Celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month!
Visionary Visual Voices: A Special Artists Panel In Celebration of AAPI Heritage Month
Featuring Artists Mariam Memarsadeghi, Priya Vadhyar,
Syahidah Osman & Sally Tsou and Hosted by Artist Neha Misra
Thursday, May 4th 7pm-9pm
Join Silver Spring Town Center Inc on May 4th for Visionary Visual Voices - a special artists panel in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The panel will feature four local visionary AAPI artists Mariam Memarsadeghi, Priya Vadhyar, Syahidah Osman, and Sally Tsou who will share about their creative practices in conversation with artist and SSTCI board member Neha Misra. 
MARIAM MEMARSADEGHI loved to make art as a child in Iran. She relishes walking and driving to take in sights, and has always been a doodler. Her abstract paintings are rooted in the natural world of wildflowers, woods, streams, oceans, big skies, and mountains. They can also evoke futuristic space voyages and dreamscapes. Pencil line drawings are a regular feature. Her works are heavily saturated with color and often inspired by childhood whimsy.

Most are a combination of both drawing and brush stroke, with some pieces featuring mixed media and paper collage.

Mariam studies with abstract artist Calvin Edward Ramsburg at the Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, MD. She grew up in Frederick after migrating to the US from Iran when she was seven years old, during the 1979 revolution. Her father and many of her father’s friends are architects with a love of art. Mariam has worked for over twenty years on international democracy and human rights programming. She writes and organizes for democracy in her homeland.

Mariam is also SSTCi's artist in spotlight for May. Join us Thursday, May 11th at 7pm on Zoom for Swim to New Waters: In the Studio with artist Mariam Memarsadeghi.
SYAHIDAH OSMAN is a self taught, South-East Asian female artist who uses different mediums to capture the tragically beautiful and profoundly hidden aspects of the human condition that ties in with domesticity, family, security, vulnerability, fragility, tension and partnership. To widen people’s perception and embed a sense of wonder through art. Besides original artworks, she also sells prints and accessories for sale with part of the proceeds going to Non Governmental Organizations that echo her sentiment. She has exhibited across Asia and now plans to exhibit across Northern America.

Syahidah Osman is a prime candidate of authentic advocacy. Her over protective childhood in a strict Muslim household, 18 yrs of marriage to a schizophrenic ex-husband who refused to seek help and the day to day conflict and challenge to meet the demands of a studio practice, marketing and administrative side of the art business and the call of motherhood and its duties is clearly displayed in her artworks.
Syahidah Osman wants to harness the power of the arts to raise understanding when facts fail. She plans to instigate empathy, instill curiosity and uses her artworks as a catalyst for community engagement. She hopes to restore humanity's capability to connect with others in a technology dominated world. 
SALLY TSOU was born in South East Asia and grew up on the colorful cosmopolitan yet primitive island of Taiwan providing her a highly stimulating visual environment and upbringing.

She spent part of her adolescence in the Philippines. The fecund greenery of these populated islands lends an unusual mix of the primitive raw energy and the sophistication to Tsou’s work.

