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Residencies

Artists, writers, performers, and innovators.

Over the years, Tom Tom’s programming has been enriched by the creative work and spirit of these local, national, and international Artists-in-Residence.

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2018 Resident Artist:

Andrew Stronge

Presented in Partnership with JAUNT

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Andrew Stronge is a commercial artist and freelance graphic designer who works extensively in screen printing and web design. Though not all of his work is screen printed, the stylistic nature of production has heavily influenced how he has grown as an artist, keeping his work bold, minimalistic, and easy to spot. He has been contracted by UVA, C-Ville Weekly, and Crazy Horse for his work. In his spare time, he travels around the country for comic cons and craft shows. In 2018, his design “Outerspace” was featured on a Charlottesville JAUNT bus, bringing space travel and exploration of our “final frontier” front and center. 

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2019 Resident Artist:
Federico Cuatlacuatl

Presented in Partnership with the Bridge PAI and the Charlottesville Mural Project 

 

Federico Cuatlacuatl is a Mexican Indigenous artist born in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. After immigrating to the US, he received his MFA in Digital Arts at the Bowling Green State University. Federico’s work is invested in disseminating topics of Latinx immigration, social art practice, and cultural sustainability. Building from his own experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant with DACA status, Federico’s research is primarily concerned with pressing realities in current social, political, and cultural issues that Latinx undocumented immigrants face in the U.S. He is founder and director of the Rasquache Artist Residency in Puebla, Mexico and actively stays involved in socially-engaged works and binational endeavors.

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2018 Resident Writer:

Amy Goldstein

Amy Goldstein has been a staff writer at The Washington Post for over 30 years, covering national health-care policy and social policy issues. She was a White House reporter during the presidency of George W. Bush, and she has covered many notable news events, from the Monica Lewinsky scandal to five of the past six Supreme Court nominations. Goldstein was part of a team of Washington Post reporters awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 9/11 and the government’s response to the attacks. She has been a fellow at Harvard University at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. 

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2018 Resident Artist:

Vince Kadlubeck

Presented in Partnership with the FUNd @ CACF

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Vince Kadlubek is co-founder and executive advisor of Meow Wolf, a 20,000 square foot immersive art installation called the House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, NM. What began as a scrappy, DIY art collective has transformed to a multimillion dollar corporation that employs over 250 people and has inspired the creation of transformative art spaces nationwide. Since Meow Wolf’s founding, Kabludek has raised millions to create an entirely new business in charge of the full-time creative team that works to grow and develop the vision of Meow Wolf. He also serves as chair of the Santa Fe Planning Commission.

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2018 Resident Musician & Artist:

Darrell Rose

Percussionist, painter, and Charlottesville institution, Darrell Rose is renowned for teaching thousands of children over his career as an adjunct teacher in public and private schools throughout Virginia. As a drummer, he is an Artist in Residence for the Virginia Commission for the Arts and performs in many rock, jazz, african, latin, and reggae configurations. He toured and recorded extensively with Corey Harris, The Wailers, Greg Howard, his own International Counselors, Matthew Willner, The Wonderband (with Houston Ross and Johnny Gilmore), the Dave Matthews Band and Jamal Millner. He has also studied under world-renowned masters Mor Thiam and Abdou Kunta of Senegal, and Babatunde Olatunji of Nigeria.

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2018 Resident Artist:

Sam Gray 

Presented in Partnership with Charlottesville Area Transit

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Sam is a member of McGuffey Art Center where she works as an artist, illustrator, and freelance graphic designer. Her work spans various media from painting and drawing to printing and ceramics, typically featuring a confluence of people and nature. She was born and raised in Northern Virginia and studied graphic design at the University of Georgia, graduating summa cum laude in 2012. After a soul-crushing design studio internship, Sam traveled internationally for a year and a half, volunteering on organic farms and reconnecting with nature. Sam Gray’s whimsical nature scenes were featured on the sides of a 20′ CAT bus in 2018. 

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2018 Resident Artist:

Golara Haghtalab

Presented in Partnership with Bridge PAI

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Artist Golara Haghtalab is fascinated by spectroscopy, design thinking, human beings, geometric patterns, technology, and dance. Her inventive exhibition ‘Who Is Your RGB Self’ features a miniature landscape by use of paintings, poems, sculpture, and interactive installations to create a fresh perspective on visual self-recognition. The project explores how we use vision to perceive ourselves through the fundamental colors of Red, Green and Blue. Breaking down boundaries, layers, and defenses to see everyone as three primary colors creates a flatness that magnifies our unity as human beings. Golara plans backward while thinking forward to bring her audience’s attention to their core.

