Sitka Fine Arts Camp Faculty
Our Faculty members are some of the most accomplished artists and art teachers in the country.
Play in a band directed by a top university conductor; work on your jazz improvisation with an acclaimed jazz recording artist; choreograph a dance with a professional dancer; polish your improv and theater skills with actors who have performed on the stages of New York, Seattle and elsewhere. The work of our visual artists is exhibited at galleries throughout the country and our Alaska Native artists demonstrate at museums throughout the world.
Faculty Biographies
Theater
Joy Barrett - theater. Joy is an actor, producer and teaching artist in New York City. She has most recently performed in the Off-Broadway sold out hit "Dance Dance Revolution" with Les Freres Corbusier directed by the award-winning director Alex Timbers. She has performed in New York at The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Flea Theater, Tribeca Playhouse, the Sanford Meisner Theater, the Actor's Playground and Abingdon Theatre. She has also appeared in film and TV in various commercials and on Saturday Night Live. She has worked regionally with La Jolla Playhouse, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Northwest Shakespeare Ensemble, Printer's Devil and The Empty Space Theatre in Seattle. Her teaching includes outreach programs with Stages of Learning in New York City, many theater and dance companies in Seattle, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s tour Shakespearience, and the Open Door Theatre where she taught safety skills through dramatic live performance in an effort to free children from violence and abuse. As a producer, Joy co-created the summer festival 10 Plays, 10 Weeks, the series 4 Mondays, 4 Screenplays and has worked with Thirteenth Night Theatre Company and Francis Ford Coppola’s reading series Zoetrope Live Story. She is a graduate of Drama Studio London.
Jonathan "J" Bradley - technical theater. J is a top call technical sound and lighting producer who now lives in Sitka and is the Technical Director of the Sitka Performing Arts Center. He has been working full time in the field since 1990 and has been involved in producing a variety of events including theater, concerts, rodeos and jazz festivals. In addition J taught classes for 5 years at the University of Montana in audio production. Among his many diverse projects, J has been the sound man for four years at Seattle's premier jazz club, Jazz Alley. This year J has been on the road between Russia and the United States as production manager for the Russian State Ballet.
Teo Castellanos - theater. Teo is an actor, writer and director. He received his B.F.A. in Theater on a full scholarship from Florida Atlantic University where he studied with four time Tony Award winner Zoe Caldwell. He is author of NE 2nd Avenue, a one-man show based on Miami characters, commissioned by Miami Light Project. NE 2nd Avenue won the prestigious Fringe First Award at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. He is Artistic Director of Teo Castellanos D-Projects, a contemporary Dance/Theater company whose original work fuses world cultures, religion and music, examining social issues through performance. Teo Castellanos D-Projects has toured South America and China and is currently touring in the U.S. with their latest work Scratch & Burn. Teo has lectured and taught theater workshops at colleges, universities and communities throughout the U.S and the Virgin Islands. He is currently Executive Producer of Miami Project Hip Hop (MPH), an annual event that honors Hip Hop roots and aesthetics produced by Miami Light Project. He is the recipient of the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship 2005. Teo is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Associate Member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and is represented in Europe by Universal Arts. Artist Website
Scott Davis - mime & dance. Scott received his first intensive exposure to the arts as a student at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in the early 1980s. Inspired by his teachers at that time and by the friendships he made at the camp, he continued to pursue the performing arts throughout college, studying mime and dance extensively while at Princeton University. He was the artistic director of the Princeton Mime Company. After living and teaching in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for two years after college, Scott returned to New Jersey and co-founded Loon Soup, a mime and physical theater company that performed and taught nationwide. He moved to Seattle to study law at the University of Washington in 1995 and in 2000 joined Lingo Dance theater, a contemporary dance company under the direction of KT Niehoff. He has toured with the group to Japan, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, Canada and throughout the States. Scott has also collaborated with members of the dance faculty at the University of Washington and produced his own work in Seattle, New York, New Jersey and Ecuador. Over the years he has served the Sitka Fine Arts Camp as a counselor in the 1980s, a teacher in the 1990s and as Artistic Director from 1998 to 2006. He is on the faculty at the Northwest School in Seattle where he teaches Mime & Movement and Street Law.
