VisArts Faculty
VisArts faculty is composed of professional artists, MCPS teachers, and private school teachers.
Jamie Banaticla
Jamie Banaticla (she/her) is a Filipina-American multimedia artist and emerging teacher.
She recently graduated from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in New York City, studying Visual Communications and Sociology.
Enchanted by the power of memories, emotions, and nostalgia, Jamie cherishes her human experience by expressing herself in both physical and digital spaces. Through her playful art and design, she spotlights the preciousness in the everyday.
Jamie’s leadership positions at Fordham granted her opportunities to utilize her creative talents toward community empowerment, student development, and curating inclusive, accessible spaces.
Notable works include her one-second-a-day videos, in which she has compiled over 1,900+ daily video snippets since 2018, her food photography in Eats Archive, and her award-winning sculpture and design pieces.
She is an enthusiast of stickers, matcha, and organic shapes!
Pop by Jamie’s universe here! https://studiojeim.com
Jenny Beech
Jenny has worked at several studios and after-school programs, teaching ceramics to both children and adults. In 2019, she moved to NYC to pursue her career in clay and started teaching at three studios around Manhattan. Jenny discovered a passion for teaching the potter’s wheel and grew profoundly as an artist and an educator. Connecting with students over clay is one of her joys in life!
Nan Bevan
Her work can be found on www.nanettebevan.com and www.nanettebevan.etsy.com
Jeanette M. Bolden
In the summer of 2022, Bolden interned at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and co-taught the Hispanic Heritage Month Internship Program. Toward the end of her academic program at the University of Maryland, she participated in the Honor Thesis and Senior Exhibition. Having graduated with a B.A. in studio arts as an honor student, she participated in the Exercises for Emerging Artists program by Transformer Gallery in 2023.
Xiaosheng Bi
Xiaosheng’s work reflects his traditional Chinese influences, yet is infused with a contemporary aesthetic. Suffused with gentle colors, his delicate forms shine with the brilliant translucency of bone china porcelain. Traditional Chinese motifs such as bamboo leaves or lotus blossoms are painted and sculptural with dynamic, nearly abstract strokes.
Bi’s works have been exhibited in solo and group shows in Asia and the USA. His ceramic and sculpture works were collected by museums and private collectors.
Stéphane Calvin
Stéphane (she/her) is a mixed-media visual artist.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Sorbonne University in France in 2019. Stéphane favors working in mixed media, a slow and tactile process, whereby each medium channels a different sensibility and which, combined, bring the finished piece to a place where it can rest, complete. Stéphane is a lifelong learner who really enjoys exploring and playing with new techniques, tools, and media. In a former life, she trained and worked in international development and diplomacy.
To view her work, please visit her website at www.stephanecalvin.art
Helena Cervantes
Helena (any pronouns) is a Guatemalan-American, multimedia, lowbrow artist, born and raised in Washington D.C. and now residing in Maryland. Helena pursued Illustration at Montgomery College and then went on to earn their B.F.A. in Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Their work spawns a sense of strangeness by juxtaposing pop culture elements such as cuteness and horror. Helena creates recurring characters with these elements who embody Monstrous or Otherness. Much of the inspiration for their work is science fiction, the uncanny valley, post-humanism, and pop surrealism. Helena brings these characters to life through sculpture, paintings, and illustrations.
Hsin Cheng
Hsin Cheng (She/her) was born and raised in Taiwan, moved to the US some years back, and now resides in Maryland. Hsin holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Taipei National University of the Arts. In her personal practice, her work focuses on the absurdity of everyday life scenes, capturing the fluidity of landscapes and depicting dynamic figures. Hsin started her journey in education and has been teaching art for almost three years, finding great joy in collaborating with children and adults to create art. She teaches drawing, painting, and multimedia to students of different ages and backgrounds. You can find out more about Hsin by reaching her at hsinrr@gmail.com.
Jess Cruz
Jess Cruz (she/they) loves working with their hands and has been creating since childhood.
In every medium they dip into, they are motivated to bring their cultural roots to the forefront. Their current focus is on beading. Jess often makes beaded jewelry pieces that evoke the colors and beauty of their ancestral land, El Salvador. She uses small brass frames to bring her beaded designs to life.
Previously, Jess worked as a therapist and community social worker, often using hands-on creative activities to engage clients of all ages.
Limor Dekel
Limor Dekel (She/Her) is a working artist and is teaching ceramics at VisArts. She is a multi-disciplinary artist, specializes in painting and sculpture. She has been showing her work in curated regional art shows and galleries.
