Sanie Andres, MA

Sanie Andres, MA is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist. He is currently Program Director for College Community Services – CalWORKs in Anaheim, CA and Adjunct Psychology Professor at National University. For the past 15 years, Andres has been a practicing therapist in private practice, community mental health and hospital settings. Previously, he was Core Faculty at Phillips Graduate Institute and Guest Lecturer at Antelope Valley College. In 2015, after six years of dedicated service, He was honored with emeritus status as Board President of The OUTreach Center, the LGBTQ community center in Lancaster, CA. In 2012, Andres was presented the State Farm Good Neighbor Award by Equality California for his grassroots activism supporting LGBTQ families in rural Northern Los Angeles County. He served on the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation from 2011 to 2012. Andres is in his second year singing bass with the West Coast Singers - the LGBTQ Chorus of Los Angeles.

Ray Beldner

Ray Beldner has worked in art education and marketing for the last 20 years with the goal of inspiring people to create, value, and support the visual arts. As an artist, he has exhibited in more than 15 solo shows and over 100 group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, and his artwork can be found in numerous public and private collections including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Federal Reserve Board, Washington DC; the Saks Fifth Ave Collection, New York; and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among many others. At several Bay Area colleges and universities, he taught courses in sculpture and installation art, conceptual art, and professional practices for artists. Ray is also a fine art appraiser, art collection manager and artist advisor.   

Robert Benitez

Robert Benitez began his career with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in 2009 as a volunteer and officially joined the museum’s education team in 2010. As one of the museum’s education specialists, Benitez led the organization’s flagship outreach program, Discovery Trunks, connecting thousands of students to art and history through object based presentations. Additionally, Robert developed the museum’s Young Artist and Family Matters Workshops. In 2014, with the acquisition of MOAH:CEDAR, the Museum of Art and History’s primary community engagement space, Benitez began curating solo and group exhibitions and developing programming that is increasingly accessible to both local artists and the community-at-large. Benitez’s vision for MOAH:CEDAR is to create a space that fosters emerging artists and reflects the community in which it serves. In keeping with this idea, Benitez created the museum’s first community engagement focused artist-in-residence program, which has hosted both local and international artists. Benitez also launched the Andrew Frieder Creative Space, which functions as a community art studio that offers art making equipment, materials and space to the public at no cost. Robert worked to expand the museum’s annual high school exhibition to a daylong arts festival known as, CedarFest. Robert created the Young Curators Program, in which students from the Antelope Valley’s high schools, introduced to principles regarding curation and exhibition design. Currently, he oversees the operation and programming of the museum’s three facilities: MOAH, MOAH:CEDAR and the Western Hotel. Most notably, Robert spearheaded the successful effort to designate downtown Lancaster as a California Cultural District. Lancaster enjoys this designation along the with fourteen others, including Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo and San Diego’s Balboa Park.

Kimberly Brooks

Kimberly Brooks is an American painter whose work integrates figuration and abstraction to explore a variety of subjects dealing with history, memory and identity.  Brooks has solo exhibitions throughout the United States and her work has been showcased in juried exhibitions including curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. For two years, Brooks maintained a weekly column, entitled First Person Artist which then led to her founding the Huffington Post Arts Section. She founded Griffith Moon publishing which focuses on artist monographs. Brooks received her BA at UC Berkeley and studied painting at Otis and University of California, Los Angeles. A coffee table book of her work will be available Fall 2018 (Vivant Publishing).,

Betty Ann Brown, PHD

Betty Ann Brown, PHD is an art historian, critic and curator. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art in 1978, joined the California State University, Northridge faculty in 1986 and was honored with Professor Emeritus status in 2015. Brown has curated retrospective exhibitions for Hans Burkhardt, Roland Reiss, Linda Vallejo, June Wayne and John White, as well as numerous themed exhibitions, including Time, Space & Matter: Five Installations Exploring Natural Phenomena (Lita Albuquerque, Suvan Geer, George Geyer, Mineko Grimmer, Tom McMillan and Christine Nguyen) and Fantastic Feminist Figuration (Jodi Bonassi, Bibi Davidson, Enzia Farrell, Laura Larson, Dierdre Sullivan-Beeman, Tslil Tsemet and Lauren YS.) Her exhibition of the work of Betye, Alison and Lezley Saar opened at MOAH in February 2018.

