Our Guiding Purpose
Stelo illuminates the power of art to invite conversation and build community. We are dedicated to responsive models of support via partnerships, collaboration, and exchange.
EMERGENCE
We nurture the creative process as a cycle of becoming. By engaging with a diverse spectrum of creatives and organizers who are deeply committed to growing their artistic and cultural practices, we embrace intuitive and experimental possibilities.
CURIOSITY
We believe that making is an offering to think more deeply and to approach the world with respectful curiosity. We offer access points for artists, staff, and communities to converse, listen, and learn from one another.
COMMUNITY
Our communal interbeing invites us to share what we have and ask for what we need. In this cycle of exchange we focus on both emergent and enduring needs to strengthen the ecosphere.
CARE
We embrace radical love that recognizes our individual and collective lived experiences. We center care in our interactions to foster inclusive, intersectional, and equitable spaces.
PLACE
By advocating for healthier relationships with land and people, we root our work in connection to place. We seek to co-create a sense of place, and of belonging, with the creatives we support, our neighbors, our partners, and our peers.
Creatives + Artists We Serve
We’ve supported over 150 artists working both with local to Oregon creatives, as well as folks from Spain, California, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Montana, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, and Alabama. This group includes multi-disciplinary makers, painters, poets, sculptors, photographers, performers, musicians, papermakers, social practice practitioners, writers, eco-activists, audio artists, ceramicists, video/media artists, individual makers and collaborative groups. They were invited, selected via open calls, and recommended to us via partner orgs. They are students, emerging artists, mid-career, and established creatives. The common thread across this community is that they are all deeply committed to their creative practice. The primary way we engage with artists is through our residency programming. Supporting artists + being responsive to their needs, is the heart of our work.
Meet Our Team
Stelo Arts + Culture Foundation is a program of the non-profit family foundation, c3:initiative.
Shir Ly Camin Grisanti | Founder, Interim Co-leader with Programs Focus
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Shir Grisanti is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work ranges from studio work to reimagining institutional possibilities. Shir is a Latine/Israeli immigrant mother whose multifaceted work is deeply rooted in community, peace & justice, and environmental restoration.
In 2013 Shir founded c3:initiative (now known as Stelo) in Portland, Oregon, a nonprofit private operating foundation designed to support the production of art and foster community engagement between artists, cultural institutions, and the public. The organization’s first branch, Stelo, is an artist residency program, with future initiatives focusing on wellness and environmental justice in development.
Shir co-leads the rewilding, restoration, and operations of Camp Colton, an 85-acre forest retreat in rural Oregon, alongside their husband Laurence. Their efforts center on land stewardship, ecological repair, and creating spaces for community connection.
Stacey Tomanelli | c3:initiative Administrative Lead
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Stacey Tomanelli joined the creative team of Stelo and sister org Camp Colton in June 2018. Since graduating high school Stacey has held a full time job in the administrative field. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Studies at SUNY Purchase College while working and attending classes in the evening. She is a mother of two boys and multiple animals. Stacey has always been interested in the arts. Her mother was an artist and she grew up using art as a way of expressing herself. Stacey enjoys working with talented people who inspire her.
Marvin Parra Orozco | Stelo Gallery Assistant
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Marvin Parra Orozco (He / They) is a Portland-based printmaker. His interdisciplinary work focuses on identity, culture, spirituality, and uplifting marginalized communities. He uses layering, cultural symbols, abstraction, fragments, and photo collage as a means of creating a utopian world. Marvin Parra Orozco uses prayer as a means of survival. His hopes and dreams with his work are to help others imagine a different kind of world where love and community are at the root.
Our Board of Directors
Shir Ly Camin Grisanti
Laurence Grisanti
Monica Camin
Carlos Camin
Anthony Grisanti
Contact Us
Stelo is a 501(c)(3) non-profit private operating foundation. We offer support via programs rather than grants.
Embedding Equity + Repair
We are committed to growing our organization in order to share power and co-create an environment that is not only accessible, diverse, equitable, and inclusive but is also actively anti-bias and anti-racist. In 2021 we began using an equity lens to more effectively guide decision making away from known systems of harm and towards a culture of repair. To us, equity means that everyone is cared for. Embedded in that care is an acknowledgment of the different experiences of privilege and oppression in our culture and our community. We also acknowledge the foundational and systemic biases in our organization and throughout society.
Stelo engages with partners via invitation and periodic open call. We are interested in supporting the creation of art via residencies, exhibitions, and public programming.
We embark on partnerships when they are in alignment with our values and annual goals. Our partnerships are rooted in co-creation of programs.
We encourage you to read our partnership FAQs to get a sense of the resources and support that Stelo has to offer. At this time we are not looking for new partnership programming.