On Practice: Pew Fellows in Conversation

Jarboe’s creative practice spans theater, opera, cabaret, film, and immersive installations—both in her solo practice and in her role as founding artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret. She creates spaces that foster explorations of gender, belonging, and “queer communal imagination and healing,” working in traditional theater and gallery settings as well as in neighborhoods across Philadelphia by way of a mobile performance truck. Photo by David Evan McDowell

Ortiz-Pagán is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, and printmaking. His experience growing up in Puerto Rico and coming to Philadelphia informs a body of work that examines displacement, movement, and adaptation. His collaborative, community-centered work in North Philadelphia’s Fairhill and Kensington neighborhoods engages with expressions of healing, collective care, and spiritual traditions. Photo by David Evan McDowell

Rodriguez creates highly ornamented figurative ceramic sculptures that incorporate colors and patterns inspired by his Mexican American heritage. Filled with cultural and historical imagery, and often large in scale, his work blends interests in human psychology and community with a love for decoration and embellishment. His practice extends to community-oriented making, teaching people how to press tiles to make a collective mural or collaborating with artists across the US and Mexico. Photo by David Evan McDowell

Blackwood has been with the Center since 2021 and is the Program Officer for Fellowships, working across multiple funding areas with a focus on supporting grantees’ audience experience and community-building efforts. In 2024, he represented Pennsylvania in the National Leaders of Color Fellowship program facilitated by Creative West. He previously worked at FringeArts, producing the curated slate of performances for the annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival. He cofounded Philadelphia’s only poetry cookout, Franks O’Hara, and remains involved in the city’s literary community. Photo by Heidie Mojica