16 Montgomery County artists awarded – 2026 Artist Opportunity Grants
2026 Artist Opportunity Grantees
Tiffany Clark
Photo By Hollow Oaks Studio
Opportunity: Tiffany Clark of The Mural Machine is developing a freestanding, interactive mural that merges public art, technology, and sound. Using conductive paint, the mural is designed to come alive sonically through human touch—transforming viewers into active participants.
About the Artist: A Miami Valley native, Tiffany Clark has built an art career spanning more than two decades across intimate and public spaces. Her work is widely recognized through large-scale murals throughout the region. An Antioch College alumna, Clark began in arts education, teaching across the Dayton area before expanding into a broader creative practice. In recent years, her focus has centered on community connection and beautification through public art, resulting in more than 200 large-scale works. As owner of The Mural Machine, now in its tenth year, Clark leads the community mural project. Spring 2026, has more Montgomery County murals scheduled, and creating murals with students at 9 different Dayton Public Schools.
Artist Statement: “Art is an experiment. I love to experiment, whether that’s with medium or message. I suppose I have a special skill for taking difficult or taboo subjects and making beauty. Turning a once vacant space into a connection.”
Andrew Dailey
Photo by Erin Pence
Opportunity: Funding from this grant will be used to cover the material expenses required to create a large quantity of new drawings to extend an existing body of work. This project culminates in a solo exhibition opening in November at the Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright State University. In addition to a large number of works on paper, this exhibition will feature a large-scale temporary drawing created directly on the gallery wall.
Artist Statement:
I take inspiration from the objects, plants, and animal forms that I encounter in my surroundings, particularly those that embody impermanence or reflect the transient nature of life. In 2015, the sudden loss of my brother marked a profound shift in my creative practice. As I navigated overwhelming grief, often in the studio, I began creating drawings that expressed a deepened awareness of life’s fragility. Through this work, I hope viewers are prompted to reflect on similar emotions and the ephemeral nature of existence.
My recent drawings form a body of work exploring a contemporary variation on the memento mori motif. These images serve as metaphoric reminders that life is ever-changing, unpredictable, and finite. Each drawing functions like a sentence; when grouped together, they form visual conversations whose tone and meaning shift depending on their arrangement. The result is a quiet, bleak narrative shaped by nuance, precision, and form, each element offered a-la-carte. As the drawings evolve, they are best experienced as smaller installations, clusters, or as part of a larger immersive environment. Through this type of arrangement, I aim to construct a fragmented narrative of impermanence and transformation.
About the Artist:
Andrew Dailey is a Dayton artist whose creative practice in the past several years has manifested primarily in the form of drawing and printmaking, though he is a painter at heart. Dailey holds an MFA from Miami University and a BFA from Wright State University. He currently serves as the Cultural Arts Program Supervisor at Rosewood Arts Center for the City of Kettering, OH. While maintaining an active art studio practice, dabbling in woodworking and playing bass, Dailey is a proud father to son Liam and daughter Phoenix.
Dailey’s artwork has been exhibited extensively on a regional, national and international level with inclusion in notable exhibitions in Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Mississippi and the Czech Republic. He is a member and current coordinator of the Dutoit Gallery co-operative in Dayton, OH and is affiliated with Southside Gallery in Oxford, MS.
His notable accolades include the Outstanding Alumni Award from Wright State University’s Department of Art and Art History, the Special Way Award, from the City of Kettering, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and the Jeanne Bowman Ellenstein Purchase Award from the Evansville Museum of Art History and Science.
Event Dates: Solo exhibition opens at the Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright State University on November 10 and runs through December 12. An artist talk and additional programming will coincide with the exhibition with an exact date to be determined.
Christine Gaffney
Opportunity: To travel to Johnson, Vermont to participate in an Artist residency at Vermont Studio Center.
