Paint Love Artist Cohort
Professional Development Program
A transformative, year-long professional development program tailored for artists ready to deepen their creative practice, expand their impact, and grow as leaders in trauma-informed arts education. Through immersive training, collaborative learning, and real-world application, cohort members explore how to create meaningful, healing-centered experiences for youth. This program is ideal for artists who are passionate about using their craft to foster connection, resilience, and joy in school and nonprofit settings.
NEW in 2026: Cohort members will earn a professional certificate in trauma-informed arts education upon completion of the program.
Applications for our next cohort Are due by October 31, 2025
Questions about the program? Please email michelle@paintlove.org
Program Overview
The Paint Love Artist Cohort is a professional development program - a field-building effort, launched in 2022, that provides a unique opportunity for artists interested in incorporating a trauma-informed model in their roles as creatives, teachers, and leaders in our community. During their 12-month journey, cohort members are trained in Paint Love’s trauma-informed model, learn new skills, and receive expert guidance from Atlanta professionals on effectively engaging and creating deeper, more meaningful experiences for young people. Starting with our 2026 cohort, the program includes a professional certificate in trauma-informed arts education earned upon completion of the program.
Graduates of the program have taken on roles at Atlanta-area cultural institutions, become classroom teachers, and pursued other arts-related careers.
Meet our 2025 artist cohort members
Catalina Bellizzi-Itiola is a fine artist and designer with a background in education who arranges shapes, textures, and human elements to create artwork that communicates spiritual and mental states of being. The work is inspired by her experience with bipolar disorder, the mental healthcare system, and spiritual practices that impact the human brain. Bellizzi-Itiola graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts & emphasis in Art Education before teaching visual art in the Chicago Public Schools for several years. She now works on large-scale paintings, abstract mixed media work, freelance design, and album art direction for various national recording artists. Catalina grew up in the Midwest and is a half-Colombian, half-Argentine first generation American. Using the cultural complexity of her upbringing to bring nuance and a sense of "in-between-ness" to her work, her art practice thrives on seeking liberation and transcendence of the human experience. Aesthetically, her art uses a combination of synesthetic shapes and textures with human elements to communicate disembodiment and absolution.
Madison Nunes is an artist, independent curator, and administrator based in Atlanta, GA where they serve as the Programs Manager for The Bakery Atlanta, an arts non-profit. They are a graduate of The School of Visual Arts where they received their BFA in photography and video, exhibiting their work in New York and Georgia. Working primarily in photography, Nunes often focuses on cultivated intimacy within alternative family structures and the medium’s ability to be a democratized,anthropological lens. Within their work, there is a collaborative approach to story telling and a meditation on the power dynamics inherent to photography.
Sarah Roberts is a surface hand embroidery artist and educator based in East Atlanta Village. With over a decade of experience, she blends storytelling and skill-building through needle and thread. Mostly self-taught, she refined her technique at the San Francisco School of Needlework & Design. Sarah holds a BA in History from Agnes Scott College and has a background in teaching and school administration. She’s an active member of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America and the International Organization of Lace, Inc.
Sierra Wynn is a 22-year old, Atlanta-based artist with a focus on filmmaking and photography. Before the pandemic in 2020, Sierra was a criminal justice fanatic who hoped for a future in law-enforcement. However, through the pandemic, new passion was found in the art of creating films. Realizing her love for filmmaking, Sierra left her pursuit of law-enforcement behind and began focusing solely on creating art. While studying Multimedia Film and Production at Georgia Southern University, Sierra also did freelance photography, music videos, and passion projects with friends. It was not until her senior-year of college that she decided that she wanted her main scope of filmmaking to fall under documentary. With an immense appreciation of telling stories that people can relate to, most of Sierra’s art is visually based on real-life accounts and current events in the world. Creating films has been a way for Sierra to express her deeper emotions and find solace within herself and the ever-changing ways of the world. Sierra aims to educate others on how they can use art to express their emotions and themselves for the better.
Check out past Cohort artists + mentors
The Paint Love Artist Cohort Program is supported in part by Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency – the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is also made possible thanks to generous private donors and family foundations.