About Us
Redefining playful art in public spaces is Now. Make. Art.'s jam.
Our engagement style is our magic sauce. We focus on power sharing with young people via a curiosity-infused collective art making process.
Our events are welcoming spaces that aren't fussy and require no previous experience. We’re visual, community-focused, and youth-centric. Working together, we invite the community to envision a brighter future.
Based in Saint Paul, MN, we work with festivals, libraries, recreation centers, schools, non-profits, and organizations all around Minnesota to bring process based arts events to young people and their communities. NMA was founded in 2021 by Megan Flød Johnson and Kiersten Birondo (left the business is 2022).
Engagement
Now. Make. Art.’s process art events have engaged over 9,800+ participants since our start in 2021. We’re excited to keep serving Minnesota communities in 2025!
Organizations we’ve worked with:
City of St. Paul: Parks & Recreation
Saint Paul Public Library
Great River Regional Library
Hennepin County Library
Ramsey County Library
Washington County Library
Dakota County Library
Anoka County Library
Northfield Public Library
Stillwater Public Library
Saint Paul Public Schools
Eden Prairie Public Schools
Stillwater Area Public Schools
Roseville Area Schools
The Blake School
Springboard for the Arts
Neighborhood House
Otter Cove Children’s Museum
MN Association of Science
Musicant Group & City of Edina
Minnesota 8
Longfellow Community Council
North End Neighborhood Association
Como Community Council.
West 7th/ Fort Road Federation
825 Arts
Rondo Community Land Trust
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Walker Arts Center
Germanic-American Institute
Public Art Saint Paul
Our Vision
While Now. Make. Art. events are all different, there are some core tenants that make our programs unique:
Process Focused
The work we do isn’t about the end product, it’s all about the process. As big supporters of play-based learning, we meet young people where they’re at.
Youth-Led
In a world where they’re so often ignored, we put youth front and center. Our events radically shift power to young people to help them grow into active community members.
Vision Making
Our youth today are struggling to dream. We create events invite young people to create their own vision of the future. And we inspire them to see themselves within the world.
Intergenerational
While young people are our focus, we see the importance of engaging everyone in our community. Each generation holds unique knowledge and we encourage sharing.
Collective
Now. Make. Art events allow the community to come together to co-create. It’s less about individual contributions and more about what we can make together.
Playful
We believe in the power of play. For young people, play is how they learn about themselves and the world around them. And the benefits of play are just as important for adults.
What Partners Are Saying About Now. Make. Art.
"We have had Now. Make. Art. at [our festival] for 3 years in a row now and they bring such fun, engaging, and creative presence to the event! They allow kids and adults alike to express themselves through art and I frequently hear fest-goers express how Now. Make. Art was one of their favorite parts of the fest. If you want to elevate art activities at your event, I highly recommend Now. Make. Art - they provide a little something for everyone and encourage community building through their work."
-Alyssa, Festival Organizer, St. Paul
“Now.Make.Art. is a talented team that knows how to help people of all ages tap into their creativity and have a good time. We love seeing all kinds of people from our communities come together to create, use imagination, and practice skills from problem-solving to art techniques. On top of that, Now.Make.Art. staff are professional and organized. We trust that they will deliver an excellent, welcoming program experience and they always do!”
-Kelsey, Saint Paul Public Library
Meet our Team
Megan Flød Johnson | Founder/Owner (she/her)
Megan Flød Johnson is an Interdisciplinary Artist who imagines new art experiences for young people and communities that fuse inquiry-driven installation spaces with participatory performance. Megan believes that young people are makers and valued contributors to culture. She seeks to disrupt dominant narratives and expectations around performance and art-making experiences for young people to designate space for process, dialogue, experimental thinking, play and welcoming multiple points of view. Megan develops creative youth programming and participatory exhibits for museums, art centers and theatre companies around the country.
Based in Saint Paul, MN Megan has over 12 years leading educational arts programming and teams for local orgs like SteppingStone Theatre, Park Square Theatre, Eden Prairie Arts Center, and Children’s Museum of Southern MN. Megan holds an MFA in Theatre for Youth and a graduate certificate in Socially Engaged Practice from Arizona State University and BA's in Theatre and Classical Voice from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. Megan was awarded a 2019-'20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Performance from the Jerome Foundation.
Alicia Rice | Program Manager (she/they)
Alicia Rice is a documentary filmmaker and visual artist that looks to redefine ideas of what it means to be an educator. She’s created films on a range of topics, including: fair trade coffee, occupational scavenging, a children’s home for Burmese refugees, homelessness, puppets, process-based photography, and play-based education. Her most recent film When Kids Meet a Creature has played for audiences around the world.
