2021 – 2023 RESIDENT ARTISTS
Kranzberg Arts Foundation extended the timeline for the 2021- 2022 cohort of Kranzberg Artists in Residence, through May 2023. KAF has continued to provide Residents with the support, infrastructure and tools they need to complete their final projects.
The Kranzberg Arts Foundation has long been a major patron of the arts in St. Louis and is committed to aligning our resources to aid in and advance the flourishing renaissance of the arts in the St. Louis area. Growth in the local arts community is now more vigorous than ever, however, the shortage of affordable artists’ work and presentation spaces has been a clear obstacle in the path of our artists. In consideration of this problem and in support and recognition of St. Louis area artists, the Foundation is continuing to redefine and expand our short and long-term residency programs.
The Kranzberg Arts Residencies for Individual Artists was launched in 2021, and the mission of this program is to help each participant define, pursue, and achieve their individual goals as an artist. Each resident will exit the program with improved skills, new professional relationships, and increased knowledge. The newly-expanded program includes 15 local artists in the categories of visual artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers. Each residency is designed to support artists through five distinct pillars: dedicated workspaces; state-of-the-art presenting/performance space; technology, tools and training; marketing, storytelling, partner support; and a $1,000 cash stipend. Residents were selected via an application process reviewed and scored by a committee of artists, arts professionals, and educators. The committee built a lottery pool that reflected demographic diversity, as well as a diversity of artistic mediums and artists, who were selected blindly from the lottery pool.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Vincent Stemmler
Vincent Stemmler is an interdisciplinary artist from St. Louis, Missouri whose work is often a contemplation on the interplay between identity, place, and loss. Vincent received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Vincent is currently an adjunct professor at Florissant Valley Community College and University of Missouri, St. Louis, teaching ceramics, sculpture and drawing classes. Vincent’s most notable recent exhibitions include two solo shows : “Sticks In the Mud” and “The Garden of the Void” and a nationally juried group exhibition at Miami University as a finalist in the 2019 Young Sculptors Competition.
B.J. Parker
B. J. Parker is a contemporary figurative painter, teacher, and dog dad living in Tower Grove South. Fascinated by myth and always practicing the visual language, he completed his PhD in ancient religion at Baylor University and trained in the visual arts at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art. He has also studied painting closely with Sadie Valeri and Patricia Watwood. He has taught art and religion at Baylor University, Greenville University, and most recently at the Gateway Academy of Classical Art. His work explores human relationships, the experience of the sublime, and forgotten stories. He plans to use his residency to visually explore the meaning and re-construction of myth in a post-modern context by way of large scale narrative paintings.
Sarah Paulsen
Raised in Kirkwood, Missouri, Sarah Paulsen is an artist, filmmaker and community organizer whose artwork has been exhibited widely in local and national exhibitions, and whose prize-winning films have been featured in the St. Louis International Film Festival, the True/False Film Festival, the Black Maria Film Festival, the Motivate Film Festival and the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, among many others. She was the recipient of the 2018 Great Rivers Biennial, which culminated in an exhibit at Contemporary Art Museum- St. Louis. A 2010 C.A.T. Institute fellow and 2015 Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellow, she has garnered numerous awards for her work and also completed several residencies – including the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris. A dedicated advocate for social change, a key aspect of Paulsen’s practice has always involved the orchestration of large-scale community projects, such as participatory public murals, thematic round-table discussions and the now-annual People’s Joy Parade on Cherokee Street. Paulsen holds a B.F.A. in visual art from the University of Missouri, Columbia and an M.F.A. from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art at Washington University. She lives and works in St. Louis, where she teaches art and animation at Marian Middle School and St. Louis Community College.
Emily Elliott
Emily Elliott is a multidisciplinary artist from Columbus, Georgia. She received her Bachelors in Fine Art in 2011 from Columbus State and received her Master’s in Fine Art from the University of South Florida in 2014. She has worked as a studio assistant and fabricator for several artists in LIC, NY. It was there that she fell in love with the multi layered process of mold making, which she utilizes in her personal studio practice, as well as through mold making courses and workshops. Elliott has been living and working in Saint Louis, MO. since 2017. She has taught at multiple institutions in the greater Saint Louis region, and currently teaches sculpture and 3-d design as a contingent faculty member at Webster University. She acted as the visiting artist in sculpture at Webster University in fall of 2020, and was invited to act as the coordinator and host of the Webster DADAH visiting artist lecture series for the 2020-2021 school year. During that year she committed herself to bringing in a wide variety of artists, many whom were living and working in Saint Louis area, to speak to the Webster Student body about their professional practice and experience working in the arts.
