About The Curators

Majenta Strongheart is the Head of Design and Partnerships for Supplyframe’s DesignLab, where she works at the intersection of art, design, social innovation, and hardware engineering. She is interested in socially positive design and collaboration, focusing on the ways design, thinking and problem solving can contribute to a diverse range of conversations.

Adrian’s Place is a community hub offering recreational, social and academic programs for teens and young, transitional-aged adults tailored to meet their abilities. 

Adrian’s Place is for families, friends, caregivers and professionals to come together to support loved ones who require additional support and attention.

​Adrian’s Place is for program directors, activity instructors, tutors and therapists to use our facility as a convenient location to grow their programs.

Adrian’s Place is for dialog. Often, sharing a cup of coffee with other families facing similar challenges can help more than anything else.

Welcome to Adrian’s Place. Help us build a home.

Juan Carlos Ornelas usually creates ceramic sculptures, which work as a collective and in a large installation format, in order to encourage an experience for the viewer.

Similarly, in his digital collage and mixed-media works, he strives to promote that type of experience. He exposes his thoughts through the use of compiled text and pictorial imagery transitioned by knitted chunks of color and strands them together visually to encourage movement and flow between the two. When these elements are utilized in the collective, they bring his perception and thought process to light.

Juan Carlos invites the viewer to consider his standpoint, where they can become lost and entangled in his process, while they maneuver and venture into their own experience.

Juan Carlos is a southern California native. He received his B.F.A. in Ceramics from The Kansas City Art Institute.

It was at the Art Institute where he began working in collaboration with others, in various age groups, through community outreach art programs.

Juan Carlos has been working for Exceptional Children’s Foundation since 2012, where he has had an amazing experience.

In addition to teaching ceramics processes, he also works with artists to develop their art styles, discuss their works and create the things that make them unique and allow them to express their voice.

Raven Liela McCormick was born at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, California. Raven likes to explore fantasy and the hereafter through her art by using Expressionism, Fauvism, psychedelic and avant-garde touches. To express her diverse art styles and forms, mixed media is her go-to, since she can’t be bound to one art medium. Her art is the rawness of her soul displayed through the influences of classical music, mysticism, vintage, fantasy, and even personal experiences.Never change” was what her late father, who was a musician, would tell Raven which encouraged her to pursue her interest in being an artist and rocker. Her father would have her listen to music and at the same time work on art projects to encourage creative thinking. Being a Rocker is a huge part of Raven’s art. When she listens to songs from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, Raven uses a mixture of different art forms to create musician tributes that resemble vintage rock posters, with her palette of black and other mystifying colors working in harmony like a song to express the feeling of the music. Raven’s art takes on a life of its own, like the picture is coming alive. Raven wishes to one day own a gallery/music company so she can help other artists with disabilities or the less fortunate She hopes to create a space where everyone is given the chance to pursue their creative passions.. Having autism has never deterred her, for she feels it is a strength that gives her art an extra edge. Raven’s art  often dives into the fantasy realm, as escapism is one thing that helps people cope with life. Even though worldly issues are important, the mind always needs time to heal.

Kate is a video artist and educator living in Los Angeles. She obtained her M.F.A. in Media Arts from UCLA, her M.A. in Digital Art and Video from CSUN and her B.F.A. from Montana State University. She is the co-founder of FLOAT, a VR/AR art studio, the founder of Stickney Creek, a residency in rural Montana, and the founder of Femmebit, a video art festival celebrating Los Angeles female artists working in video and new media. 

Kate has participated in solo and group residencies at Stanford University, Signal Culture, The Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado, Coaxial Arts Foundation (courtesy of the Pasadena Arts Council) and Dublab. She is Assistant Professor in Digital Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and Instructor in Media Design Practices at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Kate’s work can be found in galleries, online, in forests, in stolen airwaves, and in virtual reality. Her work has shown at SFMOMA, Art Toronto, TIFF, SXSW, HRLA, Coaxial Arts, Machine Project, Navel.la, Monte Vista Projects, Supercollider, and Bridge Projects, and has been featured in the LA Times, LA Weekly, ArtNews, CBC, BBC News, Forbes, Flaunt, Hyperallergic, and more.

Zeynep is an artist and curator from Istanbul, Turkey. She studied film and interactive media at Emerson College, later getting her start at LACMA’s Art+Tech lab creating AR installations. She then worked at the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier Exhibitions and is currently an MFA candidate at UCLA’s Design Media Arts program. She primarily works with archived photography, video, and immersive media. Her subjects revolve around identity, history, and loss of memory. She is deeply influenced by Istanbul’s city culture and is in pursuit of exploring shifting identities to navigate the struggle and alienation that arise from changing social environments.

