ABOUT
We are Kyndred Arts & Culture, Kentucky-based, artist‑led organization that nurtures creative community at the intersections of experience, culture, and place.
We translate local creative, visionary, and critical thinking into programs for arts education, community building, and professional development – centering universal design, collective care, and radical belonging to expand opportunities to all Kentuckians to connect, thrive, and shape a more inclusive cultural future.
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
-
Grounding our collective in Kentucky is a deliberate act of love—for each other, for this land, and for the layered histories of resistance and creativity that shape this region.
From Indigenous survivance and Black freedom movements to Appalachian labor organizing and queer rural life, Kentucky holds powerful legacies. We create in conversation with these intersecting lineages—through storytelling, embodiment, and artwork that reflects deep solidarity with our human and more-than-human kin. -
At Kyndred, we believe thriving doesn't happen in isolation — it grows in relationship, in community, and through shared commitment. We draw inspiration from Mia Mingus’s vision of access intimacy — a deep, mutual sense of trust, connection, and ease. A kind of intimacy that doesn’t come from forced closeness, but from spaces where all parts of us are welcome.
Kyndred is a space for neurodivergent+ artists to live fully in our depth, creativity, and complexity. Together, we cultivate rhythms of collective care that honor both interdependence and autonomy. We know that for many neurodivergent people, solitude is restoration. Time alone is vital for regulation, reflection, and healing. At Kyndred, we honor the need for space as much as the need for connection.
This is community as practice: tender, intentional, and ever-evolving. We come together in ways that make room for complexity, slowness, and care. -
Art is the heart of our collective. It’s how we connect, how we heal, how we resist, and how we imagine new worlds into being.
Our creative work draws from liberatory lineages. We are indebted to the predominantly BIPOC, Queer, and Disabled visionary thinkers who developed these frameworks:Neuroqueer theory
Intersectional feminism
Disability justice
Embodied activism
Emergent strategy
Kinship worldviews
We move through these liberatory frameworks like roots — intertwining and finding nourishment in collective growth.
-
For us, liberation isn’t a destination—it’s a creative rhythm.
A slow, intentional, cyclical process of:
Unlearning oppression
Deepening self-awareness
Living authentically
Sustaining one another through access, care, and cultural creation
-
By rooting our work in Kentucky, we affirm that liberatory futures are not abstract — they are already emerging here. Our presence here joins broader movements of artists, organizers, culture-bearers, and community-builders who also know that change begins in relationship, in practice, and in place.
Together, we’re composting harm, seeding joy, and cultivating futures where we not only survive, but thrive. Like a rhizome, we grow in unexpected directions — resilient, abundant, and alive.
MEET OUR FOUNDER
BETHANY PELLE, MFA
Founder and Director, Kyndred Arts & Culture
Bethany Pelle is an arts administrator, facilitator, ceramist, and social‑practice artist whose career weaves together masterful clay work with a lifelong dedication to community‑centered, trauma‑informed, and culturally responsive making.
Through Kyndred Arts & Culture, Bethany transforms collective art-making and ceramics practices into catalysts for healing and empowerment – creating thriving, inclusive hubs where every maker can belong.
-
Bethany has designed, staffed, and evaluated youth and adult focused arts programs that prioritize equity, accessibility, and cultural relevance.
Founder & Creative Director, Kyndred Arts & Culture (2019‑present):
Built a Kentucky‑based, artist‑led organization that designs inclusive arts‑education programs, curates community‑driven initiatives, and is preparing to open the Kyndred Clay Studio - a space honoring regional craft traditions while foregrounding radical belonging for neurodivergent‑plus artists.Director of Arts Engagement & Learning, Kennedy Heights Arts Center (2020‑2022):
Managed youth and adult programs, developed several community arts initiatives, instituted rigorous evaluation metrics, secured grant funding, and cultivated community partnerships.Project Manager of Pottery & Ceramics, BLOC Arts Program (2019‑2020):
Developed after‑school and recovery‑focused ceramics classes, increasing participation among women in addiction recovery and sex work.Project Manager of Hey, Let’s Talk Mental Health Social Intervention, ArtWorks (2018): Mentored a team of seven youth apprentices in development of technical, social and work skills pertaining to community engagement, focus group research, group facilitation, data collection, empathy, ethics, team building, and public speaking. I also oversaw research and implementation phases of the project; cultivated an empathic and collaborative work culture among a team of youth apprentices; and oversaw peer-facilitated stakeholder dialogues across diverse, local youth programs.
