featured in a number of literary and art magazines, often contributing to the covers. A publication in the Little Patuxent Review issue of “Doubt” features Leonard’s recent works and an interview with the artist.

Minás Konsolas develops his canvases by adding and eliminating multiple layers of paint. He creates his textured images by scraping and smearing. This process allows him to paint and draw at the same time. Minás was born in Greece and has lived in Baltimore since 1976, where he graduated from the Maryland Institute, College of Art. He is former owner of Minás Gallery, an outlet for poetry, both visual and verbal. The gallery, one of Baltimore’s alternative art spaces, was located above his vintage clothing boutique in Hampden. It was a gathering spot for local artists, writers and performers for twenty-two years. Minás has participated in two public mural projects for Baltimore City, in Greektown and at the Farmers’ Market. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Maryland Poetry Review and Passager. His original artwork and reproductions are widely collected, locally, nationally and abroad.

Kevin Krause resides in Baltimore, MD, and is an alum of the University of Baltimore’s graduate program in creative writing and publishing arts. His work has previously appeared in journals and magazines including JMWW, Folio, and Urbanite.

Judith Krummeck is a broadcaster and writer living in Baltimore. She is the evening drive time host of Maryland’s classical music station, WBJC, and before immigrating to the United States she was the arts editor for SAfm at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Judith received a BA in Drama and History of Art from the University of Cape Town, and an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. Her memoir, Beyond the Baobab, is available at newworldnotes.wordpress.com/beyond-the-baobab.

Seola Lee is a writer/doodler/translator/food runner who lives in Baltimore, MD, and currently works at Baltimore City Paper as an intern. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she moved to Baltimore in 2011 to pursue a degree in The Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University. She writes poems, short stories, and essays in both Korean and English, whenever she manages to pull out her feet from the aphasic limbo in the middle of the two languages. You can check out her doodles at http://plasticmarmalade.tumblr.com/.

Dara Lorenzo was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1983. She attended West Virginia University for Painting, 2001-2004 and received her B.S in Printmaking from Towson University in 2008. Most recently, she has completed an MFA in Printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute. Dara’s current work explores the claiming of spaces, through treading and marking also the layering of memories through photographic printmaking processes, also the importance of narrative in our lives. With a focus on the expressive forms found in carving, writing, construction and deconstruction, her work discovers the way we inhabit places and change them to suit our personalities and daily lives. Some of her photography projects involve collaborating with strangers who interact with places in a unique way. She develops her photography pieces through a photo-intaglio print process, combining painting and printmaking processes on the plate to combine her old and new techniques. Dara’s work is being exhibited nationally. Her last solo exhibition was in Saint Louis, MO, at The Foundry Art Centre, and it was called, Enraptured by Messages. Dara is an Artist In Residence at Kala Institute and respectively taught printmaking at Towson University. She has also taught printmaking at Maryland Institute College of Art for their Extension Program in the Summer 2013. She has also taught Photo-etching Workshops in Austin, TX at Flatbed Press, as well as in Washington, D.C. at Pyramid Atlantic Press. Dara’s latest project is collaboration with a writer from Baltimore, MD, Timothy Reed. Currently doing lithographic prints with the information from tombstones in Baltimore, MD and other American cities’ gravesites. They are creating fictional stories about the once lived lives of those perished.

Born in 1958 in Worcester, MA, Kate MacKinnon received her BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1992 and her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003. Her work was featured in New American Paintings issue No. 63. MacKinnon’s paintings have been widely exhibited in the United States and appear in the collections of Maryland General Hospital, The Cordish Family Collection, The Bozzuto Group, Hilton Hotels Corporation, as well as numerous private collections. Kate is currently an artist-in-residence at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, Maryland and is represented by Jordan Faye Contemporary, Baltimore, MD.

Kat Malone, a local Baltimore writer has been writing for Smile Hon, You’re In Baltimore since it’s inception. She has been featured in the Winter Edition of The Loch Raven Review. When not out walking around town with German Shepherd she is a whiskey enhanced witty retort specialist.

Howard Markman: I was born and then some stuff happened. Started playing guitar, writing songs and playing in bands. Then some other stuff happened, but the guitar playing, song writing, and playing in bands (Palookaville, disappear fear, Bloomsday, etc…) continues. And for that I feel pretty damn lucky.

Mandy May is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. In her free time, she hangs out with her cats, Babe and Faustus, eats cheese, and ponders ghosts of all kinds.

Anthony Moll is a Californian expat living in Baltimore. His work has appeared in O-Dark-Thirty, Gertrude Journal, Baltimore Gay Life and Assaracus. He has taught writing at University of Baltimore and University of California, Santa Cruz, where once, while running, he saw an otter. His MFA is kept in a postal tube in the trunk of his car, for luck.

Timothy Nohe is an artist and educator engaging traditional and electronic media in civic life and public places. His recent work has been focused on place and sustainability, and musical works that blur the line between electronic and contemporary classical music. His art is realized in documentary works, site-specific sound and video installations, media for museums, and music for performances.