Alicia holds a B.A. in Communication with an emphasis in Video Production from Santa Clara University and an M.F.A. in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz. Additionally, she has worked for an alternative education group in Thailand, with the exhibits department of the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, and taught film to elementary and middle school students with Youth Cinema Project. She most recently worked as a Digital Producer for PBS Utah. There, she worked on Modern Gardener, More Than Half, and created Instagram series about mental health in LGBTQIA+ youth and Spanish speaking communities.
Dralandra Larkins | Spoken Word Poet/Teaching Artist (she/her)
Dralandra Larkins is an award-winning poet, spoken word performer and editor in Minneapolis. Her work is featured in the MN Women’s Press, League of Minnesota Poets 2023 Agates Anthology, The Edge Magazine, and Insight News. She is the co-editor of two anthologies, Cracked Walnut’s Rewilding Hope and The Nations Underground: Writing With Our Ancestors. She has performed her spoken word poetry for the NAACP, Button Poetry, Mill City Museum, MN State Capitol, Minnesota Black Authors Expo, the MN Black Business Ball, TruArtSpeaks, KFAI Radio, MN Public Radio and others. Her performances weave together words, rhythm, and intimacy to create a haven for healing, advocacy, and self-discovery.
She is a Minnesota Book Award poetry judge and has taught youth poetry and adult classes at The Loft, The Big Brothers Big Sisters Program, Hennepin County, Semilla Center for Healing, and at the University of MN Outreach Center. Dralandra was awarded a MN State Arts Board Creative Individual grant. Her poetic memoir and audiobook “Reveal” is scheduled to publish in 2025.
Emily Condon | Teaching Artist (she/her)
Emily Condon’s career has encompassed many pursuits, all involving her passion for living a creative life. She began her career programming Oak Street Cinema and the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. Next came producing programs at Landmark Center and writing for numerous publications. In 2007 she moved to Brooklyn and got a master’s degree at The New School and studied Art History with art critic Jed Perl. For the next decade she managed the public radio juggernaut This American Life, and was on the core team that created the podcast phenomenon Serial. She met and married Jonathan Goldstein, and helped him create Heavyweight, which many have heralded as among the best podcasts of all time. In 2019, they moved with their young son to Minneapolis. Then Covid lockdown came. During those long, isolated days, she and her son and made art…and art…and more art. They made jetpacks and garbage dumps and pirate collages and flowers and volcanoes and cardboard axes and clay figures and elaborate superhero power plants and watercolors and so, so many collages. Working with him allowed her to unselfconsciously explore her deep and profound love for making visual art, for the freedom it provides, the playfulness, the beauty.
Today she produces a variety of art-making opportunities throughout the Twin Cities. She’s worked with Minneapolis Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Art Buddies, and others to help kids engage with and explore their curiosity and creativity on their own terms. She also cultivates her own mixed-media art practice, with an emphasis on watercolor painting and collage. She’s currently working on an exhibit and accompanying book about Chick and Julia Stahl, an ill-fated turn-of-the-twentieth-century baseball couple.
Janyesha Jackson | Teaching Artist (she/they)
Janyesha Jackson is a youth worker, artist, and facilitator from the historic Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their background is in youth work, where they have built a career centered on youth voice, equity, and process.
She began exploring visual art in 2020 and officially stepped into her identity as an artist after experiencing art therapy. Since then, they have developed and led art-based programming for young people, drawing on their earlier experience in performance art, including musical theater and choir.
In addition to her work with Now.Make.Art, Janyesha runs a face painting business and works as a data consultant in the youth development field.
Rachel Avendio | Teaching Artist (she/her, they/them)
Rachel Avenido is a Filipino American printmaker, educator, and mixed media artist based in their hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota. They have a degree in Graphic Design - Print Media from Minneapolis College and hold a Bachelor’s in Political Science, Spanish, and Latino/Latin American Studies from the College of Saint Benedict.
Rachel has experience educating a wide range of communities, from Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) in St. Paul and at Justice Alan Page Elementary in Maplewood, to the general public attending live screen-printing events around the Twin Cities with Print At My Event. Since then she has been expanding her portfolio with illustrations, block printing and cyanotype prints. Rachel enjoys encouraging people of any age and experience to add art as daily practice as a way to understand oneself and relate to a wider community. She especially enjoys creating art with her two nephews.
Website
Broderick Poole | Teaching Artist (he/him)
Broderick Poole is a visual artist from St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood. He teaches art to kids in his community and sells pieces of his own. He’s been creating art for 25 plus years. His newest collection of art is inspired by a love of the Minnesota called HeArt of the Cities. All products are designed, screen printed, painted, hand cut and sewed in a vintage style by Broderick Poole.
