Introducing Callie Istre

Introducing Callie Istre

Callie Istre is an artist and jewelry maker from Lafayette, La. Her main focus is in creating paintings that can also be classified as sculptures.  Callie is a graduate of Louisiana State University and has recently begun her delve into the professional art community. Her art centers around the woman experience and aims to connect to her feminine audience. Callie takes inspiration from everywhere, but her time studying abroad in Ireland helped to solidify her love for art and helped her branch out into sculptural work. She is on the BARE WALLS art roster, and is always searching for new...

Introducing Brian Schneider

Introducing Brian Schneider

Brian Schneider is a lighting designer and licensed electrician based in Lafayette,Louisiana. A New York City native, Brian now integrates Louisiana culture and point of viewinto his designs. He collaborates with groups such as Opera Louisiane, Basin Dance Collective, Turner Fischer Center for Opera at LSU, and Haymarket Opera in Chicago. When away from the theater, Brian designs and builds custom lamps, andlighting installations. His work has been shown at the Acadiana Center for theArts, the Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans and the Hilliard Museum of Art.Brian uses light as his personal language, blurring the lines between a professionand a...

Introducing Roz LeCompte

Introducing Roz LeCompte

Roz LeCompte is a self-taught artist from South Louisiana. She has cycled through many mediums and styles since her public visual art debut in the late 1990’s. She feels most comfortable in the abstract space relentlessly exploring the idea of how chaos and order contrast one another using colors and shapes. This sometimes boundary-less dance produces an underlying current present in all her works. She has recently participated in group exhibitions at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Basin Arts Gallery, Acadiana Center for the Arts, and the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana, and has been featured in...

Introducing Annabeth Mejia

Introducing Annabeth Mejia

Annabeth Mejia is an emerging photographer from Monroe, LA. She graduated as the outstanding graduate for the college of the arts at ULL in 2023 with a BFA in Visual Arts: Photography. Exploring topics not comfortably talked about in the American south is what she has focused on for the last few years. Opening conversations about how our environment affects us and how we see ourselves and others due to it. She wants to create beautiful and appealing images while also letting the viewers take the time to open their perspective.  https://annabethmejia.myportfolio.com/home https://www.instagram.com/numbwhale/ Who makes up your art circle? Just...

Introducing Bach Prados

Introducing Bach Prados

Bach Prados was born in Opelousas, LA, and grew up there. He is a graduate ofNorthwestern State University with a degree in Graphic Design and a minor in Photography.He has explored a wide variety of arts media including painting, drawing, sculpture, 3D wallpieces, digital imaging, and webpage design. He is currently working with photography and,occasionally, documentary film. Most recently, he is hand-crafting frames from reclaimedwood as an alternative to conventional framing for his photography. His work hangs in anumber of private collections throughout the Acadiana area. Bach has lived and worked in South Louisiana and Maryland. As a member of...

Introducing Kelsey Billiot

Introducing Kelsey Billiot

Kelsey Billiot has been teaching in classrooms around Lafayette Parish with the PACE program since 2015. As a teaching artist, she crafts creative movement lessons that include arts integration, social emotional learning skills, and curriculum connections. Her art is expressed through Space Lafayette, an artisan dance company that creates original works involving site specific choreography.  She created Breathe & Move in the Fall of 2019, as a response to the growing ask for movement and wellness in classrooms. Breathe & Move is the collection of these ideas over her movement and teaching career that gives movement outlets to express emotion,...

Introducing Anna Kojevnikov

Introducing Anna Kojevnikov

Anna Kojevnikov is the Community Development Manager at Acadiana Center for the Arts where her main focus is artist outreach and development via professional development opportunities including grants distribution. Anna may have experience with grants administration but has also been a successful grant writer for film projects when she produced projects in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Anna has produced one feature film, That’s Not Me (2011), and 10 short films including Russian-language, submarine epic, Sundance and Cannes award winning film Deeper Than Yesterday (2010, NSFW).  A graduate of University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts (2009), Anna surrounds herself with artists and...

Introducing Marie Palmer

Introducing Marie Palmer

Marie Palmer, a devoted embroidery and textile enthusiast for the past ten years, has found joy in the art of crafting. Her pieces take a long time to complete which allow for plenty of contemplation.  Through her works, primarily created using embroidery and mixed media, she creates a visual narrative that delves into the depth of maternal love, the dualities of nurturing and sacrifice, and the ways in which the natural world reflects and informs our inner landscapes. Gratefully accepted into the warm community of the LA Crafts Guild and the International Society for Embroidered Work, Marie appreciates the encouragement and learning...

Introducing Andrea Villien

Introducing Andrea Villien

Andrea is a musician, poet, and healing arts practitioner from South Louisiana. She has been apart of Lafayette’s music community for the past twenty-five years through performances withvarious ensembles in both classical and traditional music and as a music educator. She currently teaches piano and violin in her private studio and at the Acadiana Symphony Conservatory of Music. Andrea has also worked for the past twenty years in the healing arts where she was trained as a massage therapist, yoga instructor, labor doula, reiki master practitioner, and herbalist. In 2020, Andrea decided to return to school for a degree in...

Introducing Jamar Pierre

Introducing Jamar Pierre

Jamar Pierre, artist and educator, was born in New Orleans at Charity hospital in 1973. As a child Jamar Pierre was influenced by his paternal grandparents who grew up on plantations in rural Louisiana, where he spent a great deal of time in his formative years.  The combination of appreciating the nature of Louisiana and being exposed to the work ethic indicative of living off the land is evident in his artwork that often contains a contrast between rural and urban life.  The urban component of his artwork is a result of growing up in New Orleans where he spent...