Meet Our CAC Members!

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Annual CAC Exhibition and Festival

CAC Alumni

CAC Members bring a wide variety of skills, interests, and experiences to their positions as Community Artists-in-Residence. CAC cohorts build connections, support each other in their work, and even collaborate on creative projects!

Learn more about our current and previous CAC cohorts below.

Previous CAC Cohorts

Learn about CAC members who served in past years.

2025-26 CAC Artists-in-Residence

Ahmad Abdullah

A native of Baltimore, Maryland - Ahmad is a self-taught Multimedia Designer and arts educator whose professional journey began in 2006. In that time, Ahmad has honed his skills and his area of focus through various initiatives in the Baltimore area. His body of work encompasses a spectrum of creative projects and roles in the local, national, and international community. Ahmad places a strong value on visual design as a tool for media literacy, entrepreneurship, collective equity, and restorative justice. He is a passionate educator, dedicated to instilling youth with skills that transcend the classroom. Ahmad is a fourth-year CAC Member serving at African Diaspora Alliance / Youth of the Diaspora.

Danielle Bjørndalen

Danielle Bjorndalen is an interdisciplinary artist who uses color as a language to explore emotional presence and human connection. Her practice is grounded in the mindfulness of plein-air painting and life drawing, emphasizing a slowed, attentive engagement with light, shadow, and atmosphere. She is drawn to exploring translucency and bold opacity as a way to translate internal states into visual form. Across figurative, observational, and digital work, Danielle investigates the tension between what is seen and what remains unknown, often working from anonymous models in life-drawing sessions as a means of reflecting on shared humanity. Deeply interested in the psychology of child development, she is passionate about how art can support emotional growth in children. Through her work, Danielle aims to create space for pause, reflection, and greater awareness of the emotional and human details that exist quietly alongside everyday life. Danielle is a first-year CAC Member serving at The Arts Project.

D. Dennis

D. Dennis is a Baltimore-based multidisciplinary artist. They are driven to capture the zeitgeist of Baltimore's physical and cultural metamorphosis through liminal street photography and immersive nightlife portraits. They also specialize in creating jazzy, abstract paintings that both startle and satisfy. Their creative identity is Lou WNDR, which combines a childhood nickname (Lou/Lucy) with their principle of letting curiosity lead in art and in life (wonder/wander). D. is a second-year CAC Member serving at Wide Angle Youth Media.

Imani Dudley

Imani is a first-year CAC member serving at Access Art.

Emily Ewing

Emily E. Ewing's artist origin story begins with colored pencils and knitting in the mountains of Colorado, the ancestral lands of the Ute People. Throughout their life, creativity has been a constant companion in largely informal ways through creative spiritual practices, doodling, coloring, knitting, and weaving stories and scripture together. As a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, their sermons flow from a visual representation into profound words that confront injustice and oppression in the world and church and provide care for those who are marginalized. Emily continues as a multimedia artist, using whatever media best embodies the stories that need to be shared. Recently, their art has ranged from community murals and quilts to intimate drawn portraits and Doodle Cares. Their work is rooted in queer and trans liberation and creative christian spirituality, while being held accountable to the communities of the global majority with whom they continue to work against racism, white supremacy, and xenophobia. Their art is rooted in movements for racial, gender, immigrant, and queer justice. After weaving creativity into their pastoral call for 11 years, in 2025 they received the Leslie King Hammond Fellowship award and are pursuing their MFA in Community Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD, the ancestral land of the Piscataway and Susquehannock Peoples. Emily is a first-year CAC Member serving with Highlandtown Youth Night and Skylight Boutique.

DJ Fleming

DJ Flemming is a social designer, artist, friend, and collaborator who grew up between Baltimore and Washington, DC. He has a deep love for people, art, and Baltimore, and is committed to promoting the arts and expanding youth arts education opportunities. His work focuses on exploring how the arts strengthen community ties, tell meaningful stories, and build confidence and pride among people in the city. Dedicated to creating spaces that support the arts and community well-being, DJ is always interested in collaborating with others who share a passion for working with communities to express themselves and share their stories through art. DJ is a first-year CAC Member serving at Access Art.

Maia Hollien

Maia Hollien (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus in installation ranging in mediums from painting, textiles, and collage to video, animation, and poetry. Hailing from Clarksville,Tennessee, Hollien’s mission is to vocalize inequity in education, environment, and human rights; As well as uplift voices of marginalized people through art-making as an exercise in relief. Formally trained in digital arts and media, she graduated Cum Laude from VCUArts with a B.F.A in Kinetic Imaging and a minor in Fashion Merchandising. Currently pursuing her MFA, Maia has developed a focus of creating work with waste and free resources in hopes to combat damage to our local and global communities and create a more live-able future. Maia is a first-year CAC Member serving at Jubilee Arts.

