Our Instructors & Staff
Ben Callahan
Ben Callahan is a MICA grad and an art teacher from Rochester, NY. He has taught a wide variety of art subjects to groups K-12, ranging from sculpture to stop-motion animation. When he isn’t teaching, he spends most of his time building things with rocks in his backyard.
Nan Cao
Nan Cao is a New York based illustrator and painter from Beijing. She graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art and received her Masters degree from School of Visual Arts. Nan creates art for newspapers and magazines such as the Spectrum, News Break and Baltimore City Paper, makes visual projects running across the 1700 Link NYC screens in all five boroughs in New York, works on paintings, which have been exhibited internationally and across the country. As an illustrator and painter working and living in New York, she gets inspiration from surrealistic imagery and my daily life in the big city.
Audrey Estok
Audrey Estok, a Philadelphia native, attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she majored in illustration with a concentration in book arts. With a strong community of artists and like-minded people, she has chosen to make Baltimore home.
Audrey’s clients vary from editorial publications, nonprofits and local restaurants to international publishing houses. Some notable clients include Contingent Magazine, Macmillan publishers, Bloomsbury Publishing and Sony Music.
Kay Fenton
Kay Fenton is a graphic designer and illustrator with a background in painting. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Painting. She also studied Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. A Baltimore native, she enjoys the rich history this city has to offer.
Alex Fine
Alex Fine was born and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Upon graduating from MICA in 2004, he decided to stay in Baltimore where today he lives and works as a freelance illustrator.
Alex’s clients include Time Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Observer, and he has a weekly column that he illustrates for the Baltimore City Paper. His style reflects influences of vintage comic books, 90’s rock posters, and various eras of editorial illustration.Alex’s clients include Time Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Observer, and he has a weekly column that he illustrates for the Baltimore City Paper. His style reflects influences of vintage comic books, 90’s rock posters, and various eras of editorial illustration.
Lolo Gem
Lolo Gem is an artist and illustrator from Westchester County, New York, currently living and working in Baltimore. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (’17) from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she studied primarily painting and illustration. Lolo frequently collaborates with local music venues to create concert posters. Her work adopts a visual language consisting of personal symbols, along with repurposed imagery from vintage animation, comics, and toys. She loves cartoons, intricate linework, and drawing all things gooey and lumpy.
Meghann Harris
Meghann Harris is a Baltimore-based designer, illustrator, and educator whose primary work is as the Graphic Design/Interactive Media Production pathway director at Baltimore Design School. Meghann received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (’11) and Master of Arts in Teaching (’12) from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is, additionally, a seasonal staff member at Girls Garage in California teaching digital media and art and recently completed a residency in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts during the Summer of 2020.
Greg Houston
Greg Houston was born and raised in Baltimore, MD (the Baltimore Orioles celebrated by winning their first World Series that fall). He earned his BFA from Pratt Institute and has been illustrating professionally since 1988. His portfolio is large and stylistically vast.
Greg has worked for a wide variety of clients in nearly every aspect of the illustration field including: The Los Angeles Times,The Village Voice, Utne Reader, Warner Lambert Pharmaceuticals, Marvel Comics, LA New Times, Relapse Records, Miami New Times, Baltimore City Paper, Washington City Paper, Seattle Weekly, San Diego Union Tribune, John Wiley and Sons Publishing, Agora Financial, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, BWI Airport, Atlas Games, Houston Press, NOW Toronto, The American Prospect, Texas Monthly, Pop Smear, E! Channel, and Cleveland Scene, to name just a few. He also wrote and illustrated two graphic novels—Vatican Hustle and Elephant Man (NBM Publishing, 2009 and 2010 respectively)—and is the author of Illustration That Works: Professional Techniques for Artistic & Commercial Success (The Monacelli Press, March 2016) and Understanding Caricature (The Monacelli Press/Phaidon Books, May 2021). You can see his work at www.greghoustonillustration.com or on Instagram @ghoustonillustration.
Before teaching at Maryland Institute College of Art, Greg briefly taught cartooning for kids at Howard Community College. During his 9 years at MICA, Greg (along with his friend and colleague, Brian Ralph) created the illustration core and workshop curriculum for the pre-college program, primarily aimed at college bound teenagers aged 15-17. While at MICA he also taught Illustration in the undergraduate and continuing studies programs. Greg’s classes included Sophomore Illustration I and II, Junior Illustration II, Drawing for Illustration, and Sequential Art. He also taught an online class for Craftsy.com entitled “Painting the Imagined Landscape in Acrylic”.
Margaret Huey
Margaret Huey is a Thai-American illustrator, cartoonist, and educator based out of Baltimore, MD, forged in equal parts by manga, metal, mythology, and other things that don’t start with the letter M. When she’s not teaching, drawing, or frequenting concerts, she performs as DIETANIUM for Super Art Fight, the greatest live art competition in the known universe.