Ty Pownall is an American artist and curator working in Los Angeles, California. Born and raised in Southern California, Pownall received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2008. He has shown recently with Jason Vass in Los Angeles, CA / HilbertRaum Gallery in Berlin, Germany / Weisman Museum of Art in Malibu, CA / Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm, Sweden / Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, CA / Durden and Ray in Los Angeles, CA / QiPO 01 in Mexico City, Mexico / The Brand in Glendale, CA / DAC Gallery in Los Angeles, CA / Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo, CA / Kalashnikovv Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa / MŰTŐ in Budapest, Hungary / and Temple Art Gallery in Rome, Italy. Pownall is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu California. He is a member of the art collective, Durden and Ray, a curatorial group which operates a gallery space in Downtown Los Angeles.

Gretchen received a BFA in Painting and a BA in German Language and Literature from the University of Washington. In addition, she was invited to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, Germany, where she studied under East German painter, Max Uhlig. In Spring 2009, Gretchen received her MFA in Painting from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, where she also served as adjunct faculty in the summer of 2009. Gretchen went on to teach painting and drawing in visiting appointments at Denison University, Emory & Henry College, where she was also Chair of the Art Department and at Roanoke College. Currently she lives in Malibu, CA where she is an Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Pepperdine University. Gretchen’s work can be found in both public and private collections, in the United States and abroad. She has also participated in national and international exhibitions including shows in Seattle, Philadelphia, Eisenstadt, Austria and Istanbul, Turkey. This summer, Gretchen traveled to Istanbul, Turkey and Burgenland, Austria to participate in artist residencies.

Laura Brody believes that we are all buried treasure. She re-imagines mobility scooters, wheelchairs, and walkers as works of art. These pieces begin with discarded medical devices and are given new personalities. Their goal is to spark new conversations and help change our approach to disability and aging. Reusing and repurposing materials is a crucial part of this work. Laura’s sculptures are conceived with a commitment to social justice and are inspired by the spirit of scientific discovery. She draws inspiration from the history of art: the flowing shapes of Art Nouveau, Victorian embellishments, and the line quality of Klimt and Schiele.

Laura is a professional costume maker and designer who came to disability art after a former partner had a stroke. She was fascinated by adaptive technology, but repulsed by its cold and clinical design. Her curiosity and fascination with how we view disability led her to develop Opulent Mobility, a series of group exhibits that re-imagine disability as opulent and powerful. Opulent Mobility first began in 2013 as a small weekend event at the Bell Arts Factory in Ventura and since then has grown to attract artists from around the world. The exhibits have been featured in Improvised Life, Create Magazine, Shoutout LA, and on Frances Anderton’s radio program DnA.

Laura’s art has been shown at ACE/121 Gallery, Brea Gallery, the Charles River Museum of Industry, Westbeth Center for the Arts, California State University Northridge, Gallery Expo, the Dora Stern Gallery at Arts Unbound, and The World of Wearable Art. She is passionate about reuse, sustainability, social justice, and re-imagining disability.

Jonna Wilkins’s art espouses her concepts of beauty, hope, and freedom. Her vivid images of flowers, rainbows, and lush landscapes convey the hope and spirit that she brings to everyone she meets. Her love and respect of folklore inspires her to celebrate the potential found in the world and to act in gratitude. As she frames a shot or sketches the perspective for a landscape, she seems to be looking through a lens of discovery and appreciation, whether the subject is a tree she has passed every day on the way to the studio or a concept she has studied in a series of artworks. For example, she uses the many interpretations of rainbows to examine cultural concepts of belief, hardship, luck, wealth, and possibility.

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Wilkins works in many mediums, focusing most time and attention to the disciplines of painting and photography. She describes her work as autobiographical, choosing to paint and photograph the natural world around her because it is so close to her heart. The artist relates to the precious and transitory nature of life and seeks to document the magic she sees in the everyday world, knowing it is fleeting. She points out the fact that every being has both abilities and challenges to live with and that a life is best lived with the acknowledgement of how these characteristics make us unique. In this way, Krall Wilkins always seems to regard what she can learn from each conversation, experience, and person she encounters.

Jonna Krall Wilkins is from Encino, California, and has been making art since 2015.