Freddie Bell
Front Studios, Studio C
Multimedia Artist
Freddie is a multimedia artist living in Hillsborough, NC and is glad to call North Carolina home once again. Freddie was born in Charlotte, NC. Their passion for creating has followed them to Los Angeles and back and across careers in the arts and social work. Freddie finds inspiration in community and how we understand ourselves. Freddie received his BA in Art at Warren Wilson College in 2012. They have participated in group shows in Los Angeles and throughout North Carolina. Gender, identity, and the body have been common subjects and inspirations for Freddie’s work since undergraduate school, influenced by his lived experience. Freddie works as a painter, muralist, and mixed media artist and loves using color, shape, and varied repetition to reflect on identity.
Amanda Blanchard
Back Studios, Studio 1
Multimedia Artist
My grandmother treated me like one of her many porcelain dolls. She dressed me in Gunne Sax dresses and braided my blonde curls, calling me a Dresden doll. I was never to be boxed or held, instead running wild and coming loose at the seams. I myself am the Tattered Doll.
Aside from an uncontrollable drive to create, I’m constantly searching for puzzles to solve. With art, I have an unlimited supply of puzzles and obstacles that I can overcome. Instead of recreating only the beautiful things in the world around me, I find beauty in everything, even if the result is tattered.
A Salt Lake City, Utah native, I have lived in North Carolina for over 40 years. I grew up in Henderson and have lived in Durham for over 10 years. I graduated from Durham Tech in 2018, with an AFA, top of my class. I currently teach crochet classes at the Durham Arts Council, and have previously taught drawing classes for the 2024 summer art camp and a pastel class. I create parody art for record stores and model for life drawing sessions. During the entire month of October 2024, I had a solo show at Duke University in the Brown Gallery.
Blue Wagon Studios
Front Studios, Studio D
Mixed Media Artists
Kathy Burnside and Neysa Rojas are the 2024 Eno Arts Mill BIPOC Artists in Residence.
Together, Burnside and Rojas founded Blue Wagon Studios, along with being regular attendees of the Eno Arts Mill’s Junk Journal Artisans Meet-up.
Burnside explains the story of its creation, “In recent years, I’ve dedicated myself to sharing my passion with others through workshops in junk journaling, bookbinding, collage creation, and more. It’s in these workshops that I’ve had the privilege of meeting incredibly talented individuals. One such encounter led me to meet my business partner and friend, Neysa Rojas, which has led to the formation of Blue Wagon Studios, where we’re working together to combine our love of art and share it with a community of like-minded artists. I’m excited to continue exploring new creative avenues and inspiring others to do the same.”
→ Learn More About Blue Wagon Studios
John Dempsey
Front Studios, Studio B
Visual Artist & Teacher
John Dempsey’s extended series of large-scale, contemporary landscape paintings, the American Chronicle Series, features imagery from a wide variety of rural and urban environments. The American Chronicle Series of paintings celebrates our recent history while helping us connect community to place within our shared landscape.
Dempsey maintained a painting studio, and taught studio art at Mott Community College, in Flint, Michigan, for well over 25 years, relocating to Hillsborough in 2019. John can be found on Instagram at: @johndempsey.landscapes
→ Learn More About John
Ber Kadens
Back Studios, Studio 4
Visual Artist
Ber paints from life with a passion for understanding and translating onto the canvas what is true in nature, inspired by John Singer Sargent. He has invested in verbalizing the thought process of an artist, and communicates this in his teaching. The ability to interpret truth in the visual world informs the whimsical pen and ink and watercolor illustrations he does for children’s books that he writes.
Judy Maloney
Back Studios, Studio 10
Fiber Artist
Judy is a fiber and textile artist who creates sewn and collaged pieces from hand dyed, printed, handwoven, felted, and repurposed materials, as well as things found in nature. She is inspired by Asian influences and is drawn to the repetitive, meditative nature of saori weaving and shibori dyeing, as well as boro mending. Her use of poetry as prompt is inspired by the work of poets such as David Whyte and Mary Oliver. Poetry acts as fiber, weaving its inspiration and imagination throughout the work. Her influences are women who use bold color, botanical themes, repetitive stitch as pattern and use of repurposed materials-Mandy Patullo, Christine Maursberger, and her sister, J.E. Paterak. Her former career as an oncology nurse for twenty years has brought her to appreciate handwork as a means to healing and wholeness.
→ Learn More About Judy
Tiffney Marley
Back Studios, Studio 3
Visual Artist
A native North Carolinian, Tiffney has immersed herself in photography, painting, and graphic design for the past 18 years. These mediums are expressions that she likens to “breathing.” Tiffney has traveled around the world and visited countless exhibits including the Holocaust Museum-Israel, Apartheid Museum-South Africa, Genocide Museum-Rwanda, Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle-Ghana, and Pelourinho Square, Brazil. She feels that expressions from these exhibits have conveyed the human experience in riveting and liberative ways. As she evolves as an artist, her hope is to find ways to create that raise consciousness about the importance of other cultures, the beauty of all people, and shared human value. Ultimately, her goal is to use her work to heal and inspire others.
Shaerie Mead
Back Studios, Studio 11
Textile Artist & Fashion Designer
IONA Clothing is designer Shaerie Mead’s vision for creating garments for all shapes and sizes, focusing on fit and sturdy construction. The IONA label is designed, sewn and hand-dyed in Hillsborough, NC using natural fibers and low impact processes. The studio also hand-dyes a variety of apparel and home goods in hues from subtle to saturated for a range of price points. Beautiful, functional, colorful!
