Rachel Basye

Rachel Basye is Executive Director at the Art Students League of Denver. Under her leadership, ASLD has created programming to engage more with people, through a dedicated Teen Studio Night, expanded community engagement from prisons to libraries to afterschool programs, established artist in residency and apprentice programs to expand professional development opportunities, and developed artistic travel experiences while growing the ASLD faculty and expanding the number and types of art courses offered to the Denver metro community.

She is currently treasurer on the Board of Directors for the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts. From 2014-2020, she served as a mayoral appointee to the Denver Commission for Cultural Affairs. As a practicing artist, she works in book arts, fiber arts, and printmaking.

Michael Henry

Michael Henry is co-founder and Executive Director of Lighthouse Writers Workshop, the largest independent literary arts center in the Rocky Mountain west. He is the author of three books of poetry and a nonfiction book, Mountain Biking the Colorado Trail, and has received fellowships from the Colorado Council on the Arts, PlatteForum, and a Livingston Fellowship from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. A new poetry collection, Gun Poems, will be published in spring 2026.