Nicole K. Ostrowski recently started painting again, focusing this time on process. Her favorite processes are drip and pour, using acrylic paint. She finds drip and pour painting relaxing and surprising; Nicole loves seeing the abstract end results created from little manipulation on her part. (She also just loves the messiness!) When she’s not painting, Nicole enjoys spending time with her husband, Joe, and three rat boys (SquEarl, Scrappy, and Cowbelly) in Westminster, MD.

Erin Ouslander is an award-winning sellout. She has worked in graphic design and advertising for commercial and non-profit organizations for the past 10 years, and generally refuses to create art outside of normal business hours. Erin has lived in and around Baltimore her entire life because it is the Greatest City in America.

Carly Richmond is a photographer living in Carroll County, MD.

Maggie Robbins was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. Graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in interdisciplinary sculpture, her work spans from three dimensional printing, metal, wood, digital prints & hard copy collage. Works can be seen at http://cargocollective.com/maggierobbins. Publication in http://thenarrator.org/.

Heather Rounds’ debut novel, entitled There, won Emergency Press’ International Book Award in 2011 and was published by the Press in 2013. Her poetry and short works of fiction have appeared in such places as PANK, The Baltimore Review, DecomP, Poet Lore, Blue Stem, Big Lucks, Smokelong Quarterly and elsewhere. She’s a co-founder of the roaming curatorial collective The Rotating History Project and currently lives in Baltimore.

Magan Ruthke is a children’s museum director by day, painter by night, and like so many creates what she can in the time that life allows. She loves the water and the communities that it defines. From the exotic Grecian coasts, to the turn-on-a-dime J-22’s in the Harbor of Baltimore, to the milky brown Bush River that was her childhood playground. So much of what Magan creates these days comes from a place created by thoughts of her time with the water; the peace it brings or the adventure it inspires.

Bob Schofield is the author and illustrator of The Inevitable June. His work has appeared in Hobart, Shabby Doll House, Everyday Genius, and Bright Wall/Dark Room. He likes what words and pictures do. Find him at bobschofield.tumblr.com.

Whitney G. Schultz is an English teacher in Baltimore County. Before relocating to Baltimore, she completed her MFA in poetry at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she studied poetry.

Laura Shovan is poetry editor for Little Patuxent Review. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura edited the Maryland Writers’ Association anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems and co-edited Voices Fly: An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artists-in-Residence Program, for which she teaches. Laura was a 2012 Rita Dove Poetry Award finalist and a 2013 Gettysburg Review Conference for Writers scholarship winner. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her novel-in-verse for children, will be published by Wendy Lamb Books/Random House in 2016.

Mary Kunaniec Skeen holds a BFA is painting from MICA and an MFA in photography; has been awarded three MSAC Individual Artist Awards and has exhibited nationally and internationally.

Anna Slesinski is a Baltimore native who writes grant proposals by day and poetry by night. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore.

CarlaJean Valluzzi hails from the beautiful Pioneer Valley region of Western Massachusetts & now makes her home in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. She creates extraordinary hand-bound artist’s books, journals and other forms of paper-based ephemera. Many contain original words, all are comprised of original ideas; some are composed using a variety of found imagery.

Gregg Wilhelm founded the literary arts organization CityLit Project in 2004 and serves as publisher of its CityLit Press imprint. He has worked for several independent presses and has taught writing and publishing courses at several universities. In 2014, Gregg earned an MFA from the University of Tampa and won a Rubys Artists Project Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. www.GreggWilhelm.com.

Beth Schabb Williams is an eclectic artist who has a BFA in Graphic Design and studied Metal Smithing, but her interests have evolved over the years towards collage, assemblage, and working with fabric. The color and pattern combinations in fabric and paper (especially magazines) are endless, exciting, and she loves to play with the tension they create. She is the staff member in charge of the art room at a non-traditional k-12 private school, where the students lead their own educational experience. She loves to inspire and mentor through her own passion for art.

Edward Williams graduated with a Bachelors Degree of Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. He has successfully run his own decorative painting and mural business since 1987. He has won awards for his work, been nationally published and received Baltimore’s Best Decorative Artist by Baltimore Magazine. Edward annually volunteers his mural services to a non-profit project for a community mural. Edward participates to many plein air events and displays his paintings in local galleries.

Rupert Wondolowski is the author of the books Mattress In an Alley, Raft Upon the Sea (Fell Swoop Press), The Origin of Paranoia as a Heated Mole Suit (Publishing Genius Press) and The Whispering of Ice Cubes (Shattered Wig Press). He has edited and published The Shattered Wig Review since 1988. He sings and plays in The Mole Suit Choir with Elizabeth Downing and co-owns Normal’s Books & Records in Waverly.

Matthew Zingg‘s work can be read in the Paris American, Cider Press Review, Blackbird, Muzzle, Everyday Genius and Big Lucks among others. He Lives in Baltimore where he curates the Federal Dust Reading Series.

Mychael Zulauf is a poet, musician, and book artist currently living in Baltimore. When he spends too much time alone, he starts making up little songs to accompany whatever he’s doing at the moment, like warming up soup or passing by the 795 Owings Mills/Reisterstown exit.