Nancy Lowden Norman leads the vision of one of the top nonprofit artists' communities in the world, with input from stakeholders, including its Trustees, national artistic advisory board, artists, members, and the community at large. Founded by Doris Leeper in 1977, Atlantic Center for the Arts is an interdisciplinary artist-in-residence community located on 68 pristine acres in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  The program’s hallmark is mentorship offered by distinguished contemporary artists – Pulitzer-Prize winners, Guggenheim Fellows, Grammy-Award winners – during a three-week residency with 24 emerging and mid-career artists. Nancy oversees daily operations, and artistic and fiscal management, and is responsible for a premier residency program. She is also in charge of the management of Arts on Douglas Fine Arts & Collectibles Gallery, representing 50 Florida artists, and diverse programs engaging the community through arts education and multigenerational events in Arts & Wellness. Through her 24-year tenure, 13 years in an executive position, she has also experienced more than 125 residencies as part of its Artists-in-Residence Program. 

An advocate for Atlantic Center for the Arts and the field of Artists’ Communities nationwide, Nancy completed the Certificate in Philanthropic Fundraising from Rollins College Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Center, Winter Park, FL, and the Leadership Development Program at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC. She received an MS in Mass Communication from San Diego State University, a BS in Journalism from the University of Florida, and is on the Board of the Volusia County Cultural Alliance. She has presented at conferences including, THE CREATIVE AGE, Global Perspectives on Creativity and Aging held in Washington DC, the Florida Alliance for Arts Education, and the Alliance of Artist Communities, among many others. She is also the editor of Doris Leeper: Legacy of a Visionary, a book published by the Florida Historical Society in 2017.  

Website: www.atlanticcenterforthearts.org

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Born 1973, Bronx, New York, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is a nationally and internationally recognized, award winning interdisciplinary visual and performance artist. Honors include: Art and History Museum Maitland 2019-20 Artists in Action awardee, UCF 2018 Woman of Distinction Award, UCF LIFE award, 2018 Research Incentive Award, 2017 UCF Luminary Award; 2016 Franklin Furnace Grant for performance;  2016 United States Artist Fellow nominee; UCF’s 2016 Woman Making History honoree; 2016 Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition semifinalist, 2015 Orlando Museum of Art Florida Prize in Contemporary Art finalist; 2013 Creative Capital “On Our Radar” honorable mention; 2011 UCF Keeper of the Creed Award in Creativity.

Raimundi-Ortiz was class of 2008 Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Art Ralph Bunche Fellow; AAS 1998 Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alum, 2002. Selected exhibitions include The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, Orlando Museum of Art 2015, Identify: Performance as Portraiture series, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery 2017, Project 35: Last Call, Garage Museum, Moscow, Russia, Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain 2010, American Chambers, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwong City, South Korea 2011, Performa 05 biennial, Artist Space, NY; The S Files 05 and Artist in the Marketplace 25, Bronx Museum of the Arts; Gallery @ Hostos; The L Factor, Exit Art, New York. 

Collections include: The Cornell Fine Art Museum at Rollins College, The Orlando Museum of Art, FL, El Museo del Barrio, NY, Jersey City Museum of Art, NJ, Dr. Robert Feldman, and numerous private collections. She is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida.

Website: www.raimundiart.com

Instagram: @Wanda_Raimundi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WepaWoman

Lexa Walsh is an artist, cultural worker and experience maker based in Oakland, CA. She employs social engagement, radical hospitality, performance, sculpture, installation, text and institutional critique in her projects, objects, and exhibitions. Her works become places for conversation, storytelling, collecting and classifying, and address subjects such as labor, power, and value.  

Walsh is a graduate of Portland State University’s Art & Social Practice MFA program and was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum’s Education department. She was a recipient of Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award, the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant, the de Young Artist Fellowship, and Kala’s Print Public Residency Award. Walsh has participated in projects, exhibitions, and performances locally at the de Young, di Rosa, Exploratorium, Kala, Oakland Museum of California, NIAD, SFMOMA, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.  She has shown nationally at Apexart, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Portland Art Museum, Smack Mellon, Walker Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, and has participated in several international artist residencies, tours, and projects in Europe and Taiwan.

Her upbringing as the youngest child of fifteen informs her work, as does practicing collectivity while coming of age in the Bay Area post-punk cultural scene of the 1990’s.  She founded the experimental music and performance venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge, worked for many years as a curator and administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose team created radical curatorial projects to foster cross-cultural understanding. Walsh co-founded and conceived of the all-women, all-toy instrument ensemble Toychestra. She founded and organizes Oakland Stock, the Oakland branch of the Sunday Soup network micro-granting dinner series that supports artists’ projects, and the Bay Area Contemporary Arts Archive. She has been Culinary Artist in Residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts since 2014.

Website: www.lexawalsh.com