A collage of nine images showing a woman with long, curly hair dancing and moving energetically inside a room with a wooden floor and a beige wall, capturing various dance poses and motions.
A man with curly hair, a beard, and earrings smiling in a room with a beige background, wearing a multicolored striped sweater over a light purple shirt.
A yellow sticky note with handwritten notes about Jewish artists and questions/disagreements.
Two people wearing black face masks cooking in a rustic kitchen. The person on the left, with tattoos and a head covering, is scooping food onto a plate. The person on the right is stirring a pan on the stove. The kitchen has wooden cabinets, a count
A vibrant poster promoting an art exhibition titled 'Gift Matanah' featuring work by Portland-based contemporary Jewish artists. The exhibit runs from June 3rd to July 6th, 2024, at Eastside Jewish Commons, Portland. The poster includes event details
A typed poem titled 'tkhine #137' on a white sheet of paper, placed on a red surface. The poem references Shekhinah and expresses a personal desire for self-improvement.
A painting of two women, one with blue hair and the other with darker hair, touching foreheads intimately.
A woman smiling in a forest during daytime, wearing black outdoor clothing and hiking boots, standing on a red dirt trail surrounded by tall trees and green foliage.

The Art/Lab Fellowship

The Art/Lab Fellowship Cohort is our flagship program. Each year we select eight to ten Portland area contemporary Jewish artists working across all genres to participate in a nine-month creative laboratory exploring the intersection of Judaism, creative expression and contemporary culture. The Art/Lab Fellowship Cohort experience inspires new artistic works while redefining what Jewish art, culture and community can be.

Applications are now CLOSED
for our 2025-26 Cohort Year

ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR MAILING LIST FOR NEXT YEAR'S APPLICATIONS

"Only way it could be better is if there was more of it."

2025-26 Fellows

  • Rachel Attias

    writer

    Rachel Attias is a writer, educator, and editor based in Portland, OR. Her writing has appeared in n+1, Porter House Review, X-R-A-Y and more, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. She holds an MFA from Oregon State University and teaches composition at Portland Community College, as well as creative writing workshops around the Pacific Northwest. Her writing and her heart are concerned with relationships both present and ancestral, memory, the environment, everyday magic, and humor.

  • Rachael Baskind

    writer

    Rachael Baskind is a writer, educator, mother, and counselor based in Portland, Oregon. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from George Fox University. Her poetry and prose explore memory, belonging, and the intersections of healing and creative practice. A longtime facilitator, ritualist, and community advocate, she brings a deep interest in how mindful writing can restore connection across personal and collective experience.

  • Zalmy Berkowitz

    photographer

    Zalmy Berkowitz is a documentary photographer specializing in weddings and (non-creepily) obsessed with his rambunctious and unschooled family.

  • Brenda Bingham

    photographer/editor

    Brenda Bingham is a photographer, editor, archivist, project coordinator, & book designer currently working for artists and arts nonprofits in Portland, OR. Additionally, Brenda works in fibers, embroidery, beading, and with natural materials to create amulets and adornment for body and home.

  • Stashia Cabral

    visual/performance artist

    Stashia Cabral is a visual and performance artist from Portland, Oregon. She works in movement and visual media including installation, sculpture, painting, and archival artworks. She has a passion for ready mades, assemblages and objects with a story. Her performance pieces range from burlesque to belly dance, to butoh and more and feature beautifully handmade costumes and props. She recieved her MAT from Lewis and Clark College and her MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art.

  • Andrew Cohen

    writer

    Andrew Cohen is a Portland-based writer and teacher. His essays, many of which have been listed as Notable by the Best American Essay Series, have appeared as part of the Jewish Book Council’s Witnessing series, and in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Zyzzyva, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, Michigan Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, and The Missouri Review, where he received the Editor’s Prize. For the past twenty-three years Andrew has taught writing, literature and humanities at Portland Community College, where he founded and still chairs the PCC Humanities and Arts Initiative to enhance opportunities for students to engage with the humanities and arts. He lives with his wife and two sons and their dog.

  • Julie Hammond

    performer

    Julie Hammond is a mother, theatre maker, dramaturg for multidisciplinary performance, and instigator of public projects based in Portland, Oregon. Recent works include the 9 hour performance HINDSIGHT 2020 (presented by Risk/Reward), a sign-based community history of Peninsula Park, and soundwalks created for Third Angle New Music and New Works Calgary. She holds an MFA in from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC) and thrives on questions and community.

  • Stephen Lorber

    interdisciplinary

    Stephen Lorber is an interdisciplinary artist whose current practice centers on creating tactile, handcrafted objects for the home that reflect broader themes drawn from his life. Working entirely from scratch, he bends, welds, grinds, sews, and wires each piece by hand. His roots in activist art inform a continual inquiry into how the spaces we inhabit and the objects we live with shape—and are shaped by—our values and attention.

