Meet our 2025 Mermaid Mentors

Katie Rose Delucia

Katie is an artist, creative founder and guide at The Healers Art Studio, and has been an advocate for Mental Health for over 10 years. Since, she has worked with a wide range of clients, women of all ages, youth and teens, in group settings and 1:1. Along the way, she has merged her love of self-expression, the arts, and mental health into numerous art projects, and has sold her art in various locations across the country while teaming up with local partners to spread mental health awareness through community workshops and events. Katie believes art can turn wounds into light, and it is finding and connecting to that light that allows us to transform our world from the inside out. This very belief is at the heart of The Healer's Art Studio’s philosophy, a creative workshop and event service where she facilitates customizable art programming to connect participants first from within, and to express outwardly through the medium of art. Art making is just one of many expressions to spark transformation, and she is thrilled to be partnering with Mountain Mermaids Collective for the 2024 Mermaids Mentoring Project while supporting the creative vision of her mentee.

Liz Lanham

Liz Lanham comes from Philadelphia and was raised surrounded by traditional Irish music. Her home was often filled with musical gatherings, and through these experiences, she learned to love music as a way of living and connecting. She began her musical journey with bluegrass banjo and guitar. When she moved to Boone around 2008 she had the good fortune to take fiddle lessons with Cecil Gurganus, and she officially caught the old-time fiddle bug, learning new tunes and seeking out old-time jams as often as possible!

In Boone, Liz can often be found at local old-time and bluegrass jams. She teaches fiddle for the Junior Appalachian Musician program and has performed in several local groups including PIg Ankle Annie, the Heel Raisers, and Ruby Goose. She currently performs as Liz Lanham and Friends and with the Belle Peppers.

Kelsey wagner

Kelsey Merreck Wagner (b. 1990) is a textile artist and environmental activist. She received her B.A. (Studio Arts; focus: printmaking) at Western Michigan University; her M.A. (Cultural Studies & Sustainability; focus: community-engaged arts) at Appalachian State University, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University (Anthropology; focus: human-animal relationships, environmental art, and activism). She has exhibited work internationally in Cambodia, Thailand, Canada, and Italy, as well as across the United States including Illinois, Texas, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, and Michigan; and has done curatorial work with and for art, culture and education institutions around the world. She is also a member of the Blue Ridge Fiber Guild (Boone, North Carolina) and a founding member of the Mekong Artist Collective (Nong Khai, Thailand). Her research and artmaking are at the nexus of aesthetics, anthropological inquiry of environmental ruin at human hands, and hope for socio-environmental justice. She is especially interested in using art to raise awareness, initiate critical conversations, and spark change towards coexistence among all species on the planet.