Rachael Holmes - acting. Rachael is a New York based actor, singer and teaching artist. She received her M.F.A from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University on the prestigious Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. Her love for teaching artistry began while attending the Sorbonne in her undergraduate years and working with African child refugees. She is a lead teaching artist at the New Victory Theatre and Epic Theatre Ensemble (2009 Coming Up Taller Award Winner) in New York City. Professional credits include Ruined at Manhattan Theatre Club (2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Best Play) and the hit TV show The Good Wife. She can currently be seen in the lead female roles of Henry V and Richard II in rep at The Shakespeare Theatre in DC.
Benjamin Leddick - Improvisation. Ben has been training in and performing improv in Los Angeles for the past four years. His training includes classes from the Upright Citizens Brigade LA, IO West and Second City. He established a performing home at IO West where he booked, performed, and ran the Andy Dick Theater's Wednesday night shows. After performing with several house teams he began work on his two man show which placed second in the IO West Duo Competition just behind Dave Hill and Matt Jones (this is improv name dropping). Currently Ben lives in Portland, OR where he studies and performs at The Curious Comedy Theater. He is pursuing his teaching license in early childhood education.
WT McRae - clown, acrobatics, improv. WT disappointed all of his teachers and professors when at the end of his serious theatre training he began to create a career centering around mime and clown. Growing up in Denver, CO and moving to New York in 1997, WT studied acting, scenic design, dance, and pre-med at Adelphi University. Since then he has made his living primarily touring with orchestras performing mime and clown based shows in Tri-State Schools. He spent 6 years teaching the arts in inner city schools, and funneled those two pursuits into the creation of his own clown based theatre company Fool’s Academy. Fool’s Academy is now a running theatre pursuit that blends education with clowning, bringing silly but educational performances to New York City schools.
Beverly Mann - mask theater & improv. Beverly is an actor, mask theatre performer and educator, and mask maker. She is an independent artist and tours with several theatre companies including Faustwork Mask Theatre, based in Toronto, and Figures of Speech Theatre, based in Freeport, Maine. Beverly has performed in over 40 states, Canada, Mozambique, South Africa, and Peru, including an appearance on “Good Morning, South Africa". She was a company member of IMAGO Theatre based in Portland, Oregon from 1986 – ‘89 and again in 1992-‘93 performing mask, movement and visual illusion touring the U.S., Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, including appearances on “Good Morning, America” and the Disney special “New Vaudevillians, Too.” She was a company member of TheatreSports, an improvisational theatre company based in Seattle, Washington. For the past eight years she has been busy collaborating with several artists in the state of Maine. Beverly has taught numerous workshops and residencies in mask making, mask theatre techniques and theatre improvisation throughout Maine, across the U.S. and abroad. She is listed on the Maine Arts Commission Artist’s Roster and The Alaska State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program and is affiliated with The Maine Alliance for Arts Education. This is her thirteenth year teaching at The Sitka Fine Arts Camp. Artist Site
Julia Smith - theater. Julia is an actor, director, and theater teacher. She graduated from Miami University with a B.F.A in theater performance and moved to Seattle where she completed a literary internship at The Seattle Children’s Theatre. She has also studied with notable teachers from The Goodman and The Steppenwolf theatres in Chicago, and apprenticed under the prominent director Lisa Peterson at La Jolla Playhouse in California. As a theater director she has directed plays at the Freehold Studio and Hyperion Theatre in Seattle. She took a long break from the theater world to do a little traveling and exploring around the world, but has recently decided to establish some roots here in Sitka, AK. Prior to moving to Alaska she taught theater classes to students of all ages at Two Roads Theatre in Seattle, The Seattle Children’s Theatre, and at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She is still an avid traveler and escapes into the outdoors every chance she gets.
Skyler Sullivan - mime, clown, acrobatics. Skyler's work as an actor, mime, and dancer has been seen all over the country and in Europe. Skyler started off receiving his B.F.A. from Emerson College in Musical Theatre. After meeting Mime Tony Montanaro, his path changed to physical theatre. His love of movement theatre and circus landed him in San Francisco, where he worked with the San Francisco Mime Troupe,and trained at the Circus Center. Next stop was NYC. Skyler currently lives in Brooklyn,and makes his living as an artist. He has worked with such companies as Bread and Puppet, Sesame Street, Electric Company and the American Mime Theatre. He also teaches circus arts, and is on faculty at Strasberg and the New Victory Theatre. Skyler is also a graduate of the international school of comic acting, in Reggio Emelia, Italy.
