Roots | Juried Exhibition
Forum Gallery
Curated by Al Macdougall, this exhibition centers around themes of personal histories, familial histories, and paying homage to home-whether that be Akron or an abstract feeling. This theme will also honor Summit Artspace for all it has done for its artists and patrons since its inception. Mediums include—but are not limited to—textile, film, and mixed media photography. Works will emphasize a cultural tie to heritage or documentation.
Did you know?
Most of the artwork on display at Summit Artspace is for sale.
Click on the artwork images for pricing and more information about each piece.
If you would like to purchase any art, please visit a staff member or volunteer at the front desk, or email natalie@summitartspace.org.
Special thanks to Bradley Hart, Summit Artspace resident artist, for photography of virtual exhibitions!
1. Care Hanson | All My Mothers | $275
Hand dyed papers, collaged images, and thread
18”W x 26”H
Artist Statement:
This handsewn paper collage was created as a Mother’s Day reflection in the year following my Mom’s death. It includes photos of 4 generations of our family, ranging from baby me back to my great grandmothers. Images of birds and eggs hold thoughts of nesting, nurturing and flying away. (Two of these ancestors were gone all too soon…) The stitches are uneven; the edges raw. The lives of these women weren’t easy or without sorrow. In my mind, memories & their stories now intertwine & overlap, some thin as paper. Yet their lives and legacies were warm with love; rich as a handsewn quilt. These women laid down roots that nurture and ground me still…and they inspire me to do the same.
2. Kenny Borsch | Our Memory Lies Here | $1,000
Handbound book made of wedding dresses, mulberry paper, latex, and 35mm film prints
34″ x 24″
Artist Statement:
Our Memory Lies Here is a book bound with mulberry paper and the cloth of worn wedding dresses. Through this I consider a garment that once belonged to someone else, symbolizing one of the most significant days of someone’s life, now becoming transverse by my own love and grief. A collective history that binds me to women I will never meet and who do not know I exist. My artistic process is rooted in mixed media, where I use materials to build and remove layers that reveal and conceal details, reflecting the emotional flow of exposure and repression. I use these elements to preserve the essence of these memories, embedding them into physical, visual narratives.
3. Amelia Casiano | Rely | $800
Mixed media
24″ x 24″
4. Amelia Casiano | Introduction | $600
Mixed media
16″ x 20″
Artist Statement:
Amelia Casiano delivers her artwork in various mediums but mainly her artwork is acrylic paint. The artwork that she creates and reflects what she wants to bring about Cleveland and the world. Her work delivers her lifestyle, fashion, technology, inner awareness of nature and environments. The effect of glow and pastel and bright colors are used within her artwork. Through various topics such as womanhood, climate change, local conflicts and international situations. The use of forms and colors create a dialogue within her work through landscapes, community and portraits. That even through roles and the transparent dialogue is the way to demonstrate the connectedness between different cultures. While growing up in the Westside of Cleveland, as an artist this has allowed her to communicate her message as an artist. She wants to get an understanding of how to work with her own craft and her culture. Her work delivers a standpoint and interconnectedness between extroverted and introverted personality, equity, quiet or loud, soft and movement. She uses this through light and deep colors while demonstrating organic figures. While growing up in Cleveland, it has allowed her to look at the environment’s subtleness in her work and cultural awareness that are in her own customs and traditions while diversifying herself in the city. The work she puts together is one that progresses and has a dynamic reality in which she portrays her style that works best.
5. Asia Armour | The Kemet Venus | $1,200
Mixed media collage
24″ x 36″
Artist Statement:
The Kemet Venus reimagines ancient beauty, lineage, and rebirth through a modern Black feminine lens. Rooted in personal and ancestral memory, the figure emerges from a seashell surrounded by blooming roses—symbols of blossoming identity, legacy, and sacred femininity. The blue and gold patterned sky echoes regal histories, while floating butterflies and lush landscapes embody renewal and transformation. Through vibrant collage, this piece pays homage to cultural roots, ancestral power, and the timeless act of self-becoming.
6. Janet Mikolajczyk | Rock why is everything so hard (2) | $140
Digital collage
16″ x 20″
Artist Statement:
This digital collage is composed of my photographs of rocks and my shoes. I combine these images with images of art history. For example, I use Magritte’s rock carrying figure in “The Song Of Violet” and Duchamp’s “Fresh Widow”. The carved lions is my photograph of the Islamic hitching post from the Cleveland museum of art.
7. Kathryn Skidmore | Jonas | NFS
Mixed media
18” x 24”
Artist Statement:
This is a representational mixed media collage of my only child Jonas. Through symbolic imagery it shows a glimpse into his innocence and childhood experience.
8. Care Hanson | A Caroline/Carolyn Collaboration | $275
Vintage materials, gloves, hankie, pillow case piece, notions, thread, and knitting needles
13.5” W x 36”H
Artist Statement:
I have only the haziest memories of my great-grandmother Caroline Susanne. Perhaps they’re simply memories of the stories told about her, for she died before my fourth birthday. Regardless, I’ve always felt a close kinship with this tiny, strong, bespectacled woman. My full name is a late ‘50s version of hers, but the connection runs deeper than our shared names. ‘Old Grandma’s’ quilts warmed our childhood beds with colorful patterns cut from worn-out shirts & dresses. Her crocheted doilies sat beneath centerpieces of painted china on the dining room table and my mother’s very best hankies had been upgraded by Caroline’s lace trims. Caroline’s countless stitches were tiny & even, each made without a sewing machine. Corners lined up well, but always with an inherent softness. The love in all her textiles was evident and tactile.
9. Miles Budimir | New Beginnings: Summer 1969 | NFS
Photographic collage
10″ x 8″
Artist Statement:
In reflecting on the theme of “roots,” I was reminded of my mother’s roots in Akron, OH, which she set down in 1969 as in immigrant from Yugoslavia. Conversations with my mother revealed the house and the street where she first lived in the U.S., arriving in 1969 to visit her uncle who had made a home here in the U.S. after WW II. Finding the house in Akron still standing and occupied in 2025, I combined a recent image with photographs in my mother’s photo albums from that time, when she lived in the house. I added a few other images to evoke the idea that though she was now living in a different country, her home country was still very much a part of her and the new community in which she found herself, raising questions about identity, belonging, family, and human migration; all themes that are as relevant in our own time as they were in 1969. Themes, in fact, which are universally human and timeless.
10. Sydney Kay | Ja’lyn | $6,500
4-color fused glass (screen-printed glass powders)
6″ x 8″
11. Sydney Kay | Ramat | $6,500
4-color fused glass (screen-printed glass powders)
6″ x 8″
Artist Statement:
“Don’t Touch Me” is an expansion of a previous project called “Delicate”. “Don’t Touch Me” pushes the idea further to talk about Black Women’s fight to keep control of their right to consent. The right to say no and how to say to no has always been a struggle for Black Women. Ranging from reframing questions and statements to having to say no multiple times in a polite manner so you don’t come off as too aggressive. This work is a collection of mixed media that people want to touch, but cannot, to show this struggle. By making artwork with different textures of items included, like fused glass or flocking. The idea is to show the viewer how Black Women are viewed as objects most times but aren’t. They are just people at the end of the day, just like them.
12. Ashley Strub | Carousel | NFS
Oil paint on Dura-Lar and wood
27″ x 52″
Artist Statement:
This painting, like much of my work, is influenced by light. Specifically how it shapes our memory and perception of a place. A place is where habitation shapes geometric form and in turn geometric form shapes habitation, hence the geometric forms present throughout most my work. The dark blues and purples with the slightly more organic shapes conjure up an idea of cosmic, simple deepness. Which could be reminiscent of a basement, night sky, large body of water or a feeling. The rough, obviously handmade nature of this painting is intentional and is meant to prompt the idea of home as something simple, primitive, habitual and crafted.
