Chris Bohl is a musician living in the Northern Adirondacks. Before moving to the North Country, he taught music in Virginia Public Schools for 15 years. He received a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Virginia Commonwealth University and was a member of the Indonesian percussion ensemble "Gamelan Raga Kusuma" based at the University of Richmond.
Recently, he has been facilitating drum circles at an inpatient drug treatment facility as well as for the community at large. Chris believes music is a force for healing and has spent the past couple of years using his skills for this purpose.
Geoffrey W. Cobb is a sculptor and educator based in Potsdam, NY. He holds an MFA in Sculpture with a Minor in Metals from Edinboro University and a BA in Sculpture from SUNY Potsdam. Cobb has taught art at various institutions, including Edinboro University, Malone Central School District, and international schools in Korea. He has also designed and taught numerous art workshops for children and people with diverse abilities. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the U.S. and internationally, and his sculptures have earned recognition in juried exhibitions. Cobb has a passion for exploring the intersections of art, culture, and education.
Patrick Costello is an artist whose work comes alive through multi-species collaborative relationships, integrating practices of ecological horticulture, sculpture, printmaking, and performance. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, NY. He has performed in venues including Ars Nova, New York, NY; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Public Theater, New York, NY; and at intentional communities, squats, and underground venues around the world. Most recently, Costello received a MacDowell Fellowship. He holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BA from the University of Virginia.
A composer/sound artist, educator, and radio host, Chris Cresswell is a curious musician whose work betrays his affection for sonic wanderlust. With an ear that incorporates all sorts of sounds, from pitch set theory and baroque counterpoint, to field recordings and a singer/songwriter at an open mic night, Cresswell’s music has been praised for its “unworldly textures” (Vital Weekly) and '“textural variety” (Gramophone) that “… blur the boundaries between industrial and organic, soothing and suspenseful, and introspective and anxious” (International Clarinet Association), creating “a truly immersive, dreamlike atmosphere” (PopMatters). He has shared the stage with a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and a Top 40 country star (two different occasions) and his music has been heard in coffee shops, concert halls, and venues around the world, from chic Brooklyn spots like Areté Venue and Gallery, and The Firehouse Space, to Birmingham, England's renowned Symphony Hall and the Paleis voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels.
An active educator, Cresswell’s educational philosophy is to meet students where they are at and elevate them from there. He currently works as an adjunct lecturer at Onondaga Community College, where he teaches several courses and maintains a composition studio. An exceptional teaching artist, Cresswell has worked in Syracuse City Schools, with Red House Arts Center, CNY Jazz Central, and a variety of other institutions. In 2014 he co-founded and built the recording studio at Lake of the Woods and Greenwoods Summer Camp. This work led him to start the One Mic Project, a songwriting and recording project that believes that “one mic can amplify a voice, a voice can tell a story, and a story can change the world.” Through Great Lakes Guitar Society, One Mic Project has received support from Arts in Corrections NYS, a regrant program of NYSCA, facilitated by Wave Farm with the support of NYS DOCCS.
Previously, Cresswell taught composition at the Birmingham Junior Conservatoire, ran the Young Composers Project (UK), Young Composers Corner (US), and has occasionally served an adjunct professor at Le Moyne College and Syracuse University. His passion for youth development led him to work for Fiver Children’s Foundation, a non profit that provides experiences that challenge students and build nurturing relationships so that youth from systemically under-resourced communities in New York can create their own positive futures.
Cresswell graduated from Syracuse University and the Birmingham Conservatoire. When not doing musical things, he can be found running the streets and trails of Central New York, watching St. Louis Cardinals baseball or Syracuse basketball, and spending time with his wife Amber and their adorable kitty, Eloise.
