Our Staff

CARRIE SPITLER – EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

She/her/hers

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

She/her/hers

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

She/her/hers

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

Any

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

She/her/hers

Azziza is a non-profit administrator with 5+ years experience working with non-profits, primarily focused on promoting sustainable and equitable food systems and increasing food and agriculture education in low-income black and brown communities. Prior to joining Snow City Arts, Azziza managed and instructed an urban farming and food system youth education program for over 150 youth across Chicago’s South and near West sides. This program also incorporated hands-on, educational workshops around the connections between art and the natural world, and Azziza worked closely with teaching artists in order to support the development and execution of this creative learning. Azziza holds a B.S. in Food Science from Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, and an M.A. in Food Studies from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In her free time, Azziza enjoys comedy writing and storytelling, cooking vegan food, gardening, and trying out different art forms.

Teaching Artists

MONICA ACOSTA

She/her/hers; they/them/theirs

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.

GABRIEL ANDRES

He/him/his

Gabriel is a Cuban, Miami-born illustrator, painter, draftsman, and teacher who received Associates degrees in both biology and art before moving to Chicago to receive a BFA focusing on visual arts and community art. In Miami, he made work for multiple galleries in the rapidly growing Wynwood district, focusing on street art and painting. After moving to Chicago, he became involved in multiple schools and studios, teaching open visual art classes to all ages and developing community projects that gave young students access to the arts. He even created and published a bilingual comic book with some of Little Village’s zaniest kindergarten students. In his own practice, he uses narrative works in series to tell stories of conflict, compromise, and love, discussing the challenges and wonders of life through strange and often extreme imagery. In order to maintain a proper scope of how people relate, he also works heavily in portraiture and uses materials that not only refine the image, but draw viewers close to see the dynamic hatching that they are made of, alluding to how each person deserves more effort than a single glance. He is currently in the final stages of completing a comic book of his own, and trying to push himself with extremely large-scale landscapes while collaborating with other artists for other exhibitions.

MOLLY BLUMBERG

She/her/hers

Molly is an artist based in Chicago. She earned her MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in fiber & material studies in 2020 and her BFA from the Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts in sculpture in 2012. Trained as a sculptor and a papermaker, her work is grounded in an extreme engagement with materiality. Through a playfully physical studio practice and a dedication to process-based exploration, she explores how it feels to be a body. Pulling from art-historical depictions of the female body and employing feminist practices of fragmentation and reassembling, she focuses on the phenomenology of a fleshy body that is a site of constant state change. Molly has exhibited throughout the United States, including solo shows in Chicago and Boston. She received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center in 2020 and was a visual arts fellow for the city of Somerville in 2017. She has been collected and commissioned privately.

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.”

DERRA MCWILLIAMS

She/her/hers

Derra is a Chicago-based fiber artist and painter who works mostly in portraiture. Recently, she has been making a series of crochet portraits. She has a background in gallery spaces with significant experience in video editing and filmmaking.

KEVIN SMITH

He/him/his

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.