Audrey Lee Naiva

Audrey Lee Naiva is a multi-disciplinary fiber artist and educator from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Audrey got her start in community arts by dipping her hands in indigo with the Baltimore Natural Dye Initiative and stitching squares for the MICA Quilt Group. Working as a Residential Advisor, she learned to create monthly educational programs for students living in the dorms. In 2022, she graduated with a BFA in Fiber at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Audrey is back in Baltimore to serve with the Community Art Collaborative, where she supports after-school and other community arts programs. Audrey is a fourth-year CAC Member serving at Open Works.

Zoë Brielle Payne

Zoë Brielle Payne is an Appalachian multidisciplinary artist who currently lives in Baltimore. Her work explores the power of human connection and takes shape through her dance company ZBRI. Through contemporary dance movement, multimedia costumes and painting the dancers they explore how humanness can be both fragile and empowering. She got her BFA from Peabody Conservatory and is getting a MFA in Community Arts at MICA in Baltimore. See more @zoebriellep Zoë is a first-year CAC Member serving at Baltimore Improv Group (BIG).

Laura Taylor

Laura Taylor is a Maryland-based artist who enjoys exploring themes related to nature, mythology, and speculative fiction, and the ways symbols of the imagination can capture the human experience. For the last two years she has been learning metalworking at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, and also has experience in painting, printmaking, book arts, charcoal, chalk pastel, and graphite. She has spent four summers working for the Howard County Arts Council Visual and Performing Arts summer camp, working with a K-7 age range. She is interested in youth art education with a focus on accessibility. Born and raised in Columbia, Maryland, Laura is seeking to become engaged in the Baltimore arts community. Laura is a second-year CAC Member serving at Access Art.

Jalen Thomas

Jalen Thomas is a graphic designer and photographer from Prince George's County, Maryland. Her work explores Black queer femme storytelling traditions. As an CAC AmeriCorps Artist-in-Residence at 901 Arts, she hopes to motivate youth to explore and express their identities through art! Jalen received a B.S. in Graphic Design from Stevenson University and an MFA in Community Arts from MICA. Jalen is a third-year CAC Member serving at 901 Arts.

Mansi Yaduka

Mansi Yaduka is a multidisciplinary visual artist, designer, and art educator whose practice explores identity, culture, memory, and belonging. Rooted in pattern, symbolism, and tactile processes, her work draws from both personal and collective narratives, often reflecting themes of home, migration, and emotional resilience. Through community-based and educational art programming, Mansi works closely with refugee and immigrant youth, using trauma-informed, culturally responsive methods to create safe spaces for creative expression. Her approach emphasizes process over perfection, inviting participants to engage with art as a grounding, reflective, and connective practice. Across both studio and community contexts, her work seeks to honor lived experience, celebrate cultural heritage, and foster meaningful human connection through art. Mansi is a second-year CAC member serving with Refugee Youth Project.

Lakya'h Young

Lakya’h Young is an interdisciplinary artist who uses graphic design as the foundation of her creative practice . Currently studying at The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) to obtain an MFA in Community Arts, Lakyah’s current work explores themes of digital vs. reality, process, art mirroring life experiences, and accessibility. Treating digital software as a sketching tool, she begins most pieces by constructing images that later take form through various physical and mixed media. The layering of different mediums represents the shared parallels found in everyday human interaction, making up what she describes as “art” as life. Through this process, Lakyah explores how images created in software can be transformed into physical works through individual layers coming together to create something whole. Lakya'h is a first-year CAC member serving at Jubilee Arts.

CAC Program Staff

Keyarra Johnson, Program Coordinator

Keyarra Johnson is a Baltimore-based artist and business owner driven by a deep passion for community art. Her journey began when she was introduced to an entrepreneurial program through the non-profit Jubilee Arts, whose mission is to empower the 21217 community through arts education. This experience sparked a fire within her to pursue her own ambitions of using art to positively impact Baltimore through community engagement and education. Currently, Keyarra is honing her skills as an entrepreneur, animator, ceramist, and graphic designer, while collaborating on various projects with organizations like Dent Education and Thunderhill Cinema. Through her work, Keyarra aims to inspire and ignite the same passion in others that was once sparked in her, using art and community as a vehicle for change and empowerment.

Susan Tuberville, Program Manager

Susan is an artist, maker, and community-based educator dedicated to expanding access to transformative experiences in the arts. After completing her BFA in Studio Art and P-12 Visual Arts teaching certification, she began her career teaching K-8 Art in international schools. She moved to Baltimore to complete her MFA in Community Arts at MICA. After several years as a CAC Member, Teaching Artist, and Site Manager, in partnership with wonderful CAC host site organizations, including Refugee Youth Project and Access Art, she returned to MICA to serve CAC in this new role in 2021. She is passionate about supporting teaching artists, youth and families, and organizations in Baltimore City through the CAC program. Susan maintains a studio practice and has received multiple grants for her work in community. She can often be found facilitating artmaking workshops and collaborative projects around Baltimore.

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