Liana is the Visual Arts Department Chair at The Governor's School for the Arts. She is currently a member of the Arts District committee for NEON, celebrating the new energy of Norfolk. She has led students in creating public art works in the Arts District on Granby Street, the Ingleside Light Rail station, and the Earth Day Celebration at Mount Trashmore. In partnership with the Downtown Norfolk Council and muralist Matthew MacGuinness, she led students in researching, designing, and creating the Gourmandizing Norfolk mural, which was awarded Best Mural of 2022 by VEER Magazine. She facilitates student participation in various art exhibitions throughout the region, as well as partners with community organizations to produce exhibitions that highlight important topics such as mental wellness. Liana organizes and curates the GSA Fashion Show and Installation of Wearable Art at The Chrysler Museum and MacArthur Center. She is also the Director of the GSA Summer Visual Arts Camp, offered every summer. Her education includes a B.S. Degree in Communications from JMU, and a B.F.A. in Painting from ODU, with an Art History minor. She graduated Summa Cum Laude, and was recognized as the College of Arts and Letters Outstanding Student in Studio Art. She also holds an endorsement from the Virginia Department of Education in Gifted Education. Her work has been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center (now MOCA), the Riverview Gallery, The Selden Arcade, Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries, and the Hermitage Museum and Gardens.

Ben Wright holds a BS in Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College, a BFA in Glass from the Appalachian Center for Crafts, and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. While at Dartmouth, he explored forests from upstate New Hampshire to tropical Jamaica to record and map song birds for the renowned ornithologist Richard Homes. His background in Biology figures strongly in his artwork, which delves deeply into the ever evolving relationship between humans and their environment. Through work ranging from interactive visual installations to sonic landscapes he engages all of his viewer’s senses and often bridges the gap between art and science. He has taught and exhibited his unique approach to art making at numerous schools including Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Craft and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and abroad in Germany, Turkey, Denmark, Japan, Belgium, Poland and Australia and until recently served as the Artistic Director of Pilchuck Glass school in Stanwood Washington.

A graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art with an MFA in painting, Bob also studied in Urbino, Italy, with Enzo Cucchi in an advanced painting program sponsored by the School of Visual Arts in New York city. He has exhibited in a dozen states and has had solo shows in Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, Alabama, Illinois, and Texas. His most recent solo show was at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. He has shown at international art fairs including: ArtExpo in New York, Red Dot in Miami, FLORENCE art and the Biennale Internazionale Arte di Palermo, Italy. He has received grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts for painting and works on paper, and a fellowship from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Bob has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome six times, most recently in 2019. His work has been published in the Chicago Reader, Studio Visit, and New American Paintings magazines, and he has been featured in both public radio and public television.

Sherrod Faulks worked in tech for over 15 years as a developer and designer. He worked for fast-paced startups in NYC and big multinational corporations. After a long career in tech, Sherrod decided to pivot to a career as an artist. He launched DEEP BLACK in 2020 and has since been featured in The New York Times, collaborated with companies big and small, and created for many wonderful restaurants, including Codex and Bayberry Garden. Sherrod moved from NC to VA (born and raised!) in late 2020 and has thoroughly enjoyed rooting into the local creative scene.

Virginia Van Horn is a longtime member of the Hampton Roads art community and has an extensive exhibition record both in the region and the Southeast. She received her BFA in printmaking from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and her MFA in sculpture from the Visual Studies Program of Old Dominion and Norfolk State Universities. She also studied and exhibited in Urbino, Italy as part of a program sponsored by New York’s School of Visual Arts. Virginia currently teaches at Old Dominion University as well as the Governor’s School for the Arts. Inspired by her childhood as a champion rider, she is fascinated by animal imagery, especially horses. Her most recent work branches out from equestrian images to explore new and different combinations of animals, both wild and domestic.

Rowena Federico Finn is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and community leader whose work has been exhibited nationally and recognized with awards, grants, and museum acquisitions, including the Chrysler Museum of Art and the Sentara Brock Cancer Center. She has taught visual art for more than a decade through Virginia MOCA, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Chrysler Museum of Art, and The Governor’s School for the Arts, where she helped establish the Drawing & Painting in the Museum program. A committed advocate for artists, she is co-founder and president of the Virginia Coalition of Visual Artists and vice chair of the WHRO Community Advisory Board, and has also held leadership roles with the Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists and the Virginia Asian Advisory Board. She has juried regional and national art competitions, been featured on PBS’s Curate 757, and presented widely on art, identity, and social justice, including at her solo exhibition at Virginia Tech, the Hampton Roads Social Justice Conference, and the Conference on Women & Gender at Christopher Newport University. Her honors include residencies at the Hambidge Center and Virginia MOCA, grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and numerous awards from national and regional exhibitions. Rowena earned her BFA from James Madison University in 1999 and began her career as a goldsmith, a training that sharpened her eye for detail and instilled a deep respect for craftsmanship, values she now shares with her students. Through both her teaching and community leadership, she encourages artists to explore identity, authenticity, and creative possibility.

Alyssa Riley is a 757 native who currently works as part-time staff and instructor at the Chrysler Museum Perry Glass Studio, including teaching glass classes in the GSA Visual Arts Department. She makes work based off of the organic ideologies of nature and scientific studies. She loves to experiment with new ideas and glass processes. Alyssa spends her free time drawing and hanging out with her husband and dog, as well as volunteers at an animal rescue. She received her bachelor’s in fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Jen Hand is a glass artist, writer, curator, mother, and veteran. Her creative practice uses the allure of glass in a lush palette of pinks to explore and resist sociocultural pressures upon women and mothers in particular. Jen holds an MA in Critical Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College and a BFA in Craft with a Minor in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. She was awarded the 2022 Corning Museum of Glass Rakow Research Grant for her graduate studies on the connections of care among women in the American Studio Glass Movement and was a 2018 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Undergraduate Fellow. She serves local and national arts communities in various capacities, including as an educator and administrator, and in leadership of arts equity initiatives including the 757 Creative Reuse Center, the 757 Street Art Battle, and the Lil Truck of Tools Mobile Makerspace. She lives in Virginia Beach with her husband, three daughters and an abundance of mischievous pets.