Andi Campognone

Andi Campognone has over 30 years of arts experience in the southern California region.  She is the Owner/Director of AC Projects, a private consulting organization focused on promoting arts and culture. Projects include developing museum exhibitions, public engagement, mentoring programs and book and film publications of historically relevant southern California artists. Campognone is also the Museum Manager/Curator for the City of Lancaster.  She is responsible for the development and maintenance of partnerships and community engagement initiatives with local artists, local businesses, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles County Supervisors office and higher-level institutions.  She develops curatorial direction for exhibition and educational programming and is directing the Museum accreditation process for MOAH. She has previously served the City of Pomona as Cultural Arts Commissioner where she co-wrote and implemented the City’s Master Cultural Arts Plan and the adopted Arts in Public Places Policy. Campognone is on the Board of the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation and served on the Board of the Holualoa Foundation for Arts and Culture. She volunteers as a regular speaker and mentor to art students at both the undergraduate and graduate level and is on the advisory boards of Start Up Art Fair Los Angeles and Los Angeles Arts Association.  She is a current member of ArTTable.

Mika Cho

Throughout my career, I have adopted a four-pronged approach to my work: pedagogy, research, creative activity and academic governance. 

I joined the faculty at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) immediately after earning my doctorate in Art Education and Educational Administration from Illinois State University.  Prior to that I completed my MFA in Industrial Arts from Sook Myung Women’s University, Korea.  For a decade as a visiting scholar at Kunstuniversität Linz in Austria, I taught, curated exhibitions and worked as an educational consultant.

From 2013-2017 I served as the chair of Cal State LA’s Department of Art.  In 2017 I received dual appointments: one as Special Assistant to the President for the Arts and another as Director of the University’s Fine Arts Gallery (now the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery).  As director, I have successfully engaged the gallery not only in the university and local communities, but also in the global art communities beyond our region.  Since my appointment, visitors to the gallery have grown to average 12,000 people per year, and the gallery was named through a very generous endowment from the Silverman family.

I am art educator, researcher, educational consultant, curator and visual artist. In the latter capacity, I have been invited to exhibit at numerous museums and galleries.  My research interests are in art-related and educational issues, which I share through publications and extensive conference presentations, nationally and internationally.  

Diane Costigan

Diane Costigan provides executive, career, life and health coaching to individuals who want to enhance themselves and maximize their performance. Diane’s approach to her work centers around the development and leveraging of emotional intelligence—particularly self-awareness and self-assessment. How we choose to implement self-knowledge is at the root of sustainable behavioral change. Diane gives clients the tools to make positive, productive choices at every level. Diane earned her B.A., cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the College of the Holy Cross and her M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, Teachers College. She has a certificate in Organizational and Executive Coaching from NYU, is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coaching Federation and is a Certified Health Coach (CHC) through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She is certified in Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/Meridian Tapping).

Shana Nys Dambrot

Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic and curator. She is based in Downtown Los Angeles, Dambrot is currently LA Editor for Whitehot Magazine, contributor to KCET’s Artbound, Flaunt, The Huffington Post, The Creators Project, Fabrik, VS. Magazine, Palm Springs Life and Porter & Sail. She studied Art History at Vassar College, writes loads of essays for art books and exhibition catalogs, curates and/or juries a few exhibitions each year, sometimes exhibits her original photography and publishes short fiction, speaks in public at galleries, schools and cultural institutions nationally.

Crista Dix

Crista Dix is the Founder and Director of wall space creative. After years as a photographer and collector Crista decided to put down her camera and focus on artists who transcend the medium of photography and expand the ideas of photographic arts. Her background in science, business and creative arts has helped her created a gallery space that celebrates the artists' vision. wall space is located in Santa Barbara, California. Focusing on work that intersects art and science, wall space has a unique point of view, focusing on the objectness of photography and art. The gallery has gained an international reputation for finding and showcasing new artists and exposing new ideas. Dix has written essays about photography, introducing creative artists work to a broader community. She has been a member of numerous panels and discussions, juried creative competitions and has participated in major portfolio reviews across the country in cities like Houston, Portland, Los Angeles, Santa Fe and New Orleans.

