2021 Arts & Culture Leadership Participants

Tualatin Valley Creates is excited to announce our ten Washington County artists participating in the Arts & Culture Leadership Incubator!

2021 Arts & Culture Leadership Incubator Participants

Lyndsey Blythe

Lyndsey is a Certified Music Practitioner, utilizing the intrinsic qualities of therapeutic music to provide healing in various healthcare settings. She is the only CMP worldwide certified on chromatic handpan, and has found purpose and balance through compassionate presence in her work. Music has allowed her to both experience and express what cannot be put into words.

Jamie Cormier

Jamie is an intuitive abstract artist expressing their battles with mental illness and their journey towards inspiring others to continue their stories too.

Kameron Messmer

Kameron was raised performing in his father’s magic shop in Billings, Montana. Professionally and personally, Kameron has experience in writing, theater/performing arts, music, circus/sideshow/clowning, magic, balloon sculpting and many more deeply weird talents. Pre-Covid, Kameron performed as Portland’s “Daredevil Circus Wizard”, and has since pivoted into creating creative and colorful balloon sculptures and installations and named “Portland’s Best Balloon Artist” in 2020.

Alicia Moya-Mendez

Alicia Moya-Méndez is an artist offering workshops to help people better understand scientific concepts through projects like DNA earrings coded by color, atom necklaces that teach atomic numbers and other concepts in the sciences turned into art. Integrating science, art and the community to create lasting change is the fuel lighting Alicia’s passion for creativity driven education teaching & learning. Currently based in Oregon, she enjoys the outdoors with her two dogs and creating photography, where she aims to capture the little things we often miss in the busy day to day.

Lynnette Oostmeyer

Lynnette is a community-based visual journalist with a focus on documenting the lives of people here in Northwest Oregon. She uses journalism as a means to walk in the shoes of the people she meets and gain insight into lifestyles never personally experienced. She shares these experiences through her work.

Joseph Nguyen

Joseph is an architectural designer and Principal of Buildskape, a full-service design and general contracting firm. He founded Buildskape with the goal of becoming a premier MBE-certified general contractor in the Portland area. As a creative evangelist, Joseph enjoys serving as a design and construction college educator. With an awareness of the under-representation of minority communities and women in both design and construction, Joseph exists to be a catalyst towards conversations that highlight the importance of this issue to the entire industry and to the public at large. He is committed to hiring, mentoring, and supporting youth, women, and individuals from minority communities who may be interested in exploring their passions in design and construction.

Justin Rueff

Justin is a chalk artist, designer and sign maker currently based in the High Desert of Eastern Oregon. Justin works primarily with acrylic markers and traditional painting techniques. Justin is influenced by comic art and Mexican Surrealism often blending the two into colorful designs. Justin has painted signs for New Seasons, food & beverage labels, murals for farms and businesses and creates comic books.

Shelby Silver

Shelby utilizes plastic marine debris and ghost net in her paintings, sculptures, and installations. Her application of such free non-geographically biased resources serves as a powerful healing modality in oceanic recovery and can be defined as creative conservation and ecological rehabilitation through the artistic process. Shelby teaches of mindful relationships through her stewardship values and ongoing practice, and that by remembering our connection we are remembering our responsibility to earth, sea, and all living beings.

Debra Tappendorf

Debra is an arts & crafts maker and educator in Cornelius, Oregon. Her creative curiosity leads her to practice storytelling through fiber, metal, glass and ceramics. She dreams and schemes to create a nonprofit arts & crafts making opportunity for her community.