Elliott has exhibited regionally and nationally. Selected exhibitions include: the 28th Cedarhurst Biennial Exhibit at the Cedarhurst Center for The Arts in 2019, as well as the 59th Mid-States Art Exhibition at the Evansville Museum in Evansville, IN. in 2018. She was invited to exhibit and give a visiting artist lecture at the AAHD Gallery at Notre Dame University in 2019, and created an immersive experiential installation called Objectively Speaking at the Cecille R. Hunt Gallery at Webster University in the fall of 2019. Emily Elliott currently lives in Dutchtown, and can often be seen walking her dog, Clementine in Tower Grove park.
Felia Davenport
Felia K. Davenport is an Associate Professor in the Communication and Media Department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She holds a B.F.A. in Costume Design from Virginia Commonwealth University and an M.F.A. in Costume Design from University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Felia has designed costumes for theatre and dance companies in St. Louis, New York, London, Nigeria, and South Africa. Felia’s biggest inspiration is her daughter, Kaleesi Rose. It is because of her that Felia was inspired to create her exhibition, Torn Mixology which explores her multi-racial identity versus how society tries to identify her. Torn Mixology, is re-connecting her to her roots in fashion and art. Now, only the clothing will speak for itself on this exploration of personal and social identity.
WRITERS
Mario Farwell
Mario Farwell is a native of St. Louis Missouri. He attended the University of MO at Kansas City and received a B.A in Theater. While in Kansas City, he founded The Black and Avant-Garde Theatre. After graduating college, he moved to New York City and lived there for twenty-six years. His plays and musicals have been produced off-off Broadway in NYC, San Diego, CA, Minneapolis, MN, St. Louis, MO, Boston, and Africa. Mario Farwell is the founder and current director of the St. Louis Writers’ Group in St. Louis, MO. The group’s mission is the development of local scriptwriters’ works. Mr. Farwell also studied ballet and dance with the Kansas City Ballet.
Mario has been writing plays, musicals, and screenplays for over thirty years. He has written 12 full-length play, numerous short plays, three musicals and two screenplays. His play The Seamstress of St. Francis Street won the Inaugural E. Desmond Lee Playwriting Competition, and the award-winning play was turned into a feature film entitled Pennies for the Boatman. The film has won several awards which includes Best Film and Screenplay at the Madrid International Film Festival. The movie, Pennies for the Boatman, has been featured on Amazon Prime Video. The Seamstress of St. Francis Street was produced in 2010 in Ghana, Africa by the University of Ghana at Legon.
Mr. Farwell has won The Emerging Playwright Awards at Urban Stages in NYC. His play The Seamstress of St. Francis Street was selected for the Summer Play Festival at Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. He has won Best Play at Scripteaser in San Diego, CA, and nine of his plays have been produced at First Run Theatre in St. Louis, MO. Mario’s musical Starfest was part of the Santa Fe Musical Festival. Starfest was also a semi-finalist in the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Recently, his musical Ebenezer was selected as a semi-finalist at the 2021 National Music Theater Conference. In 2013, Mr. Farwell received an RAC grant to complete his musical Starfest.
Recently, Mr. Farwell produced and directed a showcase production of his musicals Joan of Arc and Starfest at the Chapel in St. Louis. During the COVID-19 shutdown, he completed two full-length plays Rain Dances and Astoria. In June 2021, Mr. Farwell play Don’t Hate Me “Cause I’m Beautiful was produced in Denver. He is currently developing a new play Broom, putting the final touches on his musical Ebenezer , and contemplating starting work on a new musical based on his play Last Days of Café Cafe.