13. Zackary Hoon | Rubber Worker | $525
Infrared photography
24″ x 32″
Artist Statement:
Through infrared photography, I create dreamlike images that can appear both nostalgic and futuristic. Since infrared light is reflected most in foliage, leaves and grass are where the effects are most obvious. In B&W images leaves and grass appear white while skies appear black. In color images, my converted cameras render all vegetation in a single color while the sky is captured in a second color. These two colors are different depending on what wavelength of light I have my camera set to capture. However, since infrared light falls outside the visible spectrum, I feel that the colors the camera assigns are arbitrary and I will sometimes change their values in post production. My hope is to present the viewer not with a literal representation of the subject I capture but rather an more personal experience akin to a memory that expresses its true essence.
14. Meryl Engler | Warm Light | $1,800
Reduction woodcut, chalk pastel
28″ x 38″ framed
Artist Statement:
When I first moved to Akron in the fall of 2019, I had no intention of making the city my home long term, but Akron has a way of seeping into your soul. Moving here has given me a new life I could not have had anywhere else. To me, Akron is a place full of people who care deeply for their community and continuously fight to make it the best place possible and I love being a part of that. This image was taken in our backyard in Akron, a place where we hosted friends and family, gathering in community around the bonfire pit. It was here I started putting down roots and making Akron my home.
15. Megan Summers | Faithful Entanglement | $520
Hand-twisted bare copper wire, driftwood, and natural found materials
11″ x 9″ x 12″
Artist Statement:
This wire-scape displays three twisted copper wire trees intertwined onto a driftwood base. This sculpture is intended to provoke thought about faith and its entanglement with the past, present, and future. Using natural but human influenced materials emphasizes our close connection to the earth and others around us. This visual depiction of the tree’s roots, with the variation in sizes, represents growth. This in return, highlights the idea of “planting roots” or taking action in present day will directly impact the future and therefore, solidifying our past. May we all have meaningful days and faith in how it will impact our futures.
16. Alexia Avdelas | When despina dances, you dance too | NFS
Video animation
1280 x 720 px (video animation)
To watch the full video please click here.
Artist Statement:
My pieces explore body autonomy and focus on the notion of birthing oneself, where the self is consciously constructed and emerges through life experiences, culture and conscious choice. I consider absurdity, humor and repetition within the current state of the world as we see it. Layered content creates confusion, where time is nonlinear, multiple experienced moments are connected and exist simultaneously. I keep record of my life through video, photo, sketches and writing. There’s comfort and catharsis in these repetitive actions and years of documentation starts to overlap and become overwhelming, time feels displaced. Layered audio works like static, without coherence, and becomes a lullaby of familiarity. In this piece, I use my Greek/Pontian culture as a means of reflecting on current events. Pontian style dance is a serious style, representing those who have gone to war and died for their families and freedom. It serves as a way to remember our history and preserve the experiences of our family. Many dances were lost during the Pontian Genocide, which is why I reference experiencing moments allows me to recall others. Pontian dance, characterized by its choreography and participation, reflects on loss in both the loss of homeland and ancestors. Current world events allow for recall and contemplation, where the present day and past timelines are now connected and exist together.
17. Levaille Eitzman | Roots: Hue Contrast | NFS
Found objects, thread, nail polish, and resin
10” x 12” x 4”
Artist Statement:
I was assigned pink at birth, but it didn’t quite match my insides, but the discomfort was subtle, because the true hue contrast was subtle.
18. Eliz Soe | Souls Tied to Kent State | NFS
Pen
6″ x 8″
19. James Buckey | Circles of Influence | NFS
Photography and digital art printed on 100% cotton giclée
11″ x 17″
Artist Statement:
From the top of Goodyear Middle School to the front of Derby Downs. Tire tread, a reused geode sample, and varying size color halftones throughout. I washed out all the power lines in the gradient maps and made my own with the breaks in the samples. Flush with personal importance and perspectives from all eras of my youth: from earliest memories to defiant teenage moments. A thorough visual “texture” can be “felt” through the eyes on the cold-press cotton paper, heightened at different points and at different lighting angles. Vivid with color, but washed out the same way a memory feels.
20. Jada Green | End of the Road | $80
Four color silkscreen on Stonehenge
20″ x 14″
Artist Statement:
Green’s interest lies in the exploration of surreal spaces. She takes pieces of landscape and figure from life and combines them with an imaginary space to push a narrative derived from topics like migration, displacement, generational trauma, tradition, and institutionalized violence. She tackles these subjects in a satirical manner to illuminate them in a more inviting way. It is essential to acknowledge the uncomfortable aspects of history while also creating a safe and even fun environment for the audience. This generates an innate curiosity and vibrancy to the works, which is integral to the experience. By taking her own familial history and experiences, the good and the bad, she relates to a broader audience of marginalized individuals.
21. Shannon Casey | Home is a Time Capsule | $1,200
Oil paint
48″ x 43″
Artist Statement:
“Home as a Time Capsule” was designed as two oil paintings that work together to tell a bigger story. The old house I grew up in Stow was actually two houses that were put together and it was probably built in the mid-1800s. It was a great place to grow up. My four sisters and I found arrowheads in the garden, hung plastic spiders from the heating register grates (fooling no one), and posed for school pictures on the same rock slab in the yard every year. There was a scary basement and a mysterious access panel in one of the bedrooms, which we were sure was the entrance to an attic full of treasures. With decades of memories, the house almost felt like a family member — it was that much a part of the fabric of our lives. It was a receptacle of memories, good and sad, a free-standing time capsule of a house. The second painting shows a cutaway, almost like a dollhouse, of the different floors of the house and some of the actual memories enacted. I designed “toppers” for each painting to accentuate and give each painting an appropriate roof.
22. Maliyah Clark | EL.Simone 1970- | $350
Cotton t-shirt, heat transferred shirt decal
18″ x 24″
Artist Statement:
In the summer of 2024, I spent the summer in New York City. I had been fortunate enough to intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art. During this internship, I was able to sit in on a meeting about the upcoming Amy Sherald exhibition. Rue, one of the curators, talked about how only two of Amy Sherald’s works were recognizable people. Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, one extremely exceptional and the first of many. The other’s life wasn’t cherished as it should be. Rue also highlighted the history of portraits in American art, and museum collections often lack Black people. This meeting reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother the last day she was in New York City to see me off for the summer. She had told me that she wanted me, or my sister, to draw her for her obituary. It’s a morbid line of thinking, but that’s just the way she is. Hearing Rue talk about the importance of Black portraiture motivated me to create this artwork of my mother. It made me realize that Black people shouldn’t have to be exceptional or murdered to have their likeness immortalized in a painting. Even Michelle Obama had said she was the first person in her family to have her portrait painted. I immortalized my mother while she can still see it. I do allude to mortality in this artwork by surrounding my mother with mint that is wilting at the bottom. This is a plant that my mother loves to keep growing in the window of her kitchen. Mint is notoriously easy to keep alive, yet my mom often kills it. This shows a personal connection to her, and still shows the mortality of all living things. The last way I showcase those themes is by applying this portrait to a red t-shirt. In the Black community, you often see people put photos of their loved ones that pasted on T-Shirts. Showcasing my mother’s portrait, this way encapsulated the event and ideas that sparked its creation.
