President

• Valerie Hanks, Sam Houston State University
  Assistant Professor of Art
  www.valeriehanks.com
  Valerie Hanks is an Assistant Professor of Art at Sam Houston State University, where she has serious fun developing & leading the WASH {Workshop in Art Studio + History} foundations program in Huntsville, Texas. Valerie has been actively engaged in the FATE community since 2011 and has served on the FATE board since 2013, in the role VP of Regional Programming [2013-2017] & more recently in the role of President [2017-2019] where she led the board in developing a wide range of diverse programming she hopes to continue to expand: FATE in Review; Positive Space podcast; Diversity/Inclusion Task Force & Membership Survey/Data gathering in preparation for the Foundations Guideline Updates. When Valerie is not organizing things, she likes to make stuff & is deeply committed to her studio practice! She grew up moving from one side of the country to the other, inspired by the idea of adventure, play and discovery. In the studio, her research is focused on the magical possibilities of shrinkable plastic [shrinky dinks] to explore the intersection of drawing and sculpture. Valerie's work has been exhibited widely across the US and Europe.

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Vice President of Finance

• Shannon Lindsey, University of Central Florida
  Gallery Director / Studio Art Lecturer
  www.shannonraelindsey.com
  Shannon Rae Lindsey received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Carolina and her BFA in Fine Arts from the University of South Florida. She has participated in exhibitions throughout the South East as an interdisciplinary artist who explores drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation with unconventional art materials and processes. Her work embodies order and disorder to manifest her understanding of entropy. Lindsey currently resides in Orlando, Florida and works as the UCF Art Gallery Director and teaches undergraduate and graduate Studio Art courses at the University of Central Florida. I am eager for the opportunity to give back to the FATE community that has provided me so much support and encouragement over the last five years. In reviewing the various opportunities where I could become more involved, I feel the role of Vice President of Finance is the best fit with my professional experience. This fall, while organizing a FATE regional event at the University of Central Florida, I managed the event planning which included budget preparation for meals and incidentals, securing a group rate for lodging, developing promotional materials, and overall event communication. As a gallery director, there is a heavy emphasis on budgeting, organizational, planning, and communication skills that can effectively support the position of Vice President of Finance.

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• Casey McGuire, University of West Georgia
  Foundations Coordinator
  www.caseymaymcguire.com
  Casey McGuire is an Associate Professor of Foundations and Sculpture at the University of West Georgia. McGuire received her BFA from Alfred University and her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2007. The daughter of a taxidermist and decoy carver she was subject to object making at a young age. Growing up in Vermont has left a lasting impression and fuels the work produced today. Her installations contain video, found objects and constructions of roadside detritus that are a conceptualization of the housing crash and the myth of the American Dream. Her Installations have been exhibited, to name a few at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids MI; Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, CO; Terminal 136, UTSA San Antonio, TX. She has also been invited to be a resident at Hambidge Center for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. Casey has been the VP of Finance for 4 years and will continue efforts to guide FATE's finances into a continued realm of stability to ensure support for our members and the efforts of the national organization.

 

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Vice President for Communications

• Elizabeth (Libby) McFalls, Columbus State University
  Professor of Art and Art Foundation Coordinator
  www.elizabethmcfalls.com
  Elizabeth McFalls (Libby) is a Professor of Art and the Department of Art’s Foundations Coordinator at Columbus State University (CSU). She received her MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) and earned her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (OH). Storytelling is the central theme in her mixed media prints and drawings, which examine issues of loss and family. Her work has been included in over seventy exhibitions including The Dartmouth Invitational Print Exhibition at Jaffe‐Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; New Narratives: stories and messages in Contemporary Art, Cade Center for Fine Arts, Baltimore, MD. She has presented in sessions at SECAC, the Southern Studies Conference, and FATE. Additionally, she currently serves as an Associate VP of Programming of Integrated Teaching International (ITI) and as the VP for Communications for Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE). In addition working on the national board, she successfully co-hosted (w/ JB Burke of UNCC) the regional FATE event FOUNDATIONS: RETOOLING + RECONTEXTUALIZING in April of 2018.

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Vice President for Regional Programming

• Dr. Jeremy Blair, Tennessee Tech University 

  Assistant Professor of Art Education
  www.blairarted.com
  Jeremy Blair is a practicing artist, scholar, and Assistant Professor of Art Education at Tennessee Tech University. Jeremy completed his doctoral work at the University of North Texas and received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Miami University of Ohio. As a former art museum curator and K–12 art educator, Blair's research centers around teaching the intersections of art and STEM, specifically animation and video game design. Blair exhibits his alternative process photography annually, and his photograms are in private art collections across the United States. He currently lives in Cookeville, Tennessee.
   

• Jessica Burke (J.B.), University of North Carolina Charlotte

  Associate Professor & Art Coordinator of Foundations Education
  www.JessicaBurkeArtist.com
  Born in Wichita, Kansas, Jessica Burke (J.B.) is a figurative artist and educator that was raised on a steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons and Little Debbie Snack Cakes. As an artist, she is interested in the effect of popular culture on identity. Her creative work has been included in competitive group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. She is an Associate Professor of Art and Foundations Coordinator at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is very invested in foundations pedagogy and would love the opportunity to serve another term as the VP of Regional Programming. During my 2017-2019 term, I have really enjoyed working with the FATE community of artist educators in support of their goal to bring regional programming all over the country. There is so much good work happening around our halls and I have been honored to facilitate ways for that work to be shared and cultivated. During my time in this position, there have been six successful regional events showcasing a wide variety of approaches for an event of this type. In addition to facilitating the event for FATE, I was also able to co-coordinate two of these regional events that gave me valuable experience in a more direct way. Events included: Screen Grab-SUNY Suffolk County Community College-hosted in Wayfarers Gallery, Brooklyn, December 2018; Regional Forum-Stevenson University, September 2018; Art(Working)-University of Central Florida, September 2018; Retooling+Recontextualizing-Columbus State University, April 2018; Skill Shop-Sam Houston State University, February 2018; Bushwick Bootcamp- SUNY Suffolk County Community College-hosted in Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, September 2017.

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Vice President for Development

• Guen Montgomery, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

  Teaching Assistant Professor
  www.guenmontgomery.com
  Guen Montgomery is an artist/educator working as a Teaching Assitant Professor in the Studio Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At UIUC, Guen teaches in foundations and the printmaking concentration. Guen also advises for the Art and Design Minor and works with studio graduate students teaching in Non-majors art courses. In her work Guen investigates identity through material culture. An artist who frequently works across media, Guen’s installations unite printmaking, performance and object making. Guen has shown nationally and internationally and has work in multiple public collections. She currently lives in Urbana Illinois with her wife and pet family. More information can be found at Guen-Montgomery.com.

  

 

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Vice President of Membership

• Colleen Merrill, Bluegrass Community & Technical College

  Assistant Professor
  www.colleenmerrill.com
  Colleen Merrill has been FATE’s Vice President of Membership and a board officer since 2013. During her time with FATE, she has contributed to four conferences, served on the FATE Inclusion Committee, and advocated for adjunct and contingent faculty support. She currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Art at Bluegrass Community and Technical College and Part-Time Instructor in Fiber at the University of Kentucky. Merrill’s artwork examines notions of motherhood, gender, and relationships through the reconfiguration of domestic textiles.

 

   

C.A.A. Representative

• Lauren Kalman, Wayne State University

  Associate Professor, Area Coordinator Core Studio
  www.laurenkalman.com
  Lauren Kalman is a visual artist based in Detroit, whose practice is invested in the history of adornment, contemporary craft, video, photography and performance. Through her work she investigates beauty, adornment, body image, and the built environment through performances using female body. Raised in the Midwest, Kalman completed her MFA in Art and Technology from the Ohio State University and BFA with a focus in Metals from Massachusetts College of Art. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, World Art Museum in Beijing, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Art, and Museum of Arts and Design. Kalman has been dedicated to teaching and leading in Foundations programs for 15 years. Currently she is an Associate Professor and Area Coordinator of Core Studio Area at Wayne State University where she has revised the curriculum, mentored adjunct faculty and graduate students, and advocated for the area. She has presented on Foundations education at CAA, FATE, SECAC, and MACCAA conferences. She has also taught at institutions including Watkins College, Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2017 she received the Integrative Teaching International Fellowship for ThinkCatalyst at the FATE conference. Her practice in aerial arts and acrobatics have folded into her projects. In her free time, she plays with the Nasty Woodwinds, a street band comprised of women and female identifying musicians and is a founding board member of Crash Detroit, a community music festival and youth education organization.
   

• Karla Stinger-Stein, Watkins College of Art

  Chair, Assistant Professor and Director of the QEP
  www.karlastingerstein.org
  Karla Stinger-Stein is an artist and founder of Photosynthesis Projects. Working across a range of media, Stinger-Stein makes site-sensitive work to address ecological vulnerability in the era of the Anthropocene. Her work includes transforming waste into building materials that support native plants for threatened wildlife habitats. Stinger-Stein has participated in group exhibitions at the New Museum's IDEAS CITY Festival, the Dumbo Arts Festival, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Art in Philadelphia, PA, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. She also has shown her work at Lafayette College, Pratt Institute, New York, the University of Massachusetts, and the Banana Factory in Pennsylvania. Stinger-Stein has participated in the GO! Brooklyn Museum Open Studio Project and received grants from the University of Massachusetts Arts Council and the University of Massachusetts Art and Art History Department. Stinger-Stein currently serves as Chair and Assistant Professor at Watkins College of Art in Nashville, TN where she established and currently oversees the Core Studies department. Her prior professional roles include serving as the director of development at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, New Jersey and the gallery director for the Student Union Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

 

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M.A.C.A.A. Representative

• Kariann Fuqua, Rice University
  Lecturer
  www.kariannfuqua.com
  Kariann Fuqua is a Lecturer in Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University in Houston, TX. She received a BFA in painting from Kansas State University (1999) and an MFA in painting from The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2003). Prior to joining the faculty at Rice, she was the inaugural Curator of Collections at George Mason University (2012-2014) in Fairfax, VA, and Professor of Foundations and Foundations Coordinator at Columbus State University in Georgia (2008-2011). Kariann currently teaches studio courses in the fine arts (including Beginning Drawing and Painting) and writing courses in museum studies. Her artwork explores complex relationships of mapping, space, and location, and most recently, how science and data intersect with ideas of control and chaos during natural and environmental disasters. Her work has been exhibited at numerous venues in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, and other locations across the U.S.

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• Meghan O'Connor, Wayne State College
  Associate Professor of Art
  www.curLymeg88.com
  Meghan O’Connor is a printmaker who is also interested in mixed media and sculpture (most recently exploring installation art with chicken skins and arm wrestling.) She studied printmaking at East Tennessee State University, and went on to earn an MFA at Clemson University. Meghan currently lives in Sioux City, IA and is Associate Professor of Print Media at Wayne State College in Wayne, NE. O'Connor's work has been exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally. In addition to solo exhibitions, she has had work included in the Parkside National Small Print Exhibition, Southern Graphics Council International Members Exhibition, and A Curious Bestiary: Chimeras and Cryptozoology from American Printmakers at Davidson Galleries in Seattle, WA. Her work can be found in permanent collections, such as Columbia College in Chicago, and many other universities around the world. STATEMENT ABOUT M.A.C.A.A. REPRESENTATIVE: I attended and presented at the FATE conference in Kansas City, and it was different than other conferences in the sense of getting on-the-ground, tangible techniques which I have put to use in the classroom. In relation to this position in particular, I am interested in being a part of the dialog about the new re-visioning of MACAA, and I am excited about the prospect of contributing to this change of direction.

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SECAC Representative

• Katie Hargrave, University of Tennessee Chattanooga
  Assistant Professor and Foundations Coordinator
  www.katiehargrave.us
  Katie Hargrave is an Assistant Professor and the Foundations Coordinator at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. As an educator, Katie is interested in supporting students as they transition to an art department through focusing on technical skills, conceptual development, and soft-skills. As a coordinator, Katie is dedicated to supporting her colleagues with whom she teaches by collaboratively developing a curriculum that is wholistic, maintaining safe working environments, and advocating for both her students and her colleagues outside of the department. Katie has served as the SECAC representative on the FATE board since 2017. As a part of her work with FATE, she has helped develop a statement of inclusivity and diversity, she has coordinated FATE panels at SECAC (which her institution will host in 2019 in Chattanooga). Katie maintains a dedicated studio practice in Chattanooga. Her work elevates stories from popular culture, those hidden in the archives, and the everyday conversations from passerby’s and participants. She collaborates as a member of the Think Tank that has yet to be named and Like Riding a Bicycle.

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