When Katie Maycroft found a Minolta Maxxum 7000i in grandma’s closet — it belonged to grandpa — a personal hobby began to turn into something more. The nearly 30-year-old camera has become a close friend to Maycroft, shifting the way the Lowell native sees photography and the world itself. Now Maycroft captures any “shapes, color, patterns and lighting” worth sharing with the world.

Sitting in a political science class at Northern Michigan University, Esan Sommersell found himself daydreaming.The only member of his family born in America — his family hails from Guyana — Sommersell went to NMU after high school to pursue pre-law at the prodding of his parents. But the Grand Rapids native and Ottawa Hills High School graduate felt out of place and disengaged. His professor, an eccentric guy who had traveled the world and marched with Martin Luther King Jr., noticed and encouraged him to pursue his real passion: making art.

The photography of recent Kendall College of Art and Design graduate Jeen Na intends to act as a study of the phases of living — all of the situations and circumstances people encounter and how they choose to process them. Ahead of his body of work, As Much Heaven As Earth, being featured at the Grand Rapids Art Museum during ArtPrize Nine, Na chatted with Revue about the themes and art that inspire him, and where he hopes to take his burgeoning career.

Like so many artists, Jovannah Nicholson fell in love with art and working with her hands at a very young age. Now she sculpts and creates ceramics, but as a kid it was all about coloring and drawing with her markers before school, which could get kind of messy. One of her mom’s favorite stories to tell is how Jovannah’s teachers in elementary school thought she wasn’t getting bathed enough because she would come in with marker all over her hands. “Putting the caps on the markers could be quite difficult,” she said, laughing.