#kylelopez

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Conversations | Musah Swallah, Rupy C. Tut, and Jason Wyman

"Sharing the impact of personal narratives and challenges on the work being presented and pointing to the smaller narratives that the work is visually and symbolically built on keeps the audience engaged, and offers to share the layered existence of immigrant artists.” – Rupy C. Tut

Visual artist Musah Swallah (IAP Newark ’18) recently collaborated with Rupy C. Tut (IAP Oakland ’19) and Jason Wyman (IAP Oakland Mentor ’18 and ’19) on a virtual studio tour and conversation about his art. The event was a great success, and the trio has much wisdom to impart on showcasing one's artwork in a live, online setting.

NYFA: Tell us about your process of coming together to collaborate on this project.

Musah Swallah: Our participation in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring program is what brought us together to collaborate on this project. Check-ins from NYFA program organizers such as Judy Cai regarding updates on my artistic career allowed us to stay connected and eventually collaborate on this project.

Jason Wyman: In 2019, I was a Mentor Artist in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program in Oakland, CA. There, I met artist Rupy C. Tut. At the end of the program, I asked if any mentee would be interested in co-designing some sort of virtual convening of the immigrant artists in NYFA’s programs nationally, and Rupy stepped up.

Over the fall of 2019, Rupy and I—in collaboration with Judy Cai and Felicity Hogan—designed a series of Video Roundtables on topics including values clarification, opportunity identification, and decision making. We began these virtual conversations in February 2020 as COVID-19 started appearing in New York and shelter-in-place orders spread across the country, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rupy and I offered to continue convening immigrant artists nationally, centering on the question, “How do we support each other during this pandemic?” Musah attended one of our open sessions, and on the call he mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to showcase the art he created during his residency because COVID-19 made art openings impossible. Rupy and I offered to support Musah in hosting a virtual studio tour and artist talk.  

NYFA: Do you have advice on how to put an online show together? For example, what platforms to use, length of time, ways of organizing, what works to show and the ones you shouldn’t, etc?

JW: My main piece of advice is to ask yourself, “what do I want to get out of showing my work online?” Musah wanted to share the paintings he created during his residency (and some from before his residency) with his community. This helped us focus the online show because we knew what works would be shown and who would be in attendance.

For Musah’s show, we determined that about 60 minutes would be best and a platform like Zoom would be the easiest. Zoom allowed us the opportunity to have both a gallery view of Musah’s whole community, but also a presentation view so we could show his artwork. We showed photographs of work and live views of the physical works. This allowed us to be able to both look at the pieces at a distance and see elements like paint strokes and materials up close.

Rupy C. Tut: I believe that the key to putting on an online artist talk/show is audience engagement and meaningful storytelling. In the context of immigrant artists, sharing the impact of personal narratives and challenges on the work being presented and pointing to the smaller narratives that the work is visually and symbolically built on keeps the audience engaged, and offers to share the layered existence of immigrant artists.

Communication can be a barrier within the art world for immigrant artists, especially when referencing cultures, traditions, and art forms that represent non-Eurocentric parts of the world. To address this barrier, I suggested guiding questions that can allow enough depth to share aspects of the rich cultural roots of the immigrant artist and their artwork, but also allow for a perspective on how their current work relates very crucially to the issues at hand in the larger global community. Guiding prompts can include sharing a unique origin story, purpose for approaching an opportunity or work, the evolution of thought on their journey, challenges and accomplishments, as well as impact on the future of their artistic practice.

NYFA: Rupy and Musah, as immigrant artists, what lessons or experiences can you share that might be useful for our readers to hear about? 

MS: My advice for immigrant artists is to be patient, focus on your craft, and understand that regardless of the challenges you face, you will persevere. It is important that you persevere as an immigrant artist in order to share your story and the stories of those you represent in your art with the world. In order to persevere you need to find a niche—a community of like-minded artists who will offer support and advice when you need it the most. As an immigrant artist you will experience discrimination, but don't let that hold you back. Use it as inspiration. Use your art as a form of activism and bring to light the injustices you and others face as immigrants. Be patient, humble, and keep practicing your craft.

RCT: The most important lesson I have learned as an immigrant artist is the importance of my unique voice in my work and the presentation of my work as authentic to my individual mix of cultures and identities. I think immigrant artists have an individual voice that is also sometimes inclusive of family and community-centric values. The art world sometimes deludes us into diluting our stories to offer a version more “fitted” to the language and positionality of our surrounding art world pockets. I would advise immigrant artists to stay clear of this delusion and to avoid changing the core of their creative narratives to tailor to opportunities that fulfill a false sense of acceptance. Authentic work leads to a more successful life-long creative journey.

