Jennifer Reis

CONSULTING BIO:

Jennifer A. Reis is a creative entrepreneur, artist, author, trainer, and teaching textile artist with 30 years’ experience in cultural entrepreneurship and nonprofit management. Her earned degrees include a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design, and graduate work in arts management, instructional design, studio art, and arts education from Syracuse University, UNC-Greensboro, and Morehead State University. As an arts entrepreneurship curricular consultant, her clients have included Nest NYC, MassArts, RIngling College of Art and Design, Kauffman Foundation, Triangle Artworks, Tremaine Foundation, West Virginia Creative Economy Network, AIR Collaborative, and the Tamarack Foundation. Formerly arts entrepreneurship faculty at UNC-Greensboro, she utilizes years of experience teaching artists and artisans creative venture development, has authored and co-authored numerous academic journal articles on creative entrepreneurship research, education, and practice.  Through her consulting company Make Do Creative, she works with community and economic development, trade, governmental, and cultural organizations to design, manage, and deliver creative entrepreneurship curriculum for makers of all kinds to develop sustainable ventures.  She has served on the Board of Directors for the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education and numerous community, arts, and economic development boards and committees on the international to local level.

TEACHING ARTIST BIO:

Jennifer A. Reis is a textile and mixed media artist who creates intensively hand-worked, ornately beaded, and embellished paper doll icons on cloth using traditional and alternative materials. Her artistic practice has been honored with numerous awards and prizes, including Kentucky’s Al Smith Fellowship, national adjudicated and invitational exhibitions, and teaching opportunities at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, John C. Campbell Folk School, Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design, Cleveland Institute of Art, Society of Contemporary Craft, and the Southwest School of Art. Her teaching style focuses on collaborative creative making in a low competitive environment and former workshop participants describe her instructional approach as empathic, kind, supportive, and individualistic. She also has a production textile line of Indigo Shibori art to wear and homegoods and is currently represented by Troika Gallery in Floyd, VA. She is on the Teaching Artist Roster of the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and resides in Martinsville, Virginia with her husband and an unruly pack of dogs and cats. Find her online at www.jenniferannreis.com or @jenniferareis on social.