All Access Staff

Staff Bios

Lauri MacLean, All Access Director, along with her passion and enthusiasm, brings her successful track record of arts administration and business expertise to SoCCA.  A celebrated dance innovator with more than twenty years’ experience at the helm of her own dance studio, she is recognized in the regional creative community for her significant contribution to the field as both an artist and educator.  Articulate, committed and energetic in all her roles, she has consistently dedicated herself to making the arts accessible to people from all walks of life with all abilities.  Hall Neighborhood House, Regional Center for the Arts and URU The Right to Be, Inc. are some of the non-profits that have benefitted from her vision.  Lauri is eager to implement the All Access mission of SoCCA;  to provide holistic, integrative arts programs, utilizing a best practices curriculum to target the physical, spiritual and financial needs of SoCCA students.
 
James Brunelle, Jr, All Access Assistant Director has administrative employment history working with regional non-profit art centers, museums, public and private schools in outreach education, administrative program coordination, and studio management.  He’s received graft funding for individual fellowships, implemented partnership projects through NEA funded programs, and has received awards for his works in ceramics, printing and painting from museums, arts organizations and art festivals.  He has completed studio work within Artist Residencies at English Harbour Arts Centre, English Harbour, NL, and Billings Forge Community Works, Hartford, CT.  James also continues ongoing professional associations with Gordon Fine Arts Gallery, Stamford, CT, contracts preparatory and auction work with Trinity International Auctions, Avon, CT, and is an active Board Member and Studio Manager with Art League New Britain, New Britain, CT.

Audrey Kantrowitz, Assistant, is a local artist who specializes in drawing and painting with a focus on portraits and illustration. Her fascination with marginal historical figures such as Victorian curiosity Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) and silent film actor Lon Chaney Sr. as well as her own vivid imagination populate her prolific body of work. A New Haven native, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s following high school and educated at the New Haven Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) and the now defunct Gibbs College. She also studied Early Childhood Education at Naugatuck Valley Community College but has chosen to pursue a career in the Arts. Audrey serves as the artist-in- residence for the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick (FoJCM), a community dedicated to preserving the legacy of Mr. Merrick as well as raising awareness of the rare medical conditions of Proteus Syndrome and Neurofibromatosis. Audrey lives with her husband in Cheshire, CT.

Liz Squillace, Earning accolades all over the tri-state area for her visionary projects and community outreach, Liz Squillace is a Bridgeport-based artist and owner of Paradox Ink—screen printing, public art, and murals. Squillace founded Paradox Ink in 2002 in a studio in Stamford, moving it to the Arcade Mall in 2013 as part of the Create Here Now program to turn vacant spaces into vibrant places. Her newest public art project is the Painted Stairway of the Broad Street Steps. For this, the artist partnered with Bridgeport Generation Now! and painted with the local and artistic community. Squillace has also painted fifty utility boxes throughout Fairfield County and continues to enhance urban environments by bringing art to public places. Squillace is a Rhode Island School of Design graduate and resident of Read’s Artspace live/work studios. To see more of the artist’s work, visit http://www.paradoxink.com

Ruben Marroquin has had an art studio in the historic Arcade Mall located in downtown Bridgeport for the past 5 years. He has taught weaving class in Bridgeport, Fairfield and Greenwich schools. More
recently Marroquin has been making sculptural wall art for  renowned interior designer Kelly Wearstler. The sculptures are made of bamboo, metal and wooden rods with other objects assembled in an underlying structure which is then wrapped with textiles creating topographic surfaces which are for the most part abstract in style. These unique creations are the result of two decades of experimentation with textiles using embroidery, weaving, collage and other mixed medias.
“Ruben Marroquin, American-born with roots in Guatemala and Venezuela, discovered the avenue of
textiles during art school in Caracas. Out of necessity a bag of rags replaced paint. While cutting, sewing
and stitching Marroquin realized that the materials provided him with something he hadn’t been looking
for. A happy coincidence or not, he has since—thanks in part to travelling around Guatemala and
becoming acquainted with the textiles culture in the land of his father—painted and sculpted with
needle, thread and fabric.” - Frank vann der Ploeg