Theresa
Fortune

Theresa Fortune is an established public speaker, actress, director, executive producer and founder of Communion with the Community, which was established in 2017. The focal point of her work is art and creative expression and boldly sharing her personal experiences with economic challenges, social injustices, and postpartum depression.

As a creative-community service leader, Fortune orchestrates events that inspire dialogue around mental health and artistic expression in the black community. Fortune’s work in drama theater, storytelling, and visual art exist to provide a container for dialogue around many of the issues affecting black families and individuals in our increasingly disconnected society.

Her devotion to contributing to the community inspired her to build and facilitate a year-round mentorship program for underprivileged children in Oakland. In this program, youth are introduced to the arts and encouraged to explore their creative identity. Theresa Fortune was born and raised in Oakland and is a mother to an 8-year-old daughter.

Mia Price

Mia finds her deepest truths and truest forms of peace and healing through writing and creating various forms art. Documenting the dualistic nature of life and the experiences it encompasses is the current foundation of her writing and creations. Amongst many precious and honorable titles, the one Mia is most grateful to hold is “Mother”. She is also a doula and currently training to become a midwife. Pregnancy and motherhood has been the most spiritual journey and transition she has experienced and her goal is to assist others in their transitions into this realm as well. Travelling is a passion and has been a privilege that has afforded Mia to experience different cultures and develop various global perspectives . She finds her home in many places, and a special kind of warmth in the places that reside outside of America. Communing with nature is the most magical place she has found and was the place where she first discovered God. Mia prays for healing and peace for all people and has a specific passion for the healing and ascension of Black & Brown people throughout the African Diaspora.

Stephanie
Warner

Stephanie Warner is a Sacramento based event and portrait photographer with a love of food, the outdoors and animals. She creates a magical vibe with her subjects and captures fleeting moments with grace and ease.

Janette
Fortune

Janette Fortune is a Berkeley – Native Cinematographer, artist, and musician. She personalizes in publicservice announcements and corporate cinematography for non- profit agencies, utilizing cinematic technology to conduct oral histories, digital storytelling and ethnographic recordings.

Her desire to combat social injustices and inspire artistry through storytelling was fostered by her 11 years in investigative work in social services as a social worker. Predominately serving African- American communities, she worked seven years as a Social Service Director serving at risk multifamily household and seniors in the Bay Area. She aslo served two years in street outreach services with runway youth in the Bay Area, and surrounding areas, and two years in as an Activities Director, conducting summer programs that seek to prevent/ reduce particular risk behaviors with emancipated youth and other venerable communities.

Her passion for visual representation inspired her to be creative in capturing the intangible.

Janette Fortune credits include; Director Cinematographer of Documentary

“From the Ashes” Produced by: Theresa Fortune.

Director of Photography “From the Ashes” Berkeley Times press.

“Fortune believes there is beauty in in every story of life” – Janette Fortune

Patrick
Bogui

Patrick Bogui is an ever-growing, multi-faceted, and soulful musician. At the age of 9 years old, his parents placed him in an orchestra program at his school where he first learned to play the violin. For the past 13 years, Patrick has used his love for the violin to inspire and minister to others. Currently, a student in his first year of medical school, Patrick aspires to become a surgeon, but doesn’t plan to let go of his love for music. Embracing these two passions for music and medicine, he humbly takes on the title "Dr.Violin," understanding that the passions and gifts entrusted to him aren’t meant to lie dormant. 

YouTube Channel: YouTube.com/DrViolin 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.violin_/?hl=en

Rachelle Derouin

Rachelle is a photographer and native Californian best known for her intimate and reflective approach to photographing people within the context of their lives and the spaces where they dwell, make and celebrate. She documents small weddings and works collaboratively with creative businesses and artists to tell their story through an authentic visual narrative, capturing the nuance and soul of her clients with compassion and intention.
Her art explores inner landscapes, seeking to understand how our interior terrain relates to the outer world and our collective humanity. She finds healing and her deepest truths in the presence of the ocean, in the sanctuary of home, in ritual, and in the energy exchange of human connection.
She resides in the foggy western fringe of San Francisco’s Outer Sunset with her pre-teen daughter, her Venezuelan partner and their joint collection of books and houseplants.