23. Sarah Gordon | Dear Diary | NFS
Mod-podge, Gorilla glue, paper, magazine, pamphlet clippings, dice, and domino on canvas
12″ x 16″
Artist Statement:
Dear Diary is a collage which shows some of my growth over one of my years in undergrad of college. The pieces shows the supporting roots which influence and persuade how I’ve changed or grown as a person. Adorned with magazine clippings, random 3-D objects, and plenty of adhesive, the piece is delivered in a Hodge podge sort of fashion that looks like a messy diary entry. Everything on the canvas is from a different event which held some value for me. At first, I hoarded this pamphlets, papers, and magazines I had collected, holding onto everything. After botching a previous work (the old piece peaks out a little), I decided to re-use a canvas somehow. With a change in mindset, I decided that instead of leaving items to collect dust in my room, I can re-purpose them and revitalize them. So, I chopped a clipped apart the booklets and pamphlets I had, really digging for the parts that stood out to me. In the end, I got rid of a lot of old clutter, but also made something new which I value more. Dear Diary shows little glimpses into what is around me, and what inspires me. A lot of the imagery is reminiscent of things around Cleveland because I attend school up there (CWRU). For example, the map of Edgewater park and the feature of the moCa museum on the canvas pay homage to Cleveland. The rainbow heart symbolizes my queer identity which I accepted in after starting college. And, the the small domino on the bottom corner symbolizes the memory of my loving grandma whom I lost not too long into starting university (she loved to play dominoes against me). The different images on the canvas were selected because to some capacity to speak to me and tell me a story. It’s a diary entry without words.
24. Serenity Norman | Bantu Knots | $500
Wood carving, markers
4″ x 6″
Artist Statement:
This piece, titled Bantu Knots, is inspired by African/African American culture and haircare. Hair is an important aspect of the culture. It is used as a form of self expression and a representation of individuality. Intricate styles and accessories passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years lends to the richest history that has become a staple for black communities worldwide. As an African American woman, this piece was created as a way to express what hair means to me personally through one of my favorite hairstyles, which is Bantu knots (a style that originated from the Zulu tribes of Southern Africa). In a way, it is a love letter to my people, my community, and to myself.
25. Nick Lee | Find me where lightning strikes | NFS
Acrylic paint on canvas
24″ x 24″
Artist Statement:
This still life depicts my grandmother’s traditional Japanese Geta sandals. The sandals sit in front of the viewer without any figure presence. The viewer must wonder to whom these shoes belong to? My grandmother, father, and I have experienced similar experiences as Japanese descent in the United States. These shoes belong to us three. I invite the viewer to think about our perspective as Nikkei people. I fully embrace my culture with this piece, but at the same time I will not be burdened by negative stereotypes about Japanese people. One may think I will be a model minority, which is quiet and submissive. However, I will go for the adventure and chase lightning if I have to.
26. Nick Lee | Lost in Thought | NFS
Acrylic paint on panel
12″ x 16″
27. Shannon Timura | She was the story they forgot to tell | $375
Oil paint on canvas
18″ x 24″
Artist Statement:
This painting explores the quiet power of rootedness and imagination. A solitary chair sits outdoors, its legs growing thick, tangled roots that stretch deep into the earth, an image of legacy and family history, anchoring the present to the past. Seated in the chair is a young girl, absorbed in a book, her posture calm but intent. Above her, white birds circle in flight, embodying memory, freedom, and the stories that transcend time and space. The chair, a symbol of home and belonging, is transformed into a living vessel of ancestry, tradition, and the unseen forces that shape us. The girl represents the next generation, inheriting not just genetics or heirlooms, but stories, values, and unspoken strength. As she reads, she is both grounded and uplifted. The circling birds echo the flow of imagination and wisdom passed down through generations, suggesting that while we are rooted in where we come from, we are also called to rise, explore, and reimagine our place in the world. This piece is also a deeply personal reflection. After recently discovering my biological father and the extended family I never knew-who, in turn, do not know me – I often feel like an outside observer, not even a footnote in their story. And yet, I’m curious. I’m beginning to build connections. These early threads feel like the birds overhead – elusive, circling, difficult to grasp, but undeniably present.
28. Makaylah Clark | Portrait of Elsimone Clark | NFS
Acrylic paint, color pencil, and wax pastel on canvas
20″ x 30″
Artist Statement:
History , there are little records and images of African American people. The records and images we do have only depict a small part of my History. By painting my mother in a royal and commanding portrait I am able to control my own narrative and preserve my family History. I combine my personal History with elements from different cultures to invoke a sense of grandeur. I have her poses in reference to Heuy Newten (co founder of the Black panther party) sitting in a peacock wicker chair holding a gun and spear. I have my mother holding a peacock feather in her right hand which is reference to our west African heritage. A staff in the other hand in reference to our European linage. The overall presentation of the portrait is bases on royal Korean court painting. These paintings often depict the king\queen sitting on a throne against a sold background. At my mother’s feet there’s 4 watermelon seeds (her favorite fruit). Four watermelon seeds representing her four kids. Lastly I covered the dress in royal Korean court landscapes , which has been an ongoing motif in my work. This work is dedicated to my mother and how I wish to remember her.
29. Kellie Wolke | Images from the Project Political Display, Nov. 2024 | NFS
Silver gelatin prints from 35mm film
Artist Statement:
These images are part of a project that spanned five days in Nov. 2024, documenting political displays largely in Columbiana county, where I grew up, and Summit county, where I’ve lived for most of my adult life. All are from Northeast Ohio. While grappling with disbelief, overwhelm, and bitterness regarding the impending election, I was also reflecting on what we do to make our homes speak about who we are.
30. Klair Barr | An Every Day Performance | NFS
Video projection, plastic shower lining, shower caddy, feminine hygiene products, framed written artist statement
4′ x 7′
To watch the full video please click here.
Artist Statement:
When I was ten years old I started growing hair on my arms and legs. It was dark and thick and I started to get funny looks from the kids in my class. I begged my mom to let me shave my legs. She told me ten was too young and that I could shave my legs once I got my first period. Then I would be ready. Sure enough, two weeks later my period came. My mom was so excited she gave me a Christmas present early. I was proud to “become a woman”. I was the second in my class, ahead of the curve. I look back on that tiny version of myself with mixed emotions. How lucky I am to be someone who has always loved womanhood. And how unlucky I am to had to have grown up so young. 15 Years later and I hate shaving my legs. Who am I trying to impress? Who am I performing for? I don’t want to perform womanhood, I just want to be a woman. I don’t even like men, why do they always think I’m doing it for them? But even when I do shave my legs it is still for them. I am sick and tired of comments and nasty looks at my body hair. Just like when I was a little girl I shave my legs just to shut everyone up.
31. Klair Barr | 1386 Ave | NFS
Digital photograph projection, audio, builders foam, tracing paper, copper wire, acrylic paint, and alcohol markers
4′ x 7′
To watch the full video please click here.
Artist Statement:
In 1999 my parents bought their first house. It was little and yellow and about a 20 minute walk from Lake Erie. This meant that during the summer months our little yellow home was covered in mayflies. In projecting my old home onto the wall, much smaller than its actual size, I am comparing my view as an adult with that of a child. The house seems so much smaller than it did when I was young. The seven mayflies mounted on the wall are much larger than in reality. Combining the adult perception of space with the childlike view of the world, I have created a piece that memorializes my childhood home and paints creatures often thought of as disgustig in a much softer light. The audio of wind blowing and bugs trilling places you in the late summer of my youth.
