Who We Are

Risë Wilson is Paula’s daughter, Vera’s granddaughter, and Adelaide’s great-granddaughter. She is also an artist, herbalist, and serial entrepreneur. From 1999-2011 she founded and led The Laundromat Project to re/connect us to our creative power so that we can both envision the world we want to live in and have the skills sets to make it so. Her tenure in arts and culture has spanned philanthropic practice, artist development, public engagement, and facilitation. Past appointments include serving as inaugural director of philanthropy for the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation where she created the prestigious Artist as Activist Fellowship for artists working to address the epidemic of mass incarceration in Black and Brown communities; and subsequently as senior advisor to the Art for Justice Fund, a six-year initiative to disrupt mass incarceration. Prior philanthropic roles significantly shaped the national conversation about “placekeeping” and what equitable development of neighborhood-based, cultural facilities entails. A frequently sought public speaker, Risë has delivered keynotes for RISD and Moore College of Art and Design, among others. A recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, Risë holds a BA in African- American Studies from Columbia University and a MA in Africana Studies from NYU. Her work in all its forms is preoccupied with dislodging herself from the bear-traps of oppression to help her kinfolk do the same.

As the Deputy Director of the Painted Bride, Nina has over 25 years of experience as a cultural curator, educator, writer, producer, and outspoken advocate for all marginalized communities. An award-winning lyricist and voiceover artist with a strong background, nationally and locally, in creative strategy and administration, Nina artfully stands at the intersection of many worlds. Her work empowers, challenges and inspires through the compelling marriage of lived experience and multiple art forms. Paired with a strong work ethic and unwavering integrity, Nina’s outgoing and resourceful nature make her a marked professional and creative mind from vision to execution.

Cheyenne Barboza (She/her) is overjoyed to be making her return to the Painted Bride Art Center! With over a decade of experience as a theater director, Cheyenne has honed her craft in new play development and dramaturgy, collaborating with esteemed institutions such as Long Wharf Theatre, Theatre Horizon, Temple University, Arden Theatre Company, and Yale Rep, among others. In her role as Artistic Associate at Long Wharf Theatre, she had the honor of curating and nurturing a rich tapestry of multidisciplinary artistic endeavors from inception to performance. Cheyenne’s aesthetic is rooted in centering the artistic voices of marginalized communities and believes that conscious inclusion is essential for fostering positive cultural change. With a spirit of joyful noise and Black girl magic, she steps into every space with purpose. She received her BFA in Directing, Playwriting, and Production from the University of the Arts. As the new Program and Production Manager, Cheyenne aims to create pathways for creative visionaries local and beyond, to make Painted Bride an artistic home.

Tash Rayon is a multidisciplinary artist, workshop facilitator, and community advocate with a passion for creating vibrant sceneries, backdrops, and artistic installations using upcycled and repurposed materials. A lover of natural green spaces and all things vintage, she finds beauty in the classics while adding a modern, bohemian twist to her work. With over a decade of theater experience and performance, Tash has graced stages both domestically and abroad. Her credits include off Broadway productions such as Hair, Godspell, and The Dorothy Dandridge Story. A true patron of the arts, she has contributed photography to publications like Philadelphia Restaurant Magazine, WWD, and The Philadelphia Women’s Journal.

Having lived in New York, California, and Florida, Tash brings a diverse, inclusive perspective to every project. She is dedicated to advocacy for artists’ rights and senior wellness through storytelling and historical documentation. She frequently spearheads creative visions that blend respected traditions with contemporary ideas. Tash previously served as an administrative assistant in the 192nd and 200th districts for
State Rep. Louise Williams Bishop and Cherelle Parker. She was employed for 7 years as Director of Community Cultural Programming in East Parkside Philadelphia as a dual hire of both the Fairmount Park Conservancy and the Centennial Parkside Community Development Corporation. Tash considers herself a new bohemian, forging meaningful connections between heritage and innovation.

Lenny is a tabla player, composer, and teacher. His work focuses on the application of tabla within a wide range of intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborative settings. He has toured throughout the Americas and Europe with Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra, Atzilut, Rennie Harris’ “Facing Mekka,” Philip Hamilton’s “Voices,” and Group Motion. He co-founded The Shamanistics, Splinter Group, founded a Tabla Choir, co-directed Spoken Hand with Daryl Burgee, collaborated with filmmaker Nadine Patterson and many choreographers, and was a guest artist at Swarthmore College’s department of music and dance for 12 years.

