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Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned—and daring— creative pioneers. She is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology. As writer, director, visual artist and vocalist she has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music.
Anderson's recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave” and “Life on a String” (2001). Her live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999). Anderson has published seven books and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world.
In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance “The End of the Moon”.  Recent projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film, “Hidden Inside Mountains,” created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2007, she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. In 2008, she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece, “Homeland”, which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson’s solo performance “Delusion” debuted at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010 and will continue to tour internationally into 2011.  In 2010, a retrospective of her visual and installation work opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later traveled to Rio de Janeiro.
In 2011, Anderson's exhibition of all new work, titled “Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo”, opened at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. That same year she was awarded the Pratt Institute’s Honorary Legends Award. Anderson's exhibition “Boat” curated by Vito Schnabel opened in May of 2012. She has recently finished residencies at both CAP in UCLA in Los Angeles and EMPAC in Troy, New York.  Her film “Heart of a Dog” was chosen as an official selection of the 2015 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. In the same year, Anderson's exhibition “Habeas Corpus” opened at the Park Avenue Armory to wide critical acclaim and, in 2016, she was the recipient of Yoko Ono’s Courage Award for the Arts for that project. Anderson lives in New York City.
Signe Baumane is a Latvian-born independent filmmaker, artist, and animator, with an interest in a wide variety of narrative themes including sex, pregnancy, love, marriage, and the individual vs. society. Many of her films are told with a strong female point of view. She is not afraid to experiment, be provocative, or bring the most personal issues to light.
Signe believes that animation is the perfect medium to tell layered complicated stories. She is fascinated by the ability of animation to incorporate a wide variety of art forms. Her latest projects--a feature film "Rocks In My Pockets" and "My Love Affair With Marriage"-- fuse animation with music, theater, science, photography, lighting, three-dimensional sets, and traditional hand-drawn animation.
Signe is a New York Fellow for the Arts in Film and Guggenheim Fellow. Her 16 animated shorts have screened collectively at over 400 films festivals including Bernlinale, Sundance, and Annecy.  "Rocks in My Pockets" premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014, went to over 150 film festivals, and opened theatrically in the US through Zeitgeist Films. Since 2015, Signe has been working on 'My Love Affair With Marriage," which will be complete Spring 2021.
Michael Brodeur is Associate Professor in studio art (foundations, painting and drawing) at Furman University, Greenville SC. He was born in Claremont, NH and graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.A. in art. He earned an M.F.A. in painting/drawing from Boston University where he studied with Philip Guston and James Weeks. Mr. Brodeur has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and group shows including Contemporary Conversations, Works curated from the South Carolina Art Collection (Eleanor Heartney, curator), 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, SC, From America, Museum of Contemporary Art, Minsk Belarus, Mostra, Cortona Italy, The South Carolina Triennial 2001, From the Studio at the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Hortt Annual at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Greater Midwest International Exhibition XX at Central Missouri State University and the 2nd International Painting Exhibition Competition, Lessedra Gallery in Sofia Bulgaria. His work has appeared twice in New American Paintings, editions #58 and #100.
Among the public institutions that hold his work are The Emrys Foundation, Greenville SC, Columbia College in Columbia SC, LaMar Dodd Art Center at LaGrange College, LaGrange, GA, the South Carolina Arts Commission, The South Carolina State Museum and the Greenville County Museum of Art. His work is also in many private collections. He is a 1997 recipient of a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship. Mr. Brodeur’s teaching credits include Chair of the Foundations Program at the New England School of Art and Design in Boston, MA and faculty at Florida Atlantic University at Boca Raton, FL. He moved to Greenville in 1999 to create and chair the Visual Arts Department at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. His work is represented online at: http://michaelbrodeur.blogspot.com
Sydney A. Cross taught printmaking and art at Clemson University from 1981-2016 where she was awarded the title of Alumni Distinguished Professor of Art. After retiring from Clemson, she moved to Los Angeles and is currently an instructor at California State University, Northridge, CA.  She also serves on LA Print Society Board. She held the office President of the Southern Graphics Council International (1996-2000), the largest printmaking society in North America. She has received numerous awards including in 2017, the SGC International Printmaker Emeritus Award.  She has given many professional presentations at regional, national, and international conferences and symposiums including the Southeastern College Art Association conferences and the Print Odyssey conference in Cortona Italy in 2001. As an artist she has participated in several important portfolio exchanges, including Drawn from the McClung Museum, Suite X, Printer’s Almanac, Tempe Suite, Images 2010, and Drawn to Stone, a celebration of Two Hundred Years of Lithography.
