Celesté Martinez (she/her/ella) is a Queer Chicana- born in Santa Cruz, California, raised in San Antonio, Texas, and now calling Denver, Colorado home for well over a decade. Her experience from working as an organizer to nonprofit director taught Celesté invaluable lessons, which she draws upon to meet the needs of her clients through her coaching, facilitation, and consulting business Celestial Alegria. Celesté is also highly involved in the Colorado music scene with her Latin Feminist Punk project Soy Celesté and as the band leader of The Villanas in support of Katiria -who is a renowned Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and composer. You can most commonly find Celesté performing with her bandmates, writing poetry, hanging at community events, and loving on her two chihuahua pups.

Franklin Cruz (they/he) is a queer latin dancer, poet and environmental nerd born in Idaho, raised Texan and polished in Denver. Born from an immigrant family their work has placed them in science museums, as an emcee for dance & poetry competitions, conferences and environmental spaces. A Tedx Mile High performer and Nature of Cities residency, he worked throughout the southwest, Peru, Puerto Rico for universities and environmental leadership camps. Their work encompasses self love, immigration, culture, conservation and more.  Franklin always aims to address intersectional liberation, confronting our complicity to privilege and oppression and the lesson of specificity over simplicity.

Instagram: @fcruz_unido

Rebecca Peebles (she/her) is HOL SUM, another way of saying “wholesome,” and is all about self integration through creative, contemplative practice. Extending beyond her artworks and wearable art, she hosts intimate events, workshops, and exhibitions and curates personal collections under the name Home Safe Projects. Formerly, Rebecca founded and ran GroundSwell Gallery (2011-2014) with Danette Montoya.  As of 2004, Rebecca lives and works in Denver, CO and is originally from Richmond, VA.

Early in her art career, Rebecca realized her art practice and dedication to her craft techniques is a form of contemplative practice. Setting about making with intention has grown into crafting weavings, sculpture, beadwork and sometimes drawings or paintings as dedications of merit for the natural heroism of human being.

“My wish is for those who wear my beadwork or collect my art to see and connect with their own true story and embody that truth with a sense of self respect and gratitude for their unique life journey.” Rebecca’s own hardships and joys are reflected in her art.  She believes that her contemplative based artwork are projections of self-compassion that can be shared empathically with others.  Merit for life’s gross, chaotic unpredictable reality is the kind of merit that is often under-recognized, but HOL SUM is about extending care and gratitude to the whole person’s heroic journey throughout the spectrum of life’s awesome intensities.

When it comes to workshops and sharing contemplative craft with others, Rebecca finds joy in the process and is described as “next level patient” with learners. Home Safe workshops aim to create access to individuals’ own creative flow while initiating and fostering creativity as a personal practice of mental health and healing.

Olivia Abtahi (she/her) is a film director and writer based in Denver, Colorado. Born to an Iranian father and an Argentine mother, she is a melting pot of distinct cultures. Growing up in the DC area, Olivia always had a passion for cinema and storytelling. She is a graduate of NYU Film School and VCU Brandcenter, and has lived in New York, San Francisco, Richmond Virginia, and Dublin, Ireland. She holds a BFA and MaSC.

Kate M. Nicholson (she/her) is a civil rights attorney, arts activist, and the founder and Executive Director of the National Pain Advocacy Center, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the health and human rights of people with pain. She has spoken at TED, universities, and think tanks, testified in state legislatures, and briefed the U.S. Congress. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Hill, STAT, and MedPage Today. Her advocacy has been featured by the New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, NBC, Scientific American, BBC, Newsweek, NPR, the ACLU’s At Liberty, and elsewhere.  She previously served on the collecting committee at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Advisory Board of the University of Colorado Art Museum in Boulder, and she currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Ulrich Museum. Nicholson was a founding board member of Tilt West and edits its written responses to roundtables.

Marty Spellerberg (he/him) is the director of Spellerberg Projects, a cultural incubator in Lockhart, Texas. He has 20 years experience in interactive design and development, including a decade working specifically with cultural institutions. He is the co-lead of the National Museum Website Visitor Motivation Study and co-author of the resulting paper in the Journal of Digital and Social Media Marketing. He presents regularly at industry conferences such as Museum Computer Network, Museums and the Web, SXSW Interactive and WordCamp. He has worked with the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History; and the Toronto International Film Festival, among others. He is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto.

Joel Swanson (he/him) is a text-based interdisciplinary artist exploring the intersection of language and technology. As an Associate Professor at the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, he directs the TYPO Lab, an experimental art and design space exploring text-based technologies. He earned his Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, San Diego with a focus on Computing and the Arts. Website

Sarah McKenzie (she/her) is a visual artist and one of the co-founders of Tilt West. She has exhibited her paintings nationally, including shows with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Yale School of Architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Her work is represented in Denver by David B. Smith Gallery. Since 2020, Sarah has been working on an extended project researching and painting the architecture of prisons. In 2021, she was awarded the Marion International Fellowship for the Visual and Performing Arts to support her research into carceral space. That same year, she also began teaching art classes inside the Colorado Department of Corrections. In 2024, Sarah co-founded Impact Arts, a non-profit that creates and supports exhibition opportunities for formerly and currently incarcerated artists.

Bobby LeFebre (he/him) is an award-winning writer, performer, and cultural worker from Denver, Colorado. He is a two-time Grand Slam Champion, a National Poetry Slam Finalist, an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and a two-time TEDx speaker. His work has been showcased nationally and internationally on NPR, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian, and the LA Times. LeFebre has performed at hundreds of cultural events, social actions, detention centers, conferences, and colleges and universities across the United States and abroad. He is co-founder of Café Cultura, a non-profit organization that uses poetry as a tool for youth development and he is also founder of #WeAreNorthDenver, a grassroots and digital campaign dedicated to using art as an entry point for discussing gentrification in Denver. LeFebre has been named a 100 Colorado creative by Westword Magazine, is a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures fellow, and has recently been appointed by the Mayor of Denver to serve as the Co-Chair of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Metro State University and a master’s degree in Art, Literature, and Culture from the University of Denver.