Eliza Lu Doyle is an artist based in New York who works across image-making, writing, and performance. Her practice takes shape through repeated physical encounters such as wrestling, embracing, line dancing, falling, and resting, to continually ask: What are we rehearsing for? Her work has been presented by BRIC, All Street, MoCA Arlington, the RISD Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Westbeth Gallery, the Arts Center at Duck Creek, Stowaway Gallery, and Olympia Arts. Doyle holds a BFA from RISD and an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She is currently a lecturer at Rutgers University and a teaching artist with Arts in Corrections NY. www.elizaludoyle.net
Maggie Hazen is New York-based visual artist and experimental filmmaker from Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited, screened, and performed at the Bronx Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Tolerance, CICA Museum, South Korea, Granoff Center at Brown University, Pulse Miami Beach as part of Pulse Play, The Boston Young Contemporaries exhibition, and the Center for Photography at the University of California Riverside as part of Southern California’s Pacific Standard Time, among other venues.
Public works include Hidden in Plein Site, in the Catskill Mountains, Transmimic, a projection on the Manhattan Bridge, and Of Departed Delineations, a transformative memory commemorating the 1992 LA Riots. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at venues throughout the United States and internationally, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and Philadelphia.
Hazen has had fellowships, grants, and residencies from Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; AIM Fellowship at the Bronx Museum, Shandaken Projects, Catskill, NY; Squeaky Wheel Media Arts Center, New York State Council on the Arts/Wave Farm; Lighthouse Works Visual Artist Fellowship; Vermont Studio Center and the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art in Switzerland; and many others.
She has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, New York University, The Stevens Institute of Technology, The Shanghai Institute of Visual Art, and as part of the Bard College Clemente courses in the humanities. She is a visiting artist-in-residence at Bard College in the Studio Arts program. She has studied at Brown University, MIT, and the European Graduate School. She holds a BFA from Biola University in California and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Tina LaMour is an artist and educator dedicated to fostering creative expression and personal growth through printmaking. She serves as an Associate Professor and Department Chair at North Country Community College in Malone, NY, where she teaches studio art, computer graphics, art history, and art appreciation. With a passion for arts education in correctional facilities, she has taught at Bare Hill Correctional Facility, Franklin Correctional Facility, and Raybrook Federal Correctional Institute.
Tina holds an MFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from the University of Colorado Boulder and a BFA in Fine Arts from SUNY Plattsburgh. She also studied Corrections Administration at Adirondack Community College, where she was a Literacy Volunteer at Great Meadow Correctional Facility.
Her expertise spans teaching, printmaking, and digital design, with proficiency in Adobe Suite and department management across multiple campuses. Through her work, she strives to inspire, educate, and empower individuals by unlocking their creative potential.
Caitlin Langstaff is an actor, director, producer, story coach, and teacher. She holds an M.F.A. in theatre and is a member of The Actors Studio and Actors Equity. She was the founder of Tidal Theatre Company and Tsunami Sound Waves, producing original work for the stage and radio. She co-created and produced The Mosquito, the Outer Capes only story slam. Caitlin also creates site-specific theatre including Car Theatre, Deli Theatre and theatre in elevators. She transcribed and directed At Ease, a documentary piece built from interviews with Afghanistan and Iraq U.S. Veterans. She was a professor at Suffolk University for 11 years, teaching all aspects of theatre. Lately, she has directed two one-man shows: If it Bleeds it Leads and Spinning My Wheels. She is co-producer of On The Fly Story Slam and part of the team at Hudson Valley Story Workshops where she teaches the craft of storytelling to all ages as well as an ongoing workshop with incarcerated men in a maximum state prison.
Sondra Loring is a queer movement artist, writer, and community organizer. Loring's choreography addresses social and political issues through site-specific works and solo performances, creating opportunities for community dialogue and engagement.
Sondra founded Satya Yoga Center, Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation, and MovingPotential in the Hudson Valley, creating welcoming spaces for community wellness.
Through MovingPotential, and her work with Wave Farm’s Arts in Corrections program, she brings trauma-informed yoga, meditation, creative writing, and movement to correctional facilities and recovery centers, helping individuals reclaim agency through mindful practice. Her work combines artistic expression with practical tools for healing and empowerment.
