Sobaz, a story teller, makes use of story-telling tools such as the West African Djembe drum, film cameras, voice (music and radio production) and community based theatre. He earned a BFA in Film and Video Production from York University as well as BA in Political Science and Mass Communications. He is the Founder and Executive Director of an arts based, not for profti in Hailfax called In My Own Voice (iMOVe) Arts Association. He has produced films for the National Film Board, and the CBC. ​

Amélie Brindamour is an artist and art educator based in Montreal, Canada, exploring environmental and urban issues through place-specific projects including temporary actions, participatory performances, eat-art and photography. She favors art and education initiatives that have an impact on or help with fostering communities, as well as contexts that encourage nature appreciation, inclusion, collaboration, and experimentation. She holds a Bachelor degree in Visual Arts and a Master in Art Education from Concordia University. She speaks fluently French, English and Spanish.

Patrick Burgomaster is a painter and cartoonist. He loves to laugh and enjoys life. Patrick has been teaching Introductory Drawing classes for adults and art classes to kids since 2009; he believes he learns as much from the children as he teaches them. His goal is for the children to have fun while also absorbing basic principles of fine art.
Patrick has a BFA from NSCAD and besides teaching works as an illustrator. You might see him around the city playing piano at stand-up comedy shows.

Sara Hartland-Rowe is a painter and installation artist who lives in Halifax with her husband and son. In her first career as a professional musician, Sara played with the Calgary Philharmonic and the Vancouver Symphony, the Winnipeg Ballet and Toronto Dance Theatre, and in numerous string quartets. 

Hartland-Rowe attended NSCAD (BFA 1990) before moving to Chicago for post-graduate work (MFA, UIC Chicago, 1993). She returned to Halifax in 2000. Hartland-Rowe has exhibited across Canada, and in the US, South America, and Europe. Significant solo and two-person exhibitions include Small World (Museum for Textiles, 1998), Days Are Where We Live (Museum London, 2000), The World in the Evening (Dalhousie University Art Gallery, 2002), all things good and pure (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2004), Look to the Living (MSVU Art Gallery, 2012) and sweet, sweet painting, (Hermes Gallery, 2020). Travellers (2014), a permanent public art commission for Halifax Transit which can be seen at the Dartmouth Bus Terminal, was a finalist for the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia’s Masterworks Award, 2015. 

Hartland-Rowe has received funding from national and provincial arts councils; her work is in private and public collections. She is an instructor in the Painting and Drawing Department at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

The hardest part about making is starting. I structure my classes to encourage doing before thinking. Make a mark! Pick a colour! Take the exercise as far as you can! Once a project is in progress, I view myself as a mediator. Let’s work with what you have! I encourage my students to focus on their strengths, ideally helping them to channel their excitement and energy into the work they’re doing. I love the excitement that young artists bring to their practices, and the feeling of discovery when the unexpected happens. When class is going well, I’m merely steering the energy, calling out directions for students on their own ships to interpret as they will. If I’ve done my job well, students come away seeing things in a new way, learning new techniques, and feeling more confident in their abilities and ready to take on new challenges. Failure is always an option.

Ami MacKay is the author of three bestselling novels–The Birth House, The Virgin Cure, and The Witches of New York—as well as the novella, Half Spent Was the Night. Her memoir, Daughter of Family G was named a CBC Best Book of 2019. McKay is also a playwright, composer, and essayist. Born and raised in the Midwest, she now lives in Nova Scotia.

Ian loves helping people become Makers. In the past, he has run workshops at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts in basic robotics, making art from upcycled electronics and rocketry. He used to be a High School teacher in a former life and still loves to facilitate groups of enthusiastic learners when he shares his passion for STEAM [Science, Technology, Art, Engineering and Math] with others.

I’thandi Munro is a mixed Afro-Euro L’nu woman living in K’jipuktuk, Miꞌkmaꞌki, the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. Munro is a professional performance and visual artist. In 2020, she completed her BFA, earning a double major in Photography and Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing from NSCAD University. As a racialized person living in a postcolonial environment, Munro uses the representation of line and of lineage as underlying concepts in her fine art, craft, and dance. Often merging different mediums into finished pieces, there is always a sense of multiplicity within her work, melding notions of the digital and the physical within her craft. Leaving space for her pieces to naturally evolve through reaction and discussion, Munro creates an ever-changing body of work that can be explored and realised in different ways.

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Elizabeth Sircom has been giving workshops through PAINTS, the AGNS ArtsSmarts programme, the Acadia University Art Gallery and Grow With Art at NSCC Kentville since 2014. Although she initially trained as a painter, most of her work at present is 3-dimensional (clay) and portraiture has always been one of her central themes. She grew up near Hantsport in the Annapolis Valley. She studied languages at Dalhousie University and the University of Tours, France, then painting and drawing in Paris. From 1992-2013 she lived in Le Havre, Normandy, working as an artist and teaching drawing and painting to adults and children. She returned to live in Nova Scotia in the summer of 2013. Elizabeth Sircom is also a musician (cello) and is presently Program Director for the Acadia Regional Youth Orchestra (ARYO) in Wolfville.