Craig Harris is Artistic Director of Interference Arts and is a composer, performer and writer. Harris creates multimedia stage works and interactive sculptural environments. He has collaborated with dance theater companies Ballet of the Dolls, Zorongo Flamenco, Off-Leash Area and Katha Dance Theatre, and served as Music Director on many theater projects.
Harris received a 2016 Right Here Showcase Commission, and has received support from McKnight Foundation, American Composers Forum, Hanson Institute for American Music, and Rimon: the MN Jewish Arts Council.
As Executive Director of Ballet of the Dolls and the Ritz Theater Foundation, he led the initiative to renovate the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis. He was Managing and Interim Director at the Playwrights’ Center, President of the International Computer Music Association, and Executive Director of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Harris received a Ph.D. in Composition at Eastman School of Music. Musician/Composer Minneapolis, Minnesota Contact: craig@interferencearts.com
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Karen Daphne McDonald (She/Her) Karen grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended the Art Student’s League in New York. Early on, Karen’s photo-realistic renderings set her work apart. Fascinated by quantum physics and frequency, Karen studied Sacred Geometry and in Australia spent time with a Reiki Master who was able to imbue painted image with prana or chi. One of her aspirations is to create art for public spaces that produces positive, healing changes in quantum field. Karen holds a B.A. in Art and Education, M.A. in Language & Culture and M.F.A. in Writing. She has taught in NewYork, Miami and Santa Fe as well as France, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco, Republic of Georgia and the U.K.
Check out Karen’s empowering art!
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Kelly Frankenberg ACW Operations Director
Kelly has jumped into every kind of art she can find whether it’s music, film, fashion, painting, sculpture, glass, woodworking, or performance.
Her educational background consists of a BFA in Illustration from MCAD and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans with studies in Ireland, Scotland, and Italy in Poetry, Creative Non-Fiction, Screenwriting, and Visual Art.
Her writing has been published in the anthology commissioned by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, Queer Voices, in Jane Seymour’s The Road Ahead: Inspirational Stories of Open Hearts and Minds, and her memoir titled, Diary of a Gay, Pregnant Bride. Excerpts have appeared in magazines printed issues and online. She has also written a screenplay and a collection of poems.
Kelly’s artwork has appeared in film, TV, books, newspapers, magazines, on the radio, on walls, windows, pianos, mailboxes, and electrical boxes. Www.kellyfrankenberg.com
Dr. Patricia L. Rogers (she/her) is retired from a life in higher education, serving as a Professor, Dean, Provost, and finally a college President. She moved back to the Twin Cities after many years in Bemidji, Winona, and Duluth to be near family and friends and to revisit her passion for photography.
Pat is a Getty Fellow (1996 Dissertation Fellowship from the Getty Center for Arts in Education) and a Fulbright Scholar (2000-2001), designing distance-learning programs (Iceland University of Education: Kennarahaskola Islands). She was awarded the first Minnesota Online Council’s Pioneer Award for leadership in online teaching and learning and has served for over twenty years as a Higher Learning Commission peer-evaluator.
Dr. Rogers enjoys hiking, walking with her dogs, snow shoeing, and art gallery crawls. She hopes to add pickleball to this list.
Freya earned her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law after studying political science. She remains deeply committed to equal justice under the law and to addressing the social issues confronting our nation. Her public service includes serving as an elected school board member, an adjunct college professor, and currently as president of her church’s foundation, which awards grants to church, community, and global causes. Prior to pursuing a law degree, she worked for the U.S. Senate in Washington, DC, Minnesota House of Representatives, and the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Challenging the confrontational nature of her profession, Freya founded a Mediation Service and trained more than fifty volunteers to help families find constructive ways to resolve conflict and move forward with hope during separation and transition.
Her photography, captured in Finland’s Lapland, was selected for exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition. A dedicated musician, Freya performs piano duets at venues such as the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and plays with the North Metro Ukulele Club, continuing to use music as a means of connection, inspiration, and change.
Freya has traveled to all fifty states and throughout Europe, experiences that have broadened her perspective on how culture can challenge stereotypes and open us to new ways of seeing the world.
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Linda Fox was born on November 28, 1947 and grew up in Corpus Christi Texas. She graduated with honors from WB Ray high school and from the University of Texas at Austin. She then went to work for the Texas Department of welfare while going to graduate school but quit that and moved in 1971 to Mexico making Zihuatanejo, Mexico her more or less permanent home.
Twice she moved back to the United States because in 1980 her father offered to buy her a house anywhere in the continental United States so she took him up on that offer and bought a house in Florida. She began catering exclusively to large yachts and private jets. In 1985 she sold the house and moved back to Zihuatanejo.
Again in 1995 she moved back to Texas to qualify for Social Security and went to work for the university of Texas as a development officer for the college of communication. When she qualified for Social Security in 2000 she again moved back to Zihuatanejo.
In 2015 she decided to spend part of the year in the lovely high desert town of San Miguel de Allende and now divides her time almost equally with winter and spring in Zihuatanejo on the beach and late spring and summer in San Miguel. The best of both worlds.