Music
Bob Athayde - jazz & concert bands. Bob is the Music Director at Stanley Intermediate School in Lafayette, CA. He directs 6 bands and 3 jazz ensembles serving over 300 students daily. Bob's students have received many honors, including several Downbeat Magazine awards and have gone on to prestigious music schools such as Julliard, Oberlin, Berklee and the Manhattan School of Music. Bob is an award-winning music educator and is in frequent demand as a clinician. He is also a professional trumpet player and jazz pianist and has been teaching at Sitka Fine Arts Camp since 2001. Recognized for his outstanding teaching and musicianship, Bob has garnered a number of awards including the Gil Freitas Outstanding Music Educator Award, (1989), the Diablo Symphony Association's Distinguished Music Educator Award (1995), Charles Schwab's Teach Each Distinguished Teacher Award, the Prudential Realty Outstanding Teacher Award (1999), the AC5 Arts Recognition Award (2003), and the KDFC Outstanding Music Educator Award (2004). Bob was recently awarded the Outstanding Band Teacher of California Award by the CMEA.
Andrea Burck - piano. Andrea is an active music educator and accompanist in Aurora, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Andrea has been involved with music and kids since graduating in 1989. She has been on staff at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan, has taught preschool, elementary and middle school music and choir in Wisconsin and Illinois and currently teaches music and directs a chorus of 120 members at Kendall Elementary School in Naperville, Illinois. She has been an accompanist for the Young Naperville Singers and continues to accompany school and church choirs, studio recitals and soloists in the area.
Wade Demmert - brass. Wade is a bass tromboninst who performs throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has performed with a variety of national and international musical artists and ensembles including the Seattle Symphony and Opera Orchestras, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, the Bellingham Music Festival of Music, Broadway Shows, Pavarotti, and the Moody Blues. In addition he can be heard on numerous movie, television, and theme park soundtracks. Wade holds a Master of Music degree from Rice University. Wade grew up in Sitka and attended the Sitka Fine Arts Camp as a student.
Christian Fabian - jazz ensemble. Christian is a bass player for the Lionel Hampton Big Band and was born in Sweden and raised in Germany. He studied for four years at the Maastricht Conservatory in the Netherlands before receiving a scholarship from Berklee College of Music in the U.S. Christian lives in New York City and has performed extensively on the national and international jazz scene with such jazz notables as Gary Burton, Cheryl Bentyne, Ed Thigpen, John LaPorta, Bob Mintzer and Jon Hendricks. He has recently joined the Gianni Russo Big Band and has also released two highly acclaimed solo CDs "Across The Tracks" and "Curtain of Life" . Artist Website
Andrew Hames - vocal ensembles. Andrew is a music teacher at Blackfoot High School in Blackfoot, ID. During the school year, Andrew directs four choral ensembles and teaches a music fundamentals class for special learners, as well as a course in advanced theory and composition. In addition to working as a clinician and adjudicator in southeastern Idaho, Andrew also directs a community choir, Vive la Voce, in Idaho Falls. Andrew received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Idaho State University where he studied choral conducting extensively with Dr. Scott Anderson. Born and raised in Sitka, Andrew first had ambitions of becoming a music teacher when he attended the Sitka Fine Arts Camp as a student. When he’s not spending beautiful summers in Sitka, Andrew and his wife, Kristin, both teach music throughout southeast Idaho where they keep plenty busy raising their son, Justin.
Edward Littlefield - percussion. Ed attended the University of Idaho where he majored in instrumental and vocal music education with an emphasis in percussion, studying with Daniel Bukvich. He has played in the showband on various cruise ships for Carnival Cruise Lines in the Carribean and the Bahamas. Ed was previously the music teacher at Sitka High School. He has toured throughout the country as the percussionist for the critically aclaimed Dallas Brass. He is currently a member of the percussion ensemble Juxtapercussion and a freelance musician and clinician in the Pacific Northwest. Ed is a former student of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp.
John William Burck - strings. Will has been a string educator for over 19 years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. He earned his Bachelor of Music from the University of Iowa and Master of Music Education from the VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, Illinois. Currently, he is the music department chair at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, Illinois. In 2007, The Grammy Foundation recognized the Waubonsie Valley music department as one of the top three high school music programs in the country for music education. In addition to his administrative duties, Will directs two of the six curricular orchestras, teaches string technique classes and co-directs the extracurricular strolling ensemble, the Warrior Strings. During the 2009 Spring Break, Burck and 65 members of the Waubonsie Valley Orchestras traveled and performed in New York City. He has been on both staff and faculty at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. He has served as conductor of the junior orchestra at the Cedar Arts Forum’s String Camp in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lakes, Michigan.