Christine Duval

Christine Duval is a senior-level art project manager and curator with 20 years of experience working in art galleries and cultural institutions. She loves building art exhibitions and events that explore the correlation between art, craft, technology, and contemporary culture. She curates her own projects and manage art events for clients with a focus on technology. She is passionate about supporting artists and organizations in realizing their vision, and no project is too small or too big. She is the director at Duval Contemporary.

Peter Frank

PETER FRANK is Associate editor for Visual Art Source and former Senior Curator at the Riverside (CA) Art Museum, He has served as Editor of THEmagazine Los Angeles and Visions Art Quarterly and as critic for the Huffington Post, Angeleno magazine, and the L.A. Weekly. Frank was born in 1950 in New York, where he wrote art criticism for The Village Voice and The SoHo Weekly News, and moved to Los Angeles in 1988. He contributes articles to numerous publications and has written many catalogues for one‑person and group exhibitions.

Frank has also organized numerous theme and survey shows, including “Tony DeLap: A Retrospective,” for the Laguna Art Museum; “Driven to Abstraction: Southern California and the Non-Objective World, 1950-1980,” for the Riverside Art Museum; "Artists' Books U.S.A.", "Mapped Art: Charts, Routes, Regions" and "Line and Image: The Northern Sensibility in Recent European Drawing", all for Independent Curators Inc.; “Fluxus Film and Video” for the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid; "Young Fluxus" for Artists' Space in New York; "To the Astonishing Horizon" for Los Angeles Visual Arts; "Southern Abstraction" for the Raleigh (NC) City Gallery of Contemporary Art; "The Theater of the Object, 1958‑1972" for New York's Alternative Museum; "Visual Poetry" for the Otis/Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles; "Multiple World" for the Atlanta College of Art; and "19 Artists – Emergent Americans," the 1981 Exxon National Exhibition mounted at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He also worked on the curatorial teams for Documenta 6 (1977) and 8 (1987) and on an exhibition of Adi Da Samraj in collaboration with the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007).

Having earned his B.A. and M.A. in art history at Columbia University, Frank has taught at Pratt Institute, Columbia University's School of the Arts, the Tyler School of Art, the University of California Irvine, Claremont Graduate School, California State University Fullerton, the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of California Los Angeles, Laguna College of Art and Design, Mt. San Antonio College, and other institutions. He has lectured throughout North America and Europe.

McPherson & Co.‑Documentext published his Something Else Press: An Annotated Bibliography in 1983. A cycle of poems, The Travelogues, was issued by Sun & Moon Press in 1982. Abbeville Press released New, Used & Improved, an overview of the New York art scene co-written with Michael McKenzie, in 1987. Frank has also published many artists’ monographs, including Roller: The Paintings of Donald Roller Wilson in 1988 and Robert De Niro, Sr. in 2004.

Aria Corinne Gannon

Aria Gannon, the founder of aPR Creative Marketing Management, has over twenty years of experience consulting on brand building, brand management and with marketing strategies. Aria’s public relations outreach has secured thousands of editorial placements in high-profile national and international media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, Conde Nast Publications, Time-Life, Inc., Hearst Corporation, Grazia Japan, Pan Pacific News and Huffington Post. She has also initiated and secured exhibitions in major national museums and galleries for the artists she represents. She has cultivated a global network of key media figures, tastemakers, major curators, leading educational institutions, and national and international media figures. This network, combined with significant marketing expertise and her unique brand strategy, has provided high-profile exposure and brand awareness opportunities for her clients.

Aria travels extensively, organizing venues and events related to her clients, and researching and compiling information to serve her clients. Highly regarded in her field as an expert advisor and strategist, she has secured museum exhibitions and high exposure art installations across the nation and was the keynote speaker at the 2010 Canadian Trade Commission's “Business of Fashion” seminar in Vancouver B.C. Aria is an active member and committee participant of ArtTable, a leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts. Philanthropy is an important aspect of Aria's work, and she has consulted to develop programs for various non-profit entities such as LA’s Best's after-school enrichment program, United Way of Orange County, Mama Earth and the Manhattan Borough President’s Office in New York City. Aria was owner and director of the North Spring Street Gallery in Los Angeles's Chinatown for seven years, exhibiting unique works by international contemporary artists and designers. Aria resides in Los Angeles with her family of three beautiful children. 