Her ceramics won several awards, and The Baltimore Sun and Crofton Crier wrote feature articles about her art. Limor continued to expand her creative pursuits and enrolled in the University of Maryland to receive a degree in Interior Design. She graduated in 1989 and began working for Marriott Hotels.
Limor also worked as a graphic designer and a freelance artist until, in 1998, she decided to become an art teacher. She enrolled in Towson State University and became a certified art teacher in 2002; she retired from teaching in 2023.
Ms. Dekel has worked with the non-profit organization, Youth Art for Healing, mentoring high school art students to have their artwork installed in health-care facilities. Limor has exhibited her paintings at the Yellow Barn Gallery in Glen Echo, Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Towson Art Collective in Maryland. Received an Honorable Mention Award in 2022 Figurative International Juried art Competition in Art Show International Gallery. She is a member of Maryland Federation of Art and Rockville Art League.
Her work can be seen at www.limordekel.com
Robert Devers
Robert Devers received his MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. He is currently a Professor of Art at NOVA, in Annandale, VA.
Previous teaching experience includes; The George Washington University, The Corcoran College of Art + Design, American University, Montgomery College, and VisArts, among others.
Works in public collections include: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, American University Art Gallery; Katzen Art Center, Manuel Cargaliero Foundation, Ravello, Italy, Museo Manuel Cargaliero, Castelo Branco, Portugal, International Monetary Fund, and the Washington Brain and Spine Institute
Carla Duran
Carla Duran (she/her) is an artist living in Germantown, MD. She was introduced to all forms of art as a child and fell in love with studio art; she has continued to work, study, and enjoy all forms of art. Her first artwork was presented in an art exhibit during her first art summer camp at Black Rock Center for the Arts, and then later at Seneca Valley High School during her senior year. Carla attended Montgomery College and earned an Associate Degree in Art in 2019. Much of her artwork was displayed at the Student Portfolio Review & Exhibition at Montgomery College, Takoma Park, MD. Her works on Hispanic heritage were displayed at the Hispanic Heritage Celebration Art Exhibition in the Activity Center at Bohrer Park Gallery in celebration of Hispanic Heritage month; these paintings support Hispanic cultural diversity within the races and the difference in their unique ethnicities. Carla earned a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her works were displayed at the University of Maryland Art Gallery. Some of Carla’s experience includes teaching Art Therapy to unaccompanied minors children and youth with the organization Youth for Tomorrow in the state of Virginia and virtual art classes to inner-city children during the pandemic at a Children’s Café. Carla joined a study abroad program at the University of Maryland in Rome to study watercolor painting and charcoal drawing. Carla draws inspiration in allowing oneself to experience raw emotions and to overcome one’s regrets and fears.
Emily Eisinger
Janet Greer
Janet Greer (she/her) has made nurturing creativity and curiosity part of her mantra for life. She has taught children and adults art and ceramics for many years in a variety of settings. She has an MA from Hood College and is currently in their MFA program. Her art history studies have impacted her belief in the importance of Art as a unifier in today’s society. Janet is a lifelong lover of all things creative. From a young age, making art became her emotional voice and source of empowerment. This continues with her today as she interacts with children, youth, and adults alike. Her work is infused with reflections of family and the gift of nature we are blessed with as a human family. She hopes to inspire peace and celebrate unity amidst the chaos of today’s society.
Janet is an Adjunct Professor at Hood College, Frederick, Maryland where she teaches Ceramics. She loves teaching at VisArts where she is able to continue exploring the endless possibilities Ceramics offers. She is the Gallery coordinator for the Potter’s Guild of Frederick, where she displays and sells her work.
To view her work, please visit her website at janetgreerceramics.com
Sharon Gude
Sharon has lived in New York City, Washington DC, Delaware, and West Virginia. She currently resides in Rockville. She has created a large body of work which includes oil paintings of cityscapes and landscapes from these locales. Recently she has been experimenting with abstraction, making canvases of geometric compositions, texture, and bold colors.
Sharon has taught art to students of all ages in the Washington Metro area for over thirty years. She has shown her work in New York, Delaware, West Virginia, and widely in the DC area.
Ann Hobart
Ann created the Potters’ Guild of Frederick in 2007, which is a non-profit educational organization that holds monthly meetings and operates a gallery in downtown Frederick featuring the work of its members.
Ann’s thrown, functional work is influenced strongly by English Country pottery, but her love of surface decoration has lead her work in entirely new directions that she delights in sharing with her students.