→ Learn More About Shaerie
Chieko Murasugi
Front Studios, Studio A
Paintings and Mixed Meida
Chieko Murasugi was born in Tokyo, raised in Toronto, and based in San Francisco for 20 years before moving to North Carolina in 2012. She has degrees in Experimental Psychology (BA McGill, Ph.D. York U) and Studio Art (BFA York U, MFA UNC-Chapel Hill). She has exhibited her work nationally in galleries and museums, and her paintings reside in the public collections of the City of Raleigh, Durham, and Duke University. She is a co-founder and co-curator of BASEMENT, a group that promotes works by contemporary artists with roots in the SouthEast. She and her neuroscientist husband are the parents of two adult children.
→ Learn More About Chieko
Diana Newton
Back Studios, Studio 6
Textile Artist
“At its paramount, the merging of art and activism provides the people with revolutionizing truth, exposing what must be exposed, and raising up what must be raised.” –Patti Smith
This quote from Patti Smith speaks directly to Diana’s artistic activism approach. Her goal is to offer a visual experience that can challenge one’s worldview, perhaps leading to a reexamination of long-held beliefs, or spotlighting jarring truths and inescapable realities. By doing so there is the possibility that enduring discomfort can affect how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world. Diana finds that making art in support of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ communities, whose basic rights are being further curtailed in a severe conservative backlash, is deeply inspiring. Diana’s current interest is in creating assembled sculptures, some of which form large-scale art installations. She uses found objects, natural elements, industrial scraps, antique items, personal memorabilia, and fabrics to transform historical characters into figures that resonate with new meanings. Her sculptural work has been exhibited in galleries in North Carolina and Georgia, as well as online exhibitions, and won multiple awards.
→ Learn More About Diana
Denise Page
Back Studios, Studio 7
Visual Artist
I am an acrylic painter, creating work that centers black people, especially black women. In my art, I engage in conversations about cultural pride daring to dream, and the vastness of blackness, showing how we are everything and everywhere I see art as a way to cope with life and reimagine reality, straying outside of the normal way of seeing things. This is one reason why I use bright and vibrant colors in my painting, in addition to the fact that they reflect my own personality Inner listening is a big part of my process as an artist, allowing each canvas to tell me what to paint and tuning into hidden messages to include in my work.
SAKY
Back Studios, Studio 5
Rapper, Producer, Content Creator
Hailing from Chapel Hill, NC, SAKY is an enigmatic multi-hyphenate whose creative impact cannot be denied. His mission to inspire others to have the courage to be different is what drives his entrancing lyricism, impassioned music production, and stunning visual media work. After graduating from NC State University (B.A. Media Communications), SAKY moved to Los Angeles for 5 years, where he developed his craft as both a well-known visual media artist as well as a burgeoning Hip-Hop musician. His music has been featured on publications such as CNN, Eater, YahooNews!, South China Morning Post, and can be seen on HBO’s Warrior, Snowpiercer and much more. He now resides back in his hometown in NC and is focused on taking his independent artistry to the next level.
Jessica Sanford
Back Studios, Studio 9
Jewelry & Ceramic Artist
My work deeply emphasizes the intimate experience of using ceramics and underscores their lasting impact. My creations blend porcelain, rich oxides, and lustrous 22k gold, reflecting my appreciation for both mid-century design and folk pottery movements. I create vibrant and playful pieces, often marked by striking graphic details and a respect for design principles. Drawing from my background in art education and my strong connection to nature, I employ various ceramic techniques such as water etching and Mishima. For the past five years, I have focused exclusively on crafting ceramic jewelry, adorning many in Durham, NC, with ceramic studs and dangles that shimmer in bright cone 6 mason stained glazes, underglazes, and 22k gold luster. I often tell people, “It’s my job to get you compliments,” and I love this aspect of my work. Over the last 17 years, I have embraced the rewarding role of a ceramics teacher, sharing the joy of clay with others. I guide them through both contemporary and ancient processes, watching as they overcome the vast challenges of learning pottery. Being a teacher has spurred my growth; I constantly research, write, record, articulate, and clarify my methods and beliefs. With every finished piece I release into the world, I am empathizing with the receiver. I am thinking about how the lip meets the cup of the drinker or how the stud perches from the lobe of the wearer. It is the most invisible details that make a piece successful and it is a thread I will always be pulling on in this life as a craftsperson.
Jenna Staples
Back Studios, Studio 2
2D Artist
Jenna is excited to return to painting after taking an 18-year hiatus. Originally from…all over, she has lived in many different places, including Nicaragua and most recently the Netherlands, but now considers North Carolina to be home. She studied oil painting for her undergraduate degree at Pepperdine University before pivoting to a career as a physician assistant. She is fascinated by the human body, psychology, morningtime and her children. It’s to be decided how exactly this time away will now translate to her artwork, but historically she has been drawn to bright colors, quirk and calm. She’s grateful to be a part of the Eno Arts Mill community as she explores what prioritizing art looks like at this point in her life.
AVAILABLE STUDIOS:
- Back Studios: Studio 8
If our studios are full, you may join our waitlist via submitting an application here.
Studio Be
Front Studios, Studio E
LEARN MORE & SEE OFFERINGS HERE!
Through a grant funded project, the Eno Arts Mill will be welcoming a new studio this Spring. Studio Be intends to fill a critical gap in our community for historically underrepresented young people by providing a safe space and judgment-free zone where they can feel supported and respected for exactly who they are.
→ Learn more about Studio Be
Check out these other artists and arts-related business in the Eno Mill:
NC Mosaics: offering classes and custom mosaics
Frames by Edward Wright: handmade heirloom frames
Our artist studio are not open to the public other than for our monthly open studio and gallery receptions. Please drop by to meet our artists and see their work!
