Staff Bios

EDITORIAL BOARD

Jeremy Abernathy (Editor-in-Chief, Cofounder) is a freelance writer and editor. A native of Mississippi, Jeremy relocated to Atlanta to study Art History and International Relations at Oglethorpe University. He lived for a short time in Saitama City, Japan, but he now lovingly calls Atlanta home. His professional biography includes such illustrious titles as Child Entertainer and Custom Framer, and he currently works as a full-time Legal Editor for the Georgia state legislature. Jeremy reads mostly nonfiction—continental philosophy, linguistics, etc.—but his (growing) library contains a suspicious number of comic books. He is a lover of bad jokes and good beer. Jeremy is a contributor to Creative Loafing’s Culture Surfing blog (CLCultureSurfing.com), and his writing has appeared in such publications as ART PAPERS magazine. He is currently a finalist toward becoming a Workshop Fellow through the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program.

Susannah Darrow (Executive Director, Cofounder) is a freelance curator and general arts enthusiast. She is a native Atlantan who left briefly to study Art History, Printmaking, and a few other things at the University of Georgia. She now works at the Spruill Gallery and is the Chair of Art at Eyedrum. Susannah is a member of the Forward Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award Committee. She also writes for the Atlanta blog, Pecanne Log. The majority of her spare time is spent coddling her pug, Orson Emmanuel Bean—named for the comedian, Orson Bean, as well as writer, Orson Welles, who he resembles when confused—and listening to albumns by Caetano Veloso and Townes van Zandt on repeat. Susannah lives in a cottage in East Atlanta with her pug.

Joyce Youmans (Senior Editor) is a freelance writer and editor who holds a MA in Art History from the University of Kansas. She has published essays in anthologies including Contemporary Artists and The Queer Encyclopedia of Visual Arts, an article in African Arts, and academic book reviews in multiple journals, including Journal of Museum Ethnography and Interventions. Joyce was Assistant Curator of African Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, before moving to Atlanta in August 2007. She has taught African Art History at the University of Kansas and the Kansas City Art Institute. Joyce currently divides her time between research, writing, serving on the Board of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), and working as Online Editor for the H-Africa Discussion Network. She can often be found reading on the veranda of her ca. 1880 Grant Park home, where she lives with her husband and their four fluffy cats.

Ben Grad (Staff Photographer, Cofounder) is a writer and photographer. He is an Atlanta native, deeply interested in the city’s physical and social geography. Strangely, he only noticed these things existed after spending several months wandering through Turkey, Japan, and Oxford, England. In his spare time, Ben rides his bike, cooks stir fry and omelets (generally not together), takes photographs of his friends, practices slacklining, explores the city, works with Food Not Bombs, and builds bicycles. He is currently working on a photo project which documents cats being bathed. If you are about to bathe your cat, please get in touch with Ben.

k.tauches is an artist, designer, hopeless idealist, lazy perfectionist, localist, foolish prognosticator, armchair traveler, wannabe filmmaker, independent curator and also an unauthorized critic, especially of art and architecture. Oh, and she’s a seriously challenged speller (thank god for editors!).

Meghan Norman is a 20-something art historian full of Southern charm and useless trivia. She completed her BA in Art History from the College of Charleston, graduating in 2006, and is currently working on her MA in Art History from the Savannah College of Art and Design, focusing on contemporary art. As a recent Atlanta transplant, she is learning to cope—the beach is now much further than ten minutes away! She has been the recipient of several awards, including second place at the 10th Annual Art History Paper Competition and Symposium sponsored by the Savannah College of Art and Design (2008). Like any native North Carolinian, she enjoys college basketball and barbeque.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Charles A. Westfall was born in Albany, New York, in 1980 and raised in a farmhouse in nearby Easton. His family moved to Alachua, Florida, in 1991. Charles graduated from The University of Florida in 2008 and is currently pursuing his MFA at The University of Georgia. His wife says he is “6 foot 3, enjoys soccer, pictures taken without flash, and babies … when they’re not crying.”

Staci Stone is an artist from Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating from Arizona State University with her BFA, she was awarded a public art commission to create a permanent work on campus. Staci has continued her interest in public art and photography through her graduate studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design. On most weekends, she can be found at local garage sales or Thrashers games.

Becky Bivens is a freelance writer and chronic barista. She holds degrees in art from the University of Chicago and Agnes Scott College. When she is not pouring your latte, she is probably engaged in some sort of serious, unpaid curatorial research. This research has been executed at various institutions, including SculptureCenter, the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and the Dalton Gallery of Agnes Scott College. Becky’s loves include (but are not limited to) eating grilled cheese sandwiches, laughing, and reading literature about post-war American abstraction.

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jessica Horwitz’s love affair with photography began when she was in her early teens. She started her own photography business a few months before graduating college, and has been dedicating nearly every waking moment of her life to it since. In the little free time she has, Jessica enjoys writing songs and performing them with her band, Lily of the Suburbs.

Faith Ploener is a lover of travel and a budding ukulele-ist. Photography has been a constant in her life for the past eight years, three of which were spent in Japan teaching English and several trips through Asia. While living in Japan, Faith began a blog, Nihonglish, which she continues to update now that she’s returned to the States. The loves of her life include going thrift store shopping, eating Mexican food, going to art shows and concerts, and supporting her friends and their bands.

Jessica and Faith both have BFAs with a concentration in Photography from the University of Georgia. They work together at Jessica Horwitz Photography, shooting portraits and weddings.

SUMMER INTERN 2009

Gillian Zagorski is an avid hobbyist with a strong taste for art and writing. With a family lineage full of Polish and old Southern thinkers, inventors, and crafters, she was naturally led to pursue an education in the arts. She currently studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design with plans to complete a BFA in Painting this November. Gillian likes her cat, the color white, burnt cookies with vanilla ice cream, and BURNAWAY.org.

If you’d like to contact any of our staff, please send an email to:

burnawayga@gmail.com