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Deborah Taffa
Deborah Taffa’s writing can be found at Salon, LARB, The Boston Review, A Public Space, and other places. She is the Director of the low residency MFA in Creative Writing at IAIA and has taught for Washington University’s Summer Writer’s Institute for almost a decade. An enrolled member of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation, she is working on a memoir about her coming of age.
Lizzy Petersen
Lizzy Petersen is a poet from St. Louis, MO, where she works in public media and directs a student-run, after-school literary magazine, OutsideLitMag.com, through a partnership with St. Louis Public Schools. Her poetry has recently appeared in or is forthcoming in december, Image, Ninth Letter, Pinch, and Southern Humanities Review, among others. She has been recognized for her writing by the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission’s Artist Support Grant, the Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Interchange Fellowship, the River Pretty Poetry Scholarship, and the Dairy Hollow Writers Residency, and she was a 2019-20 Community Arts Training fellow at St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. She currently serves as a contributing editor for $: Poetry is Currency and has previously served as the Managing Editor of River Styx and Co-Poetry Editor for Sycamore Review at Purdue Univerisity, where she received her MFA in Poetry.
FILMMAKERS
Prince Lyons
Prince Lyons is a professional freelance performing artist and creative from St. Louis, MO. Prince began his dance journey at Best Dance and Talent Center under the direction of Judy Best-Person and received his BFA from Webster University— Cum Laude with an emphasis on ballet.
Prince has danced for Visceral Dance Chicago, The Cambrians, Owen/ Cox Dance Group, and Rambert II. Throughout his performance career, Prince has performed works by Diane McIntyre, Kevin O’Day, Robyn Mineko-Williams, Benoit Swan-Pouffer, Jermaine Spivey, Ohad Naharin, Sidi Larbi, Damien Jalet and worked with recording artists like Jessie Ware.
Prince has choreographed on Visceral Dance Chicago, Big Muddy Dance Company, is the 2018-2019 winner of Western Michigan University’s Department of Dance National Choreography Competition, and is the Co-Founded and premiered The K/P Project St. Louis in June of 2021. Additionally, Prince is Jaquel Knight Foundation Grant Recipient and a published model working with Nike, Kohls, JD Sports/Finishline, and Dicks Sporting Goods. His more artistic portraits have premiered in art galleries worldwide from Montreal, Canada, to Melbourne, Australia.
Catherine Dudley-Rose
Catherine Dudley-Rose escaped to New York City at a young age, before cell phones and hashtags. With a backpack of plays, her violin, and $100, she started in the North Bronx in search of her creative voice. Invited by Academy Award winner Allison Janney, Catherine wrote, directed, and acted with the Red Earth Ensemble (sponsored by Joanne Woodward) focusing on presenting new work tackling subjects such as the Aids epidemic, censorship, and women’s issues. Her first feature length screenplay, Parallel Chords, received a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
She has taught at the renown NY Stage & Film program, and multiple guest artist residencies such as the Broadway Theatre Institute helping 90 kids in the Bronx write their own plays. Her short version of Parallel Chords (overture) won several awards, screened over 40 times in festivals and raised funds for Youth Emergency Services. She is a National Film Challenge winner, won the “Curator’s Pick” cash prize from Women in Film Seattle, been a kick-off speaker for the Citizen Jane Film Festival, and been on several regional film festival panels. She is a proud member of Film Fatales (the only Missouri member). Women and Hollywood highlighted her “Best Feature Writer” win at the LA Femme International Film Festival sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, West. She currently lives in St. Louis where her first feature won Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Narrative Feature, and was selected for the Emerging Director/New Filmmaker’s Forum at the St. Louis International Film Festival. She is a two-time RAC (Regional Arts Commission) grant recipient and she believes in building film community where you live.
Catherine has been commissioned to write three other screenplays, performed for an audience of 80,000 and has additionally created music for independent films, MTV, done string arrangements for Platinum selling Kate Nash, and has a lengthy music and acting bio. These skills inform her work as a director.
MUSICIANS
James Hegarty
For more than twenty years Hegarty has been based in St. Louis where he performs with experimental musicians in performances on the New Music Circle series, at the St. Louis Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and numerous clubs including The Dark Room, Foam, Holmes Lounge, and the now-closed Tavern of Fine Arts. He has given full-length concerts at Eyedrum in Atlanta and the Kemper Museum in Kansas City.