His work has been supported by lengthy residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA, Asian Pacific Performance Exchange at UCLA, and Millay Colony for the Arts in upstate NY, as well as by The Pew Center For Arts & Heritage, Independence Foundation, Pa. Council on the Arts, William J. Cooper Foundation, and Meet the Composer. He conceptualized and was the artistic director of “ARC,” a full evening suite merging the drumming traditions of tabla and taiko with Asian-Pacific & West African diasporic dance that premiered at Swarthmore College, and was made possible by a grant from PCAH.

Miranda M Watkins (they/them) is a Philly-based stage manager and production assistant who recently earned their BFA in Technical Production and Management at Temple University. Miranda enjoys contributing to theater arts in any way they can and are thrilled to be joining the Painted Bride team! When Miranda isn’t making theater, they can be found watching a horror movie or being out in nature.

Gabriel Ramirez, author of the chapbook IF PIT BULLS HAD A GOD IT’D BE A PIT BULL (The Head & The Hand Press) and the children’s book We’re Community is a Queer Afro-Caribbean writer, performer, and educator. A 2023 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry at Adroit Journal and the 2024-2025 Poetry Coalition Fellow. Gabriel has received fellowships from the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, The Conversation Literary Arts Festival, CantoMundo, Miami Book Fair, a graduate fellow at The Watering Hole, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. Gabriel has performed on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre, United Nations, Lincoln Center, Apollo Theatre, The National Museum of Romanian Literature, and other venues & universities around the nation. You can nd their work in various spaces, including YouTube, and in publications like Poetry Magazine, Poem-a-Day, Muzzle Magazine, Adroit Journal, Split This Rock’s The Quarry, BOMB, and others as well as Bettering American Poetry Anthology (Bettering Books 2017) What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (Northwestern University Press 2019), The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT (Haymarket Press 2020), and Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology (Library of America 2024). Learn more about Gabriel Ramirez @RamirezPoet. and RamirezPoet.com.

Matt “Honeybee” Little, was born in Philadelphia and began studying piano at age 16 with Barry Sames and Orrin Evans before attending Berklee College of Music. After successfully completing his bachelors at Berklee, Matt relocated to Los Angeles. Matt currently plays with Josef Leimberg and Haley Reinhart. Matt has done some notable work on stage, in the studio and on camera with various artists such as Musiq Soulchild, Talib Kweli, Haley Reinhart, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Dame Dash, Bilal, Paloma Faith, Dave Chappelle, Brandy, J. Cole, DJ Quik, Mr. Carmack, Here Lies Man, Kali Uchis, Jane Hancock, Kendrick Lamar, Charlie Bereal, Mt Westmore, Anderson .Paak & SiR. Now back in Philadelphia, Matt is part of the audience service associate team at the Painted Bride. Like the honeybee, Matt flies around gathering bits of “pollen”, only to come home and turn all that he has collected into sweet, delicious honey.

Saskia is a scholar-activist, educator, and writer from Philadelphia by way of Haiti. A master of economics with accolades in research and poetry, she has been published across newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. Saskia currently serves as an adjunct professor of economics, research consultant, organizer, teaching artist, and creative writer. More from this eldest daughter @saskiakercy and bysaskia.co.

Amalia is a farmer and multi-disciplinary artist that loves to move. She joined as a founding member of Dirtbaby Farm in 2021. She works for the Painted Bride as the project manager for the Resistance Garden Project. This project works with urban farms/gardens, artists and foragers to expand agricultural knowledge and our relationship with the land. Her passion for urban agriculture stems from the deep belief that we must heal our severed connection with the land on both a personal and political level in order to save our planet from the existential threat of climate change. She is noticing cycles of change and moving through life infusing her love for nurturing the earth with her passion for dance, care, play and sensation.

Jordan Deal, also known as ROSEKILLJUPITER, is a Philadelphia based multidisciplinary practitioner and alchemist. Their investigative practice uses performance, sound, film, and their BODY as a conduit between unseen forces and the materializations of socio-political structures and mythologies. They have shown work with Judson Memorial Church (New York, NY), the Center for Performance Research (BK, NY), Fringe Festival (Phila, PA) The Brick Theater (BK,NY), Cafe OTO (LDN, UK), Icebox Project Space (Phila, PA), Protocinema & Protodispatch (NY, NY), Fleisher-Ollman gallery (Phila, PA), Vox Populi (Phila, PA), amongst others. They have recently been selected as a 2023-2024 Artistic Fellow at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and was a Fall 2022 research fellow at Amant Foundation in Brooklyn, New York, where they continued their investigations of chaos force. Deal’s films have been part of selections in Blackstar Film Festival (Phila, PA), Vox Populi, Grizzly Grizzly, Center of Performance Research, Indie Short Fest, and Paris Film Festival. They have been included in press such as ARTNews, ArtBlog, Titled House Review Spring 2021 issue and Grizzly Grizzly: In Dialogue.

