The Arts & Business Council is proud to announce the 2026 cohort of Periscope: Artist Entrepreneur Training. This year’s class includes 25 artists whose work spans disciplines such as drama, culinary arts, fashion, furniture design, literary arts, and more.
Periscope is an intensive, curriculum-based accelerator program that helps artists build and grow sustainable creative businesses, empowering them to see their vision through an entrepreneurial lens. Artists are selected through a competitive application process reviewed by a panel of community leaders representing Nashville’s arts, culture, and business sectors. Over nine weeks, participants engage in entrepreneurial training designed to strengthen the business side of their creative practice. Following the training, each artist is paired with a business mentor for six months of individualized mentorship and guidance.
The program culminates with the Periscope Pitch + Artist Entrepreneur Showcase in September, where participants present their ventures and share their work with the broader creative community.
The 2026 Class of Periscope Nashville is:
Alita Brielle Gay (she/her)
Drama/Theatre/Performance Art, Literary Arts, Voice Over
Alita Brielle is a professional voice actor who resides in Nashville, TN. As a former classroom educator, wife, and mother of three, she understands the importance of word choice, the power of being present and the peace of mind provided by clear communication.
In a world full of pundits and soundbites, less is more.
Whether reading a children’s book or performing her written work for an audience, Alita’s knack for tapping into the heart of a matter connects listeners, and her propensity for showing rather than telling ensures that a word well-spoken will come to life.
Currently, Alita serves as the Program Manager at Southern Word, a local nonprofit dedicated to youth development by teaching spoken word poetry and empowering young voices.
Azriel Dennison (she/they)
Multi-Disciplinary, Music
Azriel Dennison has pursued music from all angles. Starting out as a poet turned hip-hop artist back in 2018, their obsessive nature wanted to learn more than just the writing and beat making process. Pushing into the next phase of development, Azriel attended MTSU’s Audio Production program to learn audio engineering at one of the top engineering programs in the country. Doubling down on the spirit of becoming wholly knowledgeable about the music industry, an idea formulated and transformed a flimsy future into a structured one. After entering a business plan competition at MTSU and becoming a finalist, the realization that Azriel possessed the talent, skill, and charisma necessary to help other independent artists relentlessly pursue their own music without compromise became the focus.
The company is Ground-Work Artisans. The program is the Artisan Binder. The goal is to have independent artists develop one another, create community, and build together.
Cameron Kemp (she/her)
Visual Art
Cameron Kemp is an oil and charcoal artist currently based in Adamsville, Tennessee. Cameron regularly mixes her mediums together to create a natural feel that reflects her artwork’s primary focus on the world surrounding her. The main interest of Cameron’s work is people, particularly heavy-weight topics that are common but not often reflected upon politically and socially. Music is one of the biggest inspirations for her work; she sees it as another art form that guides her own work and keeps her coming back to paint.
Chandler Mitchell (he/him)
Multi-Disciplinary, Bespoke furniture
Chandler Mitchell is a Nashville-based designer, maker, and founder working at the boundary between furniture, sculpture, and material exploration. His practice resists inherited manufacturing logic in favor of direct engagement with material behavior, structure, and process – treating furniture not as a fixed outcome, but as an evolving field of inquiry. He develops form through exploration, frequently building custom tools, rethinking joinery and structural systems, and allowing physical constraints to shape the work.
Mitchell is the founder of Drip Table Co, a studio devoted to large-scale, materially expressive objects – most notably the drip table, defined by fluid edge geometry, exposed mass, and structural clarity. The work treats wood as a volumetric medium rather than a surface, emphasizing gravity, tension, and restraint as visible design forces. Each piece is engineered and fabricated through iterative problem-solving, where tooling and method become inseparable from form. The result is functional sculpture that refuses easy categorization, inviting slow attention to structure, texture, and the physical logic of making.
Dave Isaacs (he/him)
Music
As a student at Manhattan School of Music, Dave Isaacs won the Rose Augustine Award for promising young classical guitarists twice. After a hand injury interrupted plans for a concert career, he started writing songs.
