Visiting Artists
We invite artists to the Center for Creative Connections (C3) to celebrate creativity and the artistic process. Join us for one of our artist led workshops for lively conversation and interesting hands-on art-making projects. Click the links below to learn more about the various workshops we offer. All levels welcome!
C3 Artistic Encounters
Think Creatively
Urban Armor: For Teens
Tech Lab Workshops
Upcoming Visiting Artists:
Click here for details about previous visiting artists.
Spencer Brown-Pearn
An MFA student at the University of Texas at Dallas, Spencer Brown-Pearn explores the intersection between art and technology. By applying technology—through scanning, printing, and reprinting—to raw, gestural, and expressive means of mark making, Brown-Pearn examines how our current society and technological trends might be moving us further away from the traditional practice of mark making by hand. http://brownpearn.squarespace.com/
Deanna Wood
Born in Houston in 1966, Deanna Wood spent most of her childhood moving around the country with her family, returning to Texas in 1982. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Arts in graphic design from Texas Woman’s University. She worked as a graphic designer in a corporate environment for fourteen years. After leaving the corporate world, she decided to pursue a career in fine art, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Texas Woman’s University in December of 2004. She lives in Denton, Texas, where she teaches classes at Texas Woman’s University and at The Encaustic Center in Richardson, Texas.
Martin Delabano
Martin Delabano is a Dallas-based artist, art teacher, and active community member. In 2010 he received the Distinguished Texas Artist award. Delabano grew up in a house full of pre-colonial African and New Guinea sculptures, which had a profound influence on his work. His father, Barney Charles Delabano, was the noted Curator of Installation at the Dallas Museum of Art for thirty-three years, as well as a gifted painter. Besides his artistic efforts, the artist has been a middle school teacher at Saint John's Episcopal School and has taught fifth through eighth grade art since 1990. Before teaching, he was the shop foreman at the Refinery Casting Company in Dallas for eight years after receiving his MA from the University of New Mexico. He has a BA in Sculpture from East Texas State University.
Magdalena Grohman, Ph.D.
Dr. Magdalena Grohman received her MA and PhD in psychology from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her background is in creative thinking, problem solving, and education. Her core interest is to propagate creative thinking as part of life-span education. She has fifteen years of experience leading workshops on creative-thinking techniques and creative problem solving, both in commercial and educational settings. Grohman has published several chapters and articles on creativity, both in Polish and English. Currently, she is an associate director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology and a lecturer at the School of Behavior and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, www.utdallas.edu/ah/centers/values.html. For more information about Magdalena's Think Creatively! workshops, click here.
Previous Visiting Artists in the Center for Creative Connections
Marla Ziegler
August 2013
Marla Ziegler teaches Beginning, Advanced, and Figure Drawing in the School of Fine Arts at Brookhaven College. She is a sculptor who creates in clay, stretching the identity of this medium as a contemporary three-dimensional material. Groupings of animated forms with rich surface contrasts are foremost in her work. This September, a one-person exhibition will mark her 20th anniversary with Craighead-Green Gallery in Dallas. Her sculpture is in numerous private and corporate collections and is featured in issues of Ceramics Monthly and Ceramics Art and Perception. Selected collections include Trinity Ceramics, The Texas Sculpture Garden, and The United States Embassy in Bolivia.
John Nicholas Hutchings
August 2013
John Nicholas Hutchings currently lives and works in Dallas. He started his formal training in art in Florence, Italy, at Lorenzo de Medici Institute of Art, and then received a bachelor's degree in Fine Art at Texas Tech University in 2003. In 2010 he received a Masters of Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, where he received the Clara Bromeyer Scholarship for Scholastic Achievement. He has shown at such galleries as Hoffman La Chance, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St. Louis, and Xue Gallery in Dallas, and he is currently a member at 500X Gallery.
Shirin Askari
July 2013
Brittany Ransom
June 2013
Brittany Ransom is an Assistant Professor of Digital/Hybrid Media + Art at Southern Methodist University. Her art practice explores the boundaries between art, interactive technologies, and nature.