Hank Moore - guitar. Hank began playing music 40 years ago in North Carolina. Starting on the trumpet, he played in marching bands for nine years. At the age of 18, Hank started playing the guitar in rhythm & blues, rock n' roll and gospel groups. Singing and playing guitar in the "church of rock n' roll" for most of his life, Hank still implements these rhythmic techniques in his blues and Celtic playing. He now lives in Sitka, teaching and playing guitar.
Brian Neal - trumpet (brass), composition. Brian performs over one hundred concerts annually throughout the country as a member of the Dallas Brass, one of America’s foremost musical ensembles. Brian is a native of Miami, Florida. After earning music degrees from the Manhattan School of Music in New York and the University of Miami, Brian earned positions as principal trumpet of the Miami Symphony Orchestra and the Miami Bach Society Orchestra. He has been a soloist with those orchestras, as well as the Florida Philharmonic, Ensemble Monterey, and the California Symphony. Equally at home as a composer, Brian’s compositions have been performed at both the Aspen and Waterloo Music Festivals. Brian has also received commissions to write music for the opening of the Bayfront Park outdoor amphitheater in Miami and for the opening of the Miami Symphony's tenth anniversary season. A member of the faculty of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Brian resides in Miami with his wife, Karen, and their three children. Artist Website
Karen Neal - voice. Karen enjoys performing a broad range of musical styles and languages, mastering a diverse repertoire from Renaissance to modern vocal literature and jazz. Currently, Karen is the professor of vocal literature and diction at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She is the first soprano in the professional chamber ensemble, “Seraphic Fire”. She has been soloist with ensembles in Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. As oratorio soloist, she has also sung with the Miami Bach Society and the San Francisco Chorale. In the field of modern music, she was the premier vocalist with New Music Works of Santa Cruz, California, a cutting-edge group committed to presenting the works of contemporary composers. Karen holds a Vocal Performance degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She was also a Tanglewood Fellowship recipient and has studied French repertoire intensively in France.
Robert Ponto - concert band. Robert is associate professor of conducting and director of bands at the University of Oregon. He conducts the Oregon Wind Ensemble and supervises the graduate program in wind conducting. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Prior to his appointment at the University of Oregon in 1992, Robert held conducting/teaching posts at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, East Carolina University, Pacific Lutheran University, and in the public schools of West St. Paul–Mendota Heights, Minnesota. Robert’s frequent appearances as guest conductor include the Detroit Chamber Winds, the Interlochen Arts Academy Band, and numerous state and regional honor bands throughout the United States. Robert has also earned respect as a creative and inspiring teacher of conducting, working with students throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His ensembles have appeared at state, regional, and national MENC conferences, regional CBDNA conferences, and at the Bang On A Can contemporary music festival in New York City.
Marilyn Reischke - piano. Marilyn has been teaching piano students for over 30 years. She graduated from Biola University in La Mirada, California with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance. Before moving to Sitka three years ago, she was an active member of the Oregon Music Teachers Association. Marilyn has been a church organist and pianist since high school and has had many opportunities to accompany vocal and instrumental soloists as well as a variety of groups. While living in Eugene, Oregon she accompanied the Women’s Choral Society and University of Oregon students.. Marilyn maintains a piano studio in Sitka and enjoys working with students of all ages.
Mike Sullivan - jazz ensembles. Mike is a jazz arranger, saxophonist, and electric bass player who lives in Sitka. Originally from Seattle, Washington, he attended the Berklee School of Music, where he majored in arranging and studied saxophone under Joe Viola. He was a staff arranger with the Fifth Air Force Band in Tokyo, Japan for three years and then continued as a freelance musician. He has performed with many personalities including Sarah Vaughn, jazz violinist Joe Venuti, comedian Red Skelton, and Billy Eckstein. He is an airline pilot and spends his free time arranging and mentoring young musicians interested in jazz.
