Erika Felicetta: The Consort of Caress
“This is a connection…there are many layers to bodywork. You can touch on all of them if you want to, and that person’s going to feel it on all levels.”
Community Profiles
Jennifer Barton: Crafting a Course
“Alright, I’m in love and this is what I’m doing forever.”
Bekka Kulik: Perennial Punk
“There are no other options. There’s no turning back for me. This is what I want to do.”
New Year, New Us: India Walton is Running for Mayor
“Leadership is not someone who we prop up so high that you feel like they’re inaccessible. Our leaders they come from among us, at least they should. This, to me, is not about only me becoming mayor. This is about proving to people, that you, everyday people, single mothers, nurses, teachers, the people who are solving our community’s problems anyway, this is the place for you.”
Dana Saylor: Planner for the People
“It showed me a world where people cooperate together, people met each other on the street, people were a part of one another’s lives in a kind of intimate way, and a diversity of people that I didn’t experience where I grew up. All of those things made me interested in cities, and made me interested in being a person who created work.”
The Glam Vamps: A Nude World Order
Artistry and titillation are the crux of humanity in these trying times. Or at least, they play a big factor in how we’re going to get through all of… THIS. The Glam Vamps, a Buffalo-based burlesque troupe who have been entertaining the masses for more than a year as an ensemble, have stepped up to the plate to help us all manage this ordeal in the sexiest, stay-the-fuck-homeiest way possible, with an online outlet for all needs thereof.
Alana Adetola Fajemisin: Visual Virtuoso
“There are illusions of jumping, floating, and drowning. And then, empty space.”
MJ Karp: The Calisthenics of Community
“I want people to know that that’s not what we’re about. You can be a part of it, you can exercise daily and eat healthy and not have to be a fitness guru, not have to talk about it all the time. You just do it.”
Jillian Nowak, Carlene Derkovitz, and Heather Nowak: A Knitted Kinship
“They gave us a lot of encouragement to keep what we wanted the same, to keep the tradition going, but still feel like we could make it something new.”
A.I. The Anomaly: Fiery Femcees (Pt. IV)
“I just want to be good. I want to sharpen my sword.”
Ché Noir: Fiery Femcees (Pt. III)
Defining her youth simply as “a struggle,” it’s safe to say much of her life story is embedded in the music.
Desiree Kee: Fiery Femcees (Pt. II)
“I don’t wanna be just reduced to a rapper, I’m a lyricist. I have more to offer than your average rapper does.”
Samantha Reidy: Flower Power
“This is the opportunity that needed to present itself to me.”
7xve The Genius: Fiery Femcees (Pt. I)
“There’s a skill in knowing how to record, knowing how to write, knowing how to rap and knowing how to tell stories and I know how to do all of them.”
Ashley & Jessica Fox: Ace Appearances
“We only had each other, so we had to be each others’ partners, lovers, best friends, harshest critics… We were all that we had.”
The Struggle: A Conversation with Marge Maloney
A conversation with Marge Maloney, lifelong workers’ and gay rights activist.
Madeline Davis: Revolutionist of Record
“I’ll be damned if I know what I said, but I remember, at the end of my speech, I said, ‘It’s a beautiful day for a revolution.'”
SPOTLIGHT: Stephanie Frary, Red Party Pioneer
The Red Party and the fight to end period poverty returns to Resurgence Brewing this Sunday, June 9, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Gabriella Gauger: Intrepid Trekker
“I can’t imagine wanting my life to be any other way than it is.”
Solis: The Beautymakers
“As a creator, being able to capture these moments and being able to see the before, during, and after is so incredible…I don’t want to leave because I want to see it happen. I want to take pictures of it happening.”
Amanda Bernardini: Cookie Countess
“The response I got this Christmas on these cookies was overwhelming and I couldn’t believe it.”
Christi Allen: Meet Me on Main Street
“We wanted to take a chance on an area of town that we know for a fact will be IT in five years, and we wanted to be a part of it.”
Virginia Leary: Waste Not, Want Not
Virginia Leary, known on the socials as Zero Waste Buffalo, is bringing the local sustainability movement into focus, one picture-perfect mason jar at a time.
Alisha Kandola: The Sweetest Life
“You’ve got to keep your focus on what it is that you want to do.”
Elizabeth Schiavoni: Evidence Advocate
“At the end of the day, for me it’s about making sure that people have this information and have this literacy and have these skills, no matter where they got that information.”
Crystal Peoples-Stokes: On the Power of the People
“It’s really about empowering the people to do for self.”
Megan Stewart: Spacemaker
“I fell in love with it. I wanted to be there all the time.”