V. Shayne Frederick is a “soulful” [Downbeat Magazine] “elastic vocalist” [Metro Philadelphia] and pianist captivating audiences for nearly 20 years, lauded by Philadelphia Inquirer as “Jazz star […] touted as one of the region’s greatest jazz singers […] with his silken baritone and elegant charm.” He’s electrified TEDx, NPR, and countless concert halls, museums, and stages throughout this hemisphere, including his recent performance as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

V. Shayne collaborates as composer and keyboardist for Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher & the Afroeaters, an original music spoken word Jazz band, and also as an orator for Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasure Ruth Naomi Floyd’s Frederick Douglass Jazz Works ensemble.

As a composer, Shayne scores for short film and commercial, including Visit Philadelphia, and films screened at Black Star Film Festival. He completed a term as a Governor on the board of the Philadelphia chapter of the Recording Academy, while he remains a committee co-chair. V. Shayne Frederick is a collaborative curator for the City of Philadelphia’s semiquincentennial celebration occuring 2026.

His much-awaited sixth record, Treasures, is due Spring 2025. After a few years on faculty at University of the Arts, he recently became a member of the faculty of Temple University.

Marángeli Mejia-Rabell’s practice is focused on community media practices, cultural organizing, intersectionality, accessibility and diversity. As Director of the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival and Co Founder/Partner of AFROTAINO she co-curates, designs and executes arts and culture programming, collaborations and multidisciplinary projects. She has served as the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival Director for seven years supporting the groundbreaking work of Latinx filmmakers. Throughout Marángeli’s career, she has centered Latinx creators, stories and culture to bring about positive change and representation. Marángeli also serves as a Coach with the National Arts Strategies Coaching Collective working towards her International Coaching Federation certification.

LaNeshe Miller-White is the former Executive Director of Theatre Philadelphia and has more than 15 years of experience on the Philly arts and culture scene. After graduating from Temple University, Miller-White worked as the marketing manager of Painted Bride Art Center for over ten years. During that time, she also co-founded Theatre in the X, a company dedicated to breaking down the barriers to the theater by providing accessible productions in Philadelphia’s Malcolm X Park for no cost. She is a two-time Leeway Foundation Art & Change grantee, and was the first Philadelphia co-chief representative for the national organization the Parent-Artist Advocacy League (PAAL), of which she is now an advisory board member. She is also an adjunct professor in Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, a board member of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and the 2022 Story Changers Awardee for the Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival.

Qiaira Riley is an interdisciplinary artist + cultural worker, raised on Chicago’s south-side and based in Philadelphia. She holds a dual B.A. in Black Studies and Studio Art from Lake Forest College, as well as an M.F.A in Socially Engaged Studio Art from Moore College of Art & Design. Her work has been shown across the United States including Woman Made Gallery in Chicago,IL; Cherry Street Pier, Paradigm Gallery, and Public Trust in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a co-founder and and curator of 2.0, a collective collaborating with artists and organizations to curate free, experimental offerings for Black women and femmes. Her 2021 MFA thesis-turned-zine “How Tiffany Pollard Built the Internet: Representations of Simulacra, Virtuality, and Black women and femmes on the Internet and Its Art” is a part of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection. She hosts “Something You Can Feel,” a contemporary Black art history podcast, that can be found on Apple and Spotify. She was the January 2024 Resident at Our House Culture Center, showcasing her debut solo show Beauty of the Week, a series of works created during her time as the 2023 Leeway Foundation X Fleisher Art Memorial Artist in Residence. She is currently the community artist partner collaborating with The Friends of the Tanner House to curate a series of multi-generational arts programming uplifting the family and home of artist Henry O. Tanner and its urgent stabilization efforts.

Harriet Rubenstein has been a Painted Bride fan since moving to Philadelphia in 1981. She has served as Board Chair and led the Bride’s New Visions Committee through the transition from its Old City location to its current residence at 52nd and Market Streets. Harriet is retired from her work as a staff person for a union representing healthcare workers. She is honing her skills as a mosaic artist.