About the Artist: Christine Gaffney is an interdisciplinary sculptor from the Dayton, Ohio area. She holds a master’s in fine arts degree from California Institute of the Arts where she studied Art and Technology and Integrated Media. She has also studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She holds a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Pittsburgh. Her practice embraces ideas around body image, body politics, and feminism including disability justice. She currently makes art in her home studio and takes classes at Rosewood Art Center in Kettering, Ohio and at Queen City Clay in Cincinnati, Ohio. She also works independently in her home studio. Christine exhibits her work widely in Ohio and within the United States.
Artist Statement: As an interdisciplinary sculptor, I often employ my own body as a sculptural object to express agency over my own body and to collapse the relationship between the object and the maker. There is also a performative relationship between my work and my body and yet, even when I am performing, I consider myself to be sculpting. When I am making plastic work, I often incorporate ‘evidence’ of the construction of the work and of the maker– thus the sculpture itself becomes a crucible, a kind of performance, an index of the process of its making and plastic work all in one. These differing strategies are placed into conversation with one another through dancing, not only the physical dance but through the dance communication happening in all the processes of artmaking and art reception.
Ashley Jonas
Opportunity: This grant will fund travel to Bornholm, Denmark, also known as the Island of Makers, where I will use lens based imagery, the photographic process of cyanotype, and found objects or materials to create a series of collages that explore wonder, as well as a free zine that encourages people to look for, find and share beauty in the banal, which will be will be distributed in public spaces in Dayton OH
About the Artist: Ashley Jude Jonas is an artist, curator, writer, arts organizer and educator born in Key West, Florida. She holds an MFA in ceramics from the University of Colorado Boulder. Ashley has exhibited her work at regionally and nationally recognized institutions including University Galleries at Illinois State University, Purdue University, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Undercurrent in Brooklyn NY and has been an artist in residence at Kansas State University and Project 1612 in Peoria, IL. She curates and co-directs the Blue House Arts, an artist-run space in Dayton, OH, which she founded with her partner in 2014. Recently, Ashley has been the recipient of the NEA Dayton Region Arts Renewal Grants for Individual Artists.
Artist Statement: “I make intimate formalist sculptures and installations by combining and composing elegant ceramic components with functional, often domestic, found objects. My practice is driven by intuition, play, and a deeply rooted commitment to finding wonder, especially in the familiar or routine. My work reflects the immediate and personal environment while also mirroring shared experiences and the longings of others. The work offers refuge in the beauty of things we often overlook through a heightened awareness of the natural and domestic spaces that surrounds us. Through delicate shapes and the quiet manipulations of materials, both traditional and new, I challenge the hierarchy of those materials through their juxtaposition. My work asks that the viewer walk with and through each piece, each pinch, each point of evidence and connection in order to practice accepting what is in front of us, rather than what we wish were present .”
https://www.ashleyjudejonas.com/
Adair Tudor
Opportunity: This Artist Opportunity Grant supports travel to Brooklyn to participate in a series of risograph printing workshops, where Adair will produce new work while deepening their engagement with analog, print-based processes. The skills and material developed through this experience will inform a summer exhibition at OKO Studio, accompanied by a risograph-printed zine.
About the Artist: Adair Tudor is a multidisciplinary artist and founder of OKO Studio whose practice spans design, installation, and placemaking. Typography was Adair’s entry point into art, and this opportunity marks a return to print and poster-based design as a central part of their practice. Their background includes poster design, printmaking, photography, performance art, and publication design, with an ongoing interest in how analog methods introduce material constraint, variability, and physical presence into contemporary work. In addition to their studio practice, Adair is the Editor-in-Chief of OK OHIO, a quarterly print-only arts and culture magazine, and the organizer of the Dayton Art Book Fair.
Lily Seitter
Photo by Geekwithalens
Opportunity: To create a choreographic work, Encounters, for De La Dance Company’s DanceCincinnati Festival, at the Anderson Center Theatre in Cincinnati, February 6-8, 2026. This work is made in collaboration with area artists Patrick Lennon of Dayton Ballet, Robert Pulido of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Celeste Kennington of Mutual Dance Theatre, and visual artist, Mikee Huber. L.A. instrumental hip-hop artist, Traqz, composed the music.