Dave’s 14 albums over nearly 30 years cover a wide musical range, from ambient jazz guitar instrumentals to a vibrant Americana cocktail of rock, blues, and country. He has rocked a muddy crowd at Woodstock and jammed the blues with Les Paul, and played thousands of gigs from dive bars to concert halls.
A Nashville resident since 2005, Dave has become best known as a music educator through his studio Nashville Guitar Guru. His 2019 book “The Perpetual Beginner: a musician’s path to lifelong learning” was acclaimed by Publishers Weekly as “a delightful blend of memoir and music instruction”.
David Guido (he/him)
Visual Art
David Guido is the artist and designer behind Well Lit Woods, a Nashville-based studio creating functional art that integrates the serenity of nature into modern living. Drawing on a degree in Industrial Design and a decade in high-precision manufacturing, David synthesizes technical expertise with organic form.
His work is rooted in biomimicry, utilizing living hinge designs and intelligent joinery to craft interlocking geometries from FSC-certified Baltic birch. Every lamp is assembled without adhesives, hardware, or fasteners—relying instead on the wood’s inherent flexibility and David’s unique joinery systems.
Beyond the studio, David is an active member of the Arts and Business Council, Tennessee Craft, and The Forge, where he shares his expertise in digital fabrication to educate and collaborate within the Nashville community. Through teaching and practice, he fosters a more intentional connection between individuals and their environments, encouraging a mindful approach to the spaces we inhabit.
Emily Taubman (she/her)
Visual Art
Emily Taubman is an artist, mother, and a proud NSC season ticket holder since the earliest days of Nashville SC. Emily fell in love with art when she was very young always inspired by her mother’s creativity with turning every day and foraged items into art. While watercolor is her preferred technique, she has demonstrated proficiency in many art forms, often using nature to craft her works. A fondness for nature and its peaceful moments, Emily’s art often displays a serene, simple calm but with a powerful statement. Emily’s work was featured in the 2025 Soundwaves Gallery and in several local coffee shops around middle TN.
Haley Bagwell (she/her)
Culinary Art, Visual Art
Haley Bagwell is a fiber artist and sculptor, primarily creating freeform, modern quilts and plush. After graduating from the Memphis College of Art, she’s been working professionally for nearly a decade as a sugar cookie decorator. She believes art made for practical use is just as awe-inspiring as fine arts made for a gallery. With everyday materials and resources, she gives an updated and playful spin to folk art and homecraft. Her dream is to put casual makers on the pedestal that elite museums and galleries reserve for the formally trained, and to make the act of creation more accessible to those without arts backgrounds. By building a maker space and arts community in Nashville, Haley hopes to give everyone the space and resources they need to call themselves an artist.
Jenna Marotta (she/they)
Music
Jenna Marotta, known artistically as jennapple, is a Franklin/Nashville-based singer-songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur whose work blends cinematic storytelling with soulful pop sensibility. Originally from the Philadelphia area and a graduate of the University of Tampa, she has performed on Showtime at the Apollo and had music featured on the Hallmark Channel. Her debut album Gypsy, produced by Grammy-winner Dave Clauss and featuring legendary New York session musicians, established her as a bold, emotionally resonant voice.
Beyond the stage, Jenna is the founder of a signature perfume line that reflects her artistic ethos—sensual, nostalgic, and absolutely unforgettable. With new music currently in production and song cuts on radio, she continues to expand her creative footprint across music, media, and fragrance, building immersive experiences that connect story, scent, and sound.
Jennifer Carland (she/her)
Visual Art
Jennifer Carland is a Nashville-based artist and founder of Carland Cartography LLC, a studio focused on high-end abstract city maps that merge precision, color, and urban identity. With a background in design, urban planning, and fine arts, Jennifer has cultivated a unique voice in the public and commercial art scene.
Jennifer works with a variety of artistic materials and is fascinated by aerial views of the world around her. Each finished piece is a map carefully selected for its geographical attributes and visual appeal, then reimagined into a layered artwork that combines hand-drawn elements and digital modifications. The result is a complex interplay of color, form, and texture that transforms a utilitarian object into a conceptual, emotionally resonant piece.
