2026/27 AiR Cohort

At Umbrella Arts, we believe in nurturing creativity at every stage — from curious beginners to emerging and established artists. Our 2026/27 Cohort members are part of a vibrant season spanning theater, music, galleries, and classes that reflect the depth of talent in our region and the joy of discovery through the arts.

Meet the 2026/27 AiR Cohort

CERAMICS
Katie Fee
Katie Fee (she series) is a potter from Low Country South Carolina. Fee earned her BA in Art and Geology from the College of William & Mary and her MFA from Alfred University. Fee’s work has led her to kiln pads and clay studios around the world - most recently to France and Japan - as a visiting artist, wood firing specialist, instructor, and project manager. She has exhibited in national and international juried and invitational exhibitions. Her work can be found in galleries across the US, including Good Habit Pottery, Abel Contemporary, and Schaller Gallery. Fee currently works as faculty at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and as Artist-In-Residence at Umbrella Arts.

EDUCATION
Kacie Brown
Kacie Brown (she/her), Artist-in-Residence and Resident Teaching Artist, is a director, educator, and Professor of Voice and Speech at Emerson College. An MFA graduate in Directing and a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher trainee, she specializes in actor-centered, ensemble-driven storytelling and breath-based vocal release. At The Umbrella Arts Center, she leads an interdisciplinary youth conservatory track synthesizing Linklater pedagogy, somatic movement, Viewpoints, and fine arts. Her ongoing research at The Umbrella, funded by a 2026 VASTA Research Fellowship, explores sensory mapping and historical soundscapes as catalysts for youth vocal liberation. She holds board positions with the Arlington Center for the Arts, The Un-Common Theatre Company, and The Compassionate Friends, and serves on the Elliot Norton Awards Nominating Committee. Kacie is a member of AEA, SDC, and VASTA. kaciembrown21@gmail.com

PERFORMING ARTS
Jeryl Palana Pilapil-Brown
Jeryl Palana Pilapil-Brown (she/her) is a Filipino-American dancer, choreographer, producer, and teaching artist based in the Greater Boston area. A graduate of Dean College with a B.A. in Dance, she has trained and performed across the United States and internationally in Canada, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Japan, with a focus on contemporary, street styles, and heels. Jeryl serves as Associate Director of the CYDP Dance Company at the Deborah Mason Performing Arts Center in Somerville, MA, and is the founder and Artistic Director of UnEarths, a multidisciplinary dance company through which she independently produces live performances and dance-on-film works. @jerylpalana_

VISUAL ARTS
Yue Hua
Yue Hua/华越 (she/her) is a filmmaker and multimedia artist who uses analog film, expanded cinema, and digital media to explore cross-cultural identity (Chinese-American), language, and female experience from a personal lens.

Her films and performances have been featured internationally at film festivals and galleries, including Revolution Per Minute Film Festivals, Mono No Aware Film Festival, and AVIFF le festival du film d’artiste.

Yue holds a BFA from the China Academy of Art, majoring in film and television production, and an MFA in Film and Media Arts at Emerson College. Yue is a recipient of the UFVA Carole Fielding Grant, Emerging Artist Award from RPM Festival, New England Local Filmmaker Award, Boston Center for Arts ACTivate residency, and I-Park Residency, and has served as a teaching fellow at Emerson College and Rhode Island School of Design.

Andrea Manning
Andrea Lee Manning is a visual artist based in the Boston area whose practice centers on layered oil painting. She holds an MFA in Painting from Boston University (2025) and a BFA in Art Education and Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2015). Working from small preparatory studies, Manning builds translucent glazes over an intuitive base, selectively removing paint so both layers remain visible in the final image. The result lives in the gap between what was planned and what chance delivers, paintings that belong to neither layer alone. Manning has exhibited in Boston and New York, including recent shows at Morgan Lehman Gallery and U-Haul Art Fair in Chelsea. She is currently working in Somerville, MA and will be serving a year-long residency at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord this upcoming fall.

Anastasia Sierra
Anastasia Sierra is a photographer based in Cambridge, MA. Her work investigates the psychological complexities of motherhood, womanhood, and the domestic sphere, revealing profound vulnerability inherent in intergenerational bonds.

Sierra’s photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Danforth Art Museum, Emerson Contemporary Gallery, Panopticon Gallery, Blue Sky Gallery and Soho Photo Gallery. She is the recipient of a 2026 LensCulture Art Photography Award, was named a 2025 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 finalist, and is included in the 2025 Lenscratch Student Prize: Top 25 to Watch.

Her work is featured in the anthology Eye Mama: Poetic Truths of Home and Motherhood (teNeues Verlag, 2023) and has appeared in DEAR DAVE, Lenscratch, and Musée Magazine. Sierra holds a BA in Linguistics and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2026).

Quincey Spagnoletti
Quincey Spagnoletti is a Boston-based photographer whose practice explores identity and womanhood through photography, installation, and performance. Rooted in her personal history, her work combines images of the body with archival photographs from her childhood to construct layered narratives that examine memory, selfhood, and representation.

She received a BA from Colgate University and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her work has been featured in The Boston Globe, Boston Art Review, Der Greif, Photoworks UK, and FOTOFILMIC JRNL, among other publications. She is the recipient of the Levitate Foundation Emerging Visual Artist Grant (2026) a City of Boston Opportunity Fund Grant (2026 & 2024) and the CAA Becker Fund for Visual Artists Grant (2025). She was recognized as one of Lenscratch's Top 25 Photographers to Watch (2024) and a Top 200 Critical Mass Finalist (2024).

Spagnoletti was the 2025–2026 Artist-in-Residence at Pratt Munson College of Art & Design, where she presented her debut solo exhibition, Home Studio, at the Pratt Munson Gallery at the Munson Museum of Art. Her recent residencies include the Wassaic Project (Summer 2026) and The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA, where she is currently a Visual Artist-in-Residence. She is also the 2026-2028 Emerging Artist Fellow at The Kingston Gallery in Boston, MA.