Tyler Boudreau is a veteran of the war in Iraq. He served 12 years on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry and deployed to Iraq in 2004. He is author of the book Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine (2008). His other writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Progressive and others. He now lives and continues to write in Western Massachusetts.
Nicholas Chavez is a warrior and a poet, not necessarily in that order. A product of the West Coast, Nick carries California in his heart- through a stint in the U.S. Navy, including four years living in Japan and sailing the Pacific Rim, to the Pioneer Valley, where he has resided since. Nick is an alumnus of Holyoke Community College and UMASS, Amherst; his studies include Business, Architecture + Design and Building. A writer, a photographer and a design aficionado, Nick also enjoys dabbling in other artistic and creative endeavors.
Krista DeNio is a choreographer, director, performer, writer and educator, currently based in Northampton, MA. She produced dance-theater work, and collaborated with many choreographers, dancers & directors in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1997-2007, where she also co-founded the Experimental Performance Institute, at the New College of California. In recent years, she has been performing, choreographing & directing dance & theater work, in Albuquerque, NM, NYC, and Western, MA. Krista is currently the Executive & Artistic Director of Earthdance [www.earthdance.net]. www.kristadenio.com
Carole Anne Meehan has over twenty years’ experience organizing exhibitions and public projects forthe Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Boston Center for the Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art,and the City of Houston. She recently established Art at Main, a new project series inspired by her beliefthat people, America’s invaluable yet most squandered resource, will thrive with artistic expression that isrelevant, accessible and excellent.
Matt Mitchell is an artist integrating traditional painting techniques with contemporary concepts of socially active art. In 2005 he started the 100 Faces project. This project has been shown at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Outwin Boocheever Portrait Competition, for the US Congress, and at Museums, Colleges and Galleries across the country. Grants include Mass Humanities, Haymarket, and St. Paul Cultural Star. Awards include the "Arts and Culture" award of WFCR Western New England Public Radio. The work has been covered by: NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, CBS Evening News, BBC World News America, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post.
Susan Oetgen is a multidisciplinary performing artist whose creative practice combines text, music, movement and visual art to explore socially-constructed conflict narratives operating just beneath the surface of familiar stories, metaphors, images and archetypes. Susan’s recent work has examined the complex relationship between art and war in a series of solo and collaborative music-theater-visual art projects about the US Marine Corps, including Command Voice, which premiered at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in 2010; Bazm-o-Razm, commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic for the Music Off the Walls series at the Brooklyn Museum in 2008; As part of her art practice, Susan also designs and facilitates public workshops and dialogues on the interdisciplinary social utility of the performing arts. In her workshops on the Theories of Change concept, as drawn from the field of conflict resolution and peace building, Susan offers a new framework for fellow performing artists to adapt and apply powerful social science methodology to their work as social change artists.
Dave Raymond is the Director of Business Development at a Cambridge MA-based healthcare IT startup. His day-to-day activity involves frequent contact and collaboration with both the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the US Department of Defense, where he works closely on healthcare-related issues with both active duty military personnel and Veterans. Dave recently completed studies as aresearch fellow in the Babson College MBA program and has a BA from Tufts University in International Relations and Economics. Before moving into the field of healthcare, Dave worked for eight years as a software engineer and toured the United States as a professional musician.
Blake J. Ruehrwein is an Air Force veteran from Bridgewater, MA. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art and has done artistic projects around the U.S. Currently, he is pursuing a Master's in Art History in New York City, where he acts in various curatorial and cultural advocacy capacities. Some of Blake's recent projects dwell on public art and the relationship between art and war.