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
I am inspired by the entwining relationships between land, people, and time. Growing up on a farm, we watched fields rotate from mucky dirt patch, to plowed garden, then blankets of green, and back again, at the mercy of our own tools. We saw land change beyond our control; creek beds annually rise and recede by rainfall and flood, and their path carves soil along the way, dictating the wealth of each plotted field. I’m fascinated by the cycles through which weather, tectonics, and life create, deform, and deconstruct the earth. I see nature as an immortal force: chaotic, destructive, magical, and pristine. My pots start simply in the studio, becoming rugged and elegant hybrids through the making process. I am stuck on clay pots because they simultaneously connect us to our daily routines and the stream of human history. I am partial towards simple construction processes that require thinking through my own hands, in dialogue with the material. By celebrating the marks of labor and the voice clay imparts into the work, I strive for pots that are simultaneously rough-hewn and elegantly refined. Beyond the studio, I hope my pots pull emotions and that their tension evokes a reverie. In my dreams, handmade pots remind us of the ground beneath our feet and the geologic underpinnings of reality: integral to our daily rituals, and transcendent of them.


EDUCATION
Kacie Brown
My creative process is rooted in the belief that theater possesses an inherent capacity to heal, serving as a sanctuary where raw emotion can be externalized and collectively processed. By stripping away artificiality, I aim to create work that meets audiences at their most vulnerable edges, inviting them to confront shared truths through the transformative power of storytelling. At the core of my practice is a deep commitment to embodied voice and physical resonance. I view the actor’s body and voice not merely as instruments of delivery, but as living landscapes of memory, emotion, and connection. In rehearsal, my process prioritizes rigorous physical awareness and freedom, allowing performers to release habitual tension and tap into an authentic stream of impulse. This focus on somatic truth ensures that every choice on stage emerges from an undeniable inner necessity, bringing a grounded, visceral immediacy to the storytelling. My work is continuously inspired by the intersections of loss, resilience, and the quiet beauty of human connection. I am drawn to texts and concepts that explore high emotional stakes, societal pressures, and the complex ways individuals navigate grief, isolation, and love. Whether directing a intimate contemporary play or guiding young artists through vocal exploration, my motivation remains the same: to create spaces where deep human connection can flourish, allowing both performers and audiences to leave the theater feeling more deeply understood and profoundly human.

PERFORMING ARTS
Jeryl Palana Pilapil-Brown
My creative practice is inspired by my curiosity about people, our environments, and the ways we connect with one another. I create work through choreography, film, lighting, objects, and design, often starting with an image, feeling, or question and allowing these elements to shape the movement together. Lighting has become an important part of my process. I see lighting as a collaborator rather than a final layer, exploring how it can influence movement, space, and atmosphere. As the founder and Artistic Director of UnEarths, I independently produce multidisciplinary work that brings choreography, props, film, and design together. I am often inspired by everyday objects, moments, and memories. As a Filipino-American artist, I’m also interested in how culture, family history, and shared traditions shape our identities and relationships. I want my work to feel relatable and imaginative while inviting audiences to look at familiar things differently. Teaching is also an important part of my practice. As a teaching artist, I love sharing the joy of dance and making it accessible to people of all ages and levels of experience. I believe movement can be a unique and meaningful way for people to express themselves and connect with one another. Through both my artistic and teaching practices, I hope to create spaces where people feel curious, connected, and comfortable exploring something new.

VISUAL ARTS
Yue Hua
I am a filmmaker and multimedia artist whose work spans analog, digital, and generative media. Inspired by color, pattern, and cultural memory, my practice explores identity, relocation, female perspective, dreams, and memory. I believe the more personal, the more universal. My work moves fluidly across form and scale, from single-channel experimental films and video essays to multi-channel installations and expanded cinema performances. I approach film as both a sculptural and spatial medium, dissolving the boundaries between screen and audience, and between past and present. Many of my projects begin from intimate, personal histories while creating immersive environments that invite collective reflection. I am particularly drawn to materials and processes that hold time. Working with outdated formats such as 16mm film, I embrace imperfection through hand-processing and direct animation techniques. Found materials-plants, rusted tools, debris, domestic objects, and home videos-often enter my work, adding texture and fragility that speak to both decay and resilience. My process is intuitive and experimental, allowing accident and chance to shape the outcome. Through this sensitivity to material, I construct spaces where memory feels tactile, unstable, and alive.

Andrea Manning

Anastasia Sierra

Quincey Spagnoletti
When I look back at my childhood and how I was raised I am confronted with ideas and notions on how a woman is supposed to act and “perform” for society. Through my pictorial and arts-related explorations of womanhood, I strive to push back against the traditional norms that have dominated my upbringing, in the process highlighting the challenges of my own internalizations of a women’s role and my attempts to disrupt and unlearn what I have inherited. Beginning with personal narratives and conversations with the maternal figures in my life, I set out to construct my own perception of space, and inheritance, based on memory. I incorporate human-scaled objects and props, the stuff of childhood and growing up, to ornament this investigation of perception. It is my intention to have the viewer question my intentionality and awareness, to wonder about where I am situated in the narrative of the work. The nature of control continues to be a recurring theme in my work. I use the camera as a tool to elucidate my own emotions and my relationship to myself and those closest to me. My current studio practice is a back-and-forth between pathos and this notion of control – a constant search for who I am as a woman and how I want to present myself to society. In this way, I hope to leave an inquiry of the matriarchal and the matrilineal for the generations to come.