Wolfgang Wein - composition and sound technology. Hailing from Austria, Wolfgang is a musician (bassist, guitarist) and composer. He has worked extensively for educational toys company Leapfrog creating music and sound design for games like Ratatouille, Wall_E, Cars, Sonic-X, NASCAR and many more. He created music arrangements for America’s Got Talent and was one of the mixing engineers working on the American Idol PS2 games. Wolfgang is also an active musician performing on bass and guitar in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate from the University of South Florida, Wolf holds a Masters in Jazz Performance (upright and electric bass). In 2001 he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to establish his composing studio. Artist Website
Dance
Scott Davis -modern dance & theater. Scott received his first intensive exposure to the arts as a student at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in the early 1980s. Inspired by his teachers at that time and by the friendships he made at the camp, he continued to pursue the performing arts throughout college, studying mime and dance extensively while at Princeton University. He was the artistic director of the Princeton Mime Company. After living and teaching in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for two years after college, Scott returned to New Jersey and co-founded Loon Soup, a mime and physical theater company that performed and taught nationwide. He moved to Seattle to study law at the University of Washington in 1995 then in 2000 joined Lingo Dance theater, a contemporary dance company under the direction of KT Niehoff. He has toured with the group to Japan, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, Canada, and throughout the States. Scott has also collaborated with members of the dance faculty at the University of Washington and produced his own work in Seattle, New York, New Jersey, and Ecuador. Over the years he has served the Sitka Fine Arts Camp as a counselor in the 1980s, a teacher in the 1990s, and as Artistic Director from 1998 to 2006. He is on the faculty at the Northwest School in Seattle where he teaches Mime & Movement and Street Law.
Steven Houser - Ballet. A Portland native, Steven began his ballet training at the age of 6. He has studied at Metro Dancers, Portland Community Ballet, Arts and Communication Magnet Academy, and the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. He also spent summers studying at the San Francisco Ballet School, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Steven joined Oregon Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in 2004, was made a full company member in 2005, and was promoted to soloist in 2007. He has danced featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Christopher Stowell, Kent Stowell, Paul Taylor, Helgi Tomasson, Yuri Possokhov, Peter Martins, Julia Adam, Nicolo Fonte, Val Caniparoli, James Kudelka, Christopher Wheeldon, and William Forsythe. In 2008 he performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. with Oregon Ballet Theatre as a part of the first Ballet Across America Festival.
Burju Hurturk - Latin dance. Burju was born in Istanbul, grew up in New York and currently resides in Massachusetts happily married to her dance partner Victor Perez. She has been a professional Latin dancer for over 11 years having toured over 100 cities all over the world teaching and performing. Her current schedule involves traveling 2 -3 times a month overseas to international Salsa and Latin Festivals. She also directs and choreographs for HYM Latin Dance Co. and runs youth dance programs both during and after school. Her background includes Hip Hop, Modern, Rhythmic Gymnastics and Latin. Aside from teaching and performing, Burju is also a judge for the World Salsa Championships and has her own line of stylish Dance Shoes. An artist and an entrepreneur, Burju reaches out to youth and demonstrates how being engaged in the arts leads to self-fulfillment. Artist Website
Valerie Limbrunner - ballet, choreography. Valerie has a wide background in dance. She has studied everything from Vaganova Ballet technique to African dance to traditional modern Graham Technique. She is a former member of the Oregon Ballet Theatre. Valerie began her training in Oregon at the Newport School of Dance and continued with professional training at the HARID Conservatory of music and dance in Boca Raton, Florida. She has danced with Hartford Ballet, Fort Worth/Dallas Ballet, Dallas Opera and National Opera de Bordeaux in France. Valerie has taught summer dance camps at the Newport School of Dance in ballet technique and flamenco.
Belinda McGuire - modern dance. Belinda is originally from Toronto, graduated from The Juilliard School (BFA 2006). A current member of The José Limón Dance Company, she also performs independently as a solo artist and has danced with The Gallim Dance Group, Doug Varone and Dancers, Ofelia Lorette de Mola's DANSCORES, the DOORKNOB Company and The Canadian Children's Dance Theatre. She teaches as a guest artist in New York City at Dance New Amsterdam and The Limón Institute, and in Toronto at CCDT, Cawthra Park SS and York University. Her choreography has been presented at the Festival de la Ciudad 2009 (Merida, Yucatan Mexico), the Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa), in Toronto and in New York City on the stages of the Peter Jay Sharp Theater and Alice Tully Hall, Joyce Soho as well as in DUMBO, Brooklyn. A recipient of the 2008 Bessie Schönberg Residency at the Yard, and recognized by the 2007 Susan Braun Award of The Dance Films Association. As a producer, Belinda launched her one-woman show The Desert Island Project in New York City and Toronto (autumn, 2008). She also creates as a costume, light and set designer and teaches throughout North America.