- Interview Conducted by Alicia Ehni, Program Officer and Kyle Lopez, REDC Fellow

This post is part of the ConEdison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter #131. Subscribe to this free monthly e-mail for artist’s features, opportunities, and events. Learn more about NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

Image: Musah Swallah, Photo Credit: Fatoumata Magassa; Rupy C. Tut, Photo Credit: Lara Kaur; Jason Wyman, Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist

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Conversations | Ahmed Moneka and Martita Abril at Toronto Arts

The Iraqi-Canadian performance artist and the Mexican-New York based dancer participant of NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program (IAP) discuss their arts mentorship experiences.

Since 2010, Neighbourhood Arts Network, a strategic initiative of the Toronto Arts Foundation, has offered accessible arts programming, awards, and exciting partnership opportunities to Toronto-based artists, arts educators, and arts organizations.

The portal for their Community Arts Award opens at the end of June. This award—presented every fall—celebrates an arts organization that has made a significant contribution in Toronto by working with, in and for communities, while creating access and inclusion to arts and culture. Additionally, in July, they are continuing to offer their Mentor in Residence program, which will include mentoring sessions for artists hoping to create and direct newcomer artist organizations in Toronto.

Recognizing the alignment between NYFA and Toronto Arts in working to mentor newcomer artists, Neighbourhood Arts brought Iraqi-Canadian performance artist Ahmed Moneka and Mexican-New York based dancer Martita Abril (participant of NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program) together for a conversation about their arts mentorship experiences, moderated by William Huffman of Dorset Fine Arts. This was just one program of Neighbourhood Arts Network’s Newcomer Week: Virtual Edition, a lineup of events meant to center artists not necessarily new to their craft, but new to a place. Below are a few select highlights of this enlightening collaboration, divided into three topics.

Newcomer Strategies

Ahmed Moneka spoke to starting out in Toronto, searching all over the web for theatre arts opportunities, and initially not finding anywhere that seemed like the right fit for him. Neighbourhood Arts Network supports Toronto Arts Council’s Newcomer Mentorship program by matching newcomer artists with mentors. They matched Moneka with Jeremy of Driftwood Theatre, which began a beautiful mutually beneficial mentorship where both artists could provide their expertise on their home theatre scenes.

Martita Abril spoke to the necessity of asking as many questions as possible in order to get accustomed to the art world language of a new place. Putting herself out there by saying yes to as many opportunities as possible allowed her to absorb information from many different sources.

Moneka also highlighted the importance of cultural immersion outside of the art world, in order to develop ways of responding and reacting in a new language, as well as writing art proposals in one’s new context. Working closely with people from the area, not just newcomers, helps a great deal. “Newcomers have to learn a lot of things about the environment, about the culture, about the connection and network with the other people, to figure out how to survive in this life,” explains the artist.

Ways to Improve Support Systems

When Abril arrived, she felt that there weren’t many grants for immigrant artists available that would make it possible for them to focus on their art. She said that many grants are allotted for institutions, but not as many for individuals, and definitely not dancers who are not also choreographers; so, increased opportunities for individual artists in more disciplines would help newcomers gain autonomy more quickly.

Moneka spoke to the difficulty of surviving on an entry-level arts salary. He found out about and applied for a grant from Youth Employment Services, an organization that provides grants to companies that have hired young people, so that they can pay them a higher salary. Artists could always have more support in writing these grants, especially with regard to the language barrier.

Mentorship vs. Apprenticeship

Abril described a mentorship as more intimate and one-on-one, and as a place where one can build artistic community while receiving honest, generous feedback. She has been closely mentored by Ephrat Asherie through NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, and through Yanira Castro through Dance New Amsterdam.“In the performing arts and dance scene, an apprenticeship would be when you’re with a company, so before they hire you to be a full-time company member, you do an apprenticeship. It leads to a job,” explains Martita Abril.

Moneka states that a mentor just guides, with no expectation of getting anything in return. Mentors give individualized, expert input, without any boss-employee dynamic. He suggests that mentorship also operates in a bigger picture for an artist than an apprenticeship, since the guidance extends to many different areas as opposed to a focused apprenticeship.

