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meet the jurors
Emeka Alams is a Nigerian-American artist, curator, and founder of the clothing label Gold Coast Trading Co. He launched the brand in 2008 to celebrate Africa’s diverse influence on global culture. Over the past 16 years, Alams has collaborated with artists such as M.I.A, Nas, Questlove, Coldplay, Major Lazer, and the estate of Fela Kuti. His work has been featured in publications like Vogue, Elle, and Dazed & Confused. Beyond fashion and graphic design, he has exhibited his personal artwork globally while serving as an advisor and curator for galleries and art institutions worldwide.
Carolyn Hitt is a mixed-media, multi-disciplined abstract expressionist with an emphasis on murals, fabrication, and installation work. As founder of Blue Cone Studios (est.2015) and Co-Founder of Forever Safe Spaces & On the Block Seattle, her creative work is directly linked to the social practice of seeking out, holding space, mentoring and supporting emerging artists from underserved communities. When she’s not building physical spaces for gathering/creating, she is busy establishing Channel OTB and its productions focused on storytelling, community, craft and connection. She’s appeared in the first issues of Public Display Art and Anti-Social Seattle, was featured on Seattle Channel’s Art Zone with Nancy Guppy and curates at least one exhibit yearly at Vermillion Art Gallery. You can find her on most social media platforms @cmehitt
Adelaide Blair is a project-based artist whose research-centered practice allows her to interact with and learn about the world. Her work involves publishing, printmaking, web design, needlework, drawing, writing, performance, and filmmaking. She is also interested in distributed intelligence and how people make art together, and many of her projects involve elements of collaboration or participation. Her subject matter has included ghosts, artificial intelligence, the Greek tragedy Philoctetes, reproductive terms used in printmaking, the Dirty War in Argentina, and networks of corruption in the contemporary art world.
Kait Rhoads is a Seattle based glass and fiber artist who promotes ocean ecology with publicly sourced or generated art works; her public commissions include Salish Nettles at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, Tacoma WA and Bloom at Highline College, Des Moines, WA. Her artwork is in the collection of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum and other national and international museums.
Kamla Kakaria is a Seattle, WA based artist of East Indian descent. She has an MFA in Printmaking and a BFA in Painting. She has been the Board President of Seattle Print Arts and is currently Board Secretary of SGCI (International Printmaking Organization) and is on the Tukwila Arts Council. She uses Printmaking and Mixed Media in her Installation work. Her inspiration comes from her Indian background influenced by an appreciation of colors and patterns in the textiles in which she integrates into her work.
Ellen McGivern is a Queer Kansan who settled in Seattle in 2017. Before leaving the Great Plains, Ellen began her arts administration career at a craft based gallery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 108|Contemporary. From there she became fascinated with physical and spiritual embodiment through/as creative practice, the rituals artists hold to continue to make, and the ways in which community can support our artistic labor force. Ellen completed her MFA in Art Lleadership, in 2017 where her research examined artist residency histories, artist rituals, and curation. Ellen has produced exhibitions and programming with Shunpike, Kirkland Arts Center, City of Kirkland Library, Lemieux Library-Seattle University, along with independent curators and artists. Most recently, she was Development Manager at On the Boards
Cole Devoy is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the complex tapestry of human experience through a variety of mediums and styles. His creative work is in constant dialogue with evolving perspectives, always seeking new avenues for communication. He has been a METHOD volunteer since 2022, and currently serves as a creative and strategic consultant for individual artists and arts organizations. Born on the ancestral lands of the Squaxin and Nisqually people, now known as Olympia, and currently living and working on the ancestral land of the Duwamish (Seattle), Devoy's connection to place further informs his life and creative practice.