Giovanni Valderas
August 2013
Margaret Meehan
April 2013, July 2011
Kristian Donaldson
March 2013
Riley Holloway
July 2013, February 2013
A local artist and native of Arlington, Texas, Riley Holloway has been passionate about drawing since he was a child. He studied art at the Art Institute of Dallas and the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, and studied under many well-known local artists to improve his skill and advance his technique. From these teachers he learned that art is communication, and he seeks to communicate the perception of who we are as people in his own work.
Juergen Strunck
October 2012
Since 1968, Strunck has had eighty solo exhibitions and 675 occasions to show his prints in invitational and competitive exhibitions worldwide. He is currently a professor at the University of Dallas, and his prints can be found in over one hundred museums and institutions including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Baltimore Museum of Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Graphic Art in Fredrikstad, Norway, and the Dallas Museum of Art.
John Hernandez
December 2012
John Hernandez received a BA from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, and an MFA from the University of North Texas in Denton. His installations and sculptural work filled with his childhood imagery have been widely exhibited in Texas and in the United States for many years. Influenced by his childhood and the pop-cultural style of the 1960s, his work is as accessible as it is humorous to people of all ages.
Carol Ivey
November 2012
Carol Ivey is a Texas native who is currently living and working in Fort Worth. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and has undertaken additional studies at the Budapest Academy of Art in Hungary, the Academy of Realist Art in Seattle, and the University of California, Long Beach. Ivey has shown at institutions such as the Albuquerque Museum, the Amarillo Museum of Art, the Aspen Art Museum, and Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now the Austin Museum of Art). Besides painting still life, Ivey paints commissioned portraits and teaches in her studio and at TCU Extended Education in Fort Worth. For more information, click here.
Emily Riggert
August 2012
Currently an artist and educator at Oil and Cotton Studios, based out of Dallas, Emily Riggert studied art at MICA and at Trinity University in San Antonio. Riggert has previously worked with the Dallas Museum of Art, and her work has been shown at the San Antonio Art League, the Michael and Noemi Neidorff Gallery at Trinity University, and La Reunion TX's Art Chic@s site. Her work explores the generative process of growth and decay in the natural world, seeking to understand and disrupt conventional methods of functionality therein. She frequently uses vintage textbooks both as inspiration for her work and as collage elements in her drawings and installations. 
South Dallas Cultural Center
October 2012, December 2012, March 2013
Ava Wilson: Dallas native Ava Wilson received her undergraduate degree in Africana Studies from Howard University and a master's degree from Temple University, where she studied the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in Dallas. She is the current Artistic Director of Soul Children's Theatre Company at the South Dallas Cultural Center. Wilson is a 2004 NAACP/ACT-SO Gold Medalist in Playwriting and a Presidential Scholar in the Arts for Short Story Writing. She has been coached by the great slam poet Tony Medina while chairing Kwame Ture Society at Howard University.
Harold J. Steward: Harold J. Steward has been an arts administrator and theater practitioner for over fifteen years. Steward studied communication at Newman University and playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. He currently serves as a Performing Arts Coordinator for the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs' South Dallas Cultural Center. He is also currently the Artistic Director of Fahari Arts Institute, a multi-discipline arts and letters institute created to celebrate and display works of GLBT/Queer artists from the African Diaspora.
Michelle Gibson: Michelle Gibson is a choreographer, educator, and performing artist who received her BFA in Dance from Tulane University and her MFA in Dance and Performance from Hollins University/American Dance Festival at Duke University. Currently Gibson teaches at Brookhaven College in Dallas and is an artist in residence with the Ashe' Cultural Arts Center and a choreographer for Six Flags/WOW Entertainment and the Dallas Children's Theater.
Patrick Washington: After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Patrick Washington completed an undergraduate degree in Film from Clark University. After working at various arts groups and entertainment companies, Washington returned to Dallas to work for Dallas Weekly as the Director of Strategic Alliances and Web Development. He uses the skills he has learned to create new media avenues for small business advertisers and local merchants.
Malik Ali Dillard: Malik Ali Dillard attended and was trained in music at the Alexander Hamilton Music Academy in Los Angeles, California. Throughout the years, Dillard has been on a journey to create a musical sound that is unparalleled to anything the world has ever heard. Dillard records constantly, and he is associated with some of the most successful current names in music, such as Jamie Foxx, Teddy Riley, Keri Hilson, Snoop Dogg, and John Legend. He is the man behind the fast-rising new music movement.