Hiral Joshi
Today she is far away from computer-aided creativity — instead she ventures out into the world of imagination and abstraction. Her visual artwork consists of acrylics, watercolors, and mixed media.
Her water media portrayals combine playful spontaneity with an exquisite sense of drawing, colors and textures. Her work is about the colors, abstraction, beautiful birds, animals bold brush strokes, textures and loosening up emotions.
She has exhibited in numerous group and solo shows and have received awards too.
Hiral has taught dozens of creative workshops and shared her passion for Acrylic and mixed media with hundreds of students over a period of years.
To see her work visit: http://hiraljoshifineart.com/
Maven Kahn
My heart is often most absurd. I play with music and I play with words, I form with clay and I build with wire, and I make whatever my heart desires.
I make fine art of the low-brow kind I manifest. What’s in my mind my art is colorful, strange, and queer. I am blessed to be teaching here.
Maven (she/they) is an outsider artist specializing in sculpture and mixed media. They have worked with the Washington Glass School for many years, interned with jeweler Nick Barnes, and have worked with VisArts since 2016. They had a solo show in the Common Ground Gallery in August 2018 and have been part of many group shows.
Kate Kim
Kate is a Graphic and Visual Artist. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, and adopted when she was 2 years old. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts with majors in Painting and Electronic Media at the University of South Florida. Her paintings have been shown in public art shows in Tampa, FL. She worked as a Graphic Artist for 12 years creating logos, advertisements, brochures, magazines, vehicle wrap designs, photo editing, invitations, and marketing collateral. She returned to live in South Korea in 2010 where she studied abroad and volunteered as a Graphic Artist for a non-profit organization. She likes to create abstract paintings using a variety of media and is influenced by the artist Henri Matisse.
Kate is currently interested in a career as an Art Educator and her vision is to encourage others to create while having fun and developing their own unique style. She feels that art brings people together from diverse cultures and backgrounds and helps to build connections in our community. Art can be energizing and relaxing, a tool for expression, as well as a form of therapy. Kate likes spending time with children because they enjoy the process of art-making with curiosity and an open mind while being present and in the moment. She would like to help others increase their self-esteem through art-making in a creative environment that is relaxing and inspirational.
Dylan Krinberg
Dylan Krinberg (they/them) is a multimedia artist and third culture kid. They received their Bachelor of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University in Communication Arts (2021). Dylan has been featured in two student group shows at the Anderson Gallery as well as the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s 2022 Fall Salon. Currently, they are building their first body of work and have an interest in social practice.
Their work consists of collage and water-based painting mediums, their favorite being acryla-gouache at the moment. They look to subtly approach topics such as autonomy, intimacy, impermanence, and existentialism. Inspiration for them can stem from a variety of sources such as personal experiences, google search rabbit holes, and the metaphysical. Exploration of composition, belonging, and alienation are integral to how they formulate their creative process.
Ellen Lafferty
Ellen Lafferty (she/her) teaches both adult and children’s classes at VisArts. Ellen also teaches in Montgomery County Public Schools, St. Joseph Regional Catholic School in Beltsville, and Create Art Center in Silver Spring. Prior to becoming an art teacher, Ellen worked in the travel industry honing her event planning, communications, marketing, and organizational skills. As a college student, Ellen studied art history in Rome, Italy through Temple University’s study abroad program and she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Art with an emphasis on History from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
Kate Lanxner
Roza Matlin
Roza has also painted over 70 murals within Montgomery County, indoors and outdoors, in public and private residences. Her most notable mural is “Dream of Knowledge,” a Starry Night homage featuring children discovering the joys of reading books, on Flower Avenue in Long Branch, MD. Roza’s work is largely inspired by nature and the classic works of masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Vermeer.
Roza participates in local craft fairs and takes custom orders for paintings and hand-decorated items. You can find her work at instagram.com/rozadream
Michael Metzner
Since 2010 Michael has been teaching High School art in Montgomery County and is currently entering his fourth year teaching ceramics and darkroom photography at Albert Einstein High School.
Gary Moomau
Gary teaches ceramics classes for children and adults at VisArts.
Nina Moyer
Anna Musselman
Kate Nalitkina
Marzieh Narenji
Kelsey Nieto
Kelsey Nieto (she/her) is a freelance artist born and raised in Maryland. She graduated from Montgomery College in 2014 with a Studio Art Associate and is currently working towards her Bachelors in Art. She specializes in oil painting and pencil drawing with the main focus on figure art and still life. Her art is highly influenced by famous artists like Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe as well as current events. She enjoys reading about artists and using their techniques to create new work. Her inspiration is to celebrate the world we live in while prioritizing the power of telling a story.
