Osiris Rain lives his art everyday, and it shows!
In the past 11 years, the scale of his work has exploded from oil on board 8 x 10 inches, in the Renaissance tradition, to spray on brick walls 20 x 80 feet. Osiris has expanded his subject matter by 10,000% while retaining postage stamp precision like his father the illustrator and his mother the engineer who’s monumental vision inspired Osiris to stay true to his vision for living.
What’s the story Michael?
Well you see, I decided to study Architecture and spent 6 years doing that in Charlotte, but I’m from Philly! After graduating, I think I graduated to a job in a 4thfloor walk up with no heat. After that exploded/imploded/whatever, it was off to Switzerland, sort of. Then a partnership & now I’m Bugs Bunny’s replacement. Did I mention my band used to open for R.E.M. at the Milestone.
As the second Roll Up CLT Artist in Resident, $han Wallace is learning lessons and teaching lessons everyday. “It don’t come easy these days and it’s critical to be resilient.”
Inspired by the life’s work of visual poet & filmmaker Gordon Parks, Shan teaches her students to merge the fundamentals of photo/video image making with journalistic writing skills to enable them to clearly articulate what it means right now to be Black in the U.S.A.
The approach Susan Jedrzejewski takes to explaining “Art Making” is also a little piece of Heaven on Earth. Especially given her inherent understanding of the lives and talents of creative thinkers in every profession…, occupation…, and vocation!
Zun Lee encourages thinking about community + belonging uncovering stories of identity and connection, amidst the sociopolitical dynamic of black dispossession due to debilitating dislocation patterns, in everyday black lives, worthy of respect, “Seeing ourselves, as we are.”
Content marketing keynote speaker and founder of Story Fuel, Melanie Deziel loves her flawless reds a little glossy and her decaf black. This classic combination of flawless attention to details, with the unerring determination to help others to tell their story better, has catapulted Melanie into the upper stratosphere of “Native” advertising’s meteoric rise to prominence, within the highly enigmatic advertising industry.
Rachel Proffit creates flawless relaxation for her ideal client by listening to their body, in order to reach the level of envious calm. Her, in the moment connection, is the key to providing a peaceful, tranquil, not a care in the world massage.
Marcia Jones’ oldest desire is to know what “secure belonging” feels like, by breaking with her family’s generational cycles, by creating large scale dark charcoal art forms in public performances, in order to share her practice of confronting the triple darkness of space.
Megan Alexandra Miller is from another planet, I’m guessing it’s Jupiter! Her mezzo-soprano tones are as whiskful as are her needs to fiercely shape her love for the arts and culture into the post-modern equivalent of a grand 19th century opera, replete with despair, renewal and the ultimate gift, inspiration!
Michael’s qualifications are years of obsessive and compulsive behavior as a mixed marshal arts warrior, which led him to two broken noses and other damaged bits and pieces. He is now a butt kicking personal trainer!