About the Artist: Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Lily graduated from Butler University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. Her performance career spans classical and contemporary settings including The Richmond Ballet of Virginia, and The Merce Cunningham Trust, among others. Lily is an adjunct faculty member at Wright State University, and an associate director of The Miami Valley Dance Company. Her choreography has been performed internationally in Canada, Europe, and Russia. Lily completed the 2025 Brehm Residency, inspiring multiple creative collaborations, including Encounters. She married a Kettering native and is the mother of two boys.
Artist Statement: My choreographic work explores the intersection of faith and life through the revelatory process of creation in collaboration across multidisciplinary artforms, with the intention of creating art that inspires, grows community, and calls for accountability, humanity, and compassion. My creative process may start with the music, an idea, or the movement itself, and together with the collaborating artists, I lean into investigative choreographic work through play, improvisation, and guided prompts, creating opportunities for the dancers to interpret and shape the movement. I endeavor to tell stories with authenticity and honesty, opening the space to dialogue and reflection.
Upcoming Dates: 2026 Performances are
- Friday, February 6th at 7:30pm,
- Saturday, February 7th at 2pm and 7:30pm
- Sunday, February 8th at 2pm.
The performances will be at the Anderson Center Theatre, 7850 Five Mile Rd, Cincinnati, OH.
https://www.instagram.com/lilyseitter/
Jason (Jay) Webb AKA Picket Fence
Opportunity: The opportunity to create a film based on the rich Dayton’s Hip Hop culture is something I have dreamed about for many years. This project will allow me to document a vital piece of cultural history while also creating original music for the film and beyond. The process of writing, recording, and releasing new music alongside the documentary will allow me to further refine my craft as an MC while exploring my passion for filmmaking in a deeper, more professional manner
Statement: My work as an artist is rooted in music, storytelling, and cultural preservation, with a strong focus on Hip Hop. While many people know Dayton, Ohio, for its rich Funk music legacy, the equally powerful history of Dayton’s Hip Hop culture has rarely been documented. My project—a musical film documentary on Dayton Hip Hop history—seeks to change that. Over the course of three to four months, I will conduct interviews with Dayton’s Hip Hop legends, including not only rappers but also DJs, B-Boys, and graffiti artists, to highlight the breadth of the culture. This film will serve as both an artistic work and a historical record, with the potential to be used as a teaching tool for future generations who want to learn about Hip Hop’s roots in our city.
Hip Hop has been a lifelong passion for me, and I approach it first and foremost as a fan.
About the Artist: Jay is a veteran MC from Dayton; he has been involved in Hip Hop Culture for over 30 years. In the early 80’s he started b-boying (break dancing). Later in the 80’s he started doing small tags (graffiti) on abandoned buildings around the city. Along with tagging he found a passion for MC’ing and Dj’ing.
Kaylee Peters
Opportunity: To attend a workshop at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, where I will learn wet-plate photography and expand my practice in alternative photographic processes to create a new body of work.
About the Artist and Artist Statement: Kaylee Peters is an artist and educator from Dayton, Ohio. She received her BFA in art education and photography from the University of Dayton in 2025. Her lens-based work explores the connection between identity and place through analog and alternative photographic processes. By printing on non-traditional surfaces, she examines the life cycle of materials, further embracing the physicality of a photograph. This approach reinforces her thematic exploration of memory and transformation while making a conscious effort to pursue an environmentally responsible practice.
www.kayleepetersphoto.com
@kayleepetersphoto
Keigo Hirakawa
Opportunity: To record a new jazz album of original music with world-class musician collaborators..