She has exhibited her work in Maryland and DC. She accepts commissions and provides Paint & Sip services in the DMV area. Her work can be seen on her website: www.kelseynieto.com
Richard Nussbaum
Gioconda Padovan
Gioconda Padovan is a graphic designer, ceramic artist, Spanish teacher, and creator by heart! She is from Caracas, Venezuela living in Maryland since 2006.
She worked with wood, screenprinting, drawing, and painting on fabric, and custom rubber stamps. In 2010, she started to explore the ceramic world and it’s something that she’s still doing where she integrates words and her drawings creating one of a kind piece.
She loves to create art with children because as she says: “working with children is to be and feel like a child again because they enjoy the process, they are spontaneous and they don’t see mistakes as a tragedy, they just flow and have fun, and to create art the most important thing is to have fun!”
Jessica Panicola
Kiel Posner
Ryan Rakhshan
Anastasia Semash
Anastasia Semash is an artist and an art educator residing in Bethesda, MD. She recently relocated from Boston, MA. Her artistic journey began at a young age, thanks to the exposure she received from her father, an artist, who introduced her to various painting mediums. Anastasia got a master’s degree in Philosophy and Education from Saint Petersburg State University and pursued her studies in fine arts and book design at the Northwestern Institute of Printing Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon moving to the United States 12 years ago, she completed a certificate program in graphic design at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston.
In 2024, Anastasia will celebrate her 20th year in the field of education. Over the past twelve years, her primary focus has been on teaching visual arts, both traditional and digital. She taught painting, drawing, botanical illustration, digital art, and graphic design for children and adults.
Anastasia’s special interests are botanical art and book illustration. She is a member of the American Association of Botanical Artists and the National Art Education Association. She has taught at various schools and art centers in the Greater Boston area. Her artwork has been exhibited in Russia, Switzerland, and the United States. To see Anastasia’s works, you can visit her website at www.artsemash.com.
Eva Sitaras
Eva Sitaras (she/her) is a mixed-media conceptual artist and owner of Sitaras Studios in Baltimore, MD. She specializes in ceramics, focusing on hand-building and slip-casting.
Her work experiments with surrealism, words, alliterations, and symbols, mixing the titles with the art itself to bring comic or meaningful twists, combining that with outrageous form to allow the viewer to relax into what might otherwise be an uncomfortable conversation.
View her work at SitarasStudios.com
Simone Skerritt
Kimberely Swanner
Her online portfolio is at www.KimNKaboodle.com
Kim currently teaches children and adult ceramics classes, children’s painting and drawing, multimedia, and comics and illustration.
James Than
James Than is a multimedia artist who specializes in animation, digital art, cosplay making, and prop making. James graduated in the Fall of 2022 from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a Bachelor of Art with a minor in Film & Media Studies with cum laude honors. He also earned an Associate of Applied Science in Digital Animation from Montgomery College in the Spring of 2019. James has over six years of experience making costumes and cosplay props for Anime conventions and creating original elaborate wigs. Additionally, he has written and produced more than 30 stop-motion Lego animation shorts on his YouTube channel, ibrickfilms. One of his original wigs, the Fire Demon, won The SGA Most Innovative Art Award for 2022. His wigs were exhibited at the Boyden Gallery on the SMCM campus, the Anna Marie Sculpture Garden in Southern Maryland, and the Circle Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland. He is a member of the Maryland Federation for the Art. James has mentored underprivileged high school students in photography that resulted in a showcase at the local library.
James’ inspirations come from video games, anime, cartoons, and his own vivid imagination. He enjoys working with tweens and teens and is a patient, respectful, attentive, organized, relaxed, and young-at-heart art instructor. He is excited to share his passion for creativity and problem-solving with his students to bring their artistic visions to life. He enjoys helping students work around constraints and limitations, discover new tools and technologies, and to stay on task to achieve their goals in the allotted time, in a safe and fun environment.
Isabel Thorstad
Born in Boston, Isabel (she/her) moved to Rockville after graduating from American University in 2022 (BA in sociology with minors in studio art and psychology).
A “jack of all trades,” Isabel encourages people to try mediums and techniques out of their comfort zone and incorporate a mixed media approach; she is passionate about helping budding artists build a sustainable and energizing artistic practice.