32. Candice Greene | Floral Texture Study | $150
Needle felting, embroidery, and beading
5″ x 7″
Artist Statement:
“Floral Texture Study” is a textile exploration of the relationship of texture and space, using floral imagery to create an intimate scene that begins to break out of the picture plane. The layered needle felting and embroidery uses bold color and textural differences to create contrast and entice the viewer into a closer look. Florals have been a recurring theme to my work as an ode to my grandfather and my earliest childhood memories working in the garden together. Much of my work is small in nature, but not lacking in detail. I enjoy creating works that encourage the viewer to engage with the piece and linger, noticing new details in the process.
33. Candice Greene | Layers | $200
Needle felting, embroidery, beading, and punch-needle
8″ x 8″
Artist Statement:
“Layers” is a mixed-media textile piece that combines a love for all forms of fiber art and nature. As a child, I spent many hours digging in flower beds and exploring my grandparent’s garden. My goal was to capture that child-like curiosity by depicting traditional imagery through various fibers processes, including punch-needle, embroidery, beading, and needle felting. In my works, I love to play with space, often breaking out of the picture plane to create a semi-dimensional piece that draws the viewer in.
34. Amber Bishop | A Portal Somewhere Good: 2.0 | NFS
Video and sculpture
Runtime: 6 min 20 sec, table: 4 feet long × 2 feet wide × 29 inches high
To watch the full video please click here.
Artist Statement:
I am an archivist of the mythic stories known as Black American life, or the Black Fantastical. I am a storyteller and representative of Black stories. Filmmaking is my primary tool and form of expression. I ascend from Twinsburg Heights, a small Black suburban neighborhood in Ohio. Growing up in Twinsburg, I’ve seen Black people tap into the collective Black imagination to dream beyond their present state and look into a future not known to them by the white supremacist American State. I am inspired by these everyday visionaries. Across the nation and in everyday life, Black people tap into the inherent magic that is deeply seated in our culture, and we alchemize systemic oppression into thriving communities, loving families, and joyful moments. In my archival artistry, I am preserving and translating the everyday magic of the Black fantasy, starting with my own life, family, and neighborhood. I tell the stories of who we have been and capture the stories of who we are now so that we can tell new stories of who we can become. I am ultimately striving to reconstruct the narrative of the Black experience so that the magic of Black creation is the main window through which the world sees into Black life.
35. Asia Armour | The Moon Child | $980
Mixed media collage
18″ x 20″
Artist Statement:
“The Moon Child” is a meditation on memory, lineage, and the tender guidance we receive from unseen hands. Set against a field of forget-me-nots, a child reaches out, symbolizing innocence, exploration, and the eternal connection to one’s roots. The hand beneath her is a metaphor for ancestral support; the love, labor, and protection that have shaped my story and so many others. Working in mixed media photography, I layered textures of florals, celestial imagery, and archival fragments to create a dreamscape where heritage and imagination coexist. This piece honors the unseen caretakers; the mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors whose sacrifices and dreams uplift future generations. In a world that often overlooks softness as strength, “The Moon Child” reclaims it, offering a glimpse into how home is not only a place but a living, breathing inheritance carried within us. Through the blending of documentary photography and collage, I continue the tradition of visual storytelling, echoing both personal and collective narratives tied to growth, memory, and becoming.
36. Emily Fontana | Forget-Me Fairy | NFS
Acrylic paint, spackle piping, molding paste, air dry clay, wrapping paper, pouring medium, glitter, wire, tulle, and lace on stretched fabric
20″ x 30″
Artist Statement:
Was there a time when your dreams were sweet? Are your desires truly yours, or were you just told what they should be? Girlhood is a time during adolescence filled with dress-up, and make-believe, and innocence. I use the sentiment of this time as a refuge from the reality of adulthood– an urge to be small again. But what does it mean to realize that longing is actually a trap? My work displays the duality between conditioned childhood dreams and witnessing the reality of them over time. Using cuteness as an entry point to encounter the art, a natural sense of tenderness is formed. Lavishly decorated paintings, printed media, and cake sculptures are each adorned with excess. Cardboard, spackle, craft acrylics, glitter, and beaded details all combine to appeal to, then deceive the viewer. The cakes are not real, never changing, and you can not eat them– even if you want to. I use symbols of girlhood and sexuality to confront the complexities of desire and disappointment, playing into the dark side of all things cute. Nostalgic animals are punctured, floral fabrics open up and deteriorate, and text yearns over memories of love and fantasy. The feminine experience is to carry the weight of contradiction, never ceasing to provide unfulfilled expectations. In the eyes of the consumer, femininity is a commodity that lacks agency. My work indulges in these ideals, served on a platter. Do you still want to take a bite? Settled within the melancholy, I invite viewers into a seemingly sweet world, only to disrupt it with the sharp edge of reality. Cuteness is simultaneously adored and exploited, bound to superficial pleasures. Adorably enticing, cakes draw you in— but when you get close, your stomach will sour. Not everything is as it seems.
37. Elizabeth Prindle | Family Folklore | $425
Mixed media assemblage
14″ x 19″
Artist Statement:
Families create their own folklore as stories are handed down from generation to generation. The story changes with each telling. Who has the true story? How did these photos become separated from their storyteller(s)? The spools of thread and loom shuttle represent women sewing together and telling stories, “spinning yarns”, family ties, histories woven together.
38. Carla Wagner | Hanging Out At the Duomo | $1,495
Textile
17″ x 84″
Artist Statement:
With this work I was heavily inspired by my trip studying abroad in Italy in summer of 2024. I used hand dyed yarn to emulate the beautiful colors of the Duomo and history behind the red brick rooftops of the Italian buildings. During my time studying in Florence, I got to see the Duomo everyday and lived nearby. I used my studies and interests in Italian wine production to make this piece, for example, there are three wine glasses woven into the bottom third of this textile. This imagery and color relations stand for a grounding element in regard to culture, heritage, and experience of Italy and history.
39. Ashley Strub | Twilight Mix | $50
Digital print
7″ x 5″
Artist Statement:
This photo, like much of my work, is influenced by its light. Photography has been a medium most useful to me through its literal connection to light. My photography attempts to exploit the inner workings of the camera through the obscuring images with light-catching substrates or blurry, primordial subject matter. I believe that where we come from and our instinctual habits (such as snapping a photo of a plant or rock) are connected through our unique interpretations of “home.”
40. Roo | Fishing for Memories | NFS
Flameworked glass
9” x 19” x 4’
Artist Statement:
As a kid my mom would take me fishing. Now that I’m an “adult” I don’t see my mom that often. Fishing is still something I actively enjoy and it’s also a way I’ve been able to feel close to my mom.
41. Renee Clippinger | I know you | NFS
Film
To watch the full video please click here.
Artist Statement:
I know you encapsulates feelings of nostalgia between one’s past and future self. The work explores the two different versions of the same person finding home and comfort within one another in an otherworldly space.
42. Victoria Fields | Living Rot | $650
Ceramic
11″ x 19″ x 11″
Artist Statement:
In my works I embody the idea importance of trauma and the lasting impact it has on the recipient. I engulf myself with my past and the details that created me to be the person I am today. Through mixed media and symbolic imagery, I create an uncomfortable scenery that makes room for open dialogue about the resilience and pain created through our own personal life stories. Rather than offering a neat and healed idea of a victim, my art shows the suffering, inviting the viewer to sit in discomfort and recognize the deep emotional impact that trauma can have on an individual.