Isaac Davies
August 2012
Isaac Davies has been a mural painter in the DFW area since 2002. He is a current member of The Just.Us. League Freestyle Art Squad, One third of Three of One Arts, and a volunteer for ArtLoveMagic's Creative Kids Workshop series. Davies has become a well-known artist in Dallas for his teaching abilities, community work, and various street art commissions, including his work with the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the DMA. With Three of One Arts, Davies has been commissioned by American Airlines, the Dallas Mavericks, AGORA Films, the Deep Ellum Mural Project, and others. He hopes to expand the view of urban arts to all ages and is dedicated to giving back to his community through education.
Marilyn Waligore
March 2012
Marilyn Waligore is Professor of Aesthetic Studies/Photography at the University of Texas at Dallas. Using digital technology, she embraces process and materiality to underscore the physical nature of things that exist in a transitory state, in order to elevate, if not to render, beauty. For more information on the artist, visit www.marilynwaligore.com.
Jill Downen
February 2012
Jill Downen's art is a focused investigation of the symbiotic relationship between the human body and architecture expressed in temporal installations, drawings, and models. Her art envisions a place of interdependent relation between the human body and architecture, where the exchanging forces and tensions of construction, deterioration, and restoration emerge as thematic possibilities. Click here. 
Agence 5970
August, May, February 2012, November 2011
Frank Dufour is a sound artist and multimedia designer. He holds a Ph.D. in Hypermedia from the University of Paris VIII, and he is currently a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Kristin Lee Dufour is a creative Art Director and international consultant for visual communications. This ensemble forms Agence 5970, an independent laboratory dedicated to artistic and scientific research. Acoustic Shadows, on view in the C3 Theater beginning in November, is a concept explored by Agence 5970 simultaneously in its psychoacoustic and artistic dimensions.
Annette Lawrence
January 2012, November 2011, October 2011, December 2010
Annette Lawrence's work is generally related to text and information, often in response to physical space and time. The work is grounded in autobiography, counting, and the measurement of everyday life. Lawrence is a professor at the University of North Texas, College of Arts and Design.
Cassandra MacGregor
January 2012, December 2011, November 2011
Cassandra MacGregor has been making hats since 2002 under the name The House of MacGregor. Her work has been featured in FD, D, Southern Living, and various other publications. MacGregor offers hat workshops throughout the year in conjunction with Oil & Cotton. www.thehouseofmacgregor.com
Mark Gutting
October 2012, October 2011
"There is something wonderful about capturing a thought—be it silly or serious—and giving it form. Since becoming a teacher in the Mesquite Independent School District, I find myself constantly referring to personal sketches to better create a foundation for classroom projects. My students enjoy trying to figure out what I might have been thinking and reinterpreting my art through their own eyes. It is through my own artistic journey that I seek to create meaningful projects that teach fundamentals while instilling a lifelong love of art in my students."—Mark Gutting.
Tom Russotti
October 2011
Tom Russotti is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Tom’s work explores the aesthetic and performative nature of large cultural phenomena such as sports, signs, and organizations. Russotti has performed and exhibited his work at the Tate Modern Museum, The Phillips Collection, Culture Factory Polymer in Tallinn, Estonia, The Lab in San Francisco, and The Brooklyn Historical Society. His work has been featured by the New York Times, Good Morning America, Wired, Vice Magazine, the BBC, and Estonian National Television. Tom also develops educational curricula through his work process; he has taught his sport design program internationally, most recently with the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, where he helped a youth theater group invent and perform their own sporting event. Russotti received a BA in history from Stanford University and received his MFA from Rutgers University. www.tomrussotti.com
Tom Cox
September 2011
Tom Cox, a fifth-generation Texan, explores place and our relationship to it through the study of architecture. Since 1980 he has taught architecture at the Skyline Career Development Center, a Dallas public school that emphasizes career education. Cox earned a degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin.