Li Sumpter, Ph.D. is a multidisciplinary artist and independent scholar who applies strategies of worldbuilding and mythic design toward building better, more resilient communities of the future. Li’s creative research and collaborative design initiatives engage the art of survival and sustainability through diverse ecologies and immersive stories of change. Li is a cultural producer and eco-arts activist working through MythMedia Studios, the Escape Artist Initiative and various arts and community-based organizations in Philly and across the country. She holds an MA in Art and Humanities Education from NYU and a MA/Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Li has been a visiting professor at Haverford College and Moore College of Art and Design and has taught special topics for youth and adult courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Barnes Foundation and Fleisher Art Memorial. She has completed various Philly-based residences for arts and technology, arts and ecology and the literary arts and will begin her term as Afrofuturist-in-Residence with the Village of Arts and Humanities Fall 2022. Li is a recipient of the 2018 Sundance Institute and Knight Alumni grant, a 3-time recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant, a 2020 recipient of the Leeway Transformation Award, a 2022 recipient of the Velocity Fund, a 2022 Afrofuturist-in-Residence with the Village of Arts and Humanities, and a 2022 Leeway Media Artist x Activist-in-Residence with the Theatre in the X.

Based in Philadelphia, PA, Zindzi Harley is a curator, writer, and creative director whose work engages digital tactics to leverage institutional structures for activism within museums. Harley’s work explores the contributions and impact of Afro-feminism to the dynamic history and development of culturally specific institutions and contemporary museums. She received her B.A. from the University of Kentucky and an M.A. from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where she was the first DEI Fellow in her program as well as the first cohort of the Studio Museum in Harlem SMI Emerging Museum Professional Seminar. Currently she is pursuing her doctorate in Art Theory, Aesthetics, and Philosophy at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the visual arts where she is the 24’ Cohort David C. Driskell Fellow. She formerly served as Assistant Curator at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and has independently curated exhibitions for ClayStudio and Delaware Contemporary. She founded the Philadelphia Chapter of Black Girls in Art Spaces and has collaborated with museums such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fabric Workshop Museum, Philadelphia Magic Gardens, and Delaware Art Museum. Her work as a museum professional and writer has been cited on BET, Magic & Melanin Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Grio. Additionally, she is the Founder of Zindzine, a creative agency for the curator in all of us, offering tailored brand strategy services including social media, PR, creative direction, consulting, and programming for cultural brands, artists and institutions. Zindzine also authors a quarterly arts and culture magazine uplifting BIPOC creatives and I spring exchange with the local creative economy.

Lori Waselchuk is photographer, filmmaker, curator, and socially engaged artist. Lori’s artistic practice is rooted in community, the possibilities, the tensions and challenges of working together for a common idea or good. Past collaborative projects include Grace Before Dying, about a hospice program in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where both the caregivers and the patients are serving long-term prison sentences. Lori is also a curator and coordinator of numerous exhibition projects including the Women’s Mobile Museum, co-created with Zanele Muholi, and produced by TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image. Lori is the recipient of Leeway Foundation’s Media Artist & Activist Residency and the Transformation Award, Velocity Fund Grant, Pew Fellowship for the Arts, Aaron Siskind Foundation’s Individual Photographer, and the Southern African Gender and Media Award. Her projects have been exhibited in Africa, South America, North America and Europe and her work is published widely in books and publications. Lori is currently the curator-in-residence at the Writers Room and the director/producer of the upcoming film series, Abolition Conversations.

Alex Shaw is a Philadelphia-based percussionist, composer, sound artist, cultural producer, and arts educator working in these intersecting fields for over twenty years. Intercultural, interdisciplinary collaborations and compositions merging diverse percussion traditions, vocal textures, field recordings, and digital imagination encompass his current artistic focus. He was director of Brazilian band Alô Brasil (2001-2020) and member of Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra (2002-2016). Alex has been commissioned to compose original music and sound design for film, theater and dance productions, as well as media installations, and has curated and produced dozens of performances and cultural programs, including Revivals of Blackness (2021) and Modupúe | Ibaye: The Philadelphia Yoruba Performance Project (2017-2019). Alex is the former Artistic Director for Intercultural Journeys (2014-2020) and a lead teaching artist for Young Audiences | Arts for Learning. Passionate about the transformative power of arts education, he has facilitated workshops, arts residencies, and professional development training for over two decades. Alex is a recipient of the 2024 Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures Fellowship. He has taught at Swarthmore College, Temple University, and University of the Arts. Alex holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in World Percussion from the California Institute of the Arts.