Victor Perez - Latin Dance. Victor was born in Massachusetts of Puerto Rican parents. He grew up in a household where salsa music was always in the background, but at that young age he was more interested in house and break dancing. About half way through university Victor began developing more of an interest for dancing salsa. His formal training began when he met Burju and they began working together to develop their own unique style. Victor is well known for his innovative moves incorporating house and breaking, and his fantastic lead. He is an amazing performer and a brilliant instructor. Together with wife and dance partner Burju they travel the world teaching and performing. They have danced in stadiums and in concerts with Don Omar, Willie Colon, Tito Rojas, El Gran Combo, Frankie Negron and many more.
Creative Writing
Will Smiley - writing. Will is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His poetry has appeared in Colorado Review, Fence, NEO (Portugal), and others. He has taught literature and writing at the University of Iowa and Cornell University, and has previously worked with younger writers at the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio in Iowa City.
Visual Arts
Jamie Autrey - ceramics. Jamie is Professor of Art at the University of Alaska Southeast. He has a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics, Visual Arts, and a decade of experience in teaching different forms of ceramics in the western states. He has taught children and adults of all ages. His work has been exhibited at colleges and galleries in the Northwest. In Sitka he has taught students from Mt. Edgecumbe High School as well as UAS college students. His open workshops are popular with adults who appreciate the practical expertise he shares. He uses various firing techniques including electric kilns, Raku, and pit firing, each of which will be available in his classes at Camp. Jamie was one of the organizers and instructors for the 2005 SE Alaska High School Arts Fest, and has taught at this event for several years.
Javier Barboza - animation. Javier lives and works in Los Angeles. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts’ Character Animation program. His films have showcased in national film festivals, including Nickelodeon’s NickToons Network Animation Festival, having won the 2007 Diversity Award. He currently leads animation classes for elementary, middle and high school students throughout Los Angeles. Javier is currently working on independent animation film projects. Artist Website
Susan Bein - digital photography. Susan is a photographer, graphic designer and teacher who currently lives in Portland, Oregon. She's a native Californian who has also lived in Vermont, upstate New York, and Boston. Photography became her passion from the moment she picked up a camera at the
age of fifteen. In her teens she took workshops with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Paul Caponigro, Nathan Lyons, Beaumont & Nancy Newhall, and others. Despite training in traditional photography, she now uses a digital camera exclusively. She has almost 4,000 images posted in flickr's online photo community, and has had more than half-a-million online visitors from all over the world. She photographs every day. She has taught photography and graphic design in high schools, colleges and adult classes for many years. She loves teaching creative people how to access the magical digital tools she uses.
Marcia Hartsock - painting & drawing. Marcia comes to Fine Arts Camp from the mid-western city of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. She works professionally in Cincinnati as a Certified Medical Illustrator, a perfect career for an artist who is just as fascinated with science as she is with drawing. She earned her B.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Cincinnati, and an M.A. in Illustration from Syracuse University. She worked for over ten years as a Medical Illustrator at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine creating illustrations for medical education and research. Since 1984 she has owned her own illustration studio, specializing in medical and health education for clients all over the U.S. She has taught illustration techniques and media to teens and adults, and has been Adjunct Faculty at Northern Kentucky University Department of Visual Arts. Her clear, colorful illustrations have won national awards and have been exhibited both in this country and internationally. Her professional work combines pencil and ink drawing with computer techniques. In her spare time and on vacations, she enjoys filling her sketchbooks with watercolor and pastel paintings.
Lauren Lavitt - video art. Lauren is a Los Angeles based Artist and educator who works in a variety of mediums mostly video, photography, installation, painting and drawing. Her work has been exhibited in the US and abroad since 2002, and has been the subject of peer reviews and press articles. Lavitt will be having her 3rd solo show this Fall 2010 in NY NY. In 2005 she was awarded the Abbey Scholarship, a 9-month residency at the British School in Rome, Italy. While living abroad Lavitt was invited to create a billboard for Mattoni Water in Prague CZ 2006.