Margo Butler | Teaching Artist (they/them)
Margo Butler is a multimedia artist and art educator raised in the woodlands of Northern Wisconsin and currently based in Minneapolis, MN. Working primarily in watercolor, illustration, and more recently ceramics, their artistic practice explores the deep interconnection between humans and the ecosystems we inhabit.
As an art educator, Margo is passionate about supporting young people in using creative expression as a tool for self-discovery, community building, and global awareness. In addition to their work with Now Make Art, they have taught and collaborated with organizations such as Art to Change the World, Monroe Street Arts Center, and Abrakadoodle.
With a strong commitment to environmental justice, Margo also engages youth and communities in hands-on connections with nature. They have led wilderness canoe and kayak trips with YMCA Camp Icaghowan, facilitated gardening and nature art workshops, and served as Education Director at The People's Farm in Madison, WI.
Margo believes the arts can be a powerful bridge between people and the natural world, fostering both reflection and action in response to the climate crisis.
Jack Bonko | Teaching Artist (he/him)
Jack Bonko is a graduate from Minnesota State University Moorhead where he earned degrees in Theatre (Acting) and Integrated Public Relations and Advertising. One thing that he's always exploring is the "play" within the process of art. Jack has taught a variety of arts and theatre classes all across the metro with several notable arts organizations. Jack is an active member of the Twin Cities Theatre Community. Watch for him on a stage near you!
Carly Newhouse | Teaching Artist and Administrative Support (they/she)
Carly is an artist, educator in Saint Paul Public Schools, and arts administrator living in Minneapolis. After graduating from University of Wisconsin-Green Bay with a B.A. in Arts Management, they began their career at Fox Cities Performing Arts Center,The Trout Museum of Art, and then as Program and Accessibility Manager at Minneapolis based nonprofit, Arts Midwest. These roles sparked a deep interest in accessibility in the arts, and they are passionate about bridging this value with youth autonomy and creative empowerment across their work and life.
She finds creative joy in collaging, performance and visual art with friends, and sharing in music by way of her band and radio show.
Folaṣade Adesanya | Teaching Artist (they/she)
Folaṣade Adesanya (b. 1992) is a blooming neuro/quirky agender poet and curator. their practice is rooted in an ongoing self-study and co-creative process with their ancestors, intrinsically aligned with their spiritual practice. they are currently focused on projects that include intuitive, epistolary, and ekphrastic prose/poetry; speculative storytelling that unearths and gives shape to black transcestors in the collective imaginary; and documenting the intimate tales of her lineage. folaṣade is a current fellow with the emerging curators institute. folaṣade has self-published a poetry chapbook titled bodies are deep wells and several other prose/poetry zines. she has additionally published writing with saint paul almanac, blue earth review, the kitchen, hair+nails and mn women’s press.
folaṣade is a member of the curatorial team studio art grime destroy and stewards a mutual aid project called community tithes. she is an aspiring flower farmer and beekeeper. she was born and raised on ohlone lands, currently living on anishinaabe + dakota lands with her cat parsley.
Fio Adams | Teaching Artist (they/them)
Fiona (Fio) Adams is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in south Minneapolis. Their practice focuses on making movement and art process accessible, and primarily involves photography and cyanotype, dance, and metalwork. Fio left Macalester College with a degree in Applied Mathematics and a minor in dance, and works as a wedding photographer both for their own business and as an associate through Courtney Rae Films and Martinus Photography. Their choreography has been featured in Macalester's showcases (Up)Rooted and Open Despite, at the Cedar Cultural Center, and at local events, and their photography has been featured at the artist-run space Public Functionary. They teach art both through Now Make Art and as a youth worker at Tubman shelter, and are in a constant process of combining their passion for teaching with their own creation practice.
Sammie Bonko | Teaching Artist (she/her)
Sammie Bonko is a local Twin Cities artist with a passion for performance and education. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre and a BS in Strategic Communications from North Dakota State University. Her performance credits include touring to 16 different states over a year and a half with Missoula Children’s Theatre and the National Theatre for Children. She has also worked with Thin Air Theatre Company, along Lake Theatre and Frosted Glass Ensemble. In addition to her artistic work, Sammie serves as a para substitute teacher in St. Paul, where she brings creativity and compassion into the classroom.
Past Teaching Artists
Rhea Boese-Colond | Teaching Artist (she/her)
Rhea is a teaching artist with a focus on the connection between modern concepts of identity and the continuation of visual languages. She specializes in paint and color of all sorts.
A resident of Minnesota her entire life, she knows and loves the Twin Cities. With half a decade of experience in arts and art research, and a decade of justice work in her communities she attempts to bridge the gap through creativity.