Peter Goldstein, AIA
September 2011
Peter Goldstein is an educator and licensed architect practicing in Dallas. For the past ten years, he has taught at the DallasISD magnet architecture program at Skyline High School. The installation Sculpting Space: 299 chairs, currently on exhibit in the C3 Gallery at the DMA, showcases the work of the Skyline Architecture Cluster students. Goldstein also teaches at the Fallingwater High School Residency Program in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, and he has taught at the Boston Architectural College. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tulane University, and his Master of Architecture degree from Yale University. He began his architectural career with the Houston office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and established his own architectural practice in Dallas in 1995. He has served on the Board of the Dallas Architectural Foundation, and was a founding Board member of the Dallas Center for Architecture.
Mary Jordan
July 2013, May 2013, October 2012, June 2012, March 2011, August 2011
Mary Jordan is a board certified medical illustrator specializing in traditional drawing and 2D digital painting techniques. She has sketched directly from surgery in operating rooms and assisted with trial presentations in courtrooms. Her visual storytelling abilities in medicine have evolved into an interest in hands-on learning experiences in the art museum setting as well as an interest in art museum programming that establishes connections in health care. She facilitates visual learning and creative drawing experiences to encourage wonder, personal interpretation, critical thinking, and creativity for all ages.
Rebecca Carter
June 2012, June 2011
Rebecca Carter's works explore states of intimacy and alienation as they shift through reading, touch, and other states of reception. She engages processes of appropriation, tracing, erasing, reconstructing, and the performative in various media, notably the groundless thread drawing and video. She holds an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Studio/Art History and Women's Studies from Oberlin College. www.rebeccacarter.org
Shane Mecklenburger
May 2011
Shane Mecklenburger works between media, installation, and performance and is Assistant Professor of New Media Art at the University of North Texas. His work examines the perceived value, drama, and conflict emerging from transactions, technologies, and science. He received an MFA degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MS in Learning & Instruction from the University of Southern California. He has served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Bolivia and as an artist-educator for MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles. www.shmeck.com
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Pamela Nelson
May 2011
Pamela Nelson is an artist living in Dallas, working in painting, mixed media, and public art installations. Nelson has exhibited in over one hundred national venues, including the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the National Arts Club in New York City. Some of her public art projects can be seen at Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail stations, First United Methodist Church in Richardson, Texas, and NorthPark Center in Dallas. www.pamelahnelson.com
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Tom Lauerman
April 2011, February 2011
Tom Lauerman explores the overlap of sculpture, ceramics, and design. His work grows out of ceramic history, architectural modularity, and experimentation with materials. http://tomlauerman.com/
Susan Barnett
April 2012, April 2011, February 2011, November 2010
Susan Barnett is a graduate of cognitive and clinical psychology from Harvard University and The New School for Social Research, where she received (respectively) a bachelor of art degree and a master's in psychology. After a career working in the not-for-profit sector, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from SMU in May 2008. Barnett’s art returns to her interest in perception, using pattern to explore how we make sense of the world at the intersection of thought and perception. She is represented by Conduit Gallery in Dallas. http://susanbarnett.net/
Natalie Macellaio
March 2013, March 2011, July 2010
Natalie Macellaio combines the materials and techniques of a metalsmith with alternative materials such as resin, plastic, and guitar strings to push the boundaries of sculpture and installation. In her work, the influence of the natural world becomes layered and parallels the emotional experiences with barriers and relationships. You can learn more about her and her work at our programs this month. http://natalie.macellaio.net
Lesli Robertson
March 2013, November 2012, February 2012, March 2011, September 2009
Lesli Robertson is a textile artist by training, but in her creative process she often combines materials that are a sharp contrast to the usual fibers. An example would be the use of concrete, silk, and journaling. Robertson also researches and connects communities of people around the use of a particular material such as her recent work with artists from Uganda. http://www.leslirobertson.com
Jay Sullivan
February 2011, November 2010
Jay Sullivan is a Dallas-based sculptor and Professor of Sculpture in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. He earned an MFA degree in sculpture at California State University, Long Beach, and a BA in philosophy at Yale University. He has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Germany. He has also taught as Visiting Professor at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin and acted as Visiting Critic in drawing at the Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, from 1984 to 2002. He is represented by Conduit Gallery. http://www.jameswsullivan.com/
Brian Fridge
Brian Fridge is an artist working primarily in video. A typical work is Vault Sequence. Recorded in the artist’s apartment, the video “seems instead to have come directly from the Hubble telescope." Fridge's explorations of space and time feel at once both physical and psychological.