43. Merry Petroski | Threads | NFS
Resin combine
6”x 9”x 2”
Artist Statement:
“Threads” is a small-scale Combine created with epoxy resin and embedded materials. It is part of an exploration in transparent layering to provoke emotion through materiality rather than direct illustration. Threads may evoke themes of memory, regret, and the unreachable desire to understand things long lost. The embedded objects and shifting translucency mimic the process of recalling memories—fragmented, delicate, and distorted over time. As a wall-mounted piece, I hope its size invites intimate viewing, allowing the viewer to look closely and reflect on what’s obscured or lost in the layers. I want Threads to show that emotional presence can be conveyed without narrative, relying on color, texture, opacity, and form to carry meaning.
44. Merry Petroski | Frayed | NFS
Resin combine
6”x 9”x 2”
Artist Statement:
“Frayed” is a small-scale work created with epoxy resin and embedded materials. It is conceived as part of a meditation alongside a companion work titled Threads. Frayed focuses on fragmentation and the distortion of recollection, and connections that persist even as clarity fades. Frayed uses transparent layering, embedded materials, and intimate scale to evoke a tactile, emotional resonance without relying on narrative. As a pair, they reflect on how we attempt to hold onto what’s slipping away, and how presence can be felt through absence, texture, and form. The embedded objects and shifting translucency mimic the process of recalling memories—fragmented, delicate, and distorted over time. As a wall-mounted piece, it invites intimate viewing, allowing viewers to look closely and reflect on what’s obscured or lost in it’s layers.
Curator Bio
Al Macdougall is a first-generation college graduate from the University of Akron, where they majored in Anthropology with a minor in Art History. Al holds certifications in Archaeology and Museums & Archives, and has contributed curatorial work at institutions such as the Akron Art Museum, the National Museum of Psychology, Spring Hill Historic Underground Railroad Home, and the Emily Davis Gallery at The University of Akron. With plans to pursue a Ph.D., Al is committed to a future in the museum and culture sector where accessibility, equity, and advocacy for underrepresented artists remain at the forefront of their work.
“My curatorial practice is rooted in the belief that emerging artists deserve more open doors and fewer gatekeepers. I want to create opportunities that empower others to build sustainable careers from their creative practice – especially those who, like me, are just beginning to find their place in the arts.”
Roots is an exploration of personal and familial histories, and a tribute to the concept of home, whether that be a geographic place like Akron or a more abstract emotional space. The exhibition highlights work in textile, film, and mixed media photography—mediums chosen for their deep ties to heritage, documentation, and identity. Al writes, “Textiles were once seen only as women’s work or hobbycraft; only recently has the art world begun to fully recognize their historical and cultural significance. Similarly, photography and film, once dismissed in fine art contexts, have found powerful new relevance as tools of contemporary storytelling and revitalization. I’m particularly drawn to mixed media photography because it lets us reimagine memory, rather than just preserve it.”
Through Roots, Al invites artists and audiences alike to reflect on how we carry the past forward — stitching together memory, identity, and hope into something newly alive.
Artist Bios
Alexia Avdelas is a 2023 BFA graduate in Painting and Drawing from The University of Akron, with a minor in Illustration. She was awarded the Venice Biennale Travel and Study of Art Scholarship and the Senior Painting Award. She maintains a studio at Summit Artspace and works with Curated Storefront in project development and social media. Her large-scale, shaped structures explore the body and memory through layered, metaphorical forms drawn from personal writing, cultural references, and everyday objects.
Her work investigates bodily autonomy and the idea of “birthing oneself” through experience, culture, and conscious choice. Using absurdity, repetition, and documentation, she creates nonlinear narratives where moments collapse and overlap. Her Greek/Pontian heritage-especially the tradition of Pontian dance – serves as a vessel for remembrance and reflection, linking ancestral loss with present-day events in a continuous, embodied timeline.
Andrew Donaldson is a glass artist specializing in flameworking, a technique he has been studying for the past two years. While he has explored both flamework and hot shop work, he finds the precision and intimacy of flameworking to be the most rewarding.
Fishing, a pastime shared with his mother during childhood, remains a meaningful part of his life and influences his creative process. Though they see each other less now, the act of fishing helps him feel close to her. Through his work, Andrew captures the quiet, reflective moments that tie the past and present together.
Shannon Casey is a visual storyteller who works in oil, pastel, and mixed media. A Stow High School graduate, she earned a BA in Journalism with a minor in Studio Art from Kent State University and studied portrait painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. After a successful career in advertising, she shifted focus to fine art, exhibiting work in regional juried shows and venues such as Cleveland Hopkins Airport, the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and Summit Artspace. A founding member of Uncommon ART in Hudson, Casey often blends narrative, portraiture, and mixed media – incorporating materials like gold leaf, maps, and music.
Her piece Home as a Time Capsule features two oil paintings that honor the 19th-century house where she and her four sisters grew up in Stow. The home, a patchwork of old stories and architecture, serves as both muse and memory. One painting captures the house’s exterior, while the second reveals a dollhouse-style interior layered with personal vignettes. Through figurative elements and symbolic details, Casey reflects on the home as both physical space and emotional archive – a vessel for joy, mystery, and transformation.
Renee Clippinger is a dancer, choreographer, and recent graduate of The University of Akron, where she earned dual degrees in Dance and Psychology. Trained in ballet, contemporary, tap, jazz, modern, lyrical, and hip-hop since the age of three, she began choreographing at 14 and has since presented work at Cleveland Dance Fest, the American College Dance Association, and with FRTRSS Dance Theatre. At UA, she performed extensively with The University of Akron Dance Company and served as President of the Terpsichore Dance Club. She currently teaches at local studios, sharing her love of dance with the next generation of artists.
Her piece, I know you, explores the tension and harmony between one’s past and future selves. Set in an ethereal, otherworldly space, the work depicts two versions of the same person seeking home and comfort in one another. Through movement, Clippinger captures a quiet nostalgia – the feeling of remembering who you were while reaching toward who you’re becoming.
Sydney Nicole Kay is a multimedia artist from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, working primarily in photography, printmaking, and ceramics. She earned her BFA in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2021 and is an incoming MFA candidate at Kent State University, focusing on printmaking, photography, and papermaking. Her accolades include the 2024–25 Visual Arts Center of Richmond Residency, the Denbo Fellowship, a 2023 Zygote Press Residency, and the 2021 Red Bull micro-grant. Kay’s practice is rooted in experimentation and storytelling, particularly centering voices that are often marginalized or overlooked.
Her piece Don’t Touch Me expands on her earlier project Delicate, confronting the ongoing struggle Black women face in asserting bodily autonomy and consent. Through mixed media materials – fused glass, flocking, and textured surfaces that invite touch but deny it – Kay reflects on the ways Black women are often objectified and denied agency. The work challenges viewers to consider the tension between desire and respect, emphasizing that Black women are not objects, but people deserving of dignity and boundaries.
Meryl Engler is a printmaker and papermaker originally from Huntington Beach, California, now based in Akron, Ohio. She earned her MFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in printmaking from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University, where she studied sculpture, printmaking, and religious studies. Engler’s work often explores hidden landscapes and the connections we form with place and with one another. Since 2022, she has worked at the Morgan Conservatory, where she developed her skills in Eastern and Western papermaking, which now enrich her colorful woodcut prints with texture, pattern, and experimentation.
Her featured image was captured in her Akron backyard, a space where she began to build community and call the city home. When she first arrived in 2019, she didn’t expect to stay – but Akron’s sense of care, resilience, and connection drew her in. This piece reflects the warmth of shared moments around a bonfire and the quiet significance of putting down roots in an unexpected place.
Jada Green is a senior at Kent State University pursuing a BFA in Studio Arts with a concentration in painting and a minor in print media and photography. Her work has been featured in the Kent State Student Annual, and she is a recipient of awards including the Catherine Questal Demattia Endowed Scholarship and the Oscar Ritchie Memorial Scholarship.
