Our Staff
CARRIE SPITLER – EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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Carrie joined Snow City Arts in 2013 with decades of experience as an arts administrator. She provided strategic leadership for expansions to engage new hospital partners, oversaw shifts to virtual programming during Covid-19, strengthened assessment efforts, furthered investment in fundraising capacity to fully support the mission, as well as fostering change management with a focus on wellness and advancing equity. Carrie brings a strong background in financial planning and budgeting, people management, fundraising, board management, and strategic planning. She was selected through a competitive process for the University of Chicago’s inaugural cohort of the 2015 Chicago Leadership Academy and is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Civic Knowledge Project’s Southside Arts and Humanities Network. Prior to joining Snow City Arts, Carrie served for 10 years as the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, a social justice and popular education literary arts organization, and as publisher of the Journal of Ordinary Thought. From 1997 to 2002, she was the Director of Development at Access Living, Chicago’s Center for Independent Living. Carrie holds a BS in Political Science from Central Michigan University and a Certificate in Baking and Pastry from Kendall College. When she is away from her desk, Carrie is an avid gardener and baker.
DAN KERR-HOBERT – PROGRAM DIRECTOR
He/him/his
Dan has been with Snow City Arts since 2008 as a Theatre Artist-In-Residence at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Rush University Children’s Hospital. He is an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists, a long-time collaborator with Blair Thomas and Company, and the former Artistic Director of Sans-culottes Theater and Manifest Theatre. As a prolific writer, director, deviser, performer, and puppet designer, his work has been seen at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, La Monnaie de Munt in Belgium, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington D.C., the Detroit Institute of Art, NJPAC, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Pritzker Pavilion, HERE Arts Center in New York, Dad’s Garage in Atlanta, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville. Additionally, he has taught at The Theatre School at DePaul University and the Art Institute of Chicago. Dan is an alum of the acting program at The Theatre School at DePaul University.
MARIA NELSON – DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
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Maria is an arts administrator with 10+ years of experience in all aspects of fundraising, including individual giving, grants management, campaign and major gift fundraising, and more. Prior to joining Snow City Arts, she spent 11 years working at Hyde Park Art Center, where she started as an intern. Maria serves on the Board of the Chicago Mountaineering Club and volunteers as an International Challenge Master for Destination Imagination, a STEAM education and creative problem solving competition for youth. Maria holds a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Chicago. She has also participated in professional development programs through the Development Leadership Consortium (Management Fellows ‘22; Annual Fellows ‘19), Chicago Women in Philanthropy, AFP Chicago, and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, among others. Maria has many hobbies, including rock climbing, camping, gardening, and quilt-making.
JESS LEONARD – PROGRAM MANAGER
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Jess is a former visual artist-in-residence and curator for Snow City Arts. She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Jess has spent time teaching at several art institutions throughout the Chicago area including Marwen, Evanston Art Center, and Lillistreet. The main pillars of her pedagogical practice are student autonomy, access, and advocacy. Jess believes that there is an artist inside of every student and that it is the job of educators to present them with the right question, technique, or project that will bring their inner artist to life. She is also a multidisciplinary artist with a practice rooted in exploring how the relationships between environment, experience, and materiality both interact and influence one another.
ALEXANDRIA KNAPIK – DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATE
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Alexandria (Alex) Knapik is a Chicago-based emerging arts administrator, curator, and creative with over 7 years of experience working in the visual arts industry. She currently holds an AA from College of DuPage in Business, a BA Magna Cum Laude from Columbia College Chicago in Visual Arts Management, and an MS from Northwestern University in Leadership for Creative Enterprises. Professionally, Alex is connected throughout Chicagoland and beyond as a museum worker and activist. She has spoken at the Death to Museums conference, co-facilitated the 17th Chicago Food Justice Summit, hosted the “Honest Museum Labels” activist art project, and more. Alex is passionate about sustainability in human, civil, and equitable rights; specifically in labor, environmental, the arts, and everything in between. Her focus is in arts non-profit leadership and she looks to one day lead an arts organization that would serve the Chicagoland community. In contrast, Alex does not support “the grind” and practices care through community, creative pursuits, and continuous organic learning and rest.
