April 4th: Panel

“Art and Soul”

“Art and Soul” is a panel in which the callings of the light worker/artist are the subject of this discussion among four women walking that path. “Art and Soul” is based on personal experiences of this way of life and its unique rewards and challenges.

Moderator/ Organizer: Linda DiGusta 

Linda DiGusta has spent nearly 2 decades as primarily an art writer and artist in New York City. Highlights of her career were co-editing the online magazine Resolve40 and sharing a Huffington Post blog with her late partner, artist Mark Wiener and having her drawings of (mainly) pears presented in galleries and museums in New York and internationally, including the 2009 thematic group projects "A Book About Death" and "Black Madonna."  Most recently, in response to what she sees as a turning point in the arts and the world in general, she has returned to her roots and extended her studies of human development both in creating the content of The Superhero's Way podcasts and blog, and to create a life coaching program for artists. She is currently writing a book based on the same themes, titled Art & Soul.

Panelist: Agni Zotis

Bio: Agni Zotis, is a multimedia artist based in New York City, with a life-long focus on painting, performance art, video, sound, and light installation. She studied Fine Arts at Hunter College with Roy DeCavara and Vincent Longo and anatomy at the Art Students League. She apprenticed with a Byzantine monk in Agia Markella, Astoria Queens, and a Buddhist monk in Pokhara, Nepal, where she learned ancient techniques of painting and symbolism in mysticism, the use of pigments, and metals that she still uses in a contemporary language.

Her interests are in meditation and quantum physics as she explores individuality in universal consciousness and the relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm. In her search to understand existence, she immersed herself in different rituals, religions, cultures, and the human condition through extensive travel. She has been featured in 2 documentaries and her paintings are in private collections globally. As the director of AGNI Gallery, she hosted the avant-garde in the East Village with curated exhibitions. She is a certified yoga and meditation instructor, functional nutritionist, and the founder of MAY Kids Transform Foundation, a wellness curriculum focused on Meditation, Art, and Yoga.

Panelist: Lisa Trivell 

 BIO: Yoga instructor and Artist Lisa Trivell uses images of her original art interwoven with narration and sounds derived from nature to create a refreshingly uplifting and transformative journey into meditation, self-awareness, and ultimate relaxation.

Combining breathing techniques, stretching, and self-massage techniques, RejuvenArt provides everyone of any age with an invigorating and empowering 20-minute Yoga-based experience to revitalize mind, body, and spirit. The immersive sensory experience of projected art videos was previously presented at New York University, Parrish Art Museum and Guild Hall.

Panelist: Kristin Reed

BIO Kristin Reed is a painter and shamanic Reiki Master/Teacher living and working in Brooklyn. After earning an MFA from Pratt in the early 80s she made street art—murals, stencils, posters, and billboards on topics including world peace, gentrification and the environment. Her paintings have been shown in major museums and one of her street billboards was shown at The DIA Foundation in SOHO, The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Mitchell-Inness and Nash Gallery in Chelsea, and at The Glasgow Women’s Library during the recent 26th UN Climate Change Conference. In 2005 when Reed became a Reiki Master/Teacher her work as a healer dramatically affected her painting which then took a turn toward abstraction. With a group called Healer2Healer that exchanges healing knowledge with indigenous Maya and Amazonian populations, she trained a group of Mayan women in Guatemala, certifying them to the Master level of Reiki. These women now use Reiki with their Mayan knowledge to heal and train their own communities.