Her work has been exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally and can be found in numerous collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, The Museum of Fine Art, Antwerp, Belgium, and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Visual Arts Visual Artist
Born in Hamilton, Bermuda, Margaret Curtis is a painter and visual artist. She has been creating feminist-based work since the late 1980s. Curtis has been included in shows at The Brooklyn Museum, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Huntington Beach Art Center, The Mint Museum and The Wexner Center. Career highlights include being featured in Marcia Tucker’s 1994 Bad Girls exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC; her work was curated by Lilli Wei and by Laurie Simmons; she enjoyed numerous solo and group shows at P.P.O.W. gallery in NYC where she was represented for many years. In addition to solo exhibitions throughout New York and the American South, her work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at Stony Brook University in New York.
Reviews and features of Curtis’ work have appeared in Art Forum, The New York Times, Art in America, Art News, Modern Painters, New Art Examiner, among others. Her work is in permanent collections throughout the United States. She was the recipient of Yale’s Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship and The Predmore Award from Duke University, as well as numerous residency awards. Curtis graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University. She taught painting at The School of Visual Arts in New York for several years, and has been on the boards of both The Flood Gallery in Asheville, NC, and The Upstairs Gallery in Tryon, NC, where she currently resides.
Teaching artist Christopher Davenport uses film, photography, and handmade paper to create his works centered on Ecology, Place, Time, and the Power of the Collective Experience. Christopher teaches at the University of Alabama.
Learn more about Davenport at https://pocketknifepress.com/
Visual Arts Illustrator and Designer
Maria is an illustrator and designer who believes smart ideas make beautiful work.With an affection for process, she works by hand and on screen for projects large and small while trying to maintaining her daily illustration blog — Wordless News. Maria is based in the hot metropolis of Columbia, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, son (Charlie) and daughter (Jacqueline “Q”) and a very chubby kitty. Maria brings more than 10 years of professional experience to bear and holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Graphic Design/Visual Communication. Some of her clients include: Oprah Magazine, NPR, Stat News, Kaiser Health News, Resources Magazine, Web MD Magazine, University of South Carolina, Rhode Island Monthly, Writer's Digest, Charleston City Paper, and Vox.
Diana Farfán is an award-winning ceramic sculptor and instructor, cultural agent and art coach advancing Latino artists in South Carolina. Diana is an instrumental leader and key player in this sector who works to make these artists’ voices louder and stronger in South Carolina by mentoring young Latino artists. An advocate for animal welfare and the natural environment, Diana supports local organizations by increasing awareness of Humane Education (HE) with emphasis on sensitizing the youth through the arts. Diana holds a B.A. in Graphic Design, a B.F.A. in Ceramic and Printmaking from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and a M.F.A. in Ceramic Sculpture from University of South Carolina. She has studied at the University of Anchorage (Alaska, U.S.A.), and at the Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan as an exchange student. She has exhibited her work at various art venues and has been an artist in residency. She is a member of the Liberty Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Through her figurative sculpture; Diana creates dramatic-poetic narratives, coated with a layer of humor about environmental, social and political issues.
Polly Gaillard is a fine art photographer, writer, and educator. For more than ten years, she has taught photography workshops and college courses including summer study abroad programs in Prague, Czech Republic, and Cortona, Italy. She currently teaches at Furman University in Greenville, SC. Polly received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010. She has exhibited her fine art photographs nationally and published a limited edition artist book, Pressure Points, with a foreword by actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Polly's photographic skills traverse contemporary art, documentary, portrait, and traditional photographic practices. She lives in Greenville, SC with her daughter.
New York native Jean Grosser received a BA in History from Barnard College, a BFA in sculpture from Alfred State College of Ceramics and an MFA in sculpture from Ohio University, Athens.
She currently resides in Hartsville, South Carolina where she is Professor of Art at Coker University. Her work is in the collections of the Freedom Rides Museum and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL. She has been the recipient of the Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission and was a finalist for the Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowships in Sculpture. Her work, inspired by her interest in political activism, has been exhibited internationally.