Green’s work explores surreal, imagined spaces shaped by lived experience. By blending real landscapes and figures with fantastical elements, she creates vibrant narratives that address themes like migration, displacement, generational trauma, and institutionalized violence. Using satire to soften difficult topics, she invites viewers into complex conversations within visually engaging environments. Drawing from her own family history, Green connects personal memory to shared struggles, especially within marginalized communities.
Eliz Soe is a biochemistry major with a minor in art history at Kent State University. In her free time, she creates artwork inspired by everyday moments on campus, often sketching or photographing scenes between classes. Formerly a photographer for Kent Wired, she’s learned to always carry her camera, capturing the quiet beauty of nature and student life. Soe recently exhibited her work for the first time at Summit Artspace.
Her featured piece was inspired by the trees on Kent State’s campus – many of which serve as living memorials, including those planted in remembrance of the May 4th tragedy and in honor of veterans. Observing the way the trees entangle and grow together, she reflects on how memorials quietly shape the student experience. For Soe, art is both an escape from science and an extension of it, blending observation, reflection, and creativity.
Serenity Norman is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Graphic Design with a minor in Illustration at The University of Akron. Her work blends cultural themes, personal expression, and modern pop influences, often featuring playful yet meaningful imagery. Serenity creates art that reflects her identity and aims to inspire and represent others along the way.
Her piece Bantu Knots is a visual tribute to African and African American hair culture, highlighting hair as both personal expression and ancestral legacy. Centered on one of her favorite hairstyles – Bantu knots, rooted in the Zulu tribes of Southern Africa – the work serves as a love letter to her heritage, community, and self. Through intricate design and cultural pride, she honors the beauty and power of Black hair traditions passed down through generations.
Milenko (Miles) Budimir is a Cleveland-based photographer who has been documenting the world around him since junior high. His work has been featured in numerous local and regional exhibitions, including shows at the Cleveland Print Room, FAVA Gallery, Bay Arts, and the Cleveland Photo Fest. Alongside his art practice, Budimir works as a technical writer and editor and teaches philosophy at Cleveland State University.
His piece reflects on his mother’s immigrant journey from Yugoslavia to Akron, Ohio, in 1969. By combining a recent photograph of her first U.S. home with archival family images, Budimir explores themes of identity, belonging, and migration. Though she was physically distant from her homeland, her roots remained deeply embedded, both in memory and in the new community she built. The work is a meditation on the layered experience of displacement and connection – universal themes that continue to resonate across time.
Amber Bishop is a filmmaker, memory worker, and artist based in Ohio, dedicated to uplifting and preserving Black stories. Her work explores the Black experience through the lens of imagination, memory, and cultural legacy – revisiting the past to reimagine the future. A 2021 Filmmakers First Fund recipient, she is currently developing her first feature documentary. Bishop is a 2025 Artist-in-Residence with Akron Soul Train and an ACRE Artist Resident.
Rooted in her upbringing in Twinsburg Heights, a small Black suburban neighborhood in Ohio, Bishop draws inspiration from the everyday visionaries in her community who use imagination to transcend systemic limitations. She calls this ongoing narrative the Black Fantastical – an archive of joy, resilience, and creative transformation. Through film and storytelling, she captures the magic of Black life not just as it has been, but as it can be, reframing Black creation as the central lens through which Black identity is seen and celebrated.
Kellie Wolke is an interdisciplinary artist and current B.F.A. Photography student at The University of Akron, with minors in Art History and Sociology. A trained seamstress with over 20 years of experience, she developed a passionate interest in photography in early 2024. Her work frequently explores themes of human connection, Ohio’s natural spaces, and her own deep-seated curiosity.
Her current project documents political displays across Columbiana County – her childhood home – and Summit County, where she has lived most of her adult life, over a five day period in November 2024. In grappling with feelings of disbelief, overwhelm, and bitterness about the impending election, Wolke also reflects on how our living spaces speak to who we are, creating a visual narrative of home and identity in Northeast Ohio.
Zackary Hoon is a visual artist working with infrared photography to create images that feel both nostalgic and futuristic. By capturing light beyond the visible spectrum, his work transforms everyday landscapes into surreal, dreamlike environments. Leaves, grass, and sky shift into unexpected tones – white foliage against black skies in black and white, or vibrant color duos in infrared color photography.
Hoon uses infrared not to document reality, but to convey a personal memory like interpretation of place. He often alters the camera’s assigned colors in post-production, emphasizing that the images aren’t literal, but expressive. His work invites viewers to experience landscapes not just as they are, but as they feel – altered by time, emotion, and perception.
Ashley Strub is a painter and photographer from Akron, Ohio whose work explores the metaphysical nature of home, existence, and the act of image making itself. She recently earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Akron’s Mary Schiller Myers School of Art and plans to pursue graduate studies in painting. Strub works with materials like mylar and polyester film to emphasize the tactile, intentional nature of her process, and has exhibited across Northeast Ohio.
Her work is shaped by an interest in light – how it defines space, shapes memory, and transforms perception. In both painting and photography, Strub uses geometric and organic forms to evoke feelings of simplicity, depth, and familiarity. Her imagery, whether handmade or captured through a lens, reflects on the idea of home as something crafted, habitual, and deeply personal. Whether reminiscent of a basement, the night sky, or a quiet moment with a houseplant, her work invites viewers into spaces where instinct and memory converge.
Amelia Casiano is a multidisciplinary artist based in Cleveland, Ohio, working primarily in acrylic paint. Her work blends elements of lifestyle, fashion, technology, and nature, using glowing pastels and vibrant colors to explore themes such as womanhood, climate change, and cultural connection. Through landscapes, portraits, and community-based imagery, Casiano creates visual dialogues that reflect the complexities of identity and the interconnectedness of local and global experiences.
Raised on Cleveland’s West Side, Casiano draws from her cultural background and personal environment to inform her art. Her work embraces dualities – extroversion and introversion, quiet and loud, soft and energetic – and expresses these contrasts through fluid organic forms and shifting color palettes. She seeks to communicate not only her own evolving story, but also the layered realities of those around her, offering a vibrant and dynamic reflection of the world she inhabits.
Maliyah Clark is a Black, queer artist from Northeast Ohio whose work blends fantasy illustration with authentic representations of people of color. She earned her BFA in Illustration from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and has held an internship at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Clark works in both traditional and digital media, creating illustrations, murals, cover art, comics, and editorial pieces that invite reflection and celebrate underrepresented narratives.
Her featured piece is a portrait of her mother, created during a 2024 summer internship at the Whitney. After attending a curatorial meeting on Amy Sherald’s work and the scarcity of Black portraiture in art history, Clark was inspired to honor her mother – not posthumously, but in life. The portrait is presented on a red T-shirt, referencing a common memorial practice in the Black community, while mint leaves – her mother’s favorite plant, often found wilting in the kitchen – symbolize both love and mortality. This deeply personal work challenges the idea that Black subjects must be extraordinary or lost to tragedy to be immortalized in art.
Kathryn Skidmore is a Stark County based artist and educator specializing in traditional art mediums. An Ohio native, she earned her undergraduate degree from Kent State University and is currently pursuing her master’s degree at The Ohio State University. Her work often draws from personal experiences, exploring themes of memory, family, and identity.
Her featured piece is a representational mixed media collage portraying her only child, Jonas. Using symbolic imagery, the work captures a glimpse into his innocence and the wonder of childhood. It serves as both a personal keepsake and a universal reflection on growth, love, and the fleeting nature of youth.