About the Speakers

Since arriving in Canada from Iraq just four years ago, Ahmed Moneka’s contributions as a performing artist in music and theatre have been notable and welcomed. The scene has warmly embraced his Afro-Iraqi artistic heritage—its stories and songs—into its own growing cultural narrative. Moneka is one of the founders of Moskitto Bar and the creator-leader of Moneka Arabic Jazz. He has been an Artist-in-residence with Driftwood Theatre Group and Stingray Rising Stars winner (2019) at TD Toronto Jazz.

Martita Abril is a performer, choreographer, and teaching artist from the border city of Tijuana, México. Her work considers abstract elements of physical and cultural boundaries. She’s been a mentee and mentor for the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program and a volunteer interpreter aiding families seeking asylum at a Dilley, Texas detention facility. Find her at martita-abril.org.

- Alicia Ehni, Program Officer and Kyle Lopez, REDC Fellow

This post is part of the ConEdison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter #130. Subscribe to this free monthly e-mail for artist’s features, opportunities, and events. Learn more about NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

Images from left to right: Ahmed Moneka, Photo Credit: Matthew Manhire; Martita Abril, Photo Credit: Aram Jibilian

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COVID-19 | A Tenant’s Guide into the Unknown

What you need to understand eviction, rent, and contracts in this time of uncertainty, courtesy of Tin-Fu (Tiffany) Tsai, Esq.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the Pro Bono Steering Committee of New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section (EASL) are collaborating to offer a series of free online workshops to support creative communities. This post draws insights from a webinar led by Tin-Fu (Tiffany) Tsai, Esq., Co-Chair of EASL’s Pro Bono Steering Committee, that addressed questions including: Can my landlord evict me? Do I need to pay rent? and What strategies can I use when negotiating with my landlord?

Please note that��this article is a guide, and is for general informational purposes only. It does not provide any specific legal advice nor create an attorney-client relationship.

When Negotiating with Your Landlord

Before speaking, prepare and read the fine print.

Talk to your landlord early. Don’t just wait for them to reach out. Landlords will always prefer to keep a good tenant, so work with them.

Be creative: think and speak long-term when considering your options. Offer whatever you can, considering rent forbearance, rent reductions, and rent deferments as potential tools. You could offer to extend your lease to account for money lost during reduced or deferred rent.

Put the agreement in writing, for future reference and for the purpose of evidence if needed. 

What follows is what you need to know specifically about eviction, rent, and contracts in order to have these conversations.

What You Need to Know: Eviction

If you have a lease, you can only be evicted if your lease is up, you owe rent, or you have seriously violated your lease. Your landlord cannot evict you without advance notice, which is 30 to 90 days based on the length of your lease term if the lease is up or 14 days for owed rent. 

The landlord cannot evict you without going to the court first, which requires them to file a petition to start the court proceeding. The tenant has the right to ask the court to postpone the case for at least 14 days if they are not ready for it.

After the landlord gets a judgment, the landlord must give the Court Clerk a warrant of eviction. After the warrant of eviction is signed, the landlord needs to hire a Marshal, Sheriff, or Constable to take steps to evict the tenant. They will give you at least 14 more days to move. Moreover, the eviction must take place on a business day, during the day. One way to stop the eviction is by paying the full amount of rent due to the court before the eviction is executed.

In New York State, Governor’s Order No. 202.8 instituted a 90-day eviction moratorium. Courts stop accepting eviction filings but continue to address essential cases. Marshals/Sheriffs may not evict until further notice. Note that the stay was extended for another 60 days through mid-August and banned late fees for missed payments during the moratorium.

On the federal level, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act imposes a 120-day moratorium on eviction filings and charging fees for non-payment of rent for most of the affordable housing properties. The landlord may not ask a tenant to vacate for any reason without a 30-day notice, which cannot be issued during the 120-day period.

Properties covered under the CARES Act include those participating in the federal assistant program or subject to federally backed mortgage loans. Check your lease documents to see if this includes your property.

What You Need to Know: Rent

Do I have to pay rent right now? The short answer is yes: the eviction moratoria do not excuse tenants’ duty to pay rent. After it ends, tenants who do not pay may still face financial and legal liabilities.

So far, Governor Cuomo’s actions suggest that he feels the eviction moratorium is sufficient in and of itself. There remain proposed rent cancellations such as the below, but none have been passed yet.

New York State Senate Bill 8125A, which was introduced on March 23, 2020, proposes cancellation of rents for 90 days for individuals and small businesses

The Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, which was introduced on April 17, 2020, proposes a nationwide cancellation of rents from March 13, 2020 and would last for a year. This is only for primary residences, no double-dipping on multiple properties. 

