Joe Concra is a painter and original O+ founder. His work examines glimmers of hope and the illuminated edges using the classic techniques of oil painting, with which he creates worlds both familiar and skewed by dreamlike absurdity. His work is held in private collections throughout the U.S. and U.K.
After meeting a local dentist in 2010, he focused on creating a group art project which combines art, music, and healthcare for artists and musicians, a seriously under-insured part of the population. A yearly festival evolved that helped to fill a cultural void that was life in Kingston. He believes art, music, and healthcare are essential to our community’s well-being.
Dr. Lizette Edge is a Board-Certified Family-Practice Physician who strives to provide loving and patient-centered care. She has 10+ years of experience working in Hudson Valley hospitals, both at Ellis Hospital and Kingston Hospital, where she delivered care to individuals from the ER, which included being on the ground throughout the entire Covid-19 pandemic.
Lizette was born in Bogota, Colombia, and moved to the U.S. at the age of 9, living as an undocumented immigrant for her first 10 years. Her experiences growing up in the 80s and 90s Bogota during the drug wars, working in the privatized U.S. medical system, and being a traveling doctor abroad within hospitals with very limited resources, have all shaped her belief that health, especially access to primary care, is a human right.
For the last 5 years, Lizette has been happy to call Kingston home. When she is not working, you can find her in the Catskill Mountains or in a body of water – especially the ocean on a surfboard. Lizette has volunteered with the O+ Festival for the last three years and is thrilled to join the team and be a part of opening a clinic that will serve the community she loves.
Aimee is an educator and arts administrator and serves as the Operations Director for O+. She helped launch the festival in San Francisco and Petaluma, CA. Her experience in community empowerment extends back to her role as Curriculum Director for the Technovation program, which provides young women around the world the framework to solve problems in their communities by developing technological solutions. She produced video content and designed education programming around the “Revolution: 2000 Years of Computing History” exhibition at the Computer History Museum and has worked as an instructional designer for CUNY to design seminars around New York City and the arts, technology, science, and the future of NY.
Aimee holds an MA in Germanic Languages and Literature from the CUNY Graduate Center and a BA in the same field from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Lindsey is an artist, educator, writer, and arts administrator. She was born and raised in the Detroit, MI area where she was first struck by the ways that built structures, like people, carry the impact of the present, future, and past concurrently. Wolkowicz received her BFA in Painting from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and her MFA in Painting/Drawing from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY where she remained for a decade before relocating to the Hudson Valley in early 2017. Drawing has always been at the center of her practice, but Wolkowicz works in the realms of photography, public murals, sculpture, video, and, notably, performance installation through her ongoing collaborative projects with her partner, Dillon Paul.
Lindsey Wolkowicz became the Art Director of O+ in early 2021. She is a 2018 O+ alumni artist. She has taught drawing in various settings for elementary through adult learners around the world and has exhibited her work internationally. She is also proud to be a recent recipient of recognition for her work supporting the arts within her own community, including the 2022 YWCA’s Women Who Roar for the Y Honoree and the 2022 Kingston Midtown Arts District Red Goat Award for outstanding service to the arts. Wolkowicz lives and works in Kingston with her partner and their daughter.
Laura Crimmins is the Music Co-Director (Production), bringing her personal experience as a Hudson Valley-based musician to O+ in partnership with Lara Hope. She is an O+ music alum, creative small business owner, designer, merch maker, fiddle player, vocalist, mom, and gardener.
Crimmins has a deep and longstanding commitment to working on behalf of the wellness of our local community. She has been essential to the growth of the Kingston Farmers Market in recent years and balances experience in performance, administration, festival production, farming, local food, and community building. Crimmins brings myriad skills, including over 15 years of production/tour management experience, infectious energy, and a hands-on approach to all production at O+ from music to the festival as a whole.
Mac Welch is a musician, artist manager, adventurer and storyteller. Raised in the non-profit white water rafting community of Yosemite Valley, California, his childhood was inspired by the wilderness and those that explored it. He spent his early years hearing adventurous tales from adventurous people, illuminated by campfires along the banks of rivers. Seeking his next big adventure, Mac quickly graduated from helping people feel at home on the river to helping musicians feel at home on world tours; working with such artists as Mitski, Pusha T, Jay Som, Marlon Williams, and Nick Hakim (among others) both on the road, and eventually as part of their management support systems.
Mac attended the University of Colorado Boulder’s Film School, where he was drawn to the practice of translating otherworldly stories into the universal language of art. He moved to Kingston to pursue his masters in Social Work, and has found his home in the cross section of aid and art, working as the Coordinator of Outreach and Communications for the O+ organization.
Lara Hope is a multi-festival O+ alum musician, super-volunteer, stage manager, merch maven, and former music committee member. As the O+ Music Co-Director (Programming) Hope brings her personal experience as a Hudson Valley-based musician to the annual festival and year-round music programming in partnership with Music Co-Director Laura Crimmins.
Hope has played the role of band leader, songwriter, manager, booker, and promoter in her bands Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones and The Gold Hope Duo for over a decade. She is an active touring musician who has been recognized with a prestigious Ameripolitan Music Award (2017), a “40 Under 40 Award” from SUNY New Paltz (2019), and was the proud recipient of the 2020 City Of Kingston’s Distinguished Artist Award. Between her experience as a touring musician and her heartfelt, proven commitment to providing access and opportunities to her fellow musicians, Hope brings an invaluable perspective to the O+ Team.
Jesse Scherer is a licensed massage therapist practicing in uptown Kingston. She has been with the O+ clinic since the festival’s beginning in 2010 and now serves as the Festival Clinic coordinator. Jesse has degrees in psychology and philosophy and brings that wisdom to all her endeavors.
Jesse is a founding member of local organizations pushing for equity and social transformation, including Radical Women’s Action Team, Social Change for Women, local Transition networks, alternatives to the military, Joppenbergh Mountain preservation organization, and the ever-eclectic Rosendale Improvement Association Brass Band and Social Club. She has been instrumental in several local health organizations including The Holistic Health Community and Healthcare is a Human Right! She is a minister of Maat under the guidance of IONE.
Jesse is always looking for new ways to collaborate with people to bring equity, activism, truth and fun to the center of the community. As a longtime networker and innovative thinker, Jesse is able to provide resources and resilience to the act of exchanging the medicine of art for the art of medicine.
Alanna Coby is a playwright, teaching artist and grant writer/development consultant. Her work has been celebrated by the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Jane Chambers Award for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting, The Civilians, Mabou Mines, The Drama League, Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, ShoutOut Saugerties, Dixon Place, SITI Company, The Brick, and IRT Theater. She is a proud founding member of The Syndicate, an ensemble theatre company producing new plays by women, queer, and trans+ artists, as well as the creator of Cooking Rage, a satire cooking blog, and Ugly Comics, a comic series about the creative process. Coby has taught playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College and the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute.