Megan Summers is a sculptor and teaching artist based in Northeast Ohio. She studied Art Education at Kent State University and has dedicated her career to teaching art to children and adults of all ages, with a focus on community outreach. Her personal work centers on sculptures made from earth-based materials, especially twisted wire – a technique passed down from her father. Creating art became a therapeutic practice during a period of declining health due to epilepsy and remains a source of reflection, healing, and purpose.
Her featured piece is a wire sculpture of three copper trees rooted in a driftwood base, representing the entanglement of faith with the past, present, and future. The varying root sizes symbolize personal growth and the act of “planting roots”- suggesting that what we do today shapes both our future and how our past is remembered. By using natural yet human-shaped materials, Summers emphasizes our interconnectedness with each other and with the earth, encouraging viewers to live with intention and hope.
Victoria “Vic” Fields is a self-taught artist whose work confronts the emotional complexities of trauma and its lasting effects. Working primarily in mixed media, Vic channels personal experience into raw, symbolic imagery that explores identity, memory, and the process of becoming. Unbound by formal training, their work remains deeply personal and intuitive, allowing for an honest reflection on pain and resilience.
In their featured piece, Vic creates a scene of discomfort – intentionally unsettling to open dialogue around the reality of living with trauma. Rather than portraying a neatly resolved narrative, their work invites the viewer to witness suffering as it is: layered, unresolved, and human. Through this vulnerable expression, Vic challenges audiences to sit with discomfort and recognize the emotional weight our life stories carry.
Merry Petroski is an Ohio-based artist with a BFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute. After years working in caregiving and senior living, she has returned to a material-driven art practice centered on epoxy resin and embedded objects. Drawn to the medium’s glass-like transparency and capacity for layering, her work quietly meditates on themes of memory, domesticity, and the passage of time. Petroski explores emotional presence through materiality, often forgoing narrative to focus on texture, light, and form.
Her small-scale resin works Threads and Frayed explore the fragility of memory and the desire to understand what has been lost. Using layered translucency and embedded materials, she evokes how recollection often becomes fragmented and distorted over time. These intimate, wall-mounted pieces invite close viewing and reflection, offering an emotional resonance through absence, opacity, and suspended detail. Rather than telling a specific story, Petroski’s work allows viewers to sense what’s been left behind – tender, unspoken, and unresolved.
Shannon Timura (Shannon Makes) is a mixed media artist and storyteller whose work explores memory, identity, and the unseen threads that link generations. Her practice blends found objects, rich textures, and narrative symbolism – often centering around chairs, books, and figurative elements. Based in Northeast Ohio, Shannon’s work has been featured in galleries, public art installations, and community spaces across the region. She was recognized as one of O Magazine’s “Fearless Female Artists,” and continues to draw inspiration from mythology, personal history, and the everyday objects that shape our lives.
Her featured painting reflects on the power of rootedness and inherited imagination. A young girl reads from a chair whose legs grow into tangled roots – symbolizing legacy, belonging, and the grounding force of family history. Above her, white birds circle in flight, representing memory and the stories passed across time. The piece is also a personal meditation: after discovering her biological father and an extended family unaware of her existence, Shannon captures the feeling of standing both inside and outside of a lineage. Like the birds, those early connections are distant yet present – carrying the hope of future belonging and the timeless pull of story.
Candice Greene is a fiber artist and visual arts educator based in Ohio, known for her richly layered textile compositions that blend needle felting, embroidery, beadwork, and other traditional fiber techniques. Her work draws inspiration from nature, texture, and childhood memories spent in the garden, often contained within the intimate frame of an embroidery hoop. Greene creates meditative, tactile pieces that encourage viewers to slow down, observe details, and connect with the handmade. She currently works from her home studio when not teaching high school art.
Her featured piece, Floral Texture Study, is a dimensional exploration of texture and space using bold florals as a recurring motif. Inspired by memories of gardening with her grandfather, the piece uses needle felting and embroidery to build vibrant, layered surfaces that extend beyond the picture plane. Greene’s work invites a close, lingering look – celebrating both the beauty of the natural world and the enduring value of fiber arts as a form of storytelling and connection.
Elizabeth “Beth” Prindle is an Ohio-based assemblage artist whose work explores memory, storytelling, and family history. After earning a BA in Design from Kent State University, she spent 30 years in the Pacific Northwest before returning to Ohio just before the 2020 lockdown. The isolation of the pandemic sparked a personal rediscovery of art through collecting and creating. What began as self-directed art therapy evolved into a full-time practice, with her work now exhibited at institutions including the Zanesville Museum of Art, Mansfield Art Center, Erie Art Museum, and the Butler Institute of American Art.
Her piece reflects on the ways families pass down stories – how each retelling changes the narrative, creating a kind of familial folklore. Using found photographs, spools of thread, and a loom shuttle, she evokes the role of women as keepers and weavers of memory. The materials speak to storytelling as a tactile, evolving act: threads binding generations, even when the original storyteller is lost. Through layered symbolism and reclaimed objects, Prindle invites viewers to consider what ties us together and how stories endure across time.
Nick Lee (b. 1996) is a Japanese American painter and 2021 graduate of Kent State University. His work explores identity, cultural heritage, and representation, using symbolic objects to bridge personal and collective histories. As a Nikkei artist, Lee seeks to expand the presence of minority voices in American portraiture and Western art. He is the recipient of the 2023 OAEA Distinguished Citizen for Art Education award and the 2024 Arts Alive Emerging Artist award from Summit Artspace.
In his featured still life, Lee paints his grandmother’s traditional Japanese Geta sandals – presented without a figure, inviting viewers to question who they belong to. These shoes represent a shared lineage between Lee, his father, and grandmother, reflecting on their experiences as Japanese descendants in the United States. Embracing his cultural identity while rejecting limiting stereotypes, Lee challenges expectations of quiet submission, instead asserting a voice grounded in resilience, pride, and self-discovery.
Carla Wagner is a fiber artist whose work blends personal experience, cultural observation, and material exploration. She often works with hand-dyed yarn and textile techniques to create pieces that reflect travel, memory, and place. Her practice is rooted in storytelling through texture and color, using fiber as a way to capture both emotional and physical landscapes.
This piece was inspired by Wagner’s study abroad experience in Florence, Italy during the summer of 2024. Using hand-dyed yarns to reflect the warm tones of red brick rooftops and the iconic Duomo, the textile weaves together visual memory and cultural symbolism. Embedded within the lower portion of the work are three wine glasses – referencing her studies in Italian wine production and the role of shared experience in shaping personal heritage. The result is a layered, grounding tribute to the beauty and history of Italian culture.
Sarah Gordon is a multimedia artist and student at Case Western Reserve University, where she continues to explore art as her favorite form of self-expression. From a young age, Gordon has used hands-on creative work as a way to stay grounded and reflect on life. Her art often combines found materials, symbolic imagery, and personal storytelling, using the visual medium to express what words sometimes cannot.
Her piece Dear Diary is a collage constructed from clippings, pamphlets, 3D objects, and remnants of a previous artwork – creating a layered, diary-like composition. Each element on the canvas connects to a meaningful moment or influence during a year of personal growth in college. From nods to Cleveland landmarks to symbols of queer identity and family loss, the work is both an emotional archive and a reclamation of space. Through reusing saved materials, Gordon transforms clutter into clarity, telling a nonverbal story of transformation, memory, and inspiration.
Emily Fontana is a Cleveland-based visual artist who earned her BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in May 2025. Working across painting, sculpture, and printmaking, Fontana blends symbols of girlhood, confection, and femininity to examine the dualities of desire and disappointment. Her work seduces viewers with playful textures and nostalgic visuals – only to subvert expectations and reveal something darker beneath the surface.
