Meet A4A’s twelve newest Capacity-Building grantees! Thanks to new a partnership with the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, we are celebrating our first cohort of Cape Cod grantees. They’re a stellar group who represent the best of the Cape’s artistic richness and diversity. (Feel free to click on their names & learn more about them at their websites!)

Andre Lima (Brewster)

Andre Lima is a Native Brazilian who has been practicing Capoeira (a Brazilian martial art that combines elements of music, dance, and acrobatics) for over 20 years. Andre is the founder and teacher of Capoeira Besouro Cape Cod, a school serving Cape Cod for over 8 years. The school shares performances and workshops for all ages throughout Cape Cod. Andre is also a co-founder of Movement Arts of Cape Cod (MACC), a new nonprofit dedicated to fostering movement arts for the Cape Cod community.

Dominique pecce (truro)

Dominique Pecce is a green-practice printmaker with a focus on monotype, but whose creative explorations also include mixed media and kaleidoscopes. Dominique grew up on the Outer Cape. She has studied at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, Zea Mays (a nontoxic printmaking center) in western Massachusetts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Julian Loida (Falmouth)

Julian Loida is a percussionist, composer, and producer. Julian’s synesthesia and musical curiosity have propelled him towards a wide range of sounds, genres, and artistic endeavors. He’s performed jazz, folk, and classical, collaborating with dancers, visual artists, songwriters/composers, and musicians of all stripes. Julian often writes and arranges for his projects and ensembles (the Cuban/Brazilian band INÃ, jazz quintet Mojubá, chamber-folk band Night Tree), and he has a growing discography including Bach LIVE!, Wallflower, Piano EP, and several singles. Julian is preparing to release his second full-length solo record in the spring of 2023.

Kim Moberg (Centerville)

Kim Moberg is an award-winning singer-songwriter and guitarist. She was born in Juneau, Alaska, the daughter of a classical pianist mother of Alaskan Native Tlingit (People of the Tides) descent and a Coast Guard veteran father from Kansas. Kim’s music draws inspiration from Americana, Folk, and Country genres, and she is known for her passionate and heartfelt vocals. Kim has released two albums, Above Ground and Up Around the Bend, and has two new albums scheduled for release in 2023.

Laura Shabott (Provincetown)

Laura Shabott’s paintings, drawings and collage respond to the human form and nature with strength and originality. Since her first solo show at Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown, she has exhibited widely on Cape Cod. Laura earned a diploma in studio art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at TUFTS, Boston, and is represented regionally by Berta Walker Gallery. She teaches at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Provincetown Art Association and Museum and Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill.

Mwalim DaPhunkee Professor
(MashpeE / Buzzard’s bay)

Mwalim “DaPhunkee Professor” is a multi-award-winning composer, musician, theater artist, writer, media producer, and educator whose works span the mediums of sound recordings, books, plays, films, videos, and multimedia installations. Mwalim is the owner and head of production of Polyphonic Studios, a commercial-grade recording studio and content creation company specializing in the recording, production, mixing and mastering of music, audiobooks, podcasts, and sound design for media productions. He is a member of the multi-Grammy nominated band, The GroovaLottos.

Margaret Clancy
(South Yarmouth)

Margaret Clancy is a fiber artist now based in South Yarmouth, around the corner from her childhood home in South Dennis. With a focus on the mediums of knitting, crochet, and sewing, she aims to combine the creative with the sustainable as part of the slow fashion movement. When she isn’t in the studio, Margaret loves teaching, being in nature, and seeking out tiny yarn shops all over the world. You can find her work at @farmlanefiber on Instagram.

Melinda Nettles
(Eastham)

Melinda Nettles’ work is grounded in a deep awe of the play of light on the surfaces of things, especially wild things, and in a profound appreciation for plants and the rest of non-human nature. (Maybe it’s something to do with sharing a surname with a stinging plant…) Mz. Nettles has a background in architecture, which she taught and practiced for many years and, with that foundation, a fondness for buildings that are a little wonky, a little rough around the edges, with history, and quirks, and character. The output of all this inspiration most often comes in the form of paintings and drawings, photographs, and cut-paper creations, but she reserves the right to do it another way. You can find Melinda on Instagram at @lean2creativeworks.

Myra Kooy (Provincetown)

Myra Kooy is a multidisciplinary artist working in a limitless range of materials and inspirations. Her interactive installations, photographs, prints, assemblages, and books have been shown throughout the United States. Myra attributes her relationship with materials to growing up in an adoptive family of Dutch homesteaders, a childhood that taught her many practical skills and the art of creative reuse. Myra earned her MFA at City College in Harlem, New York.

Natasha Frye (Mashpee)

Natasha Frye is a visual artist whose work celebrates her Wampanoag (People of the First Light) heritage. Natasha lives in her birthplace and tribal home of Mashpee, where she tells the story of the Wampanoag on colorful, richly detailed canvases that often incorporate crushed wampum—the shells of local quahogs gathered with her family on summer clam outings. Natasha also runs children’s art workshops for the tribe.

Paul Rizzo (Provincetown)

Paul Rizzo is a painter and compulsive sketchbook artist. His subjects include vivid dream-houses, rainbows, portraits and self-portraits, socks, iced coffee, 70s queer culture, and old Hollywood—all of which are rendered with a distinctive color palette and unmistakeable nostalgia. A process painter, he loves getting lost in documenting and/or the making of art. Paul is represented by Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown.

Sam Holmstock (Cotuit)

Sam Holmstock has been making, studying, and performing music for over 40 years. His instruments include congas, djembe, timbales, Cajun rub board, and trombone. Sam is one of the co-founders of the world fusion ensemble ENTRAIN, and has played with that group for 20 years. Sam’s main creative project is Drum Strategies for Healing, through which he facilitates drumming programs for special needs groups and individuals throughout the community.