Minnesota-based artist, Kristin Dieng, has been developing her skills as a glass artist for the last decade. When a chronic illness forced her to leave her career in international affairs, Kristin sought a new way of interacting with and interpreting the world. She found mosaic art.

Kristin’s art explores the way in which colorful light-filled art can serve as a source of healing, both for herself and for those interacting with her art. While Kristin specializes in brightly colored nature-themed work, as well as complex geometric patterns, she takes particular joy in creating artwork that interacts with both its viewer and its environment.

Kerry Alexander is a songwriter and musician, and the front-person of indie rock band, Bad Bad Hats. She was born in the Twin Cities, but grew up in Birmingham, AL. Alexander returned to Minnesota to attend Macalester College, which is where she first started to perform live the songs. She performed at open mic nights at the Dunn Bros on Grand Ave and posted her music to MySpace, eventually meeting Chris Hoge, with whom she started a band in her senior year. A performance at the Macalester Battle of the Bands (they lost) led to a record contract and the start of a now decade-long Bad Had Hats journey. As part of Bad Bad Hats, Alexander has written and released three full-length albums, two EPs, and traveled the country (and Canada!). A lover of radio and making playlists, she has also been a guest DJ on 89.3 The Current.

Feeling detached from her previously released work as years lapsed, Duluth, Minnesota’s Sarah Krueger set out to Hive, a small studio nestled near the river in her hometown of Eau Claire, WI. In the course of two separate sessions, (the first on the cusp of a long winter, and the second on the fringe of summer’s swell), Krueger assembled a cast of collaborators to help flesh out a collection of songs that would later become the catalyst for Lanue. Culled from the title of a poem that found its way to Krueger from a thrift store shelf, Lanue comes to us as a project that stands firmly in front of a fresh creative backdrop and boasts a more developed taste and sincerity than Krueger’s previous releases — both a welcome departure and anticipated return.

Julie Landsman’s first love has always been poetry. Over the past thirty years her poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies. She is presently a poet and teacher for the Alzheimers Poetry Project. In 2019 she won the Bechtel Essay contest for “Music and Story: How We Enter.”  Her three published memoirs , Basic Needs, A Year With Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Press) A White Teacher Talks About Race and Growing Up White (Rowman & Littlefield) center around education and her connections to the stories of her students. She spent 28 years teaching in Minneapolis Public schools and the Minnesota Center for Arts Education High School

"Performer is the word that sums up what I do. You can find me on a stage doing theatre, sharing my own music, or in front of the camera. I prefer my name as my pronoun, but they/them is good is well.

I started acting in my elementary school and church. I also would write songs with my brother to perform to our family. My first community theater performance was in 7th grade, which was also the time that I started writing music seriously. I focused on my rap career off and on, mainly doing music with a Christian theme. I decided to fully pursue acting and music, so I left my small town in Wisconsin, and moved to Minneapolis. 

So far, this city has been a dream. It’s helped me to continue to grow into the person I am daily."

Rachel is a Minneapolis-based musician, songwriter, Kith + Kin Chorus director, sideman, auntie, artist and tiny home inhabiter. She has released four albums and four EPs, including the country ep, a split 45 of countryish duets with longtime friend and collaborator, Anaïs Mitchell. In 2016, with the release of To Gentlemen, Rachel parted ways from performing as "Rachel Ries" and now writes for and tours with her new project, HER CROOKED HEART. HCH carries Rachel's wry and powerfully tender writing farther down the path of instrumental expansion and distillation. HCH's debut album,To Love To Leave To Live, was released May 2019.

Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Uprising Theatre Company in Minneapolis, the co-founder of QueerTheology.com, and will soon publish with Eerdmaan’s books. Shannon is a recipient of the Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship in 20/21 and he was a Lambda Literary Fellow for 2019 and a Finnovation Fellow for 2019/2020. He is a sought after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops. His work with Brian G. Murphy at QueerTheology.com has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. Shannon’s plays include Body+Blood, in a stand of dying trees, Line of Sight, Twisted Deaths, The Resistance of My Skin, and Who Has Eyes To See. He’s currently working on a television pilot.

Cleo Person is a dancer, emerging choreographer, and writer. Her work explores the soulful qualities of the human being and the mysteries of the natural world. Working with the languages of classical ballet, modern dance, and poetry, she aims to connect audiences with the beauty and intelligence of our inward and external environments. She is a graduate in dance of The Juilliard School, and currently resides in Southern California, where she works as a collaborative multi-disciplinary artist. She has worked with groups such as the Arts Fusion Initiative of NYC (http://www.arts-fi.com), has been commissioned to choreograph by Perry Mansfield Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, and has had poetry published in Border Voices Anthology.

Carrie Elkin is one of those rare artists with a tidal wave singing voice, and a stage whisper writing voice that brings you to the edge of your seat, emotionally. Like Patty Griffin or Brandi Carlile, she straddles the Americana, Folk, and Indie Rock worlds, where meaningful songs meet the fierce-yet- fragile voices of powerful women. Like these other seminal artists, Elkin has the gift of projecting very personal intimate moments into transcendent universal experiences that move us all.