Locust Projects Executive Director Lorie Mertes knew when they moved into their larger space in Little River in 2023 and saw the brightly lit loft, it would be great for local artists to create work.
“Our space is bigger than we had in the Design District, and I knew immediately I wanted to use that upstairs space for a Teaching Artists Residency,” said Mertes.
Each summer since, Locust has hosted Locust Art Builders (LAB) Teen Program.
(Photo: courtesy of World Red Eye)
Chire Regans, one of the first artists to be accepted for an artist residency at Locust Projects.
“We want to be true to what we are carving out for this next generation and that is how we decided to offer the space to teachers who had been mentoring the students who attend that program,” said Mertes.
Artists Loni Johnson and Chire Regans were the first two in the space.
(Photo courtesy of Locust Projects)
Loni Johnson in her studio at Locust Projects.
“They had been teaching artists at our Summer LABS twice already, so it made sense for them to be in the space,” said Mertes.
2023: THE BEGINNING
“I really enjoy what they do here,” said Johnson. “It is different from other art institutions. ‘No’ is not really in their vocabulary at Locust. Lorie and her staff are interested in how you can stretch as an artist.”
Johnson is a teaching artist and educator at Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) and taught at New World School of the Arts. During her residency at Locust, she worked on pieces for Miami Art Week, and she was recently back at Locust last March, working on her first public art commission with Art in Public Places.
Johnson’s multi-disciplinary work includes assemblage on wood, mixed media, and sculptural work dealing with ancestral and historic memory and how that informs how we move through the world.
“Having studio space is becoming very dire and having this space allowed me to stretch my practice, a place where I could lock in and focus, which is so important to so many artists,” said Johnson.
Additionally, the studio visits that Mertes provided “exposed people to my work plus, having a studio space to get back to being a maker was helpful to me.”
Johnson’s cohort at Locust, Regans, is also a teaching artist at PAMM and teaches at New World.
“My relationship with Locust started when I came in as a guest artist with their program LAB in 2021,” said Regans. “I was running the LAB Program at Locust and then they built me a studio space downstairs, and I was doing a residency with WAAM Women’s Artist Archive Miami.”
Regans and Johnson were the guinea pigs for the residency.
“She wanted to test out the space on Loni and me since we had a relationship with her,” Regans said of Mertes. “The experience at Locust was the best for my career. I had 24-hour access and never felt micromanaged.”
During her time at Locust, Regans developed her braid installation, which was part of the Art on the Plaza series at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami (MOCA). Her time there also resulted in an in-depth article published in Burnaway Magazine, which is still prominently featured on the Locust website.
“The building has an energy that is conducive to creating and making,” said Regans. “The resources and source materials they provided to me were invaluable. I had major separation anxiety when I left.”
Dimitry Chamy, who teaches at Florida International University, applied because the program is local and starts in the summer.
“I had already shown my work at Locust,” Chamy said. “I have been a huge fan of theirs since the beginning. I never expected I would be accepted but it still would have been foolish not to apply. It was hitting all the right buttons.”
Having the physical space at Locust helped Chamy realize larger scale projects, including a piece that incorporates plexiglass leftover from the pandemic and video projection.
“The piece I started there is the most complicated I’ve ever created, in terms of the themes, but it really helped that I did not have a deadline, so I am still working on this piece,” said Chamy. “I am allowing myself longer gestational periods with my works.”
2024: ARTISTS THRIVE
(Photo courtesy Gonzalo Hernandez)
Gonzalo Hernandez with one of his pieces at Locust Projects.
Gonzalo Hernandez, a full-time teacher at Miami Arts Charter High School, discovered the Locust residency through Instagram, where Locust posted an open call for educators.
“My time at Locust was really amazing with a lot of studio visits,” said Hernandez.
“I had a studio visit with Amy Galpin, executive director of Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art and Design, resulting in a residency at the Miami Dade College Padron Campus, where I was until mid-August.”
He also had visits from other notables in the art world, and he created at least 10 paintings for the Untitled Art Fair during Art Basel in December and around 20 textile pieces for his show in Buenos Aires.
(Photo courtesy of Nicole Combeau)
Nicole Combeau in her studio at Locust Projects.
Nicole Combeau, who is a teaching artist at PAMM, knows Regans and Johnson well. Combeau manages the Creative Aging Program at PAMM and teaches classes at Vizcaya. She is also now diving into building curriculums.
Securing more grants has allowed Combeau to focus more on her artistic practice and the residency at Locust
“Loni and Chire are my mentors,” said Combeau. “I have really been following in Loni’s footsteps.”
The Locust space was on Combeau’s radar, and when she saw the open call, she applied.
“I can put my computer away and stare at a blank wall and focus on my work,” said Combeau about her residency.
Combeau undervalued the importance of conversations with others, something the residency provided.
“Studio visits were an opportunity for growth and self-reflection and provide one on one experiences with people in the community,” she said.
The residency resulted in an invitation for studio space at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood.
2025: CURRENT RESIDENTS
(Photo courtesy of Marie Franco)
Artist Marie Franco.
Marie Franco, who runs the Creative Aging PAMM Program and Vizcaya programming with Combeau, has also worked with O, Miami and facilitated programs for them at Locust.
Franco’s time there has allowed her to create more work,
“I am in one place instead of nomadically moving around,” Franco said. “I can stay mentally focused.”
Franco is currently working on a documentary, “First Come, First Served,” while also trying to solidify and grow her body of work and show it to anyone who visits the studio.
“This space is really helping me focus on being a painter,” Franco said. “I would encourage other educators to take advantage of opportunities like this and invest in their own practice.”
Sofia Valiente is using her time at Locust to continue to document and build on the existing multimedia exhibition at the Miccosukee Tribe Museum in collaboration with their Archives Department.
(Photo courtesy of Sofia Valiente)
Artist Sofia Valiente.
“This time at Locust has been very conducive to me — having the opportunity to experiment with their projectors and review the work I’ve produced in the form of larger format projections and how that experience can transform a gallery/project space,” said Valiente.
While at Locust, she has made rough cuts of her more than 30 hours of footage, watching and exporting numerous sequences to further explore, deconstruct and reconstruct the narrative structure and the linear form of film and video as part of her storytelling practice.
Mertes is proud of the artists and Locust’s residency program.
"I feel like artists need to be the ones speaking directly to make those connections with people who can further their practice,” she said. “Let people know you’ve made a new body of work and you want to share it with them and that’s an invitation that is very special."
Locust Projects is located at 297 NE 67 St., Miami in the Little River neighborhood. For more info, visit locustprojects.org