A mentor can offer valuable insight into the creative sector and provide guidance on how to translate an internal vision into practical execution. Explore the value of a mentor/mentee dynamic through a conversation with participants from our recent Community Arts Incubator. Hear from local artists and emerging creatives about why mentorship is an important resource for sustained creativity, renewed through continuous collaboration.
THIS MONTH’S PORTFOLIO TOPIC: Mentorship and Renewable Resources
THIS MONTH’S PANEL: Arris’ J. Cohen, Joleanna Bare, Makaila Weir, and Craig Murdick.
Arris’ J. Cohen, also known as Sir’ra, is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Ohio whose work explores Black fatherhood, masculinity, memory, and becoming. Working primarily in acrylic painting, Cohen blends realism, symbolism, and Afrosurrealist language to examine identity under pressure and the quiet endurance of care. As a husband and father, Cohen’s work is deeply informed by lived experience. His figures often carry weight, both literal and metaphorical, reflecting responsibility, resilience, and inherited histories. Light, architecture, and symbolic objects recur as visual devices, pointing toward interior life, generational continuity, and transformation. Cohen’s recent bodies of work investigate themes of time, labor, and emotional visibility, situating personal narrative within broader cultural and social frameworks. His practice resists spectacle in favor of intimacy, inviting viewers to slow down and consider the unseen structures that shape who we become. In addition to his studio practice, Cohen is an educator and public artist, working with youth and communities through mural projects and arts programming. His work has been exhibited regionally and nationally, including at the Elijah Pierce Gallery at the King Arts Complex and Urban Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio.
Joleanna Bare is a full time muralist, curator, and portraitist based in Columbus, OH area. Joleanna has multiple public art murals installed throughout Columbus, Ohio and has extended to creating mural installations, interactive mural and gallery installations, and live painting at events in other states. Her work has been displayed and sold via 934 Gallery, 400 Gallery, Wild Goose Creative, 83 Gallery, and Blockfort Gallery.
Makaila Weir is an emerging Columbus-based oil painter best known for their landscape paintings of urban and nature landscapes. Makaila holds a Bachelor of Arts in Botany (Ohio Wesleyan University), and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology/Anthropology (Ohio Wesleyan University). These degrees and their skills in the arts have taught them how to observe nature and the urban landscape and capture the moments that they find inspiring. Makaila’s favorite scenes to paint are ones where nature has begun to reclaim its space in the urban areas. Their hope is that their paintings bring a feeling of familiarity to the viewer and will inspire people to become more curious in the world around them and also become supporters of nature. Makaila has completed the Wild Goose Creative's 2025 community arts incubator where they are being mentored by other local Columbus artists for nine months with a group show showcasing their work. They have had their work shown in the Ohio State Fair art exhibit 2025, COPA (Central Ohio Plein Air Society) 2025 Exhibit, Ohio State Fair Plein air competition 2025, 2025 Ohio Art League Fall Juried Exhibit, and will have a piece in Femme Eclectique IV.
Craig Murdick is an artist and creative based in Columbus Ohio. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a BS in Architecture. He has enjoyed a successful career as a licensed independent architect and been fortunate to have had a wide variety of projects and wonderful clients. He feels as fortunate that he is now able to pursue my life-long passion to create art.