Rent Freeze

New York City also provides rent freeze programs for seniors and tenants with disabilities who qualify to have the rent frozen at the current level and be exempt from future rent increases. All details on rent freeze are available on the Department of Finance’s site.

For market-rate tenants, landlords can ask tenants to pay more but should give up to 90 days notice if rent increases over 5%. 

Late Fees

A rent payment is late only when received more than five days after it is due, and the landlord must provide written notice for late fees.

The amount of late fees is limited to $50 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is less. People who live in properties covered by the CARES Act cannot be charged late fees for 120 days starting from March 27, 2020. 

What You Need to Know: Contracts

Force Majeure

A force majeure is an event that prevents someone from doing something that they agreed to do. This can include acts of nature, acts of man, and anything unforeseen, and is a contractual provision that is interpreted narrowly by New York courts.

Whether COVID-19 qualifies as a force majeure event is case-by-case and depends on the terms of your contract, and it must be proven that failure to perform is specifically caused by the pandemic.

Impossibility

Impossibility is a common law defense that applies to an unforeseeable non-performance of a contract, and means that something is objectively impossible. For example, if one’s lease for a building where a business operates demanded that they operate continuously, the mandated shutdown of businesses would make COVID-19 a trigger of impossibility in court. 

Economic hardship is usually not enough by itself to invoke the doctrine of impossibility. 

Constructive Eviction

Constructive Eviction is when a landlord doesn’t physically evict a tenant but takes action that substantially interferes with the tenant’s use and enjoyment of the premises. For example: failure to provide heat in the wintertime or barring tenants from the premises. 

Most leases include provisions that require tenants to pay rent even when the landlord isn’t providing certain services. In order to prove that constructive eviction has taken place, tenants need to demonstrate a wrongful act on the landlord’s part. 

About Tin-Fu (Tiffany) Tsai, Esq

Tsai has in-house and law firm experience both in the U.S. and Taiwan. Currently, she leads the legal department of Arris Properties Group LLC, a New York-based real estate development company, and advises on various transactional and litigation matters. A Co-Chair of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law (EASL) Section of the New York State Bar Association, Tsai is excited to combine her passions in art and law by helping professionals in the creative world navigate legal issues and use regulations to their advantage.

- Recap Authored by Kyle Lopez, REDC Fellow

This program was presented by NYFA Learning. Sign up here to receive NYFA News, a bi-weekly organizational email for upcoming awards, resources, and professional development. NYFA Learning also offers the monthly Con Edison Immigrant Artist Program (IAP) Newsletter if you are interested in opportunities, professional development, events, and tips and advice specific to immigrant artists.

If you need resources, please check our Emergency Grants page on NYFA’s website. We are updating it regularly as new funding comes in. You can find more articles on arts career topics by visiting the Business of Art section of NYFA.org.

Image: Rachel Granofsky (Fellow in Photography ’19), Reno (Guts), 2016, pigment print and painted wood frame

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Conversations | Desirée Alvarez

“I think it’s an opportune moment to be reading, since we need escape and uplift right now. Sharing poetry and other writing online, whether by recording, video, or in print will find an eager audience.”

Three-time NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow Desirée Alvarez (Printmaking/Drawings/Artist Books ’97, ’03 and Poetry ’11) talked to NYFA Learning about the challenges of launching a new book during the COVID-19 pandemic. Get inspired by the poet and painter’s optimist approach to the opportunities these difficult times might present to literary artists.  

NYFA: Your latest collection, Raft of Flame, is recently out from Omnidawn. What has your process of promoting and presenting the book been like as we move through this challenging time?

DA: It’s been surprisingly wonderful. My extraordinary publisher Omnidawn rose to the occasion and has been promoting the book and offering free shipping to anyone ordering it from them. They plan to make a video of me reading as well. Poets House and Paolo Javier have been extremely supportive. They created a series called “Poets House Presents," with poets reading from their work and offering craft talks where I've been invited to read from the new book. 

The book was lucky to receive a glowing pre-publication review from Publishers Weekly. I’m also very grateful to journals like Massachusetts Review and Poetry Magazine for making poems from the book available online. I’m grateful to Kenyon Review, Alonso Llerena, and Rosebud Ben-Oni for reviewing my book last week. When the world re-opens, I hope to do some readings. I feel a little cursed on the book promotion front. After my first book came out, my mom became ill and passed away the following year. Now I have a new book, Raft of Flame, and the world is ill. Many readings were canceled. But some people have more time to read and listen to poetry right now, so it’s heartwarming to hear that the poems are bringing solace at a tough time.

