The ARCEL Connectors
During the course of the ARCEL Fellowship the fellows will gather together online for discussion and sharing seeded by prompts developed by the Connectors. These folks work at the intersections of creative and spiritual practices and have agreed to share their own stories, wisdom, and selves with the fellows.
Erica Littlewolf
Erica Littlewolf is Northern Cheyenne from southeastern Montana. She works for Mennonite Central Committee in the USA as the program coordinator of the Indigenous Visioning Circle. Erica has had the opportunity to travel extensively around the globe meeting with Indigenous Peoples and works to build solidarity and address oppressive patterns. She focuses on the Doctrine of Discovery, healing, and authentic relationships.
Matthew David Morris
Matthew David Morris is a songwriter, a risk-taker, and, as of May 2020, and an Episcopal priest. His career in music has spanned over 25 years, and his life has been a tapestry of art, faith, and the messiness of justice work. His work seeks to bring these things into harmony and to inspire joy in the process.
A’Driane Nieves
A’Driane Nieves is a USAF veteran, multi-disciplinary abstract artist, activist, and speaker with a heart for serving others and social good. She's also a mental health advocate living with bipolar disorder, and runs an online platform and mental health support group for women of color called Tessera Collective. She empowers women to transform brokenness in their lives into power and beauty, and works to amplify the voices and experiences of those marked as Other in society. In 2016, she was featured alongside Bono as a ONE Campaign activist and volunteer for Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” issue, where Bono was awarded their first ever “Man of the Year’ award for his work on gender equity and extreme poverty. In 2018, she opened Tessera Arts Collective, a studio and gallery serving women of color artists in the Greater Philadelphia area and beyond. She believes creating and viewing visual art that addresses difficult topics can serve as a catalyst for personal growth and social change. She lives in New Jersey with her robotics loving husband and three boys.
Max yeshaye brumberg-kraus
Max Yeshaye Brumberg-Kraus, is an ARC member, a 2019 ARC Emerging Leaders Fellow, poet, playwright, and performing artist. Brumberg-Kraus (they/them or he/him) lives in Saint Paul, MN and is the co-founder of the House of Larva Drag Co-operative, performing as drag ogress Çicada L’Amour, producing both small acts and full-length queer performances since 2014. They have performed at the Guthrie Theatre, Pangea World Theatre, 20% Theatre, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, and the Rochester Arts Center. From 2017 through 2018 Brumberg-Kraus was a fellow with Pangea’s Arts Organizing Institute. Brumberg-Kraus studied classics and theatre in their undergrad at Beloit College, and received their MA in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. As a scholar, Brumberg-Kraus's research is in queer temporality, queer and feminist theology, cosmology, mythopoetics, tragedy, theatre & spiritual formation, drag, and reception theory. They are currently working on a book project The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer and Trans Liberation.