Tsou’s arrival in the US at the age of 18 marked her first experience with seasonal variations and cultural diversity. Since then her work began to reflect the many and varied threads of her life experiences. She has shown in art exhibitions and art fairs nationally and internationally and has won many awards.
She increased her studio skill through fine art study at University of Maryland, Marymount University, and earning degrees from American University and George Washington University. Tsou has been teaching visual arts for more than 20 years in high school, middle school and currently at DC Public Schools as an Art Teacher. She also provides art and short story writing classes for adults.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Sally Tsou is a multi-media artist with talent in all the studio arts including ceramic, printmaking, interior design and sculpture. Ms. Tsou says she wants people to experience “reality transform” by looking into the space of painting. Representing transformation of her feelings about her surroundings, these paintings help you to discover new destinations for the heart and the mind through their richly evocative images and primitive designs. Her paintings’ magnetic pull, intensity and energy have caused viewers to comment that the paintings are alive.
Above: Phoenix
PRIYA VADHYAR (she/her, b. 1980, India) is a visual artist based in Ellicott City, Maryland. In her current work, Priya explores the manifestation of, what Loren Eiseley calls one’s “interior geography,” and the self’s relationship with the sum of things. Her work is an inquiry into the nature of boundaries, and the revelations that lie in juxtapositions. Priya spent most of her formative years in Mumbai. She has a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai. In 2010, Priya moved to Tucson, Arizona. There, she studied advanced abstract painting with artist Josh Goldberg, who later became her mentor. Priya's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is a member of Pell Lucy, an artist collective under the Shim Art Network. Outside of her studio, Priya is a teaching artist. In 2021, she created Studio/ Line of Sight, a platform dedicated to immersive online workshops taught by experienced practicing artists.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I love to wander. As a process painter exploring the boundaries of the self through abstraction, I adopt wandering as a painting philosophy to understand the relationship of the I and all that lies outside the I. Using spontaneous action and intuition as a way of coming upon a scene rather than planning a destination, I try to move beyond the definable parts of myself and bring forth the unknown parts of my being. The results are deeply layered paintings that combine architectural forms and line work with drips, washes and fresh brushwork. Structure amid looseness, meandering paths, and dialogues between the planned and unplanned define these paintings. As a wanderer-painter, I look for the unexpected, the monumental, and a recognition that goes beyond the definable.

Left: Surge


Instagram: @priyavadhyar
About Our Host

NEHA MISRA I नेहा मिश्रा is a contemporary eco-folk visual artist, poet, and an award winning climate justice advocate. Neha’s Earth stewardship centered multi-disciplinary studio uses the transformative power of art to build bridges between our private, collective, and planetary healing. Neha has been recognized as a Regenerative Artivist by Design Science Studio – a partnership between the Buckminster Fuller Institute and habRitual for world’s leading planet conscious artists. She is a Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis – an initiative of the OpED Project and Yale Program of Climate Change Communication to change who writes history.

Learn more at www.nehamisrastudio.com or @nehamisrastudio on Instagram 
Swim to New Waters:
In the Studio with Artist Mariam Memarsadeghi
Thursday, May 11th 7pm-8pm
Join us for for Swim to New Waters: In the Studio with Artist Mariam Memarsadeghi Thursday, May 11th. We will take a deep dive into her vibrant and expressive work. Mariam is is also among the featured artists in Visionary Visual Voices: A Special Artists Panel in Celebration of AAPI Heritage Month on Thursday, May 4th.

MARIAM MEMARSADEGHI loved to make art as a child in Iran. She relishes walking and driving to take in sights, and has always been a doodler. Her abstract paintings are rooted in the natural world of wildflowers, woods, streams, oceans, big skies, and mountains. They can also evoke futuristic space voyages and dreamscapes. Pencil line drawings are a regular feature. Her works are heavily saturated with color and often inspired by childhood whimsy.



Most are a combination of both drawing and brush stroke, with some pieces featuring mixed media and paper collage.

Mariam studies with abstract artist Calvin Edward Ramsburg at the Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, MD. She grew up in Frederick after migrating to the US from Iran when she was seven years old, during the 1979 revolution. Her father and many of her father’s friends are architects with a love of art. Mariam has worked for over twenty years on international democracy and human rights programming. She writes and organizes for democracy in her homeland.
PROCESS
Paintings often begin with a light pencil drawing on blank paper. Line breaks up the space and creates composition for an underpainting. Some markings remain visible to the end of the painting, some are painted over entirely. Lines are sometimes brought back in the end with a new trace of pencil or oil pastel on top of dry paint. The play of colors can originate in glimpses of landscapes but is more usually pure abstraction during the process of applying paint. Collages bring color, texture, shape, and photography—often of the human body and the natural world—from paper, magazine, foil and other materials that are then combined with paint. Paint is often smeared and blended on paper with a paper towel rather than a brush. Nearly all works are acrylic on Rives BFK paper.



Above: New Water Life
Ukulele Hui Under the Stars
Hawaiian Music & Dance
El Golfo's Patio
Monday, May 15th
6pm-9pm
Join us Monday, May 15th Under the Stars with Ukulele Hui at El Golfo! Enjoy an evening al fresco at El Golfo's Patio with Hawaiian music and dance and loads of the aloha spirit! Also enjoy El Golfo's delicious Latin cuisine, margaritas & more!