She has written several books about her life in Zihuatanejo starting out with guidebooks about Zihuatanejo in 1989 until 2016. She then wrote a cookbook because she was doing cooking lessons and then wrote two short story books about living in Mexico.
She loves her life and her dog Chula and wouldn’t have done anything differently.
Bree Bridges writes with her best friend Donna under the shared penname Kit Rocha. In their eighteen years in publishing they’ve sold over one million books, won multiple awards, and enjoyed a front row seat to the digital revolution.
Bree & Donna are currently under contract with Amazon Montlake, have worked with publishers like Tor to publish critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy books, have contracted with small indie publishers who were pioneers in the ebook market, and were early successes in self-publishing with their cult-favorite dystopian romances.
Before becoming a full time author, Bree worked as a database programmer and web developer. Her current passions include 3D printing, baking focaccia, freeze drying, video games, and of course reading.
Liisa Lê (she, her)
Skills/Mediums: Art Teacher, Drawing, Environmentalist, Grant Writer, Media and Marketing, Mixed Media, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Scientist, Social Justice Themes, Woodworking, Writing
Liisa Lê is an artist whose paintings weave stories of nature, using the crane totems as a symbol to create a safe space for ease and peace. Through her art, Liisa seeks to bridge the gap between nature and humanity, celebrating the deep interconnection we all share and the need for harmony in our lives. With over 45 years of experience in art conservation and a lifelong commitment to nurturing creativity, Liisa’s work reflects her belief in the transformative power of art to bring peace, healing, and connection into the heart and home.
A strong influence on Liisa’s art comes from her Finnish heritage. As a second-generation Finnish-American, she draws inspiration from the traditions of her ancestors, particularly their craftsmanship in carving winged cranes on the prow of their ships. For them, the crane symbolizes protection, resilience, and security—values that she seek to emphasize in her work. This cultural legacy fuels her advocacy for wetlands, cranes, and humanity and she uses her art to honor these symbols as powerful representations of global strength and environmental stewardship.
Liisa’s diverse portfolio includes everything from intricate portraits, crane and wetlands, to abstract pieces, all created with a range of mediums, including graphite, oil, acrylic, watercolor paints and colored pencils. She is a painter, printmaker, photographer, and a writer. Through her work, she strives to evoke timeless emotions and foster deep connections. Her artistic journey is ever-evolving, with a passionate commitment to growth, exploration, and the ongoing celebration of both her heritage and the natural world.
Dr. Barbara Rogers Bridges has been an artist and a teacher/college professor for over 40 years. Her social practice sculptures have been exhibited in Maine, Miami, the Virgin Islands, Maryland, Chicago, Mexico, Spain, Canada, and throughout Minnesota. Bridges taught K-12 art in Minnesota, Maine and the Virgin Islands and trained teachers in higher education at the University of Minnesota and Bemidji State University.
Barbara creates social practice art from fabricated components in a variety of media and rescued “power objects.” She manipulates the objects to create meaning and provoke discussions and reflection on a wide variety of social topics.
She is an intervenor. Cambridge educated philosopher, Tim Ingold, holds a unique theory on art making. Dr. Ingold suggests that artists are simply interveners on any particular materials and/or objects the artist manipulates. Any object already has a story, the artist simply recombines these objects to create a new narrative.
Barbara received the Vision Award from the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District in 2023.
Barbara is founder and director of Art to Change the World. Read More Please contact Barbara if you would like to buy any of her art drb@bridgescreate.com
Holly Tappen is an oil painter of figurative and abstract art. She studied Art History at Emory University in Atlanta and Paris. Holly paints in her California Building studio every day. She has studied with David Feinberg, Alexandra Rosenmann, Greg Lipelt, and Suzann Beck. Every Monday night, you will find her researching Leonardo’s techniques at The Art Academy in Saint Paul, and on Sundays, she draws the models at Studio 103 Drawing Co-op.
Minneapolis/Saint Paul is her permanent home now, after living in Atlanta, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Paris, New York, and on the road with Renaissance Festivals.
Travel is important to her art; she has gone to such varied places as Chechnya, the Dominican Republic, Bosnia, Mexico, and most of Europe. These areas figure in her paintings and collages, often leading to interesting stories written behind the pictures.
In the arts, she has been an actor, playwright, set designer and painter, costume designer and builder, and fiction writer. She has focused in the last decade on producing high-quality paintings. She has had a number of solo and group shows in Minnesota, a permanent series at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis Anthropology Department, and a piece on long-term loan displayed at the Hinckley Fire Museum.
Holly has seen four of her plays produced on stage in Atlanta. She has written keynote speeches for NOW, travelogues, and articles in “Connections to a New Age.” Holly published many short stories and illustrations in the anthology “American Writers Review” each year since 2017. Holly has written three science fiction books and hopes an agent reads one of them. –
Artist and Storyteller “Artist: Specializing in Post-Depressionism