About the Artist: Keigo Hirakawa is a jazz pianist and a composer living in Dayton, Ohio. Trained in New York City and at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Hirakawa is fortunate to have been mentored by many world-class jazz artists, including Danilo Perez, Stephen Scott, Harold Danko, Alan Pasqua, Cecil McBee, Ralph Peterson, Jerry Bergonzi, Bob Moses, and Donald Byrd. He has worked with Donald Byrd, Joe Lovano, Robert Hurst, JD Allen, and Stacy Dillard, and his latest album “Pixel” from Origin Records received critical acclaim by jazz critics. He is an in-demand pianist who can be heard throughout the East Coast and the Midwest. He mentors students and upcoming musicians, and help bring international artists to the Dayton region.
Artist Statement: I am a jazz musician committed to using art of improvisation and composition to tell stories of global citizenship. My work is rooted in the belief that music is a reflection of human experiences. Jazz emerged from the blues, intertwined with the civil rights movement, and shaped funk/rock/soul proundly. This music has a vital role to play today to bridge divisions and instill hopes by celebrating universal principles that resonate across the world by evoking emotions. It reaffirms my lifelong journey of navigating multiple cultural identities, weaving together intertwined experiences into music that is both forward-looking and resonant across cultures.
Jenny Cruz
Opportunity: To write solo concert piano arrangements of pop music written or popularized by women, practice the newly-composed work, and then perform it in K-12 schools across the Midwest.
About the Artist:Dr. Jenny Cruz is a professor of piano at Central State University. With roots on the island of Guam, she was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and began her piano studies at the age of 4. Cruz has a B.M. from the University of Indiana-South Bend, an M.M. from Manhattan School of Music, and a D.M.A from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. She has worked as a collaborative pianist at the Boys Choir of Harlem School and as a pedagogue at the Bronx School of Music, Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, NY, and Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH. She has performed and given master classes across the United States, as well as abroad in the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Serbia, Israel, and Guam.
Artist Statement: “Performance is part of my DNA. I love the vulnerability of feeling deep emotion and authentically conveying that to the audience. This composition project is an opportunity to gestate ideas, birth them through an editing process, and then bring them to the stage. The spiritual undertones of the project come from a desire to connect women’s stories to one another. By taking the pre-existing music written by or popularized by women and synthesizing it with my own, I seek to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
Joy Johnson
Opportunity: To travel to museums, galleries, and art spaces across Ohio and neighboring states exploring exhibitions and making connections that illuminate the Great Migration in Black history and creativity, while developing my own artistic style and documenting the journey to share in a final body of work and art happening
About the Artist: Joy Johnson is a self-taught painter, muralist, and curator whose work explores the intersections of abstraction, rhythm, and cultural storytelling. Her practice spans from large-scale public murals to intimate works on paper, each piece layered with color, texture, and form evoking both movement and memory.
Artist Statement: “I create art that blends the recognizable with the abstract, drawing inspiration from music, architecture, and the lived experiences. Through vibrant palettes and dynamic compositions, I aim to capture the energy of liberation and the complexity of identity, with a particular focus on the histories and futures of BIPOC life. My work seeks to spark dialogue, inspire curiosity, and build bridges between personal expression and shared history, affirming art as both a practice of liberation and a space of belonging.”
Jes McMillan
Opportunity: To travel to Narni, Italy, where I will attend the In Tessere Mosaic School by Tiziana Mondini and develop my mosaic skills by learning historic processes from master mosaicists.
About the Artist:
Statement: “Proximity is the first step towards empathy, understanding and change. It’s when people are willing to sit at the table together, that barriers of division can be dismantled.
Francisco Rivera-Bermudez
Opportunity: To travel to Becket, Massachusetts and participate in Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Ballet summer Program to train with world renowned choreographers, create a career network, and study with other like minded individuals.
