Zygote’s internship program provides participants with fulfilling experiences that have led to positions as gallery directors, shop technicians, contract printers, resident artists and adjunct positions in schools and universities.

Zygote Internships

Zygote’s internship program is essential to our organization’s mission, and interns provide ideas and energy that are crucial to our success.

Meet Our 2024 Interns

  • Chandler Mack

    Intern Lead

    Chandler Mack is a Post Digital Printmaker from Youngstown, Ohio. She received her BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Printmaking from Kent State University, and she hopes to work towards her MFA soon. Her work mainly focuses on the idea of women working, how their work defines them, and the way it changes society’s perception of them. She uses alternative photo-processes combined with traditional printmaking processes to create dynamic layers intended to resonate with the viewer’s own experiences

  • Joey Leppo

    Joey Leppo is an artist with a passion for creating work using various printmaking methods. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design, his artwork is mainly inspired by his upbringing as a military child and his heritage as a Japanese American. Joey creates his work through creating highly detailed drawings, then transferring and reproducing those images through various print methods, abstracting editions of an image as a representation of the movement of time. Outside of print, his interests lie in skateboarding, graphic design, and ceramic design

  • tahm lytle

    tahm is Black and Latine, queer, and a dedicated leftist—these intersecting identities inform their approach as a printmaker, teaching artist, and political educator. They are a teaching artist and an education/community engagement intern at Zygote Press, and the fall semester Maker-in-Residence with Cleveland Heights Public Library.  tahm’s mission as an artist-activist is to build a culture of revolution and establish a radical, inclusive, vibrant art scene in Cleveland. They accomplish this by providing politically informed, accessible art workshops, organizing for local, state-wide, and international causes, and creating open-edition political art for distribution rather than collection. 

  • Fi Burnham

    Fi (they/them) is a multimedia artist and designer based in Kent, Ohio. Currently working towards a BFA in Visual Communication Design, their work spans mediums of photography, graphic design, illustration, printmaking, and pretty much anything else they can get their hands on. Their muses include found and forgotten print ephemera, intersecting queer and religious iconography, and their three pet rats. When not creating, you can find them working in galleries and absorbing as much art as possible.

  • Michaella Difiore

    Born and raised in the Cleveland area, Michaella is a recent graduate of Pratt Institute where she studied Illustration and minored in Book Arts. First introduced to printmaking in high school via linocuts, Michaella has had a passion for it ever since and used her time at Pratt to explore as much of the medium as possible, becoming familiar with relief prints, riso, silkscreen, and lithography, overall becoming enamored with fine art printmaking and the hands-on process heavy quality behind it. Her current work has been heavily influenced by florals and poetry but really can expand to whatever bewitches her in the moment.

  • Isabella Robert Llorens

    Isabella Robert Llorens is a Boricua jewelry maker, metalsmith, and printmaker. They moved from Puerto Rico to Cleveland in 2019 to study at Case Western Reserve University, from which they graduated in 2023. Their art expresses themes of self exploration through elements of nature and horror. They also make art that represents the struggle for Puerto Rican liberation and the resiliency of the Puerto Rican culture and identity despite so many decades of colonialism and exploitation.  

 Zygote’s internship is a year long intenship and requires a commitment of at least 20 hours each month, and interns work directly with a department to determine their schedule. Zygote internships are unpaid, but interns gain the following benefits:

  • Free 24/7 access to the shop

  • Free Printmaking instruction

  • Group classes at no cost (if space is available)

  • Paid Teaching and community engagement opportunities

  • Special shop activities, networking and projects

  • Year long Zygote Membership

What Kind of Internships does Zygote offer?

  • Zygote Press is excited to offer a Shop Internship, with a focus on green printmaking research, and proper print shop maintenance. Shop interns will work directly with our Print Shop Manager to maintain Zygote’s facilities, research new green printmaking techniques, staff Zygote events, and assist community member or resident artists in the making of their work. Prospective interns should be pursuing a career in fine art, design, art history, art education, or a related field—and have a love of the arts. Printmaking experience is required. 

  • Zygote Press is excited to offer a Gallery or a Programming Internship. The Gallery Internship has a focus on exhibition planning, organizing and execution. We also are offering a Programming Internship, this person would be helping with both onsite & offsite community programs. Candidates should be pursuing studies in art, art history, art education, or a related field—and have a love of the arts.

  • If you are interested in gaining experience in grant writing, arts nonprofit management, community building, development, special event planning, fundraising, and executive leadership, this is a great opportunity to work alongside the executive director of Zygote Press. Applicants should be pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector, have excellent written and oral communications skills, attention to detail, and have the ability to engage with the public as a representative of Zygote Press.

  • Zygote Press is excited to offer a community engagement/marketing internship this fall/winter. This internship will be focused creating physical and digital marketing materials and managing a social media calendar. The student should be pursuing studies in communication, journalism, writing, marketing or a related field – and have a love of the arts. It would be a hybrid position, working mostly remotely, but would involve coming in to Zygote's Shop one day a week to work with our Marketing & Development Coordinator or Executive Director (socially distanced of course). Majority of responsibilities would include:

Apply today!

Please fill out the form below and we will be in touch!

We are currently looking for applicants for the Non profit Management and Social Media & Marketing internships.

If you have any questions regarding the internship program or your application please email Chandler@zygotepress.org

Zygote Internship Inquiry Form