Creator / Director, Make Someone's Day, People's Liberty (2018):
This dynamic creative initiative, featured a community art studio and a weekly series of creative workshops. The project gathered overlapping and intersecting communities of Findlay Market around collaborative gestures of appreciation and empathy. Weekly creative workshops were led in partnership with local businesses, nonprofits, and artists. We prioritized inclusive accessibility by offering participation in all activities, workshops and events free of charge.
✿ 2260+ guests came through our doors
✿ 110 individuals from 59 local neighborhoods were nominated to receive porcelain flower arrangements created by the community.
✿ 225+ people, from over 79 communities got their hands dirty with us to create and glaze over 1020 porcelain flowers
✿ 110 arrangements were created and gifted to individuals nominated for this honor by their friends, neighbors, mentors, business partners, parents, colleagues, extended family, role models, employees, community members and chosen family members, among others.
-
With over two decades of studio practice, teaching, and professional consultancy, Bethany guarantees high‑quality ceramic production and safe, well‑maintained studio operations. Her expertise spans hand‑building, wheel throwing, slip casting, custom clay and glaze formulation, gas & electric firing, mold making, and advanced surface techniques.
She has served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, Instructor of Record at Tyler School of Art, Faculty and Ceramics Technician with 92NY, Senior Ceramics Specialist for Tom Sachs Studio, and Graduate Studio Assistant at both Tyler School of Art and the University of Miami.
Academic Foundations
MFA in Ceramics (Summa Cum Laude), Tyler School of Art, Temple University
BFA in Ceramics (Summa Cum Laude), University of Miami (minors in Art History & Anthropology)
-
Certified as a Mental Health Peer Support Specialist, Trained in a Trauma‑Sensitive Mindfulness Peer Facilitation and Death Companioning, Bethany embeds a care‑first ethos into every class, workshop, and apprenticeship she leads.
As a neurodivergent artist who actively centers queer, gender‑nonconforming, and culturally diverse voices, she models the inclusive leadership that defines Kyndred Arts & Culture.
-
Multiple grant wins — including Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Radical, Timely, and Urgent Grant (2024 & 2025), Art Meets Activism Grant (2023), and advancing Democracy/Building Power (2019) and People’s Liberty’s Globe Grant (2018) — combined with transparent reporting showcase her fiscal responsibility and capacity to sustain long‑term programming.
FAQs
-
Our name reflects who we are: “KY” for Kentucky, “ND” for neurodivergent, and “kindred” for the spirit of kinship that guides us.
We believe in a world where creativity, connection, and care are central. We celebrate difference as strength and art as a shared practice of joyful resistance.
Kyndred is not just a name — it’s a living network of people rooted in place, growing together, supporting one another, and reimagining what community can be. -
Kentucky has always been a place of resistance, resourcefulness, and radical creativity. We are joining this legacy, and forging a future on our own terms — starting right here, in the midst of ongoing partisan hostility and cultural erasure.
We root ourselves intentionally in this place — not just geographically, but relationally, historically, and imaginatively.
Grounding our collective in Kentucky is a commitment to one another, to the stories we carry, and to the layered histories of resistance and creativity that shape this region. From Black freedom movements and Appalachian labor organizing to Indigenous survivance and queer rural life, Kentucky holds powerful legacies of refusal and renewal. These lineages live in the land and in our bodies. We engage them through our own embodied resistance, collective creation, and deep solidarity with our human and more-than-human kin.
By rooting our work here, we affirm that liberatory futures are already taking shape — cultivated by those who came before us and by those building now. Our presence joins a broader, ongoing movement of artists, organizers, land stewards, culture-bearers, and everyday people who know that transformation begins at home — in relationship and in practice.
Our work draws from liberatory frameworks developed and led by Black, Indigenous, and other people of color — particularly queer, trans, non-binary, and disabled visionaries. These include intersectional feminism, disability justice, embodied activism, emergent strategy, kinship worldviews, and neuroqueer theory — whose roots intertwine with these broader movements for justice. We move through these lineages like roots, drawing nourishment from their wisdom and growing toward collective flourishing.