Lavitt teaches Graphic Design at Los Angeles International College and art for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She also volunteers at the Braille Institute, teaching fine art. Lavitt completed a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2002 and a MFA in New Genres from UCLA in 2005, where she worked with artists like John Baldessari, Paul McCarthy, Chris Burden and Al Ruppersburg. Artist Website
Megan Lindeman - painting & drawing. Megan is a visual artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. She works with painting, photography, installation and text. Her work crosses boundaries between media and disciplines in ways that recall poetry and literature, but always in terms of embodied visual experience. She has been a resident at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, and has exhibited her work there and in Los Angeles, Kansas City, and New York. In 2008 she co-founded chime&co., a gallery in Los Angeles, where she has a solo show this spring. She has taught art to middle school and high school students at Hands on 3rd, an arts organization in Los Angeles, City of Hope, and at Yule Yeshiva University High School in Beverly Hills. She has taught art to college students at Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California and has worked as an educator at the RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design where she studied both painting and art history. She received her MFA from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California.
Jake Longstreth - painting & drawing. Jake is a painter who after nearly seven years in the Bay Area, has recently relocated to New York. His work investigates contemporary, exurban landscapes - places immediately accessible to us all, right off the highway. He has exhibited nationally and was a resident at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska. A 2006-2007 recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Award, he recieived an MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2005 and a BA from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1999. Having worked as Teaching Assistant at CCA, Jake has also been a guest artist and lecturer at Mills College, Sonoma State University, CCA and Modesto Junior College. Artist Website
Noah Wilson – photography. Noah is a photographer living and working in Oakland, CA. His photography investigates personal and cultural connections to the natural world, and his images blend photography and pencil drawing. He has exhibited in San Francisco and the Bay Area at Haines Gallery, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, New Langton Arts, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the African American Museum of Oakland and the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara. He has worked as Artist in Residence at the San Francisco Recycling & Disposal Company and at Kala Institute of Art in Berkeley, CA. His work has been collected by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Gap and the San Francisco Recycling and Disposal Company. He received his MFA from San Jose State University in 2005, and his BA in Art History from Humboldt State University in 2002. He has taught photography at San Jose State University, San Francisco Art Institute and currently teaches at Modesto Junior College. Artist Website
Lindsey White - photography. Lindsey is an Oklahoma native, living and working in San Francisco, CA. She is an interdisciplinary artist whose work in photography, video, and sculpture explores the simple magic of everyday life. She has exhibited in San Francisco at Jack Hanley Galler, Southern Exposure, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, and in Berlin at the Deadpan Exchange II Festival. She is currently the Artist in Residence and 2008-2009 Fellowship Recipient at the Kala Institute of Art in Berkeley, CA. She teaches photography at the California College of the Arts and Modesto Junior College. Lindsey received her B.F.A. from Pacific Northwest College of Art and her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts.
Alaska Native Arts
Selina Alexander - Athabascan skin-sewing. Selina was raised on the Yukon River between Ruby and Galena and on the north fork of the Huslia River. She is a master beader and skinsewer. She has demonstrated her work in Washington, D.C. and throughout Alaska. In Selina's words, "I was seven when my mother started me sewing and knitting doll clothes and my father started me trapping squirrels and weasels. At age 11 my father started me running a dog team. By age 13 my mother taught me how to make slippers and boots, more knitting and crocheting. My father taught me how to shoot guns, trap for mink, fox, otter and snare beaver. Mother taught me how to snare rabbits and ptarmigan and fishing with nets and poles. Over the year's I've learned more about beadwork from my grandmother, watching others, books, museums, workshops and listening to my elders. My Indian grandmother and mother are excellent beadworkers and skinsewers. My white grandfather was a well known painter artist and professor in San Francisco."
Donnie Varnell - northwest coast carving. Donnie, a Haida carver, has studied visual arts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has worked and apprenticed under Tlingit carvers Nathan Jackson and Will Burkhart as well as Haida carver Reggie Davidson. Donnie is also a proficient weaver, having studied under Haida weavers Holly Churchill, his aunt, and Delores Churchill, his grandmother. Donnie has created works which now stand in public and private collections world-wide including Switzerland, across the United States and Alaska. He has also been awarded numerous Percent For the Arts commissions at schools and youth facilities throughout Alaska.