Her work invites the viewer to consider their own relationship to space and geography, offering a visual meditation on the built and natural environments around us. Every line she draws is a trace of memory, movement, and meaning.
Keith Benion (he/him)
Film/Television
Keith Benion is a lifelong North Nashville resident, cultural advocate, and community organizer whose work centers on preserving heritage and amplifying local voices. With decades of experience in grassroots leadership, he has championed educational programming, economic empowerment, and intergenerational storytelling. As Executive Producer of the docuseries Keep Heritage Alive: Our Story, Benion highlights the history and resilience of the Jefferson Street community through firsthand narratives and public engagement. His past roles include directing environmental and civic education initiatives, co-founding a community arts center, and supporting small business development along Jefferson Street. A founding member of multiple cultural organizations, Benion continues to serve as a bridge-builder dedicated to strengthening community identity and preserving Nashville’s African American cultural legacy.
Kenieha Boren (she/her)
Drama/Theatre/Performance Art, Literary Arts, Multi-Disciplinary, Public Art/Creative Placemaking, Visual Art
Kenieha Boren is a multidisciplinary artist and poet whose work explores shadow, memory, identity, and the quiet resilience of becoming. Through blackout poetry, collage, and immersive community experiences, she transforms found text into intimate revelations—unearthing meaning from erasure and beauty from what remains. Her creative practice centers on collective healing, inviting audiences to participate in reflection, dialogue, and co-creation.
Boren is the creator of Iris in the Shadow, a solo exhibition blending visual art and poetry, where she curated, produced, and facilitated workshops that fostered deep community engagement. Her work often lives at the intersection of art and gathering—inside galleries, coffee shops, and wellness spaces—where she designs environments that feel soulful, accessible, and transformative.
With a background in visionary execution, partnership building, and experiential programming, Kenieha approaches art as both offering and invitation: a space to witness ourselves more fully, together.
Kymberlee Stanley (she/her)
Visual Art
Kymberlee Stanley is a contemporary impressionist painter who describes her work as “color invitations” of hope and beauty for everyday moments in our lives. Her bold brushwork and expressive style are shaped by both her formal art training and her work as a clinical social worker and community builder.
Originally from the West Coast, Kymberlee was a singer-songwriter, guitarist, dancer, and poet before relocating to Nashville at age 46—driving cross-country in a VW bus—where she began painting in oils as a way to process a new chapter in the South.
Her work explores light and atmosphere through landscapes, seascapes, and sunlit interiors, and she is often found painting on her plein air easel throughout Nashville. Since her first solo exhibition in Nashville in 2014, she has exhibited widely, including at the Parthenon Museum, the Catalina Island Art Festival, and most recently in her Windows of Wonder exhibition at Nashville International Airport (2026). She is a founding member of the Nashville Painters’ Salon and actively hosts artist circles, and leads expressive arts workshops for creatives and mental health professionals.
Stanley’s work has been featured in American Art Collector and Nashville Scene. She is a recipient of the Oil Painters of America’s Betty Schmidt Memorial Scholarship, which supported her plein air studies in Provence in 2025. Based in Nashville with her husband and daughter, she bridges her passions for art and healing, creating paintings that offer solace, connection, and emotional resonance.
Rhiannon Guppy (she/her)
Visual Art
Rhiannon Guppy is an abstract painter based in Franklin, Tennessee. Originally from England, she has spent much of her life moving between continents, an experience that continues to shape her practice. For the past six years, she has lived and worked in Franklin, where her work has become grounded in process, intuition, and material exploration. Working on raw canvas, she builds layered compositions through repeated marks, washes, and textures. Her atmospheric paintings reference ‘weather’, a much discussed subject by the English! Her cloud formations reflect a shifting emotional state, reflecting on themes of movement, transition, and the tension between the here and the there…exploring what it means to be away from “home” and how a sense of place is formed, wherever that might be.
