LIVE from Michael Bell's Cannon Street Art Studio in historic Chestertown, Maryland, for the 2026 MAEA State Conference!

Join nationally recognized artist and educator Michael Bell for inspiring conversations with art educators and arts leaders from across Maryland's Region 4, celebrating the creativity, connections, and powerful stories behind the art of great teaching!

In partnership with Chestertown RiverArts and MAEA, educators came together for a day of artistic exploration, including junk journaling with teaching artist Marianne Sade and visual journaling workshops facilitated by Bell. Through two powerful prompts, "What do you give?" and "What feeds you?", participants reflected on the personal and professional experiences that sustain their creativity.

"Art educators spend so much of their lives inspiring creativity in others," Bell shared. "This was an opportunity to turn that spotlight back on them."

The experience brought together 14 QACPS art teachers, marking record district participation in the regional conference, and continued with the Sixth Annual QACPS Faculty Art Show in Centreville.

The celebration culminated October 17 at Towson University's Center for the Arts, where three QACPS art educators received distinguished honors: Laquel Nenno, Educator as Practicing Artist; Shannon Francis, Elementary Art Educator; and Andrea Schulte, Secondary Art Educator.

In an inspiring full-circle moment, Bell received MAEA's prestigious Linda Popp Leadership Award, following a nomination initiated by Schulte, one of the very educators he had nominated for recognition.

From conversations around the podcast microphones in Chestertown to the statewide celebration in Towson, this special episode captures the relationships, creativity, and shared belief in the transformative power of arts education.

Their art. Their stories. LIVE from Chestertown!

View article on Michael Bell winning the prestigious Linda Popp state leadership award in art here: https://www.myeasternshoremd.com/qa/community/qacps-arts-supervisor-honored-with-prestigious-linda-popp-leadership-award/article_727bd287-9172-42e1-91a4-34ae19d11a76.html

In this episode of ArtScene | the Podcast, Michael Bell welcomes textile designer and educator Jennifer Rhodes, founder of the Chesapeake Weaving Collective in Rock Hall, Maryland, alongside special guest co-host Lisa J. Gotto.

From a childhood fascination with color to a lifelong career in textile design, Jennifer shares her creative journey, the importance of sustainable fibers, and her passion for preserving the art of weaving. Together, they explore the unexpected paths creativity can take, the impact of arts education, and how one thread can connect generations and communities.

This podcast is part of Bell's Creative Community Access (CCA) Voices initiative, made possible in part through the Kent County Small Business Impact Grant.

Local artists and entrepreneurs. Their art. Their stories. In addition to her current roles as a contributing editor and writer for the Chestertown Spy and various Maryland-centric publications and platforms, Lisa is the principal owner of Tea Leaves Media, LLC, a marketing, communications, and content generation company; tealeavesmedia.com.

What happens when the place that first gives you permission to become an artist becomes the place you return to help others discover the same thing?

On this episode of ArtScene: The Podcast, Michael Bell sits down inside his Cannon Street Art Studio with Kris Kelley, artist and Assistant Director of Chestertown RiverArts, for a deeply personal conversation about art, memory, identity, resilience—and coming home.

Kris first found an artistic community in Chestertown as a teenager, long before she could have imagined returning years later to help lead the organization that grew into RiverArts. With a background in both psychology and art, her creative practice moves across photography, stained glass, mosaic, sculpture and mixed media, often exploring the complicated places where memory and lived experience meet.

Michael and Kris talk about who gets to call themselves an artist, why community matters more than competition, the objects that carry our memories, and what can happen when art gives difficult experiences somewhere to go. Kris also shares the story behind her involvement in Sole Strength, an exhibition centered on the stories of domestic violence survivors, as the episode arrives at the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

And the conversation comes full circle when Kris steps beyond the microphone and into Michael’s Creative Community Access (CCA) initiative herself, reflecting on her experience in one of his free Intro to Visual Journaling workshops.

This is a conversation about more than making art. It’s about finding your place, leaving it, seeing it differently—and sometimes choosing to come home.

CCA Voices is part of Michael Bell’s Creative Community Access initiative, expanding ArtScene: The Podcast to amplify the artists, stories and creative lives shaping Chestertown.

I think that final bold sentence before the CCA boilerplate is the sell:

“finding your place, leaving it, seeing it differently—and sometimes choosing to come home.”

That's Kris's episode in one line, and it also ties beautifully into what you've been saying in the podcast about how sometimes home hasn't changed nearly as much as we have. It gives this episode an emotional identity instead of reading like “Episode with the Assistant Director of RiverArts.”

Want a preview? Watch a 60-second clip from Kelley’sconversation, recorded inside Michael Bell’s Cannon Street Art Studio, as she reflects on her experience with CCA Visual Journaling and why it offers an accessible way into art for everyone at: https://www.youtube.com/@mbellart/shorts

Learn more about Bell’s CannonStreet Art Studio, CCA and upcoming experiences at mbellart.com/studio.

Michael Bell’s Cannon Street ArtStudio312 Cannon StreetChestertown, MarylandMBELLART.com