With classes taken at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (animation), Pratt Institute (sequential art), and the School of Visual Arts (illustration), Isabel tells stories through drawing, painting, collage, bookmaking, felting, set design, and more. She aspires to become a licensed therapist and continue helping people tell their stories through words and art.
Shraddha Tiwari
Shraddha Tiwari (she/her) recently graduated with an MFA in Digital Media Arts focusing on Stop motion and experimental animation from Pratt Institute. She is an Experimental Filmmaker from Maryland. Trained as an Animator, she has always been interested in exploring and using the material in filmmaking. She is a storyteller who focuses on excavating long-lost narratives and uplifting traditional art forms that fade away with time.
Shraddha recently created an animated film for the show “A Grand Panorama” by Theodora Skipitares at La MaMa Theatre, New York. Her work has also recently been selected to be displayed at the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation’s Rhythm and Movement Exhibition In Georgia. The Georgia Council for the Arts partly supports this program through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency–the National Endowment for the Arts. She has always respected and valued the industry’s creative, collaborative, and passionate environment. She has also been trained under Wonder Spark Puppets. A puppetry company based in New York City. Shraddha has also worked as an Assistant Art Director on a short Independent Experimental film. She and her team are developing a unique vision to usher the audience into the intimate experience of blind-sightedness. She has also conducted workshops on traditional Indian art for kids and adults at the Urbana Public Library and has taught art lessons in various schools and Art centers.
Shraddha is eager to expand her knowledge and share her creativity and experience.
Li-Fang Tsai
Li-Fang Tsai (she/her) studied Fashion Design at Tainan Technology College, learned pattern making at Tong-Yang sewing school, and studied draping at Purdue University. She loves sewing since the first time she played on her mother’s manual pedal sewing machine as a child and has never stopped sewing since then. She holds a BA degree in Studio Art from the University of Maryland College Park and won first place in the Colonel Wharton Award at the senior show. Li-Fang loves singing, dancing, sewing, charcoal drawing, oil painting, casting, playing musical instruments, and all kinds of hands-on projects. She enjoys being around and working with others. Her philosophy about work is that loving and focusing on what you are doing is a healing and satisfying process.
Li-Fang has been busy providing activities to serve her home, her church, and her communities. Besides UMD, she earned three Associate degrees in Business, Music, and Visual Art. She is currently a piano teacher and will continue to serve her community and fellow beings to share what she has learned in arts, music, and sewing skills.
Var Vasilchenko
Var Vasilchenko (he/they) is a visual artist from the DMV. He is an oil and acrylic painter with a focus in portraiture. His paintings capture people organically and aims to depict them in their most natural state. He has an affinity for bright colors and loves to bring out the existing vibrancy that permeates the world. In addition to the people in his life, he is inspired by mycology and the mysterious properties of fungi. His work can be found on his website at https://v-ko.art.
Virginia Warwick
Eric Westbrook
His paintings have been shown extensively in solo and group shows in and around the Washington DC area. Exhibitions of his paintings have been held at Studio Gallery, Dumbarton Concert Gallery, Gallery Plan B, and the Arts Club of Washington. His paintings are held in private collections as well as in the permanent collection of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Eric’s paintings are known for capturing the spirit of the urban landscape in a series called Urban Nature. Rendered in a style that has been described as “heightened realism”, they depict the little-noticed corners of the city where man-made structures combine with the forces of nature. In addition to landscapes, Eric’s recent work has explored the portrait and figure in landscape settings both realistic and idealized. He is currently accepting portrait commissions.
Eric currently teaches drawing and painting and Cocktails and Canvas at VisArts. His work can be seen at www.ericwestbrook.com and eric@ericwestbrook.com
Brian Williams
Brian Williams is a local artist from Montgomery County Maryland, passionate and inspired by 2D animation and comic book art. Growing up with inspirations from Disney, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Marvel, and DC comics has led to his passion for art. Brian studies 2D animation at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. Learning different techniques to increase his craft and desire for art through digital mediums, acrylic abstract painting, and illustration drawings, he has been a part of various events and venues while also continuing to pursue a career as an animator and comic book artist, including Art soirée “rooftop fusion” and D.C. and Art all night. With other artistic skills, like Graffiti art, he continues to use all that he has learned to provide excellent creations and teach students comic art and character creation.
View Brian’s work here:
Joe Yablonsky
His work at can be seen at www.JoeYablonsky.com.