Hegarty has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Regional Arts Commission, The Illinois Arts Council, and the Elgin Arts Commission. His music has been performed in Europe, the Pacific Rim, and throughout the United States. He has performed at colleges, festivals, and clubs throughout the Midwest, California, and New York.
He was the head of the music department at St. Louis Community College Forest Park and is currently Professor of Music at Principia College. He founded the music technology programs at both institutions. He has served as chair of several departments, division head of arts and communication, and Director of Academic Special Programs.
Hegarty has recorded over thirty albums of free jazz and electronic music dating from the 1980s to the present.
His IDM album, Leaving Venice was cited as an “unassuming gem from an American artist with much to say. Unreservedly recommended….” on the website AmbientMusicGuide.com.
His solo piano album Cut it/out was recognized by Corey Hall at JazzReview.com as “a very personal and original recording.” Stef Gijssels of Free Jazz exclaimed, “Nice album!”
Jessica Adkins
Jessica Adkins is a multi-instrumentalist, instructional designer, philosopher, and filmmaker. Originally from Milwaukee, she moved to St. Louis in 2014 to pursue a PhD in Philosophy with a minor in Women and Gender Studies at SLU. Her dissertation focused on the public exhibition of anatomical bodies. She can most often be found around town playing accordion in The Opera Bell Band, Ryan Koenig and the Goldenrods, and The So Grand Polka Band. The pandemic allowed her the free time to concentrate on composing original polka scores, and she hopes to help keep polka music alive in St. Louis. In her free time, she creates stop motion videos out of paper and has placed 2nd in the City Garden Film Competition and has been screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Eric Slaughter
Eric Slaughter was born into a musical family in St Louis, Mo. He attended the Berklee College of Music where, in classes and in performances in and around the Boston, Mass. area, he was exposed to music and musicians from around the globe. After college he returned to the St Louis area where he began recording and performing with saxophonists Oliver Sain and Willie Akins, and jazz vocalist and multi instrumentalist Hugh “Peanuts” Whalum. An opportunity to tour the country with blues vocalist and producer Willie Clayton took him away from St Louis and in between tours he began working as a studio session musician for Ace records in Jackson, Mississippi. Later, his desire to get closer to the roots of jazz and a chance meeting with vocalist/trumpeter Jeremy Davenport prompted him to move to New Orleans, La. where, in concerts with Davenport’s group and with the help and mentorship of trumpeter Wendell Brunious, saxophonist Donald Harrison, drummer Shannon Powell, and many others, he was able to immerse himself in the music and history of this vibrant and diverse musical culture. Eric has had the opportunity to share the stage with Ronnie Burrage, David Sanborn, Houston Person, Russel Gunn, Eric Roberson, Johnny O’neal, Phil Perry, Mary Stallings and many others. His prolific and eclectic musical career has afforded him the opportunity to record and share the stage with artists from all over the musical map.
Jeffery Dhoruba Hill
Jonathan Taylor
Jonathan Taylor is a percussionist, educator, and composer who has been based in St. Louis since 2003. After growing up in Northern Virginia and Little Rock, Ark., and doing all the band and orchestra activities possible, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in English (with a minor in Music) from the University of Central Arkansas and spent several years performing in Tulsa and Northwest Arkansas before finding his way to St. Louis. Working as a freelance musician has led to a wide array of gigs that have included orchestras, rock bands, Scottish bagpipe bands, small combos, and big bands. He has performed recently as co-founder of The Provels and as a sideman with Midnight Piano Band and Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players. He is also the percussion instructor at Northwest High School (Cedar Hill, Mo.), and he recently obtained his teaching license for high school English through the University of Missouri–St. Louis. During this residency, Jonathan plans to form a new ensemble to perform original works composed over the last 30 years and to fill the roles of pianist and music director for the first time. The suite of compositions covers a seemingly disparate range of styles, but it is unified by the exploration of characters, themes, and archetypes encountered during life in the Midwest and the Deep South. Jonathan currently lives in Maplewood with his wife and two sons, who swear that he makes the best blueberry pancakes ever.
