Witnessing Change: Visiting Artists Week 2026
by Brooke Burkett, Development Director
Visiting Artists' Week is an FSP tradition. This year's theme is "Change." This year, we welcomed 15 artists. Students had the opportunity to choose to work on a diverse array of projects in multi-age classrooms.
Below are many photos and a little more about each artist who joined FSP to share their talents for the week:
Marie Camillo Reimensnyder: Seasonal Changes
Marie is a former early childhood and outdoor educator. She has a background in art and has always incorporated art across the subjects in my classroom. She taught ceramics and printmaking in after school and enrichment programs for many years. Currently, she runs a small hand-printed silk screen business doing custom designs. She is also a certified Maine Master Naturalist and a retired FSP preschool teacher.
Christina Bechstein: Mini Houses inspired by Do Ho Suh
Artist and teacher Christina Bechstein is an artist and teacher. She is Director of Love Lab Studio, a childrens and community art studio in Portland. She has led and organized both large and small scale community and place based public art and education projects in Maine, Boston and Detroit. Her work has been shown in museums in Europe and the United States. As a former Associate Professor of Art she has taught in art + design schools across the US, specializing in community-based public art. She has taught children in a variety of school settings, and is trained in Reggio Emilia and other pedagogies, and this weaves its way into her workshop and the artwork she supports children to make.
Kiah Gardner: Creating Books with Nature
Kiah is an artist, a mom, and a graduate of Maine College of Art & Design. She enjoys drawing, painting and collage, but finds most of her creative spark in objects like shells, bones, and bark, which she turns into books, sculptures, and altar pieces.
Roberta March: Squares of Change
Born and raised in Brazil, Roberta March transitioned from a career in banking to the arts, studying at Hampstead School of Art in London, Glassell Studio School in Houston, and earning her MFA at Maine College of Art & Design in Portland. Her work blends the traditions of Byzantine mosaics with contemporary abstraction. Using stone and smalti tesserae instead of a brush, she builds rhythmic, layered paintings that explore energy, transformation, and movement. Birds often appear as symbolic presences, emblems of freedom and memory guiding the viewer’s eye through vibrant surfaces. Drawing inspiration from nature’s elements, her practice invites a dynamic interplay between color, form, and space, encouraging personal reflection and sensory experience.
Charlotte Agell: Speaking Out: From Heart to Art
Charlotte Agell is a Swedish-born American author for young adults and children who lives in Maine. In addition to writing novels, Agell writes and illustrates picture books for young children. She won a Maine Literary Award in 2020 and was listed on the Rainbow Book List in 2011. Agell is a retired teacher in Maine and active in Arrt! (Artists' Rapid Response Team) which collaborates with non-profit groups to promote social change in Maine.
Janoah Bailin: Circus Transformations
Janoah Bailin (ze/zir), "Janoah the Jester," learned unicycling in the empty after-hour corridors of zir middle school. Ze traveled New England with Circus Smirkus and now coaches the Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough (ME) and Children's Circus of Middletown (CT). Ze tours 3 original shows: "SpinS" ("Best Variety" London Fringe 2019), "meSSeS" ("Spirit of the Fringe" Elgin 2022), and "rOng," touring from Halifax and Orlando ("Pick of the Kids Fringe 2023") to Vancouver and San Diego. Janoah teaches and performs across New England and beyond, leaving behind a wake of tumbled juggling props.
Leo Eichfeld: Trash Puppets and Climate Justice
Leo Eichfeld is an environmental educator and fringe performing artist. He's had the privilege of working in community-based education for several years, with a diversity of classroom settings ranging from gazebo's in the woods to university lecture halls. As a member of Inventing Trees Puppetry Troupe, he takes inspiration from teaching and ecology to create playful, odd, and surrealist artwork.
Maya Williams and Brooke "BuffCat" Bolduc: Mask Change: a Workshop on Poetry and Visual Art
Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who served as Portland, Maine's seventh poet laureate for a 2021-2024 term. Maya contributed poetry to venues such as FreezeRay, The Cortland Review, Honey Literary, and more. Eir debut full-length poetry collection, Judas & Suicide, was a finalist for a New England Book Award. Their second full-length poetry collection, Refused a Second Date, was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. They won two chapbook prizes: What's So Wrong with a Pity Party Anyway? in 2024 and Feminine Morbidity in 2025. Maya contributed prose to venues Sacred & Subversive, The Rumpus, Black Girl Nerds, LGBTQ Nation, The Daily Beast, Honey Literary, Talk Death, and more. You can follow more of Maya's work at mayawilliamspoet.com
Brooke Bolduc/BuffCat is a local Black creator specializing in illustration, painting, digital art and storytelling. Her goal as an artist is to share and create stories that give LGBTQ and BIPOC experiences visibility. He was born and raised in Portland, and I like to support local projects that celebrate diversity and build community.
Molly Simpson: Inventions and Sculpture through Disassembly
Molly is an illustrator and former farmer. She likes drawing with kids, especially tigers with her nephews, and lately likes quilting sea creatures. Molly also likes growing and eating vegetables, spends as much time outside as possible, and one day hopes to make a children’s book. Molly lives in Portland.
Rich Entel: Larger than Life: making yourself into a really big puppet!
Rich Entel of Portland, Maine, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony. His work has been included in a Portland Museum of Art Biennial. His past work has explored issues of homelessness, loss, the body, and meditation. He recently collaborated on the book "Ashley Bryan's Puppets". Along with continuous exploration in art, Entel works in the several central and southern Maine communities as a physician specializing in addiction medicine.
Samantha Verrone: Compost Color Workshop
Samantha is a natural dyer producing one-of-a-kind home furnishings, clothing, accessories, and tapestries. She draws inspiration from antique Japanese Boro, Korean Bojagi, and American quilting traditions. Her focus is on labor-intensive rather than resource-depleting production. Time is a significant ingredient. Exploration of how time is spent, what we give our attention to, and a slow method using natural dyestuffs, hand stitchwork, and varied materials form the taproot of her process.
Lisa DiFranza: Creating Change! Visual Art, Storytelling, and Theater
Lisa DiFranza served as Artistic Director of The Children’s Theater of Maine for seven years, and facilitated its merger with the Children’s Museum of Maine to form the now thriving Children’s Museum +Theater of Maine. Lisa was Founding Director of The Arts Academy, an innovative public high school arts pilot program at Portland Arts and Technology High School In Portland. More recently, she directed 'Conscience' at Portland Stage Company, and taught and directed at Art Camp in Portland. She the coordinator of the Maine Jewish Film Festival. Lisa's paintings will have a solo exhibit of her paintings at The Frances Hotel in the summer of 2026.
