Meet The Team

Ivete Vaz de Castro Martinez is the Executive Director and founder of Med City Art Festival (MCAF). She has a master's degree in Philosophy (Oxford, UK), Psychology (Stanford -training, USA), and a Brazilian degree in Education. She’s been teaching art classes in and out at the Library, Northrop Community Center, Mantorville, SEMVA, and G24. Besides curating art for the Berkman Hotel, she is, first and foremost — a visual artist.

She has exhibited in Rochester at the RAC, G24, Charter House (Mayo Clinic), Quarry Hill Nature Center, 125Live, Crossings Art Center in Zumbrota, Red Wing Arts, Hopkins Center for the Arts, and the Minnesota State Fair. She’s an international visual artist who exhibited in Punta del Este (collective) in Uruguay, Porto Alegre (solo- Galeria da Cultura & Arte) in Brazil, and Malaga, Spain (collective) — she is currently working on an art piece to exhibit at the ArtBox in Zurich Switzerland (2025), at SWISSARTEXPO, and Milan in April (2026).

Barbara Schwenk, a representational artist, holds a BS in Art and Art History.  She continues to learn and build her skills in oil,  watercolor, acrylic painting, and graphite pencil drawing.

She is the Team Art Coordinator and consulting board member of the Med City Art Festival Team. Barbara is also a Barb's Art with Heart Too studio and Gallery 24 member and a former Appleton, MN Art and Culture Group and Rochester Artist Group member.  

Barbara has shown her art at the  Mayo Clinic, MCAF, Gallery 24, 125 Live, Appleton Art and Culture shows, and the Fergus Falls juried art show.

 Casandra Garcia is a self taught artist with over 25 years of multimedia art creation & experience. Casandra's hands-on approach, and the skills she has acquired in her professional career, have  been invaluable in creating unique art programming primarily aimed toward children, older individuals,  and those needing specialized adaptive tools and methods to create and more easily access art creation.
Casandra participates in a variety of arts advocacy events, providing outreach through community arts classes through her business Dazed Bat Artistry LLC, organizing Med City Arts Festival's T.A. hands on art program, as well as volunteering throughout her community. 

Anthony Matzke, a disabled USAF veteran, is an artist of Native American-style wall hangings and beadwork from Rochester, MN.  Drawing on the ancient traditions of Native American culture and art (especially Lakota), he creates artwork and jewelry that is a mix of traditional and contemporary styles.  Anthony specializes in shield mandalas, dream catchers and chokers as well as earrings and barrettes. 
 

Tony Served as a member of the Austin Area Art Center, participating in all the Starving Artist Sales and Art Walks as well as utilizing his opportunity to show his art in their gallery.  His art pieces have been sent as far away as New York, Pennsylvania for pow-wow sales.  He has also sold many pieces to South Dakota, Canada and New Mexico.  He has also been juried into Artigras 2012, 2007 Fiber and Finery IV Art Show in Crossings Art Gallery in Zumbrota, MN, and had a solo exhibit at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault, MN in 2015.

For four years he has taught as a volunteer about his art to third through sixth grade students at the Olmsted History Center in Rochester and Minnesota and Girl Scouts for the Native American Center of Southeast Minnesota.