In Second Grade Classrooms:
@artbydakotadrake
Dakota is a self-taught freelance artist and illustrator. She uses mixed media, acrylic paint, and digital tools to create. Dakota is an adaptable artist who loves playing with styles and genres. Her passion is making mixed media sequential art, especially comics. While her background is in small business entrepreneurship and marketing instead of professional art, Dakota has found that this has greatly helped her in navigating the business side or the professional art world. The artist has used her skill as a corporate trainer to be an art teacher to all ages. When she's not creating art or comics, she is outside in the sunshine doing AcroYoga, hiking, gardening, reading, or getting lost while exploring someplace she probably shouldn't be.
@rae_theartist
Rae Wilson is a self-taught visual storyteller/painter from Illinois. They primarily use acrylic paints to create vibrant works of art that rely on symbolism and composition to tell stories. Much of their work has been centered around an explorative theme of Imaginative Nature and the significance of circles. Rae uses techniques such as limited erasure, contrasting imagery and unexpected parallels to convey the interconnectivity of self with reality. Rae teaches workshops to both adults and children across the valley. She is a 2024 American Landmark Artist in Residence and has exhibited her pieces locally at Found:RE Contemporary, The Larry Wilson Gallery, Arts HQ Gallery and has painted for a Starbucks Retail location. As an artist-in-residence Rae is looking forward to inspiring young artists to create meaningful work.
In Third Grade Classrooms:
@alexzelaskoart
Alex Zelasko is a freelance multimedia illustrator with a focus on merging 2D and 3D elements in their work to create immersive experiences. Through blending traditional illustration methods such as pen and ink with sculpture and other media, they create surreal portraits and environments. Alex builds handmade custom shadow boxes that incorporate depth, light, and forced perspective to build worlds within frames. Themes in their work include folklore, camp, botanical and medical illustration, astrology, and the occult. They studied illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design, attended Mesa Community College for illustration and graphic design, and recently graduated from a teaching cohort through Phoenix Center for the Arts. Alex is currently based in Mesa and is involved in youth-centered nonprofit work throughout the valley.
caitlynswift.com
Caitlyn Swift (b. 1999) is a multimedia artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. Her evocative figurative paintings, drawing and sculptures embody personal, psychological and historical feminine archetypes, often reinterpreting traditional portrayals of the female body through exaggeration and elongation. She earned her BFA from the University of Arizona (2020) and MFA from Arizona State University (2025). Caitlyn has exhibited nationally, including the AXA Art Prize at the New York Academy of Art (2024), Restless at Bay College, MI (2024), and ORCHID HOUSE at Subspace Gallery in Tucson, AZ (2021). She was an artist-in-residence at Château d’Orquevaux in France (2022), and her work has appeared in Sandscript, Polaris and Persona Magazines, receiving first-place honors in visual arts.
@simmsuns
Raf Rios is a recent graduate from ASU, receiving a BFA in animation. With a focus on storytelling, Raf creates illustrative works on paper, telling imaginary stories based on experience, documenting growth, and expressing boundless creativity. Raf utilizes DIY methods to create techniques that center around accessibility and sustainability, encouraging those with creative goals to attain them with limited resources. Raf has worked as a freelance illustrator for 3 years and was part of several animation projects during their time at ASU. Currently, Raf is focused on several graphic narrative projects and developing artistic techniques inspired by historical methods replaced by current technology.
In Fourth Grade Classrooms:
Charles Grimes is an abstract landscape artist, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, now living and working in Tempe, Arizona. He graduated in 2024 from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing. Heavily influenced by American Traditional Landscape paintings and Abstract Expressionism works, his art depicts the contemporary balance of nature and modernism within the urban setting. Grimes derives his creativity from walks around the city, focusing on the small components of nature that populate his metropolitan location. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, Grimes received multiple awards and scholarships such as the Guerin Scholarship, School of Art Special Talent Award, and Honors Studio Program Award. His work has been shown in local galleries and exhibitions including the Harry Wood Gallery and Gallery 100.
@omem_
Guillermo "Memo" Gutierrez (b. 1986) is a multidisciplinary artist from El Paso, Texas who received his MFA at Arizona State University in 2022. Inspired by the practicality and aesthetics of Rasquachismo, Gutierrez's practice considers the value within everyday objects which are no longer considered relevant or useful - gathering materials from alleyways, illegal dumpsites and landfills. He contradicts the enticement of the new, unblemished objects, which cycle through our surroundings, by calling attention to materials that would otherwise go unnoticed. Working with these abandoned materials developed a sensitivity toward the untapped potential of the castaway. He reclaims and rehabilitates things that have been altered by the elements and radiate a history of ownership and use. Together with the repurposing of physical waste, he salvages sonic waste to create sound assemblages using noise, field recordings, electro-magnetic frequencies and homemade instruments. His work has been shown both nationally and internationally. He has received various awards including the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture in 2017. Guillermo's work is a part of the permanent collections of both the El Paso Museum of Art and the Rubin Center for Visual Arts. He currently lives and works in Tempe, AZ.
In Fifth Grade Classrooms:
@daintist
Dain Q. Gore is a painter, college art instructor, and puppeteer. He received his MFA (ASU) in 2009 and teaches at Phoenix College. Dain has shown his art all over the world, including Beijing, Himeiji and at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He makes and performs with puppets at the Great Arizona Puppet Theater and the Phoenix Art Museum with collaborator Tommy Cannon: His puppetry is generally sassy. Both his paintings and puppetry are generally colorful, surreal and narrative in nature, which shows up in his hobbies, too; He's been painting fantasy/sci-fi gaming minis since 1988 and has recently won awards at GenCon and Everchosen.
@studiohennessy
Megan Hennessy is a recent graduate from Arizona State University, where she received her BFA in Sculpture. Born and raised in Arizona, she began her art journey as a painter and potter, discovering her love for sculpture through a class at ASU. Working with neon, wood, and tufting, Megan creates whimsical and inviting spaces that beckon viewers to explore and engage. Her vibrant color palettes and playful expressions draw inspiration from childhood memories, spiritual motifs, and architectural design. Megan's interactive, ethereal spaces encourage tactile interaction, inviting viewers to immerse themselves and feel a sense of wonder and joy. In her free time, she loves to roller skate, bringing the same playfulness to her hobbies as she does to her art.