DANIEL T BARNEY, Ph.D.

George Mason University Associate Professor, Art Education and Director, Master of Arts in Teaching

Daniel T. Barney, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Art Education and Director of the Master of Arts in Teaching II program at George Mason University in the School of Art. Dr. Barney’s scholarly efforts include a complex web of curriculum theory, artistic play, and fiddling with rules of engagement. He is trained in printmaking, drawing, painting, photography, bookbinding, jewelry, lampworking, and fiber arts. Barney publishes widely and is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association. For Barney, art has become less of a commercial endeavor and more of an approach to sense and interact with the world. This conceptualization of art as a way of knowing and catalyst for becoming orients his research and philosophies of teaching.

MARY EARLY

Director at Hemphill Artworks and established artist in the DC region

Early is a sculptor and art dealer living and working in Washington, DC. Early is the director of HEMPHILL Artworks, Washington, DC, and serves on the boards of Hamiltonian Artists and Washington Sculptors Group. She handles the work of contemporary artists and artist estates on long-range planning, and with private and institutional collectors to build and manage significant collections. Recently, her personal artworks in beeswax have taken the form of temporary installations responding to the architecture of the site. Early’s work has been exhibited at regional and national galleries, and is included in the collections of the US Department of State/Embassy of Panama and Embassy of Jordan, the District of Columbia Art Bank, The Wilson Building Art Collection, Washington DC, and the American University Museum (Corcoran Collection) among other public and private collections. Additionally, she works with living artists and artists’ heirs She has a particular interest in public art and community engagement, as well as the materials and processes of contemporary sculpture.

MALEKE GLEE, MA

Director of STABLE, cultural worker, writer, and professor in the DC region

Maleke is the inaugural Director of STABLE, a space for artists to think and create, fostering an arts ecosystem in Washington D.C. through their studios, residencies, projects and collaborations. Before joining STABLE, he has held positions for the Studio Museum in Harlem, was Executive Director of Prince George’s African American Museum where he curated mixed media exhibits in the greater DC region; and has produced exhibitions and programming with the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, No Longer Empty, DNA Works, Red Bull Arts, Sugarcane Magazine, TENTH Zine, John F. Kennedy Center, and Don’t Mute DC.. Early in Maleke’s career, he founded Chocolate Redux, which provided cultural programs in response to the massive wave of gentrification in DC, a town long known as “Chocolate City.” He works with collectors, curators, and STABLE resident artists. Maleke obtained his M.A. in Cultural Sustainability from Goucher College and B.F.A. in Arts Management from Howard University.

ALLYSON VIERA, MFA

Established NYC based artist and Assistant Professor & Coordinator, Foundations at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, GWU

Vieira’s work folds past and present, spanning architecture and sculpture. She investigates labor, craft, and the material evidence of time, while considering the knowledge, mythologies, and forms of communication that we inherit from past civilizations and reiterate to the next. She has exhibited extensively both internationally and in the U.S., including institutional projects at Kunsthalle Basel, Swiss Institute, Storm King Art Center, PinchukArtCentre, Non-Objectif Sud, FRMoCA, Frieze Projects, The Public Art Fund, The Highline, and SculptureCenter. Her catalog, Allyson Vieira: The Plural Present, was published by Karma Books in 2016. She was a 2021-2022 Visiting Artist at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies, and her book of interviews with Greek master marble carvers, On the Rock: The Acropolis Interviews, for which she was the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation, and FLACC, is available from Soberscove Press, Chicago. She was recently awarded at 2024-2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Greece.  Vieira received her BFA from The Cooper Union and her MFA in Sculpture from Bard College. She lives and works in New York City and is currently Assistant Professor of Foundations at the Corcoran School of Art and Design at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.