Amy Meadows to Melissa Potter

Amy Meadows

"Recognized nationally in her field, Amy has reinvented traditions and reinvigorated business for both major retailers and independent businesses. From big box to boutiques, she helps businesses explore and leverage tools to attract customers and drive sales.  Amy can help align your storefront, signage and displays to work together to build your brand and increase revenue. 

As a designer, Amy uses her background in theatrical Set Design to bring a sense of whimsy and drama to her installations, maximize visual stimulation and develop cost-saving display strategies.

As a consultant, she creates best practices, methodologies and practical strategies for a wide range of visual initiatives and outcomes. Those might include pop-up stores/galleries, special events, re-branding—even boutique “boot camps”. 

As an educator, Amy has created course content to inform and inspire the next generation of designers with emphasis on relevance in a changing retail landscape.

As a public speaker, she conducts seminars specializing in time and cost-effective display solutions for independent retailers and business districts.  Play to your strengths, reach your customers!

With over 25 years in Window Display, Visual Merchandising and Event Planning, Amy and her Windows Matter team are ready to help you to EDUCATE, ENTICE and ENGAGE your customers."

Check out her website:  http://www.windowsmatter.com/

Meredith Miller

Meredith Miller is a Chicago-based performance artist and cabaret singer, who for the last ten years has performed regularly in Chicago and toured both in the US and Europe.  She has appeared in venues and events such as The Avignon Theatre Festival (FR), The Great Small Works International Toy Theatre Festival (NY), the MAry Bijou Cabaret (UK), Gurlesque Burlesque (Chicago), and at Chicago’s Link Hall, where she developed her one-woman-show Pale Hands I Loved as a participant in their artist’s residency program.  In addition to her solo work, she is a member of the queer drag/burlesque group The Windy City Blenders, a group devoted to international exchange within the queer community.  She is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Please visit www.meredithjmiller.com for more information about her work and an updated schedule of events, performances & concerts.

Dawn Xiana Moon

Most artists work in a single discipline. Dawn Xiana Moon has worked professionally in almost all of them.

A seductive and passionate voice, evocative songwriting, and formal training make her one of the most distinctive Asian-American singers of her generation. The Singapore-born musician has performed in 10 states and released two solo albums; her latest CD, Spaces Between, fuses elements from traditional Chinese music with jazz and alt folk pop, resulting in a musical brew in French, English, and Mandarin Chinese that draws influences from sources as disparate as Han Dynasty literature and Americana. 

As a dancer, she often takes a more lighthearted tone: Moon is the founder and producer/director of Raks Geek, a geek bellydance and fire performance company that has garnered notice nationally and internationally through their commitment to blend a high degree of artistic and technical mastery with fun, creativity, and themes from nerd culture. Raks Geek achieved internet notoriety with a video of a Wookiee bellydancing to a Klingon band playing an original song in Shyriiwook, which earned them a spot on UK Channel 4 TV's "50 Funniest Moments of 2012" and a proclamation from The Daily Mail that hailed the group as "Sci-fi seduction." Moon also performs in the US and Canada with Read My Hips tribal bellydance and Acrobatica Infiniti Circus.

In addition to her work as a dancer and musician, she has served as a section editor for RELEVANT Magazine, where she wrote cultural commentary on film, TV, and music; acted in theatre and independent films; designed graphics for Anheuser-Busch; and coded websites for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Moon graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English and Theatre. 

Check out websites: RaksGeek.com  and  DawnXianaMoon.com

Anne Elizabeth Moore

"Anne Elizabeth Moore is an internationally renowned cultural critic. Fulbright scholar, UN Press Fellow, USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow and part of the team behind The Ladydrawers, she has written and edited several award-winning books. Cambodian Grrrl (Cantankerous Titles, 2011) received a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for best book from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation in 2012. Hey Kidz, Buy This Book(Soft Skull, 2004) made Yes! Magazine‘s list of “Media That Set Us Free” and Reclaim the Media’s 2004 Media and Democracy Summer Reading List. The first Best American Comics made both Entertainment Weekly‘s “Must List” and Publishers Weekly‘s Bestsellers List. Unmarketable (The New Press, 2007) made Reclaim the Media’s 2007 Media and Democracy Summer Reading list and was named a Best Book of the Year by Mother Jones. Her recent book New Girl Law (Cantankerous Titles, 2013), the follow-up to Cambodian Grrrl, was called “a post-empirical proto-fourth-wave feminist memoir” by Bust. Moore herself was recently called a “general phenom” by the Chicago Reader and “one of the sharpest thinkers and cultural critics bouncing around the globe today” by Razorcake.

