In the Studio

Boston based Dominican-American visual artist Silvia Lopez Chavez believes in the power of the creative process as an agent for positive change and uses art as a vehicle for connection. She is a seasoned community-based artist and a frequent collaborator with urban planners, architects, non-profits, developers, and activists. Public art projects include murals on the Charles River Esplanade in tandem with Now + There Inc., Harvard, Northeastern University, Punto Urban Art Museum, Barr Foundation, HUBweek, Boston Children’s Museum, and Twitter. Her work has received recognition through grants, commissions and residencies including New England Foundation for the Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Children’s Hospital, Vermont Studio Center and Google.

Chavez holds a BFA in Illustration from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, and an associate Fine Arts degree from Altos de Chavon the School of Design in Dominican Republic. In addition to her fine art practice, she is an award-winning design professional, working with high-profile companies and institutions. She continues her studio practice at Atlantic Works Artist Studios in East Boston.

www.silvialopezchavez.com

IG: @silvialopezchavez

Twitter: @Art_Design_Love

Kate Gilbert cultivates the critical role the arts and artists play in transforming our cities, our relationships, and ourselves. These investigations manifest in artwork, a curatorial practice, and dedication to expanding the field of public art. 

As an artist and cultural worker, Gilbert strives to facilitate joy and spontaneity and to drive public appreciation of contemporary art practices. Gilbert, the product of generations of creatives who didn't dare call themselves artists, cites her over-active childhood imagination and early exposure to large-scale sculpture as critical factors in her creative investigations. As a natural collaborator and problem solver, her studio practice morphed into a curatorial consulting practice for public art initiatives and in 2015, the founding of the Boston public art non-profit Now and There where she has developed a Public Art Accelerator.

Gilbert is a graduate of Connecticut College and earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. She is the 2020 recipient of NEFA’s Newell Flather Award for Leadership in Public Art, for curation and her artwork is in the Fidelity Corporate Art Collection as well as many Boston households thanks to her participatory workshops. Gilbert lives and works in Boston, MA with her husband and escapes to a small studio in East Boston to keep her artistic practice alive. Even if only on Sundays.

www.kategilbertstudio.com

IG: kategilbertstudio

www.nowandthere.org

IG: now_and_there

Boston-based contemporary artist Clint Baclawski is known for his work intersecting photography, installation, light and space. His work has been exhibited in Miami, San Diego, St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Philadelphia, New York City, and Edinburgh. Baclawski has been featured in: FRAME magazine, The Boston Globe, The Creator’s Project, Boston Home magazine, Designboom, and The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Volume II. He is also a 2019 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship Photography Grant Recipient.

Baclawski holds a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The work, in size and scale, is influenced by the California Light and Space movement of the 1960s and also incorporates themes from Baclawski’s background in advertising photography, with an emphasis on a strong single image.

His work is also included in private and institutional collections and he is represented by the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery. His studio is located in Boston’s South End.

www.clintbaclawski.com

IG: clintbaclawski

Stephen Hamilton is a mixed-media artist and arts educator living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Stephen graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and design in 2009 with a focus on illustration. He also studied Yoruba weaving, dyeing, and woodcarving at the Nike Centers for art and Culture in Osogbo and Ogidi Ijumu, Nigeria. He returned to the United States and introduced his communities to art forms such as indigo dyeing, and weaving while teaching and collaborating with young local artists. Through skills gained during his time in Nigeria, he was able to lead public art projects funded by the New England Foundation For The Arts (Stitched into Memory), and the Now and there Public Art Accelerator (The Founders Project). He is currently a visiting professor in the Illustration Department of Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

www.itanproject.com

IG: @theartofstephenhamilton

A Maryland native, Hana Quon attended the University of Maryland for literature and linguistics before finding and pursuing her passion for pastry arts. The L’Academie de Cuisine grad studied in Paris under master Jean Michel Perruchon, MOF at Ecole Bellouet and worked in Lyon for Sebastian Bouillet, a renowned macaron master; spent two years at Wellfleet’s PB Boulangerie & Bistro with Michelin starred chef Philippe Rispoli; and is now entrusted by Chef Frederic Robert, who spent 25 years as pastry partner to Alain Ducasse, to represent his work and run day-to-day operations at his South End patisserie, Cafe Madeleine. She was recently named one of Zagat's 30 Under 30 chefs redefining Boston's culinary industry. Hana's French technique–focused approach to pastries, from jam-stuffed flaky brioche feuilleté to classic chaussons aux pommes, continues to be the foundation to the shop's ever-expanding repertoire.

IG: @hanaquon

Rayna Lo is an artist living in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She is a calligrapher, illustrator, and educator and a second generation Taiwanese American born in Chicago, IL. 

In studying traditional Chinese calligraphy and illustration through westernized lenses, she bridges traditional Asian and contemporary art. And when she needs a break from studying her Taiwanese culture, she likes designing fun animals such as her Bear Mindful characters.

Christian Restrepo is a Boston-based American/Colombian maker and the architect of SIGILO, a body of work that echos those ideas of the alchemist, with pieces created in a slow-cooked manner. Using unusual and mundane materials, he explores intimate and human emotions through an obsessive, almost ritualistic process, learning to look at things not for what they are, but rather for what they could be. Obsessed with the process, it defines the results.

Named a “one-woman dynamo” by The Boston Globe and Boston’s Best 2018 "Creative Catalyst" by The Improper Bostonian, Maria Finkelmeier is a percussionist, composer, public artist, educator, and arts entrepreneur. Maria has created large-scale multimedia events in public spaces from Cincinnati to Northern Sweden, with several locations in Boston, including Fenway Park, Charlestown Navy Yard, Edison Power Plant, and the Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum.