Adam Collet
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Adam Collet has been taking photographs and making art since childhood. Adam went to school in Seattle, also attended Seattle Central Community College and the UW where he earned a BFA in Photography. In 2008, he began teaching and passing on an interest in art and design to the next generation. Still living in Seattle with wife, children, and cat.
Besides Adam’s photography and illustration work he’s also a Teaching Artist specializing in Visual Art with a focus on integrating Art and STEM disciplines. In addition to Arts Corps, he’s taught classes, and online content for King County Library System; Seattle Public Library; stArt Exploring, a project of Sound Transit; Seattle Parks and Rec; High Point Neighborhood House; Yesler Terrace, Youth Tutoring Program; Family Learning Program; and various schools in Highline and Seattle Public Schools.
Recent projects include Essentially Seattle – photographing essential workers for City of Seattle/SPU, from the Office of Art & Culture; Public Art Program – photographing publicly sited artworks for City of Seattle, from the Office of Art & Culture. Ethnic Artist Roster, Seattle; Creative Advantage Arts Partner Roster, Seattle; ShoreLake Artist Roster, Shoreline.
Adri Tapia-Gomez
Adri Tapia-Gomez, a Mexico City native, is an artist, producer, and dancer based in Seattle, Washington. She began her artistic dance journey at the Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida under the direction of Vladimir Issaev at 6 years old. Throughout 15 years of classical training, she has performed in Miami and the greater Seattle area in productions such as The Nutcracker, Firebird, Petrouchka, Chipollino, La Bayadère, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and Les Sylphides. Anna María Campoy
Ana María Campoy (she/her/ella) is a Chicana theatre artist, educator, arts engagement consultant, and activist. Theatre work includes: The 5th Avenue Theatre, Olympia Family Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Village Theatre, ArtsImpact’s Voices from the Fields, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s FUERTE Festival. One of her most cherished acting roles includes Catherine in a bilingual adaptation of David Auburn’s Proof, which she also produced and translated alongside director Arlene Martínez-Vásquez, and is now under consideration for publication. She has toured nationally in Living Voices’s solo show, La Causa. She’s developed multiple bilingual scripts for Seattle Shakespeare’s Touring Productions such as: Romeo y Julieta, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and Hamlet, the latter two she also directed. She was the Associate Artist ArtsWest in 2020-2021 and at Seattle Shakespeare Company from 2020-2023. She currently serves as a Board Member for Sound Theatre Company. In addition to her work within the arts, she founded and now runs the volunteer collective, WashMasks Mutual Aid. which works to provide care and creative joy through community organizing for migrant and seasonal farm workers and their families.
Arielle Labra Campos
Arielle Labra Campos (they/them/elle) is a queer immigrant multidisciplinary artist in the occupied Coast Salish territory. Their art explores the intersection of social justice, abolition, day to day situations and their deep love for the ocean and their creatures. Through their art, Arielle seeks to bring people and communities together, help others find their voice and be able to express themselves.
Atticus Sweat
Atticus Sweat (he/him) is a gay and transgender interdisciplinary artist based in the Puget Sound. Beginning as a student in various Arts Corps programs, Atticus now studies theatre and visual arts at Seattle University in pursuit of becoming a full-time arts educator, driven by his passion for education as a tool for social change. He primarily uses digital art, watercolors, ink, and whatever pens he finds on the floor. The subjects of his art range too widely to list, but it can all be summarized by one word: love.
Cecelia DeLeon
Cecelia DeLeon is a visual artist born and raised in Seattle, WA and works under the alias Mousy DeVilla. She studied Design at Cornish College of the Arts, utilizing her design background to convey ideas through her 3D installations, paintings, and digital illustrations. Working from her South King County home, she creates evocative responses to the tensions of ChicanX Culture and current political and social conflicts of the US. She has trained with TAT LAB (Teaching Artist Training) and transitioned into a Teaching Artist through Arts Corps. She does this work while building community with other art organizations such as Creative Justice, Coyote Central and Urban Artworks.
Caxambu Silverman
My name is Contramestre Caxambu (he/him). After many, many years of informal exposure to capoeira, sufficient time opened up in my schedule in 1995 for rigorous sustained formal training that continues to this day.
My first opportunity for working with children was given to me by my mestre in the late 90s, teaching in the basement of Mt. Zion Baptist church.
I strive to use the music, movement, and improvisational aspects of this rich art form of capoeira to propel the kids to exceed their self- and societally-imposed limitations, with surprising results.
Indeed, “sometimes magic happens!”
Erica Merritt
Eris Eaton
Eris Eaton is an avid singer and performer who loves exploring many art forms as a way to connect with others. As a performer, board member, and social engagement leader for the Level Up! Vocal Ensemble, Eris brings her passion for art and music to the broader community.
She chose to pursue a BAS in Youth Development to better support youth in those communities. As a teacher, she brings her optimism and joy in full blast in order to create spaces where youth feel they truly belong.
Greg Thornton
Greg Thornton is a teaching artist, small business owner, visual artist and screen printing instructor who has a great passion for teaching youth. Greg was a restaurant manager and had been for many years when he was asked in the fall of 2013 by a local school district to present a curriculum for an art program in the district’s middle schools. From the first minute of his first class, Greg knew he had found the job that he wanted to do for the rest of his life – teaching and engaging students with art. At the beginning of his teaching artist career, Greg also had an opportunity to teach teens at an inpatient drug/alcohol treatment facility and at programs involving court-involved youth. Those experiences solidified Greg’s desire not only to teach students in a public school setting, but also to work closely as a teacher and mentor at-risk youth and youth in need. Greg engages students in the creative process by focusing on them as individuals, helping them to express their fears and their dreams, to set goals, and to develop the desire to succeed despite possible difficulties. Greg’s main goal is that each of his students learn to express their own voices in a creative and positive way. Greg’s lessons also teach skills that translate to other areas of the students’ lives – collaboration, leadership, acceptance, empathy, public speaking. Greg realizes that not every youth will become a great artist during his courses – but that truly is not the goal. Greg simply asks each student to embrace the journey of discovery and hopes that creating art helps build confidence in his students and that they have fun.
Heather Harris
Heather Harris has been a teaching artist in the Seattle area for over 30 years. She began her dance training at the Cornish Schools Preparatory Department. She furthered her training and performing experience at the Joffrey School, Complexions Dance, Ballet El Paso, Aluja Brazilian dance and Spectrum Dance Theatre.
Heather teaches dance and movement and finds much joy connecting community and youth to the art of movement. She has taught at the School of Spectrum Dance, STG Ailey Camp, STG Broadway Immersion, Dance for Parkinsons, Dance Conservatory Seattle, The Learning Tree, Lake Washington Girls Middle School, and Art Corps.
Heather is celebrating her 30th year as an early learning preschool teacher at Launch and has immense pride in serving Seattle’s inner city youth.
Jeff Young
Jeff Young is a class assistant for Arts Corps. He has worked with youth, of all ages, for over ten years, usually around writing and poetry. Whether it’s helping set up an activity or helping to rehearse for a performance, his goal is to help provide opportunities for youth to gain a sense of community and self confidence through their chosen art form.
Maria Guillen-Valdovinos
Maria Luisa Guillen Valdovinos is a visual creative thinker/artist, educator/art therapist and Indigenous Rights observer in environmental, food, and social justice movements; based in occupied Coast Salish Territories. Art ingrained in cultural experience, she graduated in 2010 from the University of Washington in Bio-Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies. She was born in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero Mexico and after studying graffiti in Lima, PERU IN 2009 with Jorge Miyagi and drawing flowers in Biology projects begun building creatively in cultural political movements, traveling with the National Indigenous Congress, parents of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, and visited Autonomous Zapatista communities as a human rights observer with FRAYBA, an indigenous human rights organization based in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas Mexico. Featured as a performer in BBC’s 100 Womxn in Mexico City 2016 and A Published Writer featured in “Chapter 9: Travels of a Diaspora Community: From La Sierra Madre Y Tierra Caliente to the Pacific Northwest” MEXICAN-ORIGIN FOODS, FOODWAYS, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A DECOLONIAL PRESPECTIVES, The University of Arkansas Press 2017; Publication “Xin Fronteras”, Seattle Journal for Social Justice Seattle University School of Law. Overall she is a lover of all things creatively expressive.
Maryem Weini
Maryem is a South Sudanese artist who was born in Egypt. Maryem was a student with Arts Corps throughout her high school years, graduating in 2019. She participated in Print 4 Life, which helped her become a Classroom Assistant and has now become a Teaching Artist, teaching with Arts Corps for three years. Maryem teaches visual arts.
Sorel Nica
Sorel Nica (they/them) is a Romanian-American artist and youth educator living on Duwamish land (Seattle, WA). Their art looks at ghosts, bodies, and how places and language shape us. Within the local arts scene, Sorel has designed posters for plays and protests, as well as theater backdrops, logos, and tattoos. They first joined the Arts Corps community as a participant in the Arts Liberation & Leadership Institute (ALLI). They then made their way from classroom assistant to teaching artist. During the winter, Sorel works as a ski instructor on the slopes. In their free time, you can find Sorel volunteering at the Vera Project, tattooing their friends, or recording found sounds. Their favorite part of working with youth is getting to learn from their students.
Taylor Tinsley
Tea (They/She/He) is a Black Queer educator and artist, born and raised in Mississauga Territory (Detroit, Michigan). She’s an actor, trained voice actor, published writer, dancer, and mixed media artist with a BA in Educational Studies from Arizona State University. They have over 10 years of experience working with all ages from infants to high school students.
Their special interests are improv, comedy, spoken word, imaginative play, puppetry, and children’s media. They’d love to be an actor/puppeteer on a children’s show like Sesame Street one day!
Taylor’s philosophy is prioritizing the art of play and using theater as a way to understand ourselves and the world around us. They aim to curate safe creative spaces for historically excluded folks to heal and express joy, and have worked with organizations like Black Farmers Collective and Nurturing Roots to develop programming that combines performing arts and outdoor education. When she’s not working with youth, she enjoys long boarding, meditation, volunteering, and snuggling her kitty Babydoll!
Webb Akamine-Rogers
Webb Akamine-Rogers (he/him/his) is a Queer Trans artist of color born in South Seattle. He studies fine arts at Cornish College of the Arts but in his free time he studies trauma-informed care and what that looks like in the classroom. He has dedicated his life and career to making the arts accessible to marginalized youth. In Webb’s personal art practice he spends his time creating art that explores topics of brown queer joy and experiences. He enjoys tons of mediums such as painting/mix media, photography, film, tattooing and currently sewing. Through that, he hopes to empower the next generation to self-express and to always stay creative!
Yaz Williams
Yaz Williams is a multi-disciplinary artist from Raleigh, North Carolina who is Black, AFAB, and queer and as such, their work is centered in Black and Afro-centric standpoints. Some of their practices are graphic novels, storytelling, prints, and stickers. Yaz moved to Seattle in 2022 as a Montessori school teacher and has since worked with South End Stories and LAUNCH. They got a BA in Child Adolescent Psychology from the HBCU, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in order to learn what techniques were historically created as marginalization tools, how to move away from them, and how to better serve BIPOC students. As an artist and a person, they are interested in sustainability, third spaces such as libraries and tool workshops, learning different communication styles, and cultural education. They want to increase their own cultural knowledge and that of others in order to help build a better sense of community. They enjoy visiting new places and sitting in parks.
