Indigo Arts Alliance

Introducing our newest David C. Driskell Fellow: Sascha Rose! 🎉 ⁠

Rose is a first-generation Haitian-American musician and filmmaker who grew up in Maine. Her Haitian roots have long inspired her work, as she tells stories of colonial resistance, liberation, and connection to the divine and natural world through music and film. As she expands her musical composition she is exploring the intersections of electronic production and Black folk music. Stay tuned for an upcoming album release event!

Join us in giving Rose a warm Indigo welcome! 💙 She’s settled into our Black Seed Studio, and will be calling it home for the next six months. We look forward to supporting her creative process as it continues to deepen during the course of her fellowship.

Visit the link in our bio to learn more about her practice. 🔗

What a weekend! We’re still feeling the energy from the incredible workshops led by our June Mentorship Artists-in-Residence pairing, Maya Tihtiyas Attean (local) and Cinthya Santos-Briones (national).

Thank you to everyone joined us. There was no shortage of inspiration between plant identification with Bomazeen Land Trust, collaborative cyanotypes, and being the inaugural site for a national community embroidery project. Swipe through to see some of our favorite moments. ✨

Hosting Briones and Attean over this past month has been a gift. Their warmth, fierce compassion, and fabulous creative energy transformed our studio in countless ways. While their time with us has come to an end and we will miss them dearly, we know our paths will cross again. We can’t wait to see all the brilliance they continue to bring into the world. As always, it is an honor to have them as part of our IAA constellation. 💙
———
Images: 1. Cinthya Santos-Briones’ guiding participants through the 101’s embroidery during her workshop at Indigo Arts Alliance. 2. Briones’ posing for a photo while participants practice their embroidery. 3. Maya Tihtiyas Attean leading participants through a nature walk on the grounds of the Bomazeen Land Trust. 4. Participants working on arranging the composition of their cyanotypes. 5. The final product of a group cyanotype project.

Join the team! Indigo Arts Alliance is hiring a Development Director to help us shape the future of our organization by implementing and supporting fundraising strategy that sustains our mission to support Black and Brown artists.

This role will lead fundraising initiatives that support more than 85+ artists, major public programs, annual symposiums, the Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival, and partnerships with organizations across the country. We are looking for someone who will design and lead comprehensive fundraising strategy, including grants, major gifts, and individual giving, to strengthen long-term sustainability for our Black-led arts organization.

The Development Director will continue to build relationships with donors, foundations, and corporate partners committed to racial equity, while representing IAA within philanthropic spaces in partnership with our Executive Director and Board.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. If this sounds like you, or someone you know, visit the link in our bio to learn more and apply. 🔗

Summer is taking shape at Indigo Arts Alliance, and so is a month full of opportunities to learn, create, and connect in-person with our Artists in Residence (AiRs)! Swipe through for June events, happening in and around IAA. Free and open to all, visit https://indigoartsalliance.me/event-schedule/ to register and learn more.
—
June 13 | 10 AM EST | Embodied Threads
📍Indigo Arts Alliance
Led by Cinthya Santos-Briones, our national June Mentorship AiR, this workshop invites participants to embroider onto fabric phrases drawn from news reports and journalistic archives documenting the current political climate surrounding migration in the United States. Inspired by Chilean arpilleras and textile traditions of protest developed across Latin America, the workshop approaches textiles as a space for collective memory, mourning, solidarity, and community testimony.

June 14 | 10:30 AM EST | Exploring our Shared Landscape
📍Bomazeen Land Trust
Discover new ways of relating to the natural world with Maya Tihtiyas Attean, our local June Mentorship AiR. Presented in partnership with Bomazeen Land Trust. Through foraging, a guided walk, and a cyanotype workshop, participants will learn more about how Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities maintain deep spiritual, material and emotional relationships with the land and practice collective stewardship.

June 26 | 5 PM EST | Honoring the Wisdom of Trees
📍Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Folayemi Wilson ’19, our June Mini-Mentorship AiR, joins renowned plant biologist Dr. Beronda Montgomery for an enriching discussion on the intelligence, interconnectedness, and wisdom of trees, and how the forest acts as an ally in Black liberation. Presented in partnership with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, an accompanying guided walk through the gardens will connect these themes to specific trees and elements of the landscape in the context of Black freedom and memory.

Indigo Arts Alliance is proud to announce our 2026-2027 David C. Driskell Fellowship Cohort! Named in honor of our esteemed Elder Advisor, David C. Driskell, this fellowship provides time and space for Maine-based/rooted Black and Brown artists to focus on creative production with 6 months rent-free studio space in our Black Seed Studio.

✨Sascha Rose will be in fellowship from June 1 - November 13, 2026. Rose is a first-generation Haitian-American musician and filmmaker who grew up in Maine. Her Haitian roots have long inspired her work, as she tells stories of colonial resistance, liberation, and connection to the divine and natural world through music and film. As she expands her musical practice to include drum machines and loop pedals, she is exploring the intersections of electronic production and Black folk music.

✨Mia Muntu will be in fellowship from January 18 - June 25, 2027. Muntu is a dancer and choreographer based in Portland, Maine. Originally from Northern Virginia, she danced competitively from a young age and was recently awarded a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts for a new solo creation set to debut in early 2026. Alongside maintaining an independent teaching practice, she is deeply committed to inspiring future generations of dancers.

✨ Michael Kebede will be in fellowship from July 5 - December 17, 2027. Raised in Ethiopia, Kebede draws from American banjo traditions and East African music to create a resonant link between Black life in the Western hemisphere and the African continent. He has performed folk interpretations and original instrumental compositions in venues ranging from music halls carceral facilities, and churches, to farmers’ markets, porches, and street corners across Maine.

Please join us in congratulating these remarkable artists! 💙 Visit the following link to read the full announcement and learn more: https://tr.ee/A94dZRE6_j