NYFA: What sort of advice do you have for poets and other literary artists who may be finding it difficult to write or seek opportunities at the moment?

DA: I think it’s an opportune moment to be reading, since we need escape and uplift right now. Sharing poetry and other writing online, whether by recording, video, or in print will find an eager audience. It’s also an extraordinary opportunity to be focused in the studio or at the writing desk. My students are making powerful work— it’s inspiring. I recommend finding a writing partner or starting a group. It’s a good time to take classes online, and to consult Poets & Writers Magazine to see what programs, residencies, or contests there are to apply for in the future.

NYFA: Like many of our readers, you're a multidisciplinary artist. How does painting inform the poetry you write, or vice-versa?

DA: I tend to work on both painting and poetry at the same time. My painting installations on fabric are often how I begin and develop my poems, so the two processes are fused. For example, I have paintings at Brooklyn Botanic Garden Conservatory Gallery on exhibit now through November with poetry that relates to the poems in Raft of Flame. I like to work through the ideas and emotions in variant scaffoldings. The soil changes, so they grow in different ways. I hope the poems look like paintings in Raft of Flame. Not in a concrete poetry way, but in the sense that I’d like certain phrases, be they images or sounds, to have space and time to breathe and exist in the reader’s eye the way that a shape or color area exists in a composition. Raft of Flame considers a civilization and its culture coming apart, being apocalyptically scattered and then hybridized, so I hope that comes through in how some of the poems look. The art in the book explores legacy on both sides of the ocean. I try to bring that ancestry to life by giving voice to the sculptures of the Aztecs, as well as the paintings of Spanish painters, such as Velázquez. I also hope to summon back the words written by the recorders of this violent history. It’s important to keep these stories alive beyond an academic format.

About Desirée Alvarez Desirée Alvarez is a painter and poet living in New York City. Her second book, Raft of Flame, won the Lake Merritt Poetry Contest selected by Hoa Nguyen and is published by Omnidawn. Her paintings will be on view at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Conservatory Gallery through November. Celebrating magical connections between animals, plants, and humans, she has received three NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowships, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and European Capital of Culture. Her first book, Devil’s Paintbrush, won the 2015 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Award. Her poetry is anthologized in What Nature (MIT Press, 2018) and featured in Other Musics: New Latina Poetry (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). She has published poems in Massachusetts Review, Boston Review, Fence, Poetry, and The Iowa Review. Currently an artist-in-residence at the New-York Historical Society, Alvarez teaches at CUNY, The Juilliard School, and is teaching a workshop called “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” at Poets House this spring.

- Interview Conducted by Alicia Ehni, Program Officer and Kyle Lopez, REDC Fellow

This post is part of the ConEdison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter #128. Subscribe to this free monthly e-mail for artist’s features, opportunities, and events. Learn more about NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

Image: Desirée Alvarez, Photo Credit: Omnidawn Publishing

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Conversations |  Kyle Lopez

“You owe it to yourself to entrust your art to those who will advocate for it above and beyond an initial acceptance or feature.“

We are excited to interview Kyle Lopez, a Cuban-American poet who just joined New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) as the REDC Fellow, NYFA Learning. Lopez is also a graduate student who looks forward to growing as an arts administrator while supporting NYFA’s programming. Learn more about Lopez’s (pen name Kyle Carrero Lopez) eclectic professional background.

NYFA: Can you tell us about your connection with Cuba and recent projects there?

Kyle Lopez: I come from a Cuban-American family. My father was born in Cuba, while my mother was born to Cuban parents in North Jersey. Thus, I decided to commit part of my time in college to learn more about my heritage via lenses of political science, literature, and Africana studies. This piqued my interest in U.S.-Cuba relations and Santería, which my mother’s side of the family practices. I first traveled to Cuba in 2017 after applying for a literature-focused fellowship from CubaOne, an organization that provides Cuban-Americans with educational trips to Cuba. This time in and around Havana drove me to continue engaging with Cuba beyond the trip, and in February 2020, after months of mission-building and itinerary preparation, I led CubaOne’s first trip with an entirely Afro-Cuban focus alongside two other CubaOne alumni, Vanessa Navarro and Haidee Suarez. With the help of Beyond Roots, a Cuban-founded venture focused on highlighting Afro-Cuban culture, we and the chosen fellows visited major sites of Black history and culture in Cuba, while also having crucial cross-cultural conversations on racial discrimination in both Cuba and the U.S.