Destiny Rogowski: Dream Wrangler
“No matter who you are or what your personal style is…you will appreciate yourself in a way you never have before.”
Sandra Wilkins: Madame of Main Street
“I want to make sure when people walk in here, they get the best food and the best service.”
Grace Lougen: Shreddin’ Sensation
“I think the best way to even just to learn how to play is just to do it. Play with people who are better and more experienced. You’ll learn a lot faster…It’s just like life, ya know?”
Allie Brady: First-String Funster
“With those things that you love in life, I feel you have to do them because we don’t have tomorrow, right?”
Jamie Doktor: Tease Artiste
“Women KNOW they can do this. You can do this, too.”
Alexandra Robinson: Magical Macarons
“I quit my job and told everyone in the corporate world that I was moving back to Buffalo to start my own baking business.”
Barbara Cole, Robin Jordan, & Laurie Dean Torrell: The Wordkeepers
“How do we better go out into the community and try to inspire people wherever they are?”
SPOTLIGHT: Kristin Brandt
Photographer Alana Fajemisin shot with artist Kristin Brandt recently, in anticipation of Kristin’s exhibition at GEORGETTE June 1.
Kerry Planck: Ahead of the Herd
“I wanted to do something, reach out, create something, then bring it to people and be able to engage them.”
SPOTLIGHT: Abby Spindelman
In today’s Smash Talks, Ashera talks to Abby Spindelman, an intimacy coach and yoga teacher who helps hash out the intricate, deep concepts surrounding true intimacy.
Virginia Barron and Yuki Numata Resnick: Unity Orchestrators
“It’s actually trying to find this whole new place to coexist.”
Kristen Becker: Fearless Farceur
“It kind of looks like I’m going to have the best year of my life.”
Jill Gedra: From Brie to Bistro
“So I came over, looked at the space, and fell in love.”
Elizabeth Licata: Maven of Media
“You have to make people feel as though they want to take time out to read it, and subscribe to it, and come away feeling as though it was useful.”
Sarah Knight: Leader of the Gang
“It was just great — getting to know somebody new and helping each other. That’s when I said, ‘I think I’m going to do this.'”
Rin Suphankomut: Temptress of the Traditional
“What if it’s their favorite dish, but they’d never know because they were too afraid to try it?”
Arts Services Initiative: Custodians of Culture
“We want arts and culture to be the forefront of Buffalo’s face, because they already are.”
Jenn Kowalik: Riding to Liv
“Whatever you think you need to do, you just have to try it.”
Naa Kwaley: Like a Boss
“I expect things to go well, but if they don’t, I have the foundation to step back, rework stuff and do it again.”
Michele Ogden: On a Whim
“I want to be a part of people’s special memories.”
Zoe Scruggs: Conversant Chorister
“My music for me has always been about healing, and the person I’m looking directly at in front of me, the group of people I’m around.”
Aniko Marshall: Paprika Princess
“At one point I said, ‘I’m done being a cookie cutter.’ That’s how the garden started.”
Mallory Mendo: Perfectionist Confectionist
“I would have never thought when I started doing it from home, making bougie strawberries, that three years from then, this is where I’d be.”
Melissa Winkler: Spirited Sommelier
“That’s what I wanted, to take those producers and put them on a pedestal.”
Elder Martinez: ¡Holy Mole!
“I’m not going to work in a restaurant again unless it’s my own.”
Ashlee Lonergan: Grit & Glory
“Okay, you’re getting older, this is something you want to do, so either do it now, or forever hold your peace.”
Gabrielle Mattina: Wild Woman of the West
“I knew that if I always worked that hard, that I would get it, ya know? No matter what, I would make it happen.”
From Death to Dark Roast: The Women of Undergrounds Coffee House & Roastery
“If I don’t do this, I know that one day I am going to wake up and regret it.”
Tara Sasiadek: Extraordinary Elixirs
“I’ve always thought of it as making potions.”
Rachel Herman-Gross: Hospitable Host
“We want people to be comfortable asking questions and inquiring about things in a way that just sort of demystifies cocktails.”
Maxine Doyle: Crack Cuisinier
“It was so easy and simple, but my mom could not stop raving about it. She would always say that everything tastes better when someone else prepares it for you.”
Julia Bottoms-Douglas: Artist Arising
“Rather than representing what I’m upset about, I’m representing how I want it to be.”
Prish Moran: Reanimator
“If I listened to everyone around me I would never have this — I would have never had this building!”
Alaysa Dale: A Tryst with the Abyss
“No matter what, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, you’re going to end up nine layers deep at some point.”