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2018 Resident Artist:

Edwin Roa

Founder of The Dance Spot and Co-founder of the Charlottesville Salsa Club, Edwin O. Roa is native of Bogota, Colombia who moved to the US in 1995. He has been teaching dance for over 20 years, and has devoted his career to the study of partner dance. He currently works as an adjunct faculty for the department of Theater and Dance at James Madison University. Edwin resides in Charlottesville, VA, where he teaches his method of social partner dance now known as “Zabor Dance”. 

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2018 Resident Artist:

Frank Walker

Presented in Partnership with New City Arts & The Welcome Gallery

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Portrait artist and Charlottesville native Frank Walker began his art career as engineering draftsman for the U.S. Army. He worked as a medical illustrator at UVA for 19 years before opening his own business, Walker’s Ink. He has since retired from commercial work and began his journey to fine art in his Fifth Street studio space. Walker’s work can be found in numerous private collections and has been shown in exhibitions at the McGuffey Art Center and The Jefferson School African American Heritage Gallery. Mr. Walker also has a passion for military history, maintaining an extensive collection of models and figures from American wars.

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2018 Resident Artist:

James Johnson

Presented in Partnership with New City Arts & The Welcome Gallery

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An artist born and raised in Charlottesville with a brief stint in the Richmond area, James Johnson grew up being the lone creative in a family of educators. Mostly working in graphite in his younger years until the mid-2010’s, he decided to try out inks. His curiosity went from working with black inks to working with Copic markers and various inks. Johnson’s skills are versatile but he specializes in portrait work.

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2018 Resident Performers:

Charlottesville Ballet

Founded in 2007 with a unique mission for dancer wellness, Charlottesville Ballet is the only full time professional dance company in the Charlottesville area. Cofounders and co-directors Sara Clayborne and Emily Hartka have been committed to elevating professional ballet with a healthy working environment for the artists. Their thirteen dancers from all over the United States and abroad — from Virginia to California to Japan — are the backbone of the Charlottesville Ballet Academy, and offer dance education to over 600 students throughout the Charlottesville area.

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2017 Resident Artist & Writer:

Roye Okupe

Presented in Partnership with the VA Festival of the Book

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Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Roye Okupe is a creative specialist who holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s in computer science from The George Washington University. His passion for animation led him to found YouNeek Studios in 2012, an avenue that would allow him pursue his dream of creating a diverse library of superheroes. Under that umbrella, Roye wrote, produced and directed several animated productions including 2D/3D animated short films, TV commercials, show openers, music videos, and much more. 

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2017 Resident Performers:

Victory Hall Opera

Performed in a variety of evocative spaces, Victory Hall brings leading performers from around the world to develop a new aesthetic of opera theater that is vital, personal, and relevant. Victory Hall’s performances must meet a three-fold test: they must be “disarming, exquisite, sincere”. This pioneering model informs all original productions (including repertoire from the entire continuum of opera). In 2017, Victory Hall created a specific performance for Tom Tom, “Oracle: An Operatic Tarot Reading.”

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2017 Resident Artist:

Paul Hostetler

Presented in Partnership with Charlottesville Area Transit

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Paul Hostetler is a freelance illustrator, painter, and comics maverick. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009 with his BFA in Illustration. In 2017, Hostetler won Tom Tom and CAT’s Art Bus Competition with his “Dinosaurs” design, which was featured on a 20’ city bus for the entire year. His work — which he describes as commentary on every-day life — has been featured in a number of Virginia galleries. He has also been recognized by the Society of Illustrators: West Coast, Muse Creative Awards, and 3x3.

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2017 Resident Performers:

Mermaid Theatre

Presented in Partnership with the Paramount Theater

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Founded in 1972, the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia is best known for unique stage adaptations of classic children’s literature. Their innovative puppetry, striking scenic effects, evocative original music, and gentle storytelling have been applauded by over six million spectators in fifteen countries, on four continents, and in seven languages. The company is committed to the belief that young people benefit from early exposure to literature, the arts, and the power of imagination. In 2017, Tom Tom featured this unique residency to inspire innovations in early childhood education in Charlottesville and offer inspiration to students, teachers, and educators to incorporate the performing arts into curricula.