AZZIZA ROBINSON – OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE
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Teaching Artists
MONICA ACOSTA
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Monica is a visual artist in residence at Rush University Children’s Hospital. She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with degrees in Interior Architecture and Fine Arts. In addition to being a teaching artist at Snow City Arts, Monica is also an art curator for American Indian veterans exhibits at The Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg. Their interest is in color science and theory. They are an active artist in the Chicagoland area, working with water-soluble mediums. They have worked with the Field Museum, Trickster Gallery, and The Filipino Historical Society, collaborating on an exhibit about cross-generational identities titled “We Are Family.” Her work, “Unveiled Through The Arts,” exhibited at the Trickster Gallery and was chosen to exhibit with the Illinois Secretary of State during Asian-American Heritage Month. As an art instructor, Monica teaches workshops in mindful creativity, and believes that art has the capacity to empower one to find their own authenticity.
ANGELICA JULIA DAVILA
Angelica Julia Davila is a writer, performer, and self-advocate. She graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Advertising, and she received her Master of Arts from the University of Illinois (UIC) at Chicago’s Program for Writers. She is currently a PhD Candidate in the same program at UIC. Angelica writes fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and has recently begun sketch writing. Angelica’s goal when working with students is to make writing and poetry accessible and fun, and center the student in the creativity process. Angelica’s own literary work has been published in Lover’s Eye Press, The Nasiona, The Sink Review, Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture and Grimoire, and she has received the 2023 Goodnow Prize for Prose from UIC and the Stories Matter Foundation Master Award in 2022 from StoryStudio Chicago. Angelica’s artistic practice is an exploration of the Latinx and bilingual identity, autistic self-expression, and mental borderlands. Angelica likes to push the boundaries of genre and multiple forms and is currently working on an experimental bilingual novel. Angelica is also a comedian, improviser, and co-producer of “Antojitos Fest: Chicago’s Latin American Comedy Festival” and the monthly Latinx variety show “La Hora de Antojitos.”
BREE GORDON
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Never able to settle on one genre, Bree’s resume floats from opera to open mic, big band jazz to 80’s cover band, soul to singing telegram; and she has solidified her status as singer-songwriter on the Bree Gordon Band albums Quarantine Blues and Roadrunner.
Bree taught elementary general music in Las Cruces, NM before making the move to Chicago in 2003. At night, she performs with a multitude of music outfits as well as solo acoustic shows. During the day, she entertains assisted living communities, and maintains a private studio of ukulele, guitar, bass, piano, voice and songwriting students, ages 4-17.
A lifelong learner and maker, she will get her hands dirty with any project involving power tools, clay, paint, nail art, jewelry making, crochet/knitting, quilting, embroidery, cooking/baking, sugar skulls, pysanky, and gardening.
DERRA MCWILLIAMS
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CATALINA NIÑO
KEVIN SMITH
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Kevin is a musician-in-residence at Rush University Children’s Hospital, and is a guitarist, composer, and music educator from the Chicagoland area. He began studying classical guitar performance at the University of Georgia with John Sutherland before finishing his degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts under the instruction of Denis Azabagic. During this time, Kevin took first prize in the 2005 Society of American Musicians Competition and the 2006 D’Addario Classical Guitar Competition. Along with his classical and solo engagements, Kevin can be found performing and recording with a number of bands around Chicago, such as Gussied, Third Coast Percussion Ensemble, and Ami Saraiya and the Outcome. He has also recorded several studio albums with his band Cpt. Captain.
WALT
They/he
Walt (they/he) is a mixed-media artist and photographer, specializing in graphite, oil paints, and 35 mm film processing. They focus primarily on black-and-white mediums, including ink, charcoal, and pen. They also like to combine mediums, working more generally with material and digital collage, acrylic, and watercolor. Their artistic interests include mark making as a means of capturing emotions, narratives, and stories that are difficult to express with words.
In addition, Walt has a background in education, having worked in school, after-school, and community organization contexts.