Adam Jones
Adam T Jones is a Brooklyn born, Baltimore based artist and illustrator. Adam attended The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland with a degree in Drawing with studies in Illustration and Art History. Adam has also studied at Studio Art Centers International in Florence Italy and The Baltimore Academy of Illustration. Adam’s fortes are sketching en plein air and comics with bold black and white illustrations.
Sarah Jung
Sarah Jung is an illustrator and children’s book writer. She has a B.F.A (2017) in Illustration, creative writing and book arts from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been featured in notable publications including the Atlantic, Adweek, Adobe and the Brandywine River Museum.
Her debut picture book, When Father Comes Home, was published in 2020 with Scholastic, and her second book Our World of Dumplings written by Francie Dekker, set to publish in 2022 with Little Bee Books.
Sarah currently resides in Baltimore, MD working as a freelance illustrator with her friends and two cats Olli and Iggi.
Jillian Kaczak
Jillian is an author and illustrator based in New Jersey. She studied Illustration and Book Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Arts, and specializes in both traditional and digital art. Growing up in New Jersey, she has learned to take inspiration from all around her: the woods by her house, the turkeys who fight in her yard, anywhere and anything can be inspiring, even close to home.
Jillian enjoys reading, running, and dedicates her days to writing stories and spending time with her family.
Edward N Kane Jr
We are happy and proud to welcome new partner, Edward N Kane Jr, to the BAI family. Born and raised in Baltimore, Ed has served as Associate General Counsel of the District of Columbia Housing Authority for the past six years. In that role, he has helped to guide the Authority’s major housing redevelopment efforts, regulatory compliance and governance. During a career spanning twenty-five years, Ed has managed cross-discipline teams closing real estate transactions and provided strategic business counsel to for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, in the private and public sectors. He holds a BA in Economics from University of Pennsylvania, and a JD from University of Maryland (Carey). Ed is the proud father three children. A former college wrestler, he clings vainly to faded athletic glory.
Erica Ostrowski
Erica Ostrowski is a freelance Illustrator and comic artist/colorist from Nottingham, Maryland. They graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art and received their Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in 2014. Erica’s work is inspired by animation, cartoons and comics which gives them a very colorful and vibrant art style. As an Illustrator Erica has worked with many small business clients creating designs for merchandise, and custom made pieces. As far as comics, They’ve worked as an indie comic colorist for the past 4 years, coloring pages for pitch work. They’re currently writing, inking and coloring a children’s comic called “Beansprout” that is being pitched for publishing for 2023-2024″.
Heidi Phelps
Heidi Phelps is a writer and artist from Washington, DC, and the creator of Black Violet Tarot—a women-led, modern take on the Rider-Waite-Smith cartomancy system. She firmly believes in the power of tarot for sparking creativity, and is passionate about guiding students along their artistic paths—most recently as a workshop leader at the Witch City Tarot Gathering in Salem, Massachusetts. Heidi’s diverse list of artistic influences includes Edward Gorey, Aubrey Beardsley, Victorian-era mourning costumes and memento mori, vintage early to mid-century sewing patterns, Grimm’s fairy tales, Salvador Dali’s Alice in Wonderland sketches, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Frida Kahlo. When she’s not sketching (and even when she is), Heidi is hanging out with her husband, Erdem; her daughter, Leyla; and her two cats, Eddie and Daisy.
Stephanie Shafer
Stephanie Shafer creates conceptual illustration work for a variety of editorial clients including AARP, The Atlantic, Adweek, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore City Paper, Education Week, and Houstonia.
Jonathan Marshall Smith
Jonathan Smith is an artist, illustrator, and comic artist from Baltimore. He is currently based in St Louis, where he teaches at Washington University, works as a freelance illustrator, draws in his sketchbook, and makes comics all day.
Jamal Steele
Jamal Steele is an illustrator and concept artist based in Baltimore, MD. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015, and since then has done freelance illustration and concept design for a variety of clients. Jamal has also taught at the Community College of Baltimore County, teaching both digital imaging and concept art design.
Jamal’s work is influenced by his love for video games, anime, and contemporary fantasy art.
He spends his free time world building for his personal project and exploring programs that can take his illustrations to new heights, such as Blender and Daz 3D.
Brandon Wallace
Brandon Wallace is a Baltimore-based Cartoonist, Illustrator, and educator. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration from The Maryland Institute College of Art (2012) and his Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from Syracuse University in (2020). Brandon is an adjunct faculty member at Morgan State University, George Mason University, and Drexel University.
Noella Whitney
Noella Whitney is a Baltimore resident from New Jersey, and a 2015 MICA Illustration graduate. They are a 2018 and 2021 PRISM Comics award winner for To Measure and To Cut respectively, the first two installments in their three-part lesbian werewolf series. They have sold their work at shows across the US and Japan. They are most interested in stories of character-driven conflicts played out on a larger stage, how we live with consequences of our actions, finding human connection, and wrapping it all up in exciting tales of adventure. Noella enjoys hiking, backpacking, traveling through the quiet parts of foreign countries, working in the woods, a smooth bourbon, cooking meals for others, and befriending every cat in the world.