The Hawai`i State Society (HSS) ‘Ukulele Hui, including the hula dancers, has been in existence for more than 20 years. Under the direction of Carol Takafuji, the group meets weekly for good music, food, and fun. The `Ukulele Hui has performed at many functions, including lu‘au, church and school events, retirement homes, and multicultural festivals, to name a few. They are all ambassadors of the HSS of Washington, D.C. in promoting and perpetuating the culture of Hawai‘i in song and dance, spreading the Aloha Spirit wherever they go.


El Golfo is located at 8739 Flower Avenue in Silver Spring, MD.
AAPI Culinary Traditions
Hosted by Chef Kaimana Chee
Monday, May 22nd 7pm-9pm
As you may already know, over the past year SSTCi has been spotlighting food traditions of the diverse cultural communities within our greater community.

We invite you for another exciting program as we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month: AAPI Culinary Traditions hosted by Chef Kaimana Chee Monday, May 22nd 7pm-9pm on Zoom. Chef Kaimana will be joined by a diverse array of people from across the AAPI diaspora sharing their unique family food memories and traditions.

Our AAPI culinary traditions program in May of 2022 marked the first of many that followed with much enthusiasm across our greater community. If you're a foodie, you will not want to miss this program! 
Kaimana Chee is the Executive Chef of Uncle’s Hawaiian Grindz, a modern Hawaiian restaurant in Fallston, MD and the Culinary Ambassador for Grounded Foods, a cutting-edge food+technology company that focuses on developing plant-based cheese products utilizing proprietary to leverage hemp as a superfood/ingredient. Formerly, as the Chef Ambassador for Eat Just Inc, Kaimana's culinary journey has taken him to over 40 countries and intertnational cities.  

Chef Kaimana identifies his multi-ethnic upbringing as one of the key contributing factors in developing his passion for food. Starting his professional culinary journey on a food truck a decade ago, he has since earned a collection of culinary accolades that include numerous television appearances and culinary competitions.

In 2011, Chef Kaimana realized his growing potential, when he auditioned and was selected as one of the top 100 home cooks in America to compete in Gordon Ramsay’s MasterChef on Fox that premiered in June 2012.
In 2014, Chef Kaimana experienced continued success when he appeared on Season 4 of Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games in which he was featured as a chef contestant and performed an original song. In May 2015, he was selected as Macy’s featured chef of the Cherry Blossom Festival and a few months later competed at the National Museum of the American Indian’s (NMAI) Iron Chef Competition. Chef Kaimana won the coveted title of the Smithsonian’s NMAI Native Chef of the Year.

In January 2016, Chef Kaimana appeared on Alton Brown’s Cutthroat Kitchen and became the first chef in show’s history to win the competition without receiving a single sabotage from his chef opponents. He was also selected as one of 16 competitors to return to Guy’s Grocery Games in the first ever Redemption Tournament. Chef Kaimana has appeared in several national restaurant/food publications and has been featured on dozens of news programs and podcasts. 

A Special Invitation from Chef Kaimana & Halau Nohona Hawai’i
HALAU NOHONA HAWAI`I HO’IKE 2023
Join Chef Kaimana & Halau Nohona Hawai’i for an afternoon of Hawaiian music, dance, culture, and celebrating Lei Punahele – Our Favorite Things!

E Hula Mai Kakou: ‘A’ole Pau Ka ‘Ike I Ka Halau Ho’okahi
Let’s Hula- Not All Knowledge is Learned in One School
Saturday, May 13th 1pm-5pm

Northwood High School
919 University Boulevard
West Silver Spring,
MD 20901 United States
$15 Early Bird Adult (ages 12 and up)
$20 Regular Adult ticket (after May 3rd)
$10 Children (ages 6-11), Students, Military & Seniors (65+)
Free Young Children (5 & Under)
For sponsorship & vendor contact: info@halaunohonahawaii.org
Please note, the Celebration of Rabindranath Tagore with Ebong Theatrix originally scheduled for Friday, May 19th had to be cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. However, the group is invited to return for a rescheduled date. Stay tuned!