Michelle Zheng

Michelle Zheng has been scribbling out stories on scrap paper since age five. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 with a double major in economics and media studies & communications, and an incomplete theater minor. The latter was due to the fact she wanted to take Philip Kan Gotanda’s playwriting course over a generic introduction to theater in her final semester.

She was formerly a Sex on Tuesday opinion columnist for The Daily Californian, an independent student newspaper serving the UC Berkeley. Three of her columns appear on The Daily Californian’s most-read stories of 2017. She is currently working on a novella, Pyrite, a queer vampire urban fantasy influenced by Chinese-American history in California. In her spare time, she usually is getting more tattoos or role-playing a death-obsessed gnome druid raised by Treants in Dungeons and Dragons. She currently works in advertising analytics at a media corporation.

Alexius
Franklin

Alexius Franklin (born September 5, 1984) is an American screenwriter, Director and actor. A native to the Pacific Northwest Alexius would initially catch the bug filming directing music videos, after migrating from Seattle Washington and arriving in California. It would be in the Bay Area where Alexius began producing cooperate commercials and competing in film festivals “Anti-Hero” (as an actor) “Breaking The Fourth Wall” (as an actor) and “What If We Got Off On The Wrong Foot” (co-writer, co-producer, and actor)(Winner of the viewers choice award, best screenplay, and best title at various film festivals.)

After being a finalist in multiple contest Alexius Franklin would focus his attention to adopting feature film scripts as well as mini series concepts for online video sharing platforms. From there he’d takeover as a producer and content editor for the Meet The Brave Podcast.

Alexius Franklin
Let’s Bubble Productions LLC

Cherly Hart

Cheryl Hart is the founder and executive director of Supporting Mamas and the regional California coordinator for Postpartum Support International. She founded Supporting Mamas in 2015 to address the serious lack of support for moms with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders in Santa Clara County following her own experience with depression and anxiety after the birth of her first two babies. She lives in San Jose with her husband and three children.

Zoe
Boston

She is an artist in almost every sense of the word. She was born in Los Angeles, raised in New York, and now lives in the Bay Area. Her inspirations come from God, life, love, music, and everything in between. Although she has been drawing all her life, she did not begin painting until she moved back to the West Coast in 2014.

“Im only calling it art to simplify the means of my expression. These pieces were birthed from the passions of life, living freely, being myself, and loving who I truly am. I use acrylic on canvas to express myself, and I continue to grow with each new piece. You are not just witnessing art, but viewing glimpses of my life journey. I look forward to being able to share them with you!”

Website

Andre
Bryant

Andre Byant is a multimedia artist from Oakland, CA. He acknowledges his inherited natural and artistic talents from Ray Easterling, his grandfather, in whom he pays homage and honors.

Andre is known for diverse forms of representation of art and techniques through his multifaceted abilities. Andre does digital art and tattoos, in addition to drawings, oil and acrylic paint. His ambition derives from the pop culture of the late 90's and early 2000's. The goal of Andre for his art themes is to amplify pop culture in order to maintain the impact it continues to have in the mass media from erasure.

Samantha
Cooper

Samantha Cooper is a Bay Area based creative with over 10 years of photography experience. She has a knack for bringing vibrance and vivid emotions to her art work. She uses her years of experience with color theory to bring life to every image. Much of her focus is around femininity, fine architecture and capturing California's cotton candy sunsets. 

 Her background in production and advertising have given her a keen eye for the market's imagery. Her work can be found on digital media outlets like Forbes, KQED, Bon Appetit, 7x7 and many more. Samantha also draws inspiration from the strengths and imperfections of those around her. On a day to day she can be found studying movement, biking to a sunset, gathering with loved ones and reworking any broken systems within reach. 

 For more work and information about her, please visit Samantha Tyler Cooper!