In her practice, Fontana explores the tension between childhood innocence and adult reality. Lavishly adorned with glitter, beads, and faux cake frosting, her work uses cuteness as an entry point to expose the complexities and contradictions of femininity. The sweetness is only skin-deep – beneath it lies longing, loss, and critique. Through playful deception and sensory overload, Fontana invites the viewer into a sugary, dreamlike world – then confronts them with the bitter aftertaste of what it means to grow up in a society that commodifies femininity and fantasies.
Janet Mikolajczyk is a digital collage artist based in Northeast Ohio. Her work blends original photography with references to iconic art historical imagery, creating layered visual narratives that explore meaning, memory, and reinterpretation. She holds a B.A. from Barat College and a Master’s in Art History from Kent State University. For 15 years, she taught Art History at Cleveland State University and now exhibits her work locally.
Her featured collage combines photographs of rocks and shoes with visual nods to artists like René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, and Islamic art traditions. Works such as The Song of Violet incorporate symbolic figures and objects – like Magritte’s rock-laden forms and Duchamp’s Fresh Widow – to spark dialogue between personal experience and historical context. By layering textures and references, Mikolajczyk reimagines familiar images through a contemporary, personal lens.
Levaille Eitzman is a trans, neurodivergent, queer artist and self-described orange cowboy clown. With a BFA in Painting and a post-baccalaureate in Textiles, Levaille’s creative practice embraces color, joy, and absurdity. They’ve been making art their whole life, guided by curiosity, tenderness, and a deep love – for their craft, their community, and their four beloved pets.
Their handmade pieces are crafted from upcycled and thrifted toys, trinkets, and found objects, lovingly assembled for the flamboyant, the anxious, the queer, the autistic, and the misfit – people like Levaille themself. Each work is a playful tribute to childhood wonder, celebrating the small treasures we collect and the worlds we build around them. These pieces are love letters to those who find magic in dime-store toys and glittery nostalgia, reclaiming joy and identity through vibrant, one-of-a-kind creations.
James Buckey is a visual artist from Akron, Ohio, whose work explores memory, place, and emotional resonance through layered digital compositions. Using photography and Adobe Photoshop, he blends textures, halftones, and print-inspired techniques to craft images that are both vivid and introspective. A former arts and music educator, Buckey’s work has been exhibited throughout Northeast Ohio, including in public art installations, and is known for its tactile quality and graphic precision.
His featured piece reflects on a personal geography – stretching from Goodyear Middle School to Derby Downs – infused with imagery from every era of his youth. Reused geode samples, tire treads, and custom halftone patterns serve as visual metaphors for memory, permanence, and transformation. Power lines are erased and reimagined as breaks in texture, creating a new kind of map: one shaped by emotion as much as location. Printed on cold-press cotton paper, the piece offers a sensory experience – its “texture” felt through light, shadow, and memories fade.
Care Hanson is a visual artist based in Stow, Ohio, with a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, hand stitching, altered books, mixed media collage, and nature mandalas. After earning her BFA from Bowling Green State University in 1980, Care spent decades focused on family and office work before fully returning to her art in retirement. Since 2013, she has cultivated a daily creative practice rooted in intuition, reflection, and joy. Her work has been exhibited at Summit Artspace, Akron Soul Train, White Rabbit Gallery, and libraries throughout Northeast Ohio.
Her featured piece is a hand-stitched paper collage honoring four generations of maternal lineage – centered on her great-grandmother Caroline, a woman remembered through stories, stitches, and heirloom fabrics. The collage incorporates family photographs, handkerchiefs, gloves, and other passed-down materials, combining them with symbolic imagery of birds and eggs to reflect on memory, love, and loss. With uneven stitches and raw edges, Care embraces imperfection as a metaphor for the hardships these women endured and the legacy of care they left behind. Her work offers a tactile tribute – both a meditation and a hug – bridging generations through thread, memory, and shared hands.
Makaylah Clark is a mixed media artist and lifelong Akron resident whose work explores fantasy, heritage, and self-determined storytelling. Inspired by fantasy literature, animation, and artists who center their cultural identity, Clark uses symbolic imagery and layered iconography to reframe narratives around Black identity and history. She has been involved in the arts from a young age – attending Miller South and Firestone High School’s AP art programs – and is a member of the Akron Black Artist Guild. Her work has been featured in local exhibitions and public projects, including the Black Lives Matter mural on Howard Street and shows at Summit Artspace.
Her featured portrait reimagines her mother as a regal, commanding figure – seated in a composition inspired by royal Korean court paintings and referencing historical Black Power imagery. The pose nods to Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party, while elements like a peacock feather and staff represent both West African and European heritage. Watermelon seeds at her feet symbolize Clark and her siblings, while her mother’s dress is adorned with traditional Korean landscapes, an ongoing motif in Clark’s work. This piece is both a tribute and a reclamation – a way of preserving family history and asserting power, love, and legacy through visual storytelling.
Klair Love Barr is a mixed media artist whose work explores personal history, memory, and the complexities of womanhood. With a background in sculpture and expanded media, her practice spans installation, performance, and video – often creating immersive environments that blend vulnerability, humor, and quiet intimacy. Barr’s art romanticizes the mundane and reclaims imperfection, allowing her own lived experiences to guide viewers through both tender and raw reflections on the feminine experience.
Her featured installation reimagines her childhood home near Lake Erie, where summers were filled with mayflies covering the walls of a small yellow house. By projecting the house at a reduced scale and enlarging the mayflies, Barr plays with shifting perspectives – contrasting the wonder of childhood with adult reflection. Accompanied by ambient audio of wind and insects, the piece becomes a sensory memory, softening what’s often overlooked or dismissed. Through scale, sound, and sentiment, she invites viewers into a nostalgic and nuanced meditation on growing up, belonging, and the beauty found in the overlooked.
Kenny Borsch is a mixed media artist based in Kent, Ohio, whose work reflects on love, loss, and the fragile nature of memory. Drawing from personal grief and broader themes of emotional healing, Borsch creates layered visual narratives using found materials, text, and symbolic objects. His process is rooted in building and removing material – revealing and concealing details to echo the emotional rhythms of remembrance, repression, and vulnerability. Through this method, he explores the deeply personal while inviting reflection on shared human experiences.
His featured piece, Our Memory Lies Here, is a hand-bound book crafted from mulberry paper and fabric from worn wedding dresses. Once symbolic of joy and new beginnings, these garments now serve as vessels for Borsch’s own journey through love and grief. The work becomes a quiet connection to women he’ll never meet, stitched together by collective history and unspoken memory. Through this tactile, intimate form, Borsch honors the emotional weight embedded in objects, transforming them into meditations on presence, absence, and remembrance.
Asia Armour is a mixed-media collage artist and visual storyteller based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work combines photography, florals, archival materials, and symbolism to explore themes of heritage, self-discovery, and Black femininity. Through layered textures and narrative composition, Armour creates dreamlike worlds that honor memory, transformation, and legacy. Her art serves as both personal reflection and collective celebration, inviting viewers to experience life as a blooming, evolving story.
Her piece “The Moon Child” is a meditation on lineage, memory, and ancestral support. A child reaches out in a field of forget-me-nots, guided by an unseen hand beneath her – symbolizing the love, labor, and presence of generations past. Using mixed media photography and collage, Armour weaves celestial elements and archival textures into a dreamscape where softness is power and home is carried within. Like her piece The Kemet Venus, which reimagines ancient beauty and rebirth through a modern Black feminine lens, “The Moon Child” continues Armour’s tradition of visual storytelling rooted in identity, imagination, and intergenerational strength.