Richard Isaac Griggs (he/him)
Visual Art
Richard Isaac Griggs is a self taught artist and musician based in Nashville. He is the finishing specialist at Chromatics, a violist in the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra, and a lifelong learner. He started making art in 2016 as an exercise in coping with anxiety and depression.
Rich is a regular participant at 100 Taylor Arts Market in Germantown, has work acquired by the Nashville Public Library’s Lending Library Program (2024), Exhibited at “Murmurations” with Cë Gallery, Nashville (2024), and East Nashville’s Tomato Festival (2022-2025)
Riley Lazuli (she/her)
Music, Visual Art, self-development
Riley Lazuli is a creative director and visual artist working across photography and moving image. Her practice centers on intentional storytelling, atmospheric world-building, and collaboration rooted in care. Riley has primarily worked with musicians, creating visual narratives that support artistic identity, emotional resonance, and authentic self-expression. She is dedicated to creating art and engaging in partnerships that serve communities rather than simply represent them, with a particular focus on working alongside women and LGBTQIA+ artists.
Alongside her creative practice, Riley approaches her work through an entrepreneurial lens, focused on building sustainable, values-driven creative systems. She prioritizes ethical collaboration, long-term relationship building, and creative labor that is both impactful and financially viable. Guided by a commitment to self-development and community, Riley’s work seeks to amplify lived experiences, foster connection, and contribute to cultural spaces where equity, integrity, and creative vision can coexist.
Rob Wilbanks (he/him)
Visual Art
Rob Wilbanks is a Nashville, Tennessee–based kaleidoscope artist whose work transforms light, reflection, and symmetry into immersive visual experiences. Blending precision craftsmanship with a deep appreciation for color and pattern, Wilbanks creates handcrafted kaleidoscopes that turn ordinary moments into mesmerizing displays of movement and design. Inspired by both the vibrant creative energy of Nashville and the intricate beauty of the natural world, his pieces invite viewers to slow down, look closer, and rediscover a sense of wonder through ever-shifting light and form.
Robert Jones (they/them)
Multi-Disciplinary, Visual Art
Robert “Mangoe” Jones is a London-born artist whose practice explores classical techniques and historical settings through a contemporary lens. He began his journey in the arts as a graffiti writer in the early 00s, developing a visual language rooted in the balanced composition and vibrant color sensibilities of the hip-hop movement.
Now working primarily in oils, Jones studies and adapts traditional painting methods to construct complex narratives that merge historical environments with contemporary references and elements of magical realism. His work reflects an ongoing engagement with art history, material process, and storytelling.
Jones is the founder of Mangoe Arts & Framing, where he is committed to preserving time-honored craftsmanship in picture framing while integrating modern conservation materials and techniques.
Roselle Rodríguez Vallejo (she/her)
Visual Art
Roselle Rodríguez Vallejo, oil and acrylic full-time artist, obtained a Master of Fine Arts: Painting at Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, San Germán Campus. I was born in July 1996 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. I am currently residing in the Nashville area, specifically in Springfield, Tennessee since 2024. My recent artwork focuses on wildlife and serene landscapes from places I’ve been before, to highlight the calmness around our lives that sometimes we overlook and don’t give importance to. I’ve been exploring these sceneries and themes using oil painting as primarily medium, while experimenting with additional mediums: oil pastels, printmaking, mixed media, etc.
Samantha Zaruba (she/her)
Visual Art
Samantha Zaruba is the founder of Paint Your Noodz, an award-winning art empowerment experience that invites participants to explore body acceptance, creativity, and connection through nude figure painting. Based in Nashville, Zaruba blends her fine art practice with facilitation, transforming traditional paint-and-sip culture into a space for vulnerability, embodiment, and self-expression.
Her own mixed media work explores identity, media influence, and self-constructed narratives in the modern era. Zaruba has been named “Best Visual Artist” by Nashville Scene and her work has been featured in Out Voices Nashville, LA Weekly and galleries including COOP Gallery and Turnip Green Creative Reuse.
Through both her studio practice and Paint Your Noodz, she builds community-centered art experiences that challenge shame, spark dialogue, and reconnect people to their creative power.
