Kansas City native Karen E. Griffin (KE) is a self-taught visual, teaching, and performing artist creates vibrant abstract works explore themes of identity and urban landscapes. Influenced by her mother's entrepreneurial spirit and formative experiences with her seventh-grade art teacher, art classes the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City and Hallmark Cards Inc. Griffin's art reflects a unique perspective shaped by her Kansas City and Marlin, Texas roots. She is a Certified National and International Storyteller due to life encounters regrading her grandmother picking cotton and her mother measuring cotton in the garment district in Kansas City.

Anna Marten is an entrepreneurial creative whose professional practice has incorporated hand-painted signs, murals, and displays into Kansas City businesses for over a decade. She approaches traditional processes such as hand-lettering with vibrant originality and regularly participates in local fine art exhibitions. Anna shows passion for community empowerment through nonprofit involvement and volunteer sign making.