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2016 Resident Artist:

Aaron Fein

Originally trained as both sculptor and architect, Aaron Fein found his way to fabric and thread as a way of healing in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. His monumental ‘White Flags’ project – 193 national flags rendered entirely in white thread on white fabric – includes one flag for each member state of the United Nations, rendered in white to show our common humanity. In 2016, Fein installed “White Flags” on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall and in Emancipation Park, accompanied by talks and workshops with the artist throughout the week of Tom Tom.

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2016 Resident Performer:

Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell

Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell is a woman with many titles: theatre and performance artist; co-founder of the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLAW); member of PEP (Charlottesville’s only professional theatre ensemble); solo parent of a 10-year-old; and founder of a technology business. Jennifer was awarded the first annual Public Artist residency at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. As a part of her residency, Jennifer produced a series of public performances entitled “NO WAKE” in the Spring of 2016. Bold and progressive, Jennifer brings an entrepreneurial, celebratory, and sometimes critical voice to the important dialogue surrounding Charlottesville’s art and business space.

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2015 Resident Artist:

Becca McCharen

Becca McCharen is founder of the avant-garde fashion line CHROMAT. The UVA School of Architecture graduate fuses technical chops with fierce individualism to create unique, larger-than-life pieces that are perfectly suited to her client list, which leans heavily towards boundary-testing stars like Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Nicky Minaj. According to Mashable, “Beyoncé scores her best looks from this obscure Brooklyn designer.” A Forbes “30 under 30: Art & Style” pick for “People Who Are Reinventing the World in 2014”, McCharen spoke at Tom Tom in 2015 about what it means to combine uncompromising creativity with business acumen, and led workshops on the intersection of fashion and technology.

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2015 Resident Artist:

Mickael Broth

Presented in Partnership with Charlottesville Area Transit

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In 2004, Richmond, Virginia-based visual artist Mickael Broth served a ten month jail sentence for painting graffiti on the side of a cargo train. Since his release, he has worked as a fine artist and sign painter, showing work around the country in venues that range from abandoned warehouses to museum walls. His memoir “Gated Community: Graffiti and Incarceration” details his experiences and the relevance of his personal story to society at large. Most recently, Broth has been spearheading Richmond’s “Welcoming Walls”, a project to beautify the highways and intersections that surround Richmond with large scale murals.

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2015 Resident Artist:

Claude Wampler

Presented in Partnership with UVA’s College & Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

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New York–based artist Claude Wampler uses video, painting, photography, lighting, sound, sculpture, costume, and texts to explore the possibilities and the value of grafting performance technique onto visual expression—and vice versa. Her work “makes you reassess the whole nature and purpose of performance“, as she investigates the boundaries of spectatorship in the visual and performing arts. During her residency, Claude led a semester-long project at the University of Virginia as the Ruffin distinguished artist-in-residence, which culminated in a series of public works at Tom Tom 2015.

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2014 Resident Artist:

Simon Draper

Hosted by The Bridge PAI and supported by the Vice Provost for Arts at U.Va

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World-renowned public artist Simon Draper’s collaborative “Habitat for Artists” project inspired a series of modular structures developed by local artists, designers, and architects. Centered around an initial installation by Draper, Charlottesville partners built 6’x6′ modules using recycled material and installed them at the Bridge PAi during the week of Tom Tom 2014. The modules — a hoop house for a school garden, a small stage for a theatre production, a farm stand for a local farmer, and a micro library — were then distributed to local organizations throughout the community for continued use.

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2012 Resident Artist:

Ed Miller

Ceramic and mixed-media sculptor Ed Miller uses clay to focus on the earth and environment, creating detailed and textured clay sculptures of human, animal, landscape and earth forms. Since receiving his BFA in 2009, Miller has pushed the limits of ceramic sculpture by playing with form and texture, and incorporating materials such as wood, steel, leather, animal fur, and bronze. During Tom Tom 2012, he began experimenting with an electric pressure washer to dramatically alter the surface of his sculptures. He calls this technique, “aggressive hydro-sculpting,” transforming his sculptures by shaping, blasting away, making holes, and drawing onto them–a performance in itself!

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2012 Resident Artist:

Kate Daughdrill

Detroit-based artist Kate Daughdrill received a BA in Printmaking and Political/Social Thought at UVA, followed by an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She co-founded Detroit SOUP, a public dinner that funds micro-grants for creative projects, and she is currently involved in building the Edible Hut, a community space with a living, edible roof in a public park in Detroit. Daughdrill’s community-based art projects have received acclaim from the New York Times, the Toronto Star, and the Huffington Post. As an Artist in Residence, she brought an engaging series of communal art ideas to Tom Tom by leading a birdseed printing project on the downtown mall and surrounding streets.

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