Bryon
Malik

Bryon Malik Photography specializes in compelling creative portraiture that strengthens individual and corporate brands.
Whether he is commissioned by a marketing department to photograph a top executive, a design firm to shoot an entire company team for a new website, or an independent artist, entrepreneur or job-seeker for self-promotion, Bryon draws upon more than a decade of experience to craft an image that is flattering, as well as appropriate for the job, company, and industry that they represent. The resulting portrait is a versatile and powerful promotional tool, in an age where critical first impressions are made online.
A life-long Oakland Bay Area resident, Bryon has been a practicing self-taught artist since childhood. Bryon spent several years as a Dancer and Musician before pursuing photography full time. Having over 12 years of experience focused exclusively on creative portraiture and business-related marketing and event imagery.

Website

Robin Mortarotti

Robin Mortarotti is an award-winning filmmaker with over thirty years experience as producer, production manager, director of photography, post-production supervisor, and editor on feature, documentary, commercial, and promotional film projects.

Robin has been making films since he was eight years old. At eighteen, he was the recipient of the National Teenage Movie Award by Eastman Kodak. In the years since, he has directed hundreds of short, experimental, and documentary projects.

Robin has been the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including C.I.N.E, the Council of International Non-theatrical Events, the U.S. Industrial Film Festival, Columbia / DuPont and Sigma Delta Chi awards, as well as a local daytime Emmy, the LLIBRE (Libraries, Literacy, Books and Reading) award for “Enrique’s Story,” narrated by James Earl Jones and numerous awards from Eastman Kodak Company.

His recent work includes marketing and corporate image projects for McKesson Corporation, IBM, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Stanford University, schools of law, business and medicine, Santa Clara University, the developers of private resorts throughout the world and nonprofits such as Catholic Charities East Bay and the Alameda County Community Food Bank.

Robin is a consummate cinema professional with a terrific grasp of movies and how they’re made. He brings a creative approach and a high aesthetic to each project he undertakes.

Chris
Stevenson

Chris Stevenson is a highly engaged, creative Visual Designer/Art Director with over a decade of hands on expertise. Creating design assets for high profile clients such as the Harvest Health and Recreation, Pinarello Bikes, Sacramento Kings, Sacramento Republic FC, CamelBak, UC Davis and Hewlett-Packard. Predominately focused in Brand Exploration and Development, Creative Direction, Web/Interactive Assets, Social Media Design, Visual Communication, Photography Retouching, Animation, Video Editing, and Packaging.

Jay Shilliday

His 32 year career started in Columbus OH, and has taken him to Chicago, then LA, and San Francisco. His reputation as one of the best Sound Engineers on the West Coast has garnered him work on many notable projects.

Jay has mixed sound for countless TV and radio commercials some airing on past Super Bowls; projects that graced the Grammies; music recordings on over 30 CDs as well as programs starring Robin Williams, Whoopie Goldberg, Andre Agassi, Huey Lewis, James Earl Jones and many more.

Commercials include: The Budweiser Frogs, Lizards, and Spuds Mackenzie, Hewlette Packerd, Apple, E-Trade, The Dairy Advisory Council "Got Milk" and current spots for Microsoft, ESPN, Disney, Citibank, Chase, Nike, AAA, Blue Shield, and Lifelock.

Ad agencies including: Goodby Sivlerstien SF, Deutche NY, Team One (LA), DMBB, DDB Needahm, Saaitchi, Leo Burnett & Co.(Chicago), JWT, Weiden & Kennedy, Ogilvey & Mather, Young and Rubicam, McCann Erikson, Fallon…….

Feature Films and TV shows including: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Deadpool (20th Century Fox), Blood and Oil (ABC), Believe (NBC), Cane (CBS), Law and Order (NBC), and The Simpsons (FOX)

Jay’s work has wowed clients with his creativity, speed, and charming personality. An avid golfer, Jay played in "The World Juniors" golf tournament at Torrey Pines/San Diego at the age of 17. Ask him about his hole in one at Clint Eastwood’s Tehama Golf Club.