CCS Studio Art & Craft Career Panel with Sharon Louden

HOW TO BUILD AND SUSTAIN A CAREER AS A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST

Join us for an engaging art career panel featuring author and artist Sharon Louden with additional renowned professionals sharing insights, tips, and advice on navigating the art world. This event promises inspiration and connection within the vibrant CCS community.

Panelists include:

Samuel Albaugh
’19 Studio Art & Craft
Independent Multi-disciplinary Artist

Emmy Bright
Independent Multi-disciplinary Artist

Taylor Childs
’18 Studio Art & Craft
Independent Multi-disciplinary Artist

Sharon Louden is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores the relationship between art, architecture, and community. In addition to her studio practice, she is an educator, advocate, community builder, founder and director of the Institute for Sustained Creativity, and editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books. Her advocacy work continually informs her artistic practice, reinforcing her belief that art has the power to foster connection and meaningful public engagement.

Louden received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Yale University School of Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally at institutions including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Drawing Center, the National Gallery of Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Her work is held in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Art in America, ARTnews, Sculpture Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She continues to create permanent public and private commissions throughout the United States, including the recent Windows of Freedom Tower, a permanent site-specific installation for the Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College in Miami.

Samuel Albaugh (b. 1996, Flint, MI) is a visual artist living and working in Toledo, Ohio. Working primarily in acrylic paint and found materials, Albaugh explores painting as both an object and a methodology for intuitive and social inquiry. His practice draws from art history, visual culture, and his experience working in the museum field, considering how images, objects, and cultural histories shape perception and meaning. Albaugh received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, in 2019. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the Great Lakes region. He continues to investigate the material and conceptual possibilities of painting through an evolving studio practice.

Emmy Bright is a multidisciplinary artist who works to understand heady things through handmade methods. Sometimes through drawings, sometimes through prints, and recently through sculpture, she is trying to make visible things that are complex, gnarly, and real. She earned her BA in Art History from University of Chicago, an M.Ed. from Harvard, and an MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She later served as a Department Head for the MFA program in Print Media and currently teaches around Detroit. She has shown nationally and internationally including recent solo exhibitions, “Pink Pearls” at Ruschwoman Gallery (Chicago, IL), “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” at the Calder Gallery (Grand Rapids, MI), and “It Gets Better or It Doesn’t” (Denton, TX.) She has held residencies and fellowships at Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency (Saugatuck, MI) Haystack School of Crafts (Deer Isle, ME), Penland School of Crafts (Penland, NC), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), VisArts (Richmand, VA), and New Urban Arts (Providence, RI.) Her book and deck, “More Stupids” was published by 3-Hole Press (Brooklyn, NY) and her project, “Some Queers Move to Some Cities: An Analysis” in Headmaster Magazine won the AIGA award for best spread in an independent magazine. She serves on the board of Ox-Bow School of Art and she lives in Detroit where her work is represented by David Klein Gallery.

Taylor Childs (b. 1995, Detroit, MI) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and proud Detroit native whose work investigates themes of identity, ancestral memory, the aftereffects of the African Diaspora, consumerism, and the constructs of race within supremacist systems. Her practice centers on textile based storytelling, using fabric manipulation, collage, fashion, and material culture to engage with the complexities of African American life. Through vibrant assemblages and experimental fashion, Childs explores the visual language of bling culture, the poetics of preservation, and the legacy of familial care. Her work blends rich symbolism, domestic materials, archival imagery, and textile innovation to reflect the joy, struggle, and resilience of Black communities while honoring the histories embedded within everyday objects.

Childs earned her B.F.A. from the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit in 2018 and her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2024. During her undergraduate studies, she interned with acclaimed Detroit artists Carole Harris and Tiff Massey, experiences that helped shape her interdisciplinary practice and commitment to community engaged art.
Arts education remains central to Childs’ career. Since 2018, she has taught Crafts and Fibers at University Prep: Art and Design, serving students in grades 9 through 12. She has also led youth and adult workshops through Hope for Flowers by fashion designer Tracy Reese (2020 to 2026), the CCS Pre College Fiber Program, and numerous community based organizations. She received the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards’ Inspiring Educator Award in both 2021 and 2022 in recognition of her excellence in arts education. In 2026, she joined Wayne County Community College District as an Adjunct Professor, continuing her commitment to mentoring emerging artists at the collegiate level.
Beyond the classroom, Childs serves as Community Arts Director of W.I.S.E. Partnership, a Detroit nonprofit dedicated to social, educational, and economic empowerment. Her community centered practice informs her approach to materiality, storytelling, and representation, emphasizing art as a vehicle for collective memory and cultural preservation.

Childs is a consistent contributor to Detroit’s creative landscape through Design Core Detroit’s Month of Design. Her projects include Footlocker Sneaker House (2021, 2022), Design in the City: Trunk Show (2021), APEX (2024), Candy: Fashion Activation (2025), and Born in Sepia (2026). In 2025, she presented a solo exhibition and sustainability focused collaboration with Woodward Throwbacks and curated an experimental fashion activation for the opening of Detroit’s Love Building. Her recent work continues to bridge contemporary fiber art, fashion, and installation through immersive public experiences.

Her work has also been featured through commercial and curatorial partnerships across Detroit, including retail placements at Eugenie, Shop LITO, Detroit Artists Market, and Coup D’État, expanding the accessibility of her wearable artwork and textile based practice. She has also participated in Interwoven, a collaborative exhibition presented by ArtClvb and Coup D’État, further demonstrating her commitment to connecting contemporary art, fashion, and design.

Her exhibition history spans regional, national, and international venues. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Born in Sepia (2026), Candy: Fashion Activation (2025), Making History: Paintings and Collages (Wayne County Community College District, 2024), APEX (2024), Ancestral Echoes of Resilience and Providence with Meli Bandera (Ann Arbor Art Center, 2024), a solo exhibition with Kunzelmann Art in Milwaukee, and Fiber Flux. Her work has appeared in exhibitions at ArtClvb’s DET<>TOKYO exchange in Shibuya, Tokyo; Playground Detroit; the Cranbrook Graduate Degree Exhibition; Detroit Artists Market; Trout Museum of Art; Library Street Collective; ArtPrize; Michigan Fashion Week; the Library Street Collective group exhibition; and numerous Design Core Detroit initiatives.

Childs has received numerous awards recognizing both her artistic practice and community impact, including the 2025 Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund Grant, the Kresge Foundation Gilda Award, the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) Emergency Grant, the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation Materials Award, Detroit Artists Market’s Best of Show, the Red Bull House of Art Microgrant, and the 2026 Awesome Award.

Her work has been featured in major publications and media outlets including Michigan Public’s Stateside (“Family History Through Fiber and Fashion”), The Detroit News, BridgeDetroit, Axios Detroit, ArtClvb Magazine, Detroit Is It (“Detroit Artists to Watch in 2025”), WDET Public Radio, The New York Times, BLAC Magazine, AFAR x Visit Detroit and the Shinola Artist Spotlight produced in partnership with Bedrock Detroit and Design Core. Childs has also been invited to speak at CreativeMornings Detroit, the College for Creative Studies, NEST, and other arts organizations, reinforcing her role as an artist, educator, and cultural leader within Detroit’s creative community.