Project Team

This project was originally conceived and produced through the creative vision and collaborative efforts of Carrie Boucher, Bridget Elmer, and Mitzi Gordon, three Pinellas County-based socially engaged artists. Each stays busy with their own projects and practices, while also joining forces to work on larger, community-focused events and engagements such as SPACEcraft. Production for the Largo 2023 deployment was delivered by artists Emily Stone and Tiffany Elliott.

Carrie Boucher

Carrie Boucher is a socially engaged artist who believes creative expression is a human right, all forms of expression are important, and all members of a community collectively create its unique culture. After a decade in Chicago, where she earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Carrie returned home to the Tampa Bay area and developed an ongoing practice of surveying the local cultural landscape to take note of whose perspectives are uplifted, whose are suppressed, and why this difference exists. Through her collaborative projects – NOMADstudio, Justice Studio, and SPACEcraft – she works to highlight and address disparities by facilitating creative engagements and organizing networks of artistic support in places where people typically lack access to the means of creative production.

Bridget Elmer

Bridget Elmer is a socially engaged artist and educator with a passion for service, a commitment to equity, and a belief in the power of art to improve community wellbeing. She received an MFA in Book Arts and an MLIS from the University of Alabama, and has taught at numerous venues. At Ringling College of Art and Design, Bridget served for seven years as Coordinator of the Letterpress and Book arts Center and co-founded The Makerspace. She is a co-founder of Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA), a union for creative practitioners, and a founding member of Print St. Pete, a community letterpress and risograph print shop. Bridget has 20 years of experience as a development professional in the creative sector. She currently works as a Development Director for NOMADstudio and Development Coordinator at ArtsConnect.

Mitzi Jo Gordon

Mitzi Jo Gordon is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher. Her projects center socially-engaged collaboration and reclaimed materials at every scale, from mini zines to room-sized installations. Passionate about access and mobility, Mitzi believes in the transformative power of shared creative experiences. She is the founder of multiple traveling and interactive art projects, including the Bluebird Books Bus (2011-2020), a rolling free library and book–arts studio housed on a converted short bus. In 2014, she developed the Carmada art car showcase, bringing art-on-wheels events to public spaces in the Tampa Bay area and beyond. Mitzi received her BA in Journalism from New York University, and is currently based in the Pacific Northwest, where she is writing a book about her experiences in social practice.

Emily Stone

Emily Stone is a fiber artist based in St. Petersburg, FL. For the past decade, she has been dedicated to building and curating space for the creative community in the Tampa Bay area. Emily attended Penland School of Craft in 2016, presented a collage series at Kolaj Fest New Orleans in 2019, and was an emerging artist at Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in 2020. Her current focus is on natural dyeing and garment construction.

Tiffany Elliott

Tiffany Elliott is a jeweler who received her trade-related certificates, Diamonds Graduate and Applied Jewelry Professional (AJP), from the Gemological Institute of America. She is the owner and designer behind TeeSankey Designs, which features limited edition and one-of-a-kind artisan jewelry made for those who find beauty in simplicity. Devoted to inspiring and aiding in the benefits of creative freedom, Tiffany facilitates jewelry workshops with members of the community residing in underserved areas. She wants her artwork to not only be visually pleasing, but also to impact communities via social engagement. She is currently the Director of Culture for NOMADstudio, a Florida non-profit dedicated to “putting creativity in motion to fuel connections and nurture communities.”