Amanda Amico: Rollin’ Wrapper
“I am learning so much about starting a business from the ground up, literally.”
Lindsay Robson: Social Seamstress
“I just love being out in the wild, I guess you would say.”
Jodi Drew: Motor Mama
Meet Spoke & Dagger’s Jodi Drew and join her for International Female Ride Day tomorrow, May 6.
Kelsey Claire Hagen: Pudenda Power
“All of our actions collectively make up the zeitgeist of our generation.”
Gaitrie Subryan: Shimmying with Shakti
“My training and teachers mentored me to bring this to the community.”
Allison Mitchell: Velvet Bethany and the Cosmic Abyss
“I just think of it like I’m going to touch the universe. And, that’s what it sounds like.”
Studio Sessions: /krēˈādiv/, with Obsidian Bellis
“She inspired me to subscribe to the life of a visual artist because I could practice creating what I wanted to portray with bits and pieces.”
Erin Moser: Countess of Chroma
“I put a tarp on the floor in my room and I cut hair in my room and charged friends like $5 for a color and then we would go to Denny’s and eat fries.”
Salon Sirens: The Women of Shianne Waxing Studio
“Taking your pants off and having someone all up in your genitals is a really personal experience.”
Breaking Bread with Allison Ewing
“We want to keep growing because our goal is to create as many worker-owner positions as possible.”
Donika Kelly: Language for the Living
“How it moves might be surprising, but that surprise is in a moment, and then you can dip out.”
Dayatra Hassan: Serving Up Empowerment
“When I asked women to come talk to the girls, the beauty is that so many women say, ‘Of course!’”
Jazmine Frazier: “I am Hop Hop”
“Everything is by sound. I’ll just feel around until it feels good.”
Cam-passion: Cameron Balon of Crisis Services
With federal support in jeopardy, agencies like Crisis Services will rely more on state funding and local support.
Emily Terrana: Agent of Change
“We’re just not going to have refugees coming from these countries, and these folks are the fabric of our communities.”
Leslie Zemsky: On the Art of Community
“It’s our family’s philosophy to keep building the neighborhood, but you do need to make these projects work.”
Psyko Kupkake: Skatin’ into the Dream
“We would be stupid if we didn’t take the spot, and we’re not ready, and we can’t afford it, and we’ll figure it out, and here we are.”
Olivia Frank: Weaver of Creative Movement
“I found that as my role early on because I felt blessed to have all this knowledge and practice from doing it every week.”
Christa Glennie Seychew: On the Fabric of Food
“One of the few places where people still have communal, shared experiences is around a table.”
Female Fierceness and Prowess of Verve Dance Studio
“The goal is not to have a specific form and to look like anyone else. The goal is to look like you.”
Lizy Reaves: Storied Soubrette
“This is right. This is something I should have explored earlier on.”
Mary Hetrick: Fanciful Furnishings
“I stand back, give it a look, and remember that I just did that with my own two hands from start to finish.”
Ebony “MaDamn Noire” Jones: Femme Provocateur
“We’re giving them honey but, somewhere along the lines we have to stand by something as well.”
Beth Geyer and Vienna Haak: A Collaboration of All Ability
“Thank you for doing this. You’re giving my daughter, my son, their dream.”
Carly Glenn Collier: Solving a Colorful Puzzle
“I’m wearing my insides on the outside and no one can tell me not to.”
Lisarie Martin: Woman of Many Faces
“You know how it’s nice to wake up and be excited about something? I have to do that or I won’t want to wake up.”
Elizabeth Siematkowski: A Love Affair with Words
“It feels safe to explore some things that maybe make people uncomfortable in their daily lives, that maybe make ME uncomfortable in my daily life.”
Marisa Caruso: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
“I want to take part in projects that matter and facilitate change, because the path our culture is currently following is too scary to let ride out.”
Brook F. D’Angelo: Totes Badass
“Turns out, even after all the naysayers, the plan turned out to be an internationally recognized success.”
Afura Fareed: Witches in Our Midst
“The struggle is real, but when you have a destiny to fulfill, the miracles come when you need them most!”
Bambi Layne: For the Love of Science and Design
“Whatever they need to get it done, because that’s my driving force: the gratitude, not the money.”
Sarah “Bear” Cozzemera: Rockin’ Crocker
“Nothing has ever tugged at my soul, inspired, and motivated me to succeed as much as this does.”
Lori Fronckowiak: A Quad-Rad-ic Equation
“I used to make military airplanes for my job, so to me the skate itself is simple. But that’s a matter of perspective.”