Acadia Black

Acadia is a mixed media artist, and art student at Greenfield Community College. She currently teaches workshops in Orange and works for Opertura Animation in Greenfield. When she’s not painting, she can likely be found wandering the woods of the Quabbin Reservoir with her camera, or collecting shiny objects.

 

Instagram: @longquietwanderings

Charis Moeckel-Cole

I am Charis Moeckel-Cole, an art student at gcc as well as a professional Ballet dancer and a teacher at Pioneer Valley Ballet. 

 

Instagram: @moedrawin

Rich Essem

Rich Essem is from the United States. He enjoys the creative arts but is not formally an artist and has not made art on a regular basis other than during his two stints at Greenfield Community College. He is not contactable nor are

his creative efforts viewable without knowing him personally, but he can generally be found where there are cats, books, and/or opportunities for disciplined exercise. Thanks.

 

Morgan Willis

Morgan Willis is a queer mixed media artist based in Western Massachusetts. He finds himself a jack-of-all-trades regarding art mediums, happy to conquer any to cross his path, but his favorite is ink pen and paper. His love of storytelling and two-dimensional art was cultivated through a lifelong interest in cartoons, comics, novels, and video games. Science fiction and fantasy bleed into his work. Morgan’s rather grunge portfolio is inundated by motifs of rot and urban decay, as well as apocalyptic overgrowth and the collapse of humanity’s empire.

Without the plague of social media, Morgan mostly finds himself buried in a book or comic, doodling in his well-used sketchbook, or watching video game playthroughs and absurd television shows. Often, he is held hostage by two Siamese cats.

 

Nayana Lafond

Nayana LaFond is a multi-disciplinary artist and human rights advocate living and working in Massachusetts. She originally attended Greenfield community college for fine art and Mass College of art for Photography and then dropped out to pursue a career in the arts. She returned to GCC in 2024 and will complete her associates in Fine Art in May of 2025. She has accepted a place as a Francis Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke College for the fall of 2025 where she plans to major in Art History and Museum Studies. 

Primarily a painter, Nayana is also a sculptor and curator and served as former primary curator for The Whitney Center for The Arts and is currently curating an exhibit at ShowUP Gallery in Boston for the Fall of 2025 titled “Between Two Worlds: Making sense of modern life through indigenous perspectives” Nayana also serves on the executive board of directors for Artist Organized Art and Stavros Center for Independent living. She also sits on the exhibition committees for ShowUp Gallery in Boston MA and The Local Art Gallery in Amherst MA, Is an advisory member of the Native Youth Empowerment Fund as well as boards and committees for several other arts and cultural organizations. Nayana was the 2023 recipient of the Katharine F. Erskine Award in Art and culture. Her work has been featured in publications, on television and in movies including the cover of Art New England’s January-February 2024 edition and in the movie “Gift of Fear" which can be seen on Amazon prime.

She is best known for her ongoing painting series titled “Portraits in RED: Missing & Murdered Indigenous Peoples Painting Project” which is currently on display at the D’Amour Museum of Fine Art in Springfield MA, the Hibulb Cultural Center in Tulalip WA, the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Chicago IL and will also be at the LAVA Art center in Greenfield MA for May of 2025 and the Danforth Museum for the Fall of 2025. She has had the pleasure to speak about human rights and art at distinguished institutions such as MIT, Harvard, Smith College, The University of Vancouver WA and others. Her human rights advocacy work through the arts has made significant contributions to raising awareness and promoting change in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Nayana’s work often confronts topics related to identity, domestic abuse and human rights and ranges in media. Nayana is an enrolled citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario.

 

Instagram: @nayanaarts

Website: nayanaarts.com

 

Calla Hubert

Calla is a Queer Western Mass artist who works primarily in photography. They like to focus on the small details, working up to the big picture as a whole. Most of their art focuses on the natural decay of life and the sadder side of things. Art is a way to not just create for them but to work through feelings and emotions. Because of college, they have found a real passion in film photography.

 

Emilio Di Donna

My name is Emilio Di Donna, I’m 21 years old and graduating from GCC this semester. I work mainly with digital and installation based work, from photoshopping, video editing to printing those images and installing them physically, I find myself expanding the zone of what is conventionally considered studio art. I will always provide my art as a service to those who are looking for something specific, or people looking to collaborate on a project.

Website: didonnadesigns.com

 

Caroline James

Caroline is a self-portrait artist, amateur aerialist, and self-empowerment enthusiast based in Northampton, MA. She pours her time into the arts indulgently, and in fact struggles to do much of anything else. She began as a drawer in childhood, and progressed as a painter in early adulthood, only to now explore interdisciplinary arts including film photography and crochet sculpture. Caroline also has a background as a trained yoga teacher, and now explores expressive movement through burlesque, circus arts, and sensual dance. Caroline will be transferring to Mount Holyoke to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts, and to study to become a professor of the arts.
 

Instagram: @sugarloafvalleygirl

Website: carolineannejames.com

 

Tyler Milliken

Something in all of my work is the element of time. The idea of the past, the idea of the future, the idea of now. The now that is always being replaced by a new now. I think of time not as a linear thing, but an ocean. We can go to these islands or continents from our lives that are grounding or important or traumatizing and we can visit them, get stuck on them, come back to them.
 

Often when we see something beautiful there is a rubric in our minds which tells us it is beautiful. Other times we see something ordinary and get stuck thinking about it because it is not just the thing itself, but the way your day, week, life has gone, a smell that is present when you are looking at it that lets you see its beauty. Something harmonious in the moment that brings you back to one of your life experiences, your islands. I make work to mimic that experience, creating things that are mundane but it's in the interaction with the viewer that makes it something beautiful. It’s the relationship between the viewer and the piece that I am fascinated with because it is always there, always changing.
 

My art never wants to leave someone alone, it asks for connection and play. When I start making art I think of the community of moments that makes us. I want to disassemble the art and reassemble from the subtleties of life; to share the moments through time that make memories important to us. I make art to mimic the moments that don't make sense in their beauty, those moments built of little particles of life all interacting just right to make something devine. My art captures the out of context beauty, the sensory of memories. I explore lifespan with my art.

 

Instagram: talkreports