About the Artist:
Francisco Rivera-Bermudez is a Puerto Rican Ballet dancer based in Dayton, Ohio. Fran, as his friends like to call him, started his classic ballet training at the age of 10 at the Specialized School of Ballet Julián E. Blanco in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a scholarship to train under the mentorship of artistic director of Mauro Ballet Marena Perez. In 2015 he joined Mauro Youth Ballet as an inaugural member and in 2018 became soloist of the new Mauro Ballet Company. Francisco also received various scholarships and training from summer intensives at Orlando Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, among others. In 2022, after completing two years at the Nashville Ballet second company, Francisco joined the Dayton Ballet in 2022 where he has performed various roles from Ensemble pieces to Soloist choreographies.
Artist Statement: As a dancer Francisco acts as a vessel for a story, a feeling or emotion, a thought. It’s an invitation to join him on the journey of discovering the meaning, or lack of meaning, behind the art of movement. Not only for mere entertainment but to provoke and incite reflection. This combined with his teaching experience he hopes to inspire audiences of all ages and backgrounds through dance.
Minnita Daniel-Cox
Opportunity: Funds will support production costs for The Poet and His Song, a collaboration with WDPR/Discover Classical to broadcast musical settings of texts by Paul Laurence Dunbar; including composer interviews and poetic recitation supported by a companion website.
About the Artist: I am a professional singing artist. The focus of my scholarly performing has been to promote an appreciation for the incredibly impactful legacy of Paul Laurence Dunbar and I established the Dunbar Music Archive in 2014. I have presented regarding this searchable online database with information about the musical settings of Dunbar’s texts around the world. I have performed Dunbar Archive repertoire recitals in venues across the United States and internationally. I have received two National Endowment for the Humanities grants and a Mellon Foundation grant for the Dunbar Initiative.
I also maintain an active performing career outside of Dunbar and most recently performed Mozart’s C Minor Mass with the Bach Society of Dayton and look forward to singing the role of Serena in the Dayton Opera’s concert production of Porgy and Bess.
https://www.minnitadaniel-cox.com/
Te’Jal Cartwright
Opportunity: To create a podcast that launches with a community kickoff event highlighting the importance of preserving family history and debuts the first episode, inviting families to begin sharing their own stories.
Artist Statement: “My work is rooted in storytelling as a practice of healing, truth-telling, and connection. I create in an aesthetic that is both intimate and bold, centering Black voices and the complexity of family legacies. The tone of my work is reflective yet accessible, shaped by themes of resilience, identity, and the power of personal narrative to transform both the teller and the listener.
Over the past five years, I have built a body of work that includes coaching, live performance, and recorded storytelling. As the owner of Lore Storytelling, I have guided children, adults, and organizations in finding and sharing their voices. I have curated community storytelling showcases, facilitated workshops for companies and nonprofits, and created platforms where everyday people can step into the role of storyteller. My practice often highlights the silence created by trauma and the ways stories, once spoken, can break cycles of shame and disconnection.
My vision is to continue using storytelling as a tool for preserving history and reclaiming legacy, particularly within African-American families. Through my upcoming podcast, I am expanding my work into a medium that can capture and archive intergenerational voices while reaching broader audiences. My goal is to inspire communities to engage with their own stories, to create spaces where families pass down history with pride, and to ensure that narratives once buried are preserved for generations to come.”
Andrea Wells
Opportunity: Drawn Together is a collaborative recital and recording project uniting soprano Andrea Chenoweth Wells, mezzo-soprano Ryu-Kyung Kim, and pianist Ji-Hyang Gwak to highlight underperformed works by women composers and amplify women’s voices through music, dialogue, and community engagement.
About the Artist: Andrea Chenoweth Wells, DMA, is a soprano, stage director, and intimacy director based in Dayton, Ohio. With a background as a classically trained soprano, Andrea has performed with orchestras and opera companies throughout the US. She has taken on various operatic roles and has been a soloist in numerous performances. Andrea has been featured on recordings of works on the Parma and Albany labels. She is also a proponent of new music and is known for her innovative and captivating performances.
In addition to her performing career, Andrea is an Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Dayton where she teaches voice, opera, and Music and Faith On Stage.
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