Kelly King holds a BFA (Art Education) and an MFA (Ceramics) from the University of Georgia. She makes and teaches both sculptural and functional ceramics. Her hand-built ceramics fuse drawing, art history and narrative with a sculptural sensibility. Thematically, her work deals with the human impulse to arrange and organize the natural landscape.
King has taught in the college and community setting for over 18 years. She has led numerous workshops, including the Potter’s Council Series “Focus on Function” in Cincinnati, Ohio. She exhibits her work in galleries both regionally and nationally. Her sculpture and functional pottery have been featured in several art publications, including a feature article and cover photo in Ceramics Monthly. Originally from Georgia, she joined the Fine Arts Center in 2015. She holds a studio in her home in Greenville that she shares with her husband and two children.
Armon A. Means is an adjunct Photography Professor / Teaching Artist in Nashville, TN, and representative for Sprint Systems of Photography. He received his BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art (’99) and an MFA from Cranbrook Art Academy (’02), both in Photography. Means is currently on faculty at Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, and Watkins College of Art and Design, and has taught extensively across the Midwest and Southeast. His work centers on ideas of cultural / minority identity and environmental influence. Means' work is represented in numerous permanent and private collections and exhibited throughout the United States with international exhibitions in Thailand, France, Hungary, and various group exhibitions, including the Chiang Mai International Festival of Photography.
Visual Arts Visual Artist
Steven Nevitt is a professor of art at Columbia College in Columbia, SC, where he serves as Division Head of the Art and Communication Studies Program and chair of the Art Program. Nevitt holds a BFA from the University of South Carolina and an MA from the State University of New York.  His artwork has been represented in over 250 exhibitions worldwide, including one-man shows at the Havens Gallery in Columbia SC, McDonald Gallery in Charlotte NC, McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, Richland County Library, Sumter Museum of Art, Theatre Gallery in High Point NC, USC Coastal Regional Campus (now Coastal Carolina University), USC Lancaster, among others.
Visual Arts Animator and cartoonist
Bill Plympton is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker. Plympton is best known for his 1987 Academy Award-nominated short Your Face and his series of shorts Guard Dog, Guide Dog, Hot Dog, and Horn Dog. His illustrations and cartoons have been published in The New York Times and the weekly newspaper The Village Voice, as well as in the magazines Vogue, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Penthouse, and National Lampoon. Plympton's animated work has been seen on MTV in the late 80's and early 90's, in music video's for Kanye West and Weird Al Yankovic, and in multiple Simpsons episodes.
Learn more about Plympton at http://www.plymptoons.com/
Visual Arts Visual Artist
Ryan Roth teaches drawing, painting, and animation at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, SC. Before joining the FIne Arts Center, Roth taught at The Ohio State University, Denison University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and The University of Georgia. He lived for a time in New York City working as an artist and for the top antique framer in the nation, Eli Wilner & Company, whose clients included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the White House, Yale University, the New-York Historical Society, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, as well as many top collectors. Mr. Roth managed the graphic design of the company, creating digital mock-ups as well as installing, fitting and framing some of the world’s most famous paintings. Ryan Roth earned his BFA from Valdosta State University and got his MFA in Drawing and Painting at The University of Georgia. Mr. Roth continues to exhibit work in New York and across the Southeast. He has also participated in international exhibits in Europe and China.
Enid Williams received her M.F.A. in painting from Kent State University in 1996 and her B.A. in studio art from the University of Toledo in 1992. In 2012 she was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, recognizing her as an artist of significant achievement. Williams continues to explore the use of kinetic circles and particles interwoven in a primarily white void, a signature characteristic that she describes as both matrix and backdrop. This recurring construct allows for a multitude of visual scenarios to occur. Her meticulously rendered images are informed by a diverse framework that is both contemporary and historical: science, literary conventions, color perception charts, the works of Abstract Expressionists and Op Art are often referenced in titles. These influences have largely inspired the optical complexity and spatial ambiguity of her work. Also citing time as a theme, Williams draws attention to the arrested representation of time in these images and the paradoxically slower but still moving time a viewer may experience when engaging the work. For Williams, this becomes an expression of our attempt at controlling time or preventing change.
Since 1998, Enid has instructed studio classes at Kent State University, Youngstown State University, and the University of Akron in Ohio. She currently teaches design, painting, drawing and printmaking at the Benson Campus of Greenville Technical College in Greer, SC and maintains her studio practice in Greenville, SC.