NYFA: You’ve gotten many job opportunities since arriving in New York City. Can you share some of your career strategies with our readers?

KL: The first work opportunity I had upon moving to New York City three years ago was with Studio One Eighty Nine, a sustainable fashion brand based in Ghana and the U.S. I had some background working in fashion before then, so I hoped to keep that going. My strategy was to e-mail brands whose values aligned with mine and see if there might be room for me to get involved. I reached out to One Eighty Nine at the right time, and they got me involved in the production team for their Spring/Summer 2018 presentation at New York Fashion Week. I stayed in contact with them from there on, working pop-up events or writing product descriptions for the site. My other early opportunities, like performing in Tania Bruguera’s Untitled (Havana, 2000) at MoMA and my stint in copywriting at an ad agency, came my way largely because I made it known that I was job-hunting by posting on social media and emailing people in my network. I also asked certain contacts who had experience in the roles I was applying for for feedback on cover letters and resume drafts, which they were happy to advise me on. The main takeaway for me has been that people want to help you as much as they can, so though it can feel like a solo task, it definitely isn’t and shouldn’t be.

NYFA: As a literary artist, what advice do you have for artists that want to meet editors and spread the word about their work?

KL: Coming into my MFA program at New York University, I felt some pressure right off the bat to catch up with poets in the program who’d already published work in big places. As time went on, however, I realized that the program’s writers were at a variety of stages in their artistic development, so it didn’t really make sense to compare myself to others. Instead, I shifted my mentality toward being in community with my fellow writers and celebrating their successes just as much as if they were my own, which has really changed the game for me. With less pressure to snag publications as fast as possible, I’ve been able to focus more on ensuring that what I do put out there comes when it’s ready. It’s also become a priority of mine to work with people who go that extra mile in the editorial process, like Madeleine Mori from the Pigeon Pages team, who pushed back on my tendency to sometimes over-edit while explaining why the first version of a poem of mine she chose was working so well. If you encounter a particular artist’s work in a journal or magazine that you really enjoy, don’t be afraid to get in contact with them and ask what their experience of working with the editors was like. You owe it to yourself to entrust your art to those who will advocate for it above and beyond an initial acceptance or feature.

About Kyle Lopez An experienced writing tutor, copy editor, and program coordinator, Lopez is excited to apply the skills he’s developed over time toward helping artists navigate the challenges of the working artist’s life as the NYFA Learning Team’s Program Fellow. He received a BA degree in English and Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of William & Mary in 2017, and currently attends New York University’s Creative MFA degree program, where he is a Goldwater Fellow. His poetry is published or forthcoming in Hobart, Poetry Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, The Journal, and elsewhere, and he has recently performed at La MaMa Galeria for History/OurStory, at Fahimi in Berlin for the Domicilium reading series, and as featured reader at the Boston Poetry Slam. He lives in Brooklyn.

We’re also excited to welcome Sarah Overton, a former intern who is rejoining NYFA as the REDC Fellow, Development. Overton is currently pursuing her MA degree in Performing Arts Administrationn at New York University. A passionate community collaborator and cellist, Overton has served on boards and committees for the Timucua Arts Foundation, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and United Arts of Central Florida, and performed as principal cellist for Classern Quartet.

- Interview Conducted by Alicia Ehni, Program Officer

This post is part of the ConEdison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter #127. Subscribe to this free monthly e-mail for artist’s features, opportunities, and events. Learn more about NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

NYFA’s REDC Fellows are supported by the Regional Economic Development Council and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Image from top to bottom: Kyle Lopez, Photo Credit: Leilani Bruce; Jose Corredera Gutierrez and Adriana Heredia of Beyond Roots, with a painting by Gilberto Martinez Gutierrez, Photo Credit: Kyle Lopez; Team involved in Untitled (Havana, 2000) at the MoMA, from left to right: Jonathan González, Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez, Ernesto Manuel López, Victor Rivera, Martha Joseph, Sb Fuller, Laura Pfeffer, Ian Deleón, Kyle Lopez, Stuart Comer, Lizzie Gorfaine, Tania Bruguera, Rudy Gerson, Kate Scherer, Alexis Ruiseco-Lombera, Micki Pellerano; Photo Credit: Micky Lopez