Arts Beacon

Arts Beacon Mission

Our mission is to build and nurture a creative community rooted in connection—where artists support one another while pursuing their individual paths, developing their voices, and growing both personally and collectively.

Shannon Kelly is a Kirkwood-based watercolor artist with a hyper-realistic style. Since she was a Shannon Kelly is a visual artist who works primarily in watercolor. After serving as a public school teacher for 12 years, she took a leap into art as a full time vocation. She is largely self-taught but she has enjoyed the challenge of teaching to others techniques she has developed while painting and drawing. She co-owns Arts Beacon in Grant Park and sells work under her brand DaisyLions Studio at various boutiques, festivals, and pop ups around Atlanta. She is a 2023-2024 recipient of an "Emerging Artist" grant through Atlanta's mayor Office of Cultural Affairs. Her work has been featured in juried shows across the country and she has had two solo shows to date. Shannon's work celebrates nature and explores the innate tension between natural and developed spaces in Atlanta. She is also known for her series of paintings of birds.

You can see Shannon's work here.

Follow Shannon on Instagram.

Jena is the owner/ director of Arts Beacon Studio. She holds a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA in Sculpture and Drawing from Queens College CUNY. She is the primary kiln overseer at Arts Beacon and director of the studio program and leader for the teen, adult program. She also founded the resident artist program and mentors the resident artists and teachers. Jena's specialty is in portfolio development, artist mentoring, observational drawing, figure drawing and handbuilt ceramic relief, sculpture and functional ware.

Jena teaches the resident artists the teen portfolio and occasional special classes and private lessons at Arts Beacon.

Private and Semi Private Lessons available Thursdays and Fridays.

Jena is currently a studio artist at Guardian Studios and you can often find her work at Echo Contemporary

See everything Jena is up to on her linktree

Follow Jena on Instagram

Erin Drakeford graduated from the University of Georgia with a BFA in painting and drawing in 2003. She is a studio artist at MINT Gallery and has had her work featured in Create! Magazine's women's issue, Candyfloss blog, I Like Your Work publication and Art Mums United podcast. Her paintings are a whirlwind of bright colors and materials. Most days, she will tell you that neon vibrancy is about positivity and always looking for hope and goodness in the world, but some days it's about the futility and superficiality of it all. These emotional mood swings and paradoxes are ever-present themes in her figurative, abstract, and floral paintings. In addition to painting, she curates shows, teaches expressive painting at Arts Beacon Studios, and is the founder of Bell Moon Arts.

See Erin's work at www.erindrakeford.com

Find out more about Bell Moon Arts

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Zoe Iatridis is a mixed media artist specializing in painting, drawing, and collage. She graduated from Oberlin College with a dual degree in Studio Art and Art History and has been a resident at Arts Beacon since 2024. She has taught across all age groups in a variety of settings, from schools to farms, and had her first solo exhibition at Arts Beacon in 2025.

Her work blends traditional and experimental approaches, creating layered, playful, and complex collaged images rooted in intuition. She values learning the rules—and trusting yourself enough to break them.

Zoe is passionate about helping others find and develop their creative voice. She strives to create a supportive environment where students feel empowered to experiment, play, and move beyond their inner critic.

Follow Zoe on Instagram

Clancy Provence is an Atlanta-based artist and lifelong lover of all things art and craft. A native of the Atlanta area and Georgia Tech alumna, she has been making since childhood -  drawn to art as both a personal passion and a way of connecting with others. In recent years, her practice has expanded to include woodworking, mosaics, metal-smithing, and welding, alongside her illustration and painting work. For Clancy art has always been a wonderful way to explore, play, and challenge herself. She’s excited to bring that creative energy to the Arts Beacon community!

Jaffia Royes is a visual artist and educator with over 17 years of teaching experience. She holds a degree in Fine Art with a focus on painting. Jaffia's primary medium is oil painting, through which she explores representational subjects with an abstract approach. Her work is grounded in a rigorous engagement with technique and process, yet driven by  sustained commitment to tinkering as a generative force in art-making. A recent transplant to Georgia, her work has been exhibited throughout New York and nationally. 

As an educator, Jaffia has collaborated with various art organizations, museums, and educational institutions in New York City and Georgia. She currently teaches at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. In the artroom, she brings a balance of rigor and exploration- supporting technical skill-building while guiding students toward the development of their authentic voice. Her teaching creates space for close observation, material sensitivity, and meaningful creative risk-taking.

A native of Atlanta, Stacey Beth Shulman first discovered pottery in kindergarten when she made letters and numbers out of smelly green modeling clay. Today she enjoys making and selling colorful handbuilt tableware painted with images that are inspired by Italian majolica pottery, southern folk art, and Chinese brush painting. Stacey received her BFA in Ceramics and Art Education and an MEd in Recreation Therapy, both from the University of Georgia. She is grateful to have studied under ceramicist Andy Nasisse and potters Ron Meyers, Michael Simon, and Rick Berman. When she is not in the studio, Stacey enjoys yoga, birdwatching, reading, and baking.

Stacey teaches Simple Forms in Clay!

Anna Zelski is a multimedia artist born and raised in Atlanta who earned her BFA in Media Arts from Warren Wilson College in 2025. During her time there, she developed her signature ambient video editing style and discovered a love for creating playful, offbeat animations.

Although she began as a child working in drawing, sculpture, and painting, fiber arts came to hold a special place in her practice after three years with Warren Wilson’s Fiber Arts Crew. There, she explored the possibilities of wool and felting while developing strong sewing skills, which led to her felted figure sculptures and pattern making.

She is passionate about sharing craft and building skills that encourage greater self-sufficiency in a world of rips and tears. Across her work, she explores the boundary between the familiar and the strange—making the weird feel normal, and the normal feel a little weird.