  • David Rosman

    musician

    David Rosman is a multi-instrumentalist and recording artist from metro Detroit, Michigan. He has worked in a wide range of musical genres from classical and jazz to electronic and metal, to traditional Jewish folk music. In addition to teaching, he performs with a klezmer ensemble and composes music for film and advertising. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon where he studied music ethnography and music technology. He currently lives and works in Portland Oregon.

PAST ART/LAB FELLOWS

this year’s fellowship theme is Memory | Zicharon | זכרון

The Hebrew word for remember, Zachor, obligates the act of remembering and plays a central role in Jewish ritual practice, text and theology. Memory, for the Jewish people is not only recollection but a fundamental aspect of identity, community, and spiritual practice, acting as a living link between past, present, and future. The individual and the collective are bound together in the commandment to remember. Through the course of the 2025-26 Fellowship Cohort we will explore memory / זכרון and its role in shaping us as Jews in both the collective and the particular.

2025-2026
Scholars-in-
Residence

Woman holding a violin with a city skyline in the background.

Alicia Jo Rabins
Musician, Writer and Torah Teacher

Smiling man with glasses, wearing a light-colored shirt, hat, and patterned belt, standing outdoors with trees in the background.
A man with curly hair wearing round, tortoiseshell glasses and a red jacket, sitting in front of a bookshelf filled with various books.

Rabbi Josh Rose
Co-Founder & Rabbinic Advisor Art/Lab

Dr. Yosef Rosen
Director of Jewish Life and Learning
Jewish Federation of Greater Portland

"This was, without a doubt,
the most impactful
Jewish experience of my life."

A woman with a yellow-red flower in her hair playing a violin while an elderly man in a wheelchair looks on.
A man with blue dreadlocks, tattoos, and multiple bracelets is wearing a black face mask and speaking at a gathering indoors. Several people, also wearing masks, are seated at a table with drinks and snacks in a rustic, wood-paneled room.
A woman wearing glasses, a beanie, and a black turtleneck, sitting in a chair with a printed paper in her hand, appears to be giving a presentation or lecture in front of a dark gray wall with the partial word 'ing' visible. Behind her, a large scree
A large black and white print of a tree on fabric, displayed on a metal frame indoors, with some branches and leaves on the floor.
Woman wearing a face mask playing acoustic guitar in a room with two men, also masked, sitting nearby.
A woman with long gray hair smiling and standing on a red dirt trail in a forest of tall green trees, wearing a black jacket, black pants, and hiking boots.
Handwritten notes with colorful annotations, drawings, and Hebrew and English text discussing spiritual themes, light, darkness, creation, and the separation of water and sky, featuring diagrams of sun, moon, stars, and a campfire.
An art studio with multiple paintings and a black cat sitting on a chair, a stroller, an easel with a pink painting, a tablet on the easel, and a rainbow flag on the wall.
Glass jar with a handwritten label that says 'Grief,' containing small stones and dried flowers. Next to it, a glass vase with water and green leafy plant stems inside, placed on a wooden table near a window with sunlight, and a wooden chair in the b
Display of vintage photographs, documents, and memorabilia arranged on wall shelves and a white table, including black-and-white photos, books, and small artifacts in a museum or exhibition setting.
A modern art installation consisting of numerous red string loops and wires hanging from the ceiling, forming vertical strands and some loops on the floor.
An elderly woman with curly hair and glasses standing in front of a yellow background with red and black text, posing with her hand on her neck and smiling slightly.
A man with glasses and a beard lying on a bed with a baby girl. Both are smiling and looking at the camera. The man is wearing a black shirt with white line drawings, and the baby is wearing a pink shirt and green pants.
A hand holding a piece of cotton or wool fiber, with more fibers in the background.
A person wearing a beige Carhartt beanie and a black sweater, smiling and leaning over a large wooden type case with compartments filled with metal types used for printing, in a room with a black work surface and some pictures or documents.
Three individuals painting a room together; one person is standing on the floor, another is standing on a ladder, and the third is sitting on the floor. They are painting a wall near a window, with painting supplies and a ladder on the floor.
A sketch of a man with a beard and glasses, with handwritten text underneath reading: "Ketrain Schwebel 2022 'Yehudah forgetting his Polish'".
Two men taking a selfie outdoors in a natural setting with blue sky and green trees in the background, one man with curly hair and a beard, wearing a black shirt and a head-mounted camera, smiling.
A yellow sticky note with the words "I value joy & grit & humor" written in black ink.
A woman with short dark hair, glasses, wearing a blue sweater and pink scarf, standing in a room with a chalkboard wall that reads "Joyful Inv" and a TV screen displaying a slide titled "Dream Places - Tia Factor." A colorful painting on a cart and c