Teresa Rafidi
October 2012, April 2012, December 2010
Teresa Rafidi photographs in ordinary places, shifting attention away from the subject matter and redirecting the focus. She uses light as her theme, revealing subtle fragments of perception and the visceral pleasures of experiencing a particular moment. http://www.teresarafidi.com/
John Bramblitt
October 2010, October 2009:
Art was always a major part of John’s life, but it was not until he lost his sight in 2001 that he began to paint. Bramblitt’s paintings are intensely personal and are mostly taken from real people and events in his life. His workshops are unique in the art world in that they not only span the gap between beginning and professional artists but also include adaptive techniques for people with disabilities. http://bramblitt.net/
Jill Foley
September 2010, November 2009:
Jill Foley describes her work as her consciousness turned tangible. Through juxtaposition, extension, and exaggeration, her work charts the distance between the real and imagined, mirroring her ongoing effort to bring her work closer to her life. She uses recycled cardboard to create large-scale imaginary-type spaces for her drawings, paintings, found objects, and puppet-like figural sculptures. She then hosts participatory happenings and performances in her space. http://dallasmuseumofart.org/CenterforCreativeConnections/Exhibitions/index.htm#Past
Sara Cardona
June 2010
Artist Sara Cardona creates mixed media work that is influenced by her relationship with theater and film. Through ink drawings and collages, she records the experiences of her life. She draws on maps, file folders, and spare paper and uses everyday materials such as ink, ballpoint, correction fluid, markers, and thread. You can learn more about the artist and her work during our Thursday evening programs this month.
Frank Dufour
February 2012, May 2010
Frank Dufour is a sound and multimedia designer. He is conducting research on the concept of Time Icons and on the relations between music and visual expressions. This research project has two main applications. The first is dedicated to the visualization of music and explores the use of images and animations as a means to facilitate the understanding and appreciation of music, and the second is the translation of images into sounds and music. http://www.utdallas.edu/ah/atec/people/frank_dufour.htm
Romie Faienza
April 2010
Romie Faienza is a director, producer, photographer, and screenwriter who combines traditional and experimental film techniques to tell semi-fictional and semi-autobiographical stories of love and technology. Her work employs humor, narrative, and bold visuals to explore contemporary existential debates.
John Grandits
March 2010
Award-winning book and magazine designer John Grandits has been fascinated by type and printing all his life. He is the author of two books of concrete poetry: Technically, It’s Not My Fault and Blue Lipstick. His protagonist’s hilarious views of the world are expressed through a series of concrete poems in which words, ideas, type, and art combine to make pictures and patterns. You may have to turn the book sideways and upside down to read them, but laughter is 100% guaranteed.
Ann Marie Newman
2012, March 2010
Ann Marie Newman merges visual and performance art with storytelling to inspire people to see the creativity around them. She uses a variety of materials and a myriad of techniques in a highly imaginative and sensory rich approach. http://www.annmarienewman.com/
David Herman
February 2010
Through photography, David Herman captures a slice of reality that lives well beyond its present moment. His sensitive eye eloquently captures the spirit of his subjects that really connect people to each other. Narrative is an important element to Dave, although it only sometimes surfaces from him in and throughout his process.
Rene Muhl
December 2012, February 2012, January 2010
Artist Rene Muhl uses a variety of materials such as bronze, puzzle pieces, and fiber in her processes to create sculpture and installations that connect diverse communities of people through common interests. http://www.renemuhlartist.com
Lizzy Wetzel
December 2009
Lizzy Wetzel is a visual, performance, and installation artist who uses contrasting materials such natural, craft, and found objects in her work. Her inventive sculptural compositions reference magic, healing, humor, and play and often lead to a performance. http://www.lizzylizzylizzy.com/
Mitch Rogers
October 2009
Mitch Rogers is a nationally recognized visual effects artist who builds all kinds of specialized props and life-like dummies for film and TV. He is an expert on creating complex silicone and urethane molds for sculpture. http://www.brickintheyard.com/
We invite artists to the Center for Creative Connections (C3) to celebrate creativity and the artistic process. Join us for one of our artist led workshops for lively conversation and interesting hands-on art-making projects. Click the links below to learn more about the various workshops we offer. All levels welcome!