Artist Bio

The mission of Stellar Friend & Partner is to fortify artists, artist-run projects and small arts organizations through collaboration and professional services. My services include: project management, grant writing, one-on-one coaching, research and development, artwork production and installation assistance, strategic planning, professional practice workshops, and more.

I wholeheartedly believe that art and artists have a profound ability to make the world a better place, and I am dedicated to helping artists and small arts organizations thrive in order to positively impact and create thriving communities. I am committed to supporting consistently marginalized individuals and groups including LGBTQI+, BIPOC, and womxn artists.

I have 15+ years working as a cultural producer and arts administrator, and over four years of experience providing direct support to individual artists in Detroit full-time. I have a comprehensive awareness of both how art is conceptualized and made, as well as a broad set of tools for understanding and contextualizing it.

Achievments & Highlights

Working as Studio Manager for one individual artist from 2016-2020:

• I wrote numerous successful grant applications with awards totaling over $350K.

• Facilitated and assisted with fabrication of artwork for 26 exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally.

• Managed and assisted with the fabrication and installation of large-scale commissions at the Facebook Global Headquarters in Menlo Park, CA, The Kresge Foundation’s Detroit office, and Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit.

• Facilitated the purchase of three commercial buildings.

• Completed and filed Articles of Incorporation for numerous LLCs and one non-profit organization.

• Facilitated production of artist brand merchandise, including t-shirts and limited edition enamel pins.

• Implemented and managed a new website as well as systems for artwork archives, contact management, accounting, and more.

I have organized and facilitated over 40 workshops and four weekend-long retreats, serving hundreds of artists. I have led workshops on strategic planning, artist websites, development of written assets (artist statements, resumes and bios), and more through the following organizations:

• ArtPrize

• Cranbrook Academy of Art

• Creative Many

• Detroit Startup Week

• Gathering All Muslim Artists (GAMA) Detroit

• Kresge Arts in Detroit

• New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Mentorship Program

• Young Collectors Contemporary Art Fair in Memphis, TN

In 2019, I was Co-Curator of Arts & Culture for re:publica Detroit, in partnership with Europe’s largest conference on the Internet and digital society. From 2016-2020 I worked to design and implement the Kresge Artist Fellows Professional Practice Opportunities program and led workshops to empower and inform the practices of creative practitioners throughout Southeast Michigan and beyond. I was Program Coordinator for the 2015 Detroit Design Festival, as well as Education Program Coordinator for Public Programs and Student Engagement at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) from 2011-2016. Prior to that I served for five years as a founding member of the small team that worked to build the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) into one of the key cultural venues in Detroit and a contemporary art institution with a growing international profile.

I received a BFA in Fine Art and Art History from Eastern Michigan University. I am the Founder of Seraphine Collective, a network of women/femme/nonbinary musicians, artists & DJ’s cultivating creative liberation and camaraderie within Detroit’s music scene, and a 2017 fellow of the Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators. I also ran an artist residency called Third Story in my Southwest Detroit home from 2013-2015, and played bass guitar in the band Casual Sweetheart from 2012-2017.

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