Sandra Lee Chandler (she/her)
Fashion/Textiles
Sandra Lee Chandler is a fiber artist, educator, and storyteller whose work transforms repurposed textiles into quilts, garments, and wearable art. With a B.S. in Fashion Design and Textiles from Arizona State University, she has taught quilting, sewing, and DIY for more than 37 years across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including through community colleges, international quilt guilds, and online platforms. Sandra’s workshops and lectures have been featured at QuiltCon, Road to California, Craft Napa, the International Quilt Festival in Houston, and the Festival of Quilts in England. Her art has appeared in curated exhibitions such as Freedom Summer 55, Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, and multiple African American Fiber Art Exhibits. Featured on The Quilt Show, Quilting Arts TV, and in publications including Simply Moderne and Haute Handbags, Sandra continues her mission through Sandra Lee Design: empowering makers to embrace sustainability, creativity, and cultural storytelling — one stitch at a time.
Sarah Budeski (she/her)
Visual Art
Sarah Budeski is a letterpress printer, designer, and illustrator based in Nashville, Tennessee. By day, Sarah works as a Designer / Printer at Hatch Show Print, creating custom letterpress posters. She also takes work as a freelance illustrator, which further inspires her own fine art print practice. As a member of COOP Gallery in Nashville, Sarah enjoys connecting with other local artists to curate and facilitate exhibitions.
Originally from Montana, Sarah earned her B.F.A. degrees in Printmaking and Graphic Design, as well as a minor in Art History, from Montana State University.
Sarah Saeed (she/her)
Visual Art
Sarah Saeed has a background in architecture and is a community-centered practitioner with experience supporting communities in post-disaster contexts to rebuild housing and critical infrastructure. Her commitment to working alongside marginalized communities has shaped a multifaceted career spanning design, project management, innovation consulting, and teaching.
Raised in Australia and of Pakistani heritage, Sarah has lived in London and Amsterdam before making Nashville her home, where she has resided with her family for the past three years. Her work continues to center community voice and place-based storytelling. Through photography and illustration, she creates projects that build community awareness and celebrate cultural expression. She is also the author of interactive children’s books designed to educate and engage broader audiences around memory, identity, and the meaning of place.
Taylor Walton (he/him)
Multi-Disciplinary, Visual Art
Taylor Walton is an African-American visual artist based in Nashville, Tennessee by way of the Scenic City, Chattanooga. Walton is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design. His first solo exhibition, I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU MFKAZ debuted at Coop Gallery in December 2022.
Walton’s work continues to connect with independent creators and larger corporations alike. Namely, collaborations with institutions such as the Frist Art Museum, Soho House Nashville, the ABC x NSC Soundwaves Gallery, and an exhibition held inside of BNA (Nashville International Airport).
Wil Merrell (he/him)
Drama/Theatre/Performance Art, Multi-Disciplinary, Music
Wil Merrell is a soul-stirring vocalist, dynamic performer, and visionary creative shaping what it means to be an artist today. He has performed and recorded with globally celebrated artists and currently tours internationally as a featured vocalist with disco legend Gloria Gaynor, while continuing to develop his own musical and theatrical projects.
Beyond the stage, Wil is a thriving entrepreneur, speaker, and author. Through The Wil Merrell Corporation, he provides coaching, workshops, and music residencies that empower Artistpreneurs to build sustainable careers – his latest book release The Daily Push, is a motivational guide offering practical steps for turning passion into profit. Whether commanding center stage, crafting music that will stir the soul or mentoring the next generation of creatives, Wil is ushering in an era all his own, and inspiring others to do the same.
Periscope is made more accessible through the Periscope Scholarship Fund, made possible by Piedmont Natural Gas. Their investment helps ensure that artists from a wide range of economic backgrounds can access the training and mentorship needed to build sustainable creative careers in Nashville.
As PNG shares, “Creatives from all economic and diverse backgrounds deserve the opportunity to build a meaningful career here in Nashville, and Periscope makes that possible.” Their continued partnership plays a vital role in strengthening Nashville’s creative workforce and expanding opportunity for working artists across the region.