Moore has done media and gender justice work on three continents. Her journalism focuses on the international garment trade and anti-sex-trafficking NGOs. She exhibits her work frequently as conceptual art, and has been the subject of two documentary films. She has lectured around the world on independent media, globalization, and women’s labor issues. Co-editor and publisher of the now-defunct Punk Planet, and founding editor of the Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin, Moore was recently the theorist-in-residence at das weisse haus in Vienna, Austria, and teaches in the Visual Critical Studies and Art History departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

She has also written for The Baffler, Salon, N+1, Al Jazeera, Good, Snap Judgment, the Progressive, The Onion, Feministing, Snap Judgment, The Stranger, In These Times, The Boston Phoenix, and Tin House. Her work with the Ladydrawers includes a Truthout series on gender, labor, and cultural production, and included a miniseries for Bitch Media with Janelle Asselin. She has twice been noted in the Best American Non-Required Reading series. She has appeared on CNN, WNUR, WFMU, WBEZ, Voice of America,GritTV with Laura Flanders, Radio Australia, NPR’s Worldview, and others. Moore mounted a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2011 and in 2012 participated in Artisterium, the Republic of Georgia’s annual art invitational. Her work appeared in the 2008 Whitney Biennale, has been exhibited in the Spinnerei in Leipzig Germany in 2010, and made up one of the first conceptual art exhibitions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2010. Her work has been featured in USA Today,Marie Claire, Phnom Penh Post, Portland Mercury, Bust, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out Chicago,Hyphen Magazine, Truthout, Make/Shift, Bookslut, Today’s Chicago Woman, New York Review of Books, Windy City Times, Print Magazine, and the New York Times, among many more. She has lectured at close to a hundred universities, libraries, alternative spaces, and conferences around the globe."

Check out her website at: http://anneelizabethmoore.com/

Check out our conversation blog post here: https://elisa-shoenberger.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/21/interview-with-anne-elizabeth-moore

Julie Murphy

A lifelong doodler, Julie Murphy lives in Chicago where she draws pictures, edits video, illustrates for clients and occasionally exhibits in galleries.  Professionally, she has taken a circuitous route through a diverse array of day-jobs in a wide assortment of fields, including administrative assistant for a pharmacology nomenclature group, video editor, bartender, printmaking teacher assistant, script reader, art department coordinator for television, stop-motion animation prop designer, production assistant, bank employee, radio station assistant, receptionist, waitress in a retirement home, and children’s shoe salesman. These diverse work experiences fuel the desire to escape reality, in addition to supplementing a rainbow of character studies for artistic creations. Julie earned a BFA degree in illustration from Art Center College of Design in California, as well as a BS degree in radio/television/film from Northwestern University. Unfortunately, two bachelor degrees do not equal a masters degree. In 2014, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events hosted and curated her first solo exhibition of drawings at the City Gallery of the historic Water Tower. 

Written by Celery St. Bernard

To see her artwork, check out: http://juliemurphy.info/home

Jamie O'Reilly

Jamie is known in the theater and music community for her singing, and for the powerful live productions and recordings she creates. She is also known for networking, activism, and the community projects she spearheads to empower artists. In 2007, Jamie became Salonniere of Roots Salon, hosting events in her home.

Continuing a tradition begun by her creative relations at the turn of the last century, she presents the finest performers and artists on an ongoing basis. In the past several years, Roots Salon presented over 120 artists. Fall of 2014 began with Season 2 of the Roots Salon member program. In addition to hosting bi-monthly Roots Salons, 2014 brought new collaborations with: HotHouse, a multi-disciplinary arts organization, with whom she produced Rekindling the Salon, an artist retreat and soiree in Lakeside, MI.  and with St. John’s Episcopal Church, in Old Irving Park, with whom she produced a five event Salon Series. Jamie co-produced End of Life/Afterlife, a moving four day arts festival with St. John’s.  Jamie is proud to be a member of Celtic Women International, for whom she presents programs several times a year

As one of Chicago’s most beloved song stylists and ballad singers, she performs as a concert soloist, and with the Jamie O’Reilly Trio.  She is often the performer of choice for tribute concerts and memorials. A graduate of DePaul University School of Music, Jamie’s vocal debut was at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. She toured with the popular folk band Jamie O’Reilly & The Rogues.

Jamie has 9 albums to her credit. Her latest CD is WinterSong, a 13 track compilation that launched the Voices of Roots Salon audio series, and includes recorded favorites, previously unreleased songs, and her original lyric writing.  

Jamie appears with a stellar crop of collaborators, among them guitarist Peter Swenson and songwriter Michael Smith, with whom she created Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, Hello Dali: From the Sublime to the Surreal, Songs of the Kerry Madwoman, The Gift of the Magi, (performed with WGN Radio Host Rick Kogan).  Jamie and Michael appear in Songs of a Catholic Childhood (recently at the Irish American Heritage Center to a capacity crowd).  Their most recent creation, Epitaphs and Apparitions, was seen at RhinoFest 2015.

A highlight of Jamie’s performance experiences is appearing with her musical daughters Meg and Nia (of the band Midnight Moxie), who learned at her knee that with music, art, and community we can make a great life.

In winter 2015 Jamie produced Winter-Rising: Snowbound Artist Diaries, an investigation of the affect of winter on the Artist psyche, with Stella Brown and Nia O’Reilly Amandes co-curating.

Check out her website: http://jamieoreilly.com/

Injung Oh

Oh has been using the figurine originated from her vision back in 2004 of herself
floating in the sky body as stamen skirt as paddle together like a flower. Oh named Volossom, 
meaning manifestation of wish or will, wish flower and use its concept and the figurine as frame to
develop her visual language.

As a Chicago-­‐based Korean-­‐American artist, Oh’s inspiration comes from the clashing cultural
energies she has witnessed within society. She is determined to find harmony between the sexes and
cultural challenge using dynamics symbolism. Coming from a dual cultural background, Oh naturally
identifies with the complexity of societal and hierarchical issues and uses symbolism to expound on
her own experiences in intercultural society, such issues forming a focal point and building block
for creativity and inspiration. Volossom is important symbol in Oh’s paintings; it represents life
and the existence and the artists skillfully portrayed our roles in society. It serves as different
stages of life people may encounter and a multitude of emotional states they have. Currently, Oh
has been developing Thousand Wish Project with various community members. It is an ongoing
interactive visual workshop, which encourage participants to explore, articulate and give shape to
a latent wish or desire using creative mediums. Collective diverse visual wishes all together will
create united voice as one.

Oh’s art collection (practice) reflects a self-­‐discovery journey that she personally embarked on; 
how she has managed to make peace with her dual identities and accepts the dissimilarity. Oh
received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 and has had solo exhibitions at Ed Paschke Art Center and Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, MIIT Museum in Turin, Italy and Bluerider art gallery in
Taipei City Taiwan. Reviews of her work have been featured in Italia Arte Magazine, China Times and
China Post and her work is in numerous private collections. She is
a resident artist of the Zhou B Art Center.

Check out her work here: http://www.injungoh.com/

Zsofia Otvos

Zsófia was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary where she received her formal studio training at Studio '91 lead by Rita Kopek in Budapest. In 1994, an art scholarship brought her to the United States to earn her BA degree in Art and Theater. During that time, she studied fiber art at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago; as a child, she learned tapestry weaving from her Mother, which is the basis of her relationship to and understanding of color, and its unique use in her work. 

She directed her focus to painting in 1999, ever since than she has been actively participating in the Chicago art world, her works have been exhibited in the United States, Hungary and Italy.

Check out her websites:

Make Up: http://www.madeupfaces.com/

Paintings: zsofiaotvos.com

Joyce Owens

Associate professor and curator Joyce Owens, M.F.A., Yale University, B.F.A., Howard University, has served as juror, panelist, consultant or lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, the Illinois Arts Council, Arts Alliance Illinois during Art Expo, The College Art Association, Chicago Artists Coalition, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Columbia College Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, Wells Street Art Fair, Old Town Art Fair, Purdue University, The DuSable Museum, The Museum of Science and Industry, and other institutions. Owens' work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions on four continents. American venues include the east coast and midwest. (New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Austin, Texas, Connecticut, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wash., D.C., Chicago, Wisconsin). Some of her numerous honors and awards include a 3Arts Award and Ragdale Fellowship, cash prizes or solo exhibitions from sculptor Martin Puryear, visual artists Faith Ringgold and Jon Pounds and correspondent for Artnews and former Chicago SunTimes art critic, Margaret Hawkins. Owens' work has received positive critical reviews and been the subject of feature articles in various publications such as the Chicago Reader, The Chicago SunTimes, Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The New Art Examiner, Chicago Gallery News and papers and blogs around the country, and England, including The Detroit Free Press and the Pittsburgh Courier-Tribune. She is a published writer contributing to Art Against the Law, edited by Rebecca Zorach and published by the University of Chicago Press in January 2015. Owens has taught in program and school, teaching pre-school to grad students in Philadelphia, New Haven CT. and Chicago, IL. Her most recent appointment was with Chicago State University.

Check out her work at www.joyceowens.com

Melissa Potter

Influenced by her life among women crafters and feminists, Melissa Potter's work considers women through their traditional handicrafts, gender rituals, and untold personal histories. Second-wave feminist activism and the late-20th Century resistance movements of Southeast Europe and the former Soviet Union shape what Melissa Potter now describes as a socially-engaged aspect to her work. After eight years living in Chicago, the work has become influenced and inspired by the Jane Addams Hull House, and the feminism of the American settlement movement. The projects are expressed in media including handmade paper, traditional felt crafts, writing, and video.

Seeds InService: A Papermaking Institute, a hand papermaking project at the intersection of art, eco-feminism, and seed diversity, seeds for the Seeds InService project are sourced from the Hull House Heirloom Seed Library, and the project made its first contribution back to the library with seeds from plants grown in the SIS garden in summer 2014. Using hand papermaking as a tool to explore artistic expression, science, recycling, and environmental awareness, the program creates homegrown papermaking plant fibers for for seed packet production to creatively distribute heirloom and local seeds.

The video, Like Other Girls Do pairs the “the last sworn virgin” (a tradition in which a girl is raised as a boy in a household with no male heirs) with interviews of young Serbian women, and poses challenging questions about women and choice in today’s society.

A collaboration with artist activist groups and women craft unions in the Republic of Georgia called Craft Power engages the ancient Georgian craft of felt making to explore contemporary artists books, protest banners and masks.  These craft practices are in urgent need of intangible heritage preservation.  Simultaneously, women's empowerment movements have taken Georgia into its second wave of feminism, and they oppose the oppressive gender regulations of an Orthodox society, at times to their personal endangerment.

Blog writing, critical reviews for magazines including BOMB, Art Papers, and Metropolis M, and curatorial projects extend my practice and interests.

Melissa Potter's work has been exhibited at venues nationally and internationally. Grants for this work include three Fulbright awards to Serbia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, ArtsLink, the Soros Fund for Arts and Culture, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.  Her curatorial work has been funded by the Ellen Stone Belic Institute, the Crafts Research Fund, and the Clinton Hill Foundation, among others.

She currently serves as an Associate Professor and Director of the Book & Paper Program in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department of Columbia College Chicago. 

Check out her website here: http://www.melpotter.com/

Check out her Gender Assignment blog here: http://genderassignment.tumblr.com/

Check out my blog post about our conversation here: https://elisa-shoenberger.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/7/conversation-with-melissa-potter-1