Gretchen Primack is the author of Kind, republished by Lantern Books in March 2021, which explores the dynamic between humans and (other) animals; Visiting Days (Willow Books 2019), set in a maximum-security men's prison; and Doris's Red Spaces (Mayapple Press). Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, FIELD, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies.
Primack has worked as an administrator and taught with education programs in prison and jail for many years and moonlights at an indie bookstore in Woodstock, NY. She co-wrote, with Jenny Brown, The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals (Penguin Avery). Her website is www.gretchenprimack.com.
Adam Reid is a video producer, photographer, and youth advocate who provides mentorship, encourages confidence, and works everyday to inspire others to follow their passion. His productions include music videos, short form documentaries, interviews, product commercials, promotional & campaign videos, and graphic design.
Adam started helping on film sets at age 11 and currently teaches video production, script writing, photography, and acting for ages 7-25. He has developed programs that teach entrepreneurship and workforce development, encouraging his students to be intentional in life and to push creative limits. He's also taught third grade general education in the Bronx, where he developed an after school program teaching the students song & music video production.
Today this program is known as the MVP program, providing art therapy for high school students and those incarcerated in the penal system. With a master’s degree in criminal justice management, he’s on a path to use the MVP program as a means to reverse and intercept the school-to-prison pipeline and reduce recidivism.
Zach Reid is an arts/media teacher from Poughkeepsie, New York.
I am Ya’qub Shabazz, a visual artist, collector, and art educator deeply committed to exploring how art can be a transformational tool in our society. I believe in the power of art to inspire and teach essential skills that foster personal growth, connection, and resilience. By using art as a medium for education and self-discovery, we can unlock incredible outcomes, both for individuals and the communities they belong to.
As the Director of the 9th Floor Artists Collective, I lead efforts to provide a creative sanctuary where artists can thrive while engaging in meaningful dialogue about art, culture, and social justice. Throughout my career, I have had the privilege of speaking with students at institutions such as Cornell University, the University of Wisconsin, Chicago State University, and Tompkins Cortland Community College. Whether in a classroom, a studio, or a correctional facility, I have witnessed how creative expression can bridge divides, nurture untapped potential, and empower individuals to imagine and pursue brighter futures.
My experience working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly in Wisconsin, has shaped my approach to art-based interventions. Through this work, I have seen how art can equip at-risk populations with essential life skills, foster personal growth, and support rehabilitation. I believe in the transformative potential of creative expression to teach, heal, and inspire those navigating life’s most challenging circumstances.
As an artist, my practice spans oil painting, wood carving, acrylic painting, and woodblock printing. Each piece I create celebrates the heritage and contributions of artists of African descent while exploring the intersections of contemporary artistic expression, wellness, and cultural identity. Through my work, I aim to uncover and share the overlooked and underrepresented chapters of art history, enriching our collective understanding of artistic heritage.
My journey as an artist and educator is guided by the belief that art is more than a practice—it is a force for change, healing, and progress. Whether speaking, creating, or mentoring, I strive to show that art has the power to inspire individuals, uplift communities, and transform society.
Christina Thyssen is a writer, story coach, and teacher. She holds a Ph.D in American literature and teaches writing and literature at University at Albany. She also teaches writing to incarcerated individuals for Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). As a story coach, she works with individual writers, storytellers, and organizations to guide them in shaping and telling their stories. She is the co-founder and producer of On The Fly, a monthly Moth-style story slam in Catskill NY, and is currently at work on a memoir about raising a special needs daughter.
Shandaken Projects’ Nicholas Weist is a career arts professional with over twenty years of experience in the field. He has managed Shandaken's educational initiatives since 2018, beginning with the free postgraduate fellowship Paint School, and including the organization's ongoing Summer Intensive, which offers teenagers from NYC public schools an hourly salary to learn printmaking techniques. Before working with Shandaken, he served as Director of Communications for the public art nonprofit Creative Time, and as Managing Editor of the art and culture publisher Powerhouse Books.