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Our Teaching Artists
Ceramics
Ana Ruiz-Castillo
For 16 years, Ana Ruiz-Castillo has taught visual arts to children ages 2-18 at numerous public schools throughout the NYC area, as well as in Connecticut and Massachusetts, including her time spent as Director of Visual Arts at Harlem School of the Arts (2012-2015).
Ana has partnered with institutions such as No Longer No Empty, the National Black Theatre of Harlem, and City College, where she engaged the students in exhibitions on social justice and income inequality. She has also participated in exhibitions at the Harlem Arts Fair, The Wright Museum, and the Sugar Hill Building.
Her teaching experience ranges from specific subjects such as sculpture, ceramics, drawing and painting, and mixed media, to curricula-integrated classes in the public school system, including 10 years (2002-2012) as an artist in residence at the School for Excellence in the Bronx (High School) and after-school programs throughout the city. Furthermore, Ana has experience working with students with mental disabilities and autism, having worked with PS 176 and ARC for several years.
Ana has served as a panelist for the Brooklyn Arts Council Art Regrant twice, Apex-Art, and the Harlem Arts Alliance, and she has created a few Staff Development workshops for teachers from PS 176 and School for Excellence.
From 2015 to 2016, Ana opened her studio to the neighboring children in Bridgeport, CT, starting her own after-school program where she taught art to children from the South End and Hope School. Now, back in NYC, she is a teaching artist for Marquis Studios and teaches throughout the city’s Public schools.
Ana has managed to continue creating her own artwork in her studio, having evolved from sculpture to painting. She has been committed to arts education in the arts, yet she has also participated in exhibitions in the University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport Art Trail, Biennal Latinoamericana del Bronx, Lincoln Hospital, Centro Español, Harlem School of the Arts, National Black Theatre of Harlem, and the Queens Museum of Art.
Ana firmly believes that exposing children to the arts is crucial in their development as productive, creative happy human beings.
Cristen Shea
Cristen Shea is an artist and surfer from Indiana who works in sculpture and computer graphics simulation to create uncanny interludes between the real and the virtual. Shea is an MFA candidate in Columbia University’s Visual Arts and has studied at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and Rhode Island School of Design. Shea was an artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center and Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart in 2018. Shea was a visiting artist at Hamtramck Ceramck in the municipality of Detroit, culminating in their debut solo exhibition in 2019.