Heidi Johnson

Heidi Johnson is an accomplished public relations strategist, artist manager, and self­-made entrepreneur. She has worked in the entertainment industry, public relations, community relations, event and communication planning, and the art/design world for over twenty-five years – a blend of experiences and skills that led her to found her own Art MGMT & PR firm, Hijinx Arts.

Most recently Heidi has worked as the publicist for the LA Art Show, DesignerCon, and Branded Arts while additionally helping to coordinate and promote exhibitions with Night Gallery, Gregorio Escalante Gallery, the Lancaster MOAH, Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Cat Art Show LA 2: The Sequel, and many more. She has worked with artists and gallerists that include Camille Rose Garcia, Scott Hove, Dosshaus, RISK, Robbie Conal, Hueman, Blake Little, Jim Mahfood, and Harmonia Rosales. But this is just the tip of the iceberg – Hijinx continues to work with brands such as Nike, Converse, American Express, and NYX Cosmetics while maintaining relationships with LA Magazine, LA Weekly, Juxtapoz, Hi Fructose, KCRW, CNN, KCET, The LA Times, the Huffington Post, and more.

Shannon Kaye

Shannon has been an independent artist and consultant for most of her career. From Finishing Touches, her decorative painting business, to Plein Heir, a line of home furnishings incorporating linen prints of her work, Shannon applies her art and color expertise to the home environment. She hosted, designed, and wrote treatments for Fresh Coat, a national tv makeover show on DIY Network and Country Living, a smart device program with SONY. Both reached millions of viewers weekly.  She also created video content, art, and marketing materials for brands like Benjamin Moore, CertaPro Painters, and Armstrong Ceilings. Shannon enjoyed commissions from brands like Carlos Santana’s Universal Tone Management and Pottery Barn. She was highlighted in a South Korean Broadcasting (SKB) documentary about low-tech artists who thrive in high-tech communities.

After working with stARTup Art Fair as Business Development Manager, Shannon became the Color Marketing Manager for clients Kelly-Moore Paints. She’s re-imaging the entire brand through digital, video, and print platforms. She continues to sell her work online and exhibits locally.

Sant Khalsa

Sant Khalsa has a lifetime of experience as an artist, educator, arts administrator, curator and activist. She is Professor of Art, Emerita at California State University, San Bernardino, where she taught thousands of art students and mentored dozens of faculty for three decades, and established the MFA in Studio Art program, public art project and served as Art Department Chair. Her artworks are widely exhibited, published and acquired by museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Nevada Museum of Art, and UCR/California Museum of Photography. Khalsa has been awarded fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, California Council for the Humanities and was the inaugural recipient of the Society for Photographic Education Insight Award for her significant contributions to the field of photography. She is often invited to lecture about her art practice and contemporary issues at art venues, colleges and universities, and conferences, which have included The Getty Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CalArts and Art Center College of Design. She has guest curated exhibitions for MOAH Lancaster, RAFFMA Art Museum, Chaffey Community Museum of Art and others. She resides in Joshua Tree, California, where she is an arts community leader who established the Joshua Tree Center for Photographic Arts (JTCPA) as well as Joshua Tree Arts Professionals (JTAP), a network of visual, performing and literary arts organizers. 

Caroline Killhour

Caroline Killhour has 25 years of executive level experience, she leads Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center — Maui’s only studio based community art center. Each year, the Hui offers around 300 educational classes, workshops, exhibitions, and events for locals and visitors. Killhour's talents are grounded in her own studio practice and her background in marketing and community engagement. She has more than 20 years of professional design experience directing everything from technical product design to branding, merchandising strategy, and product conceptualization and development for companies such as L.L Bean, Red Sky Design, Entertainment Properties, and Sanroy. She holds a BFA from Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art, an Associate Degree in Design from New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology and is a post-graduate student of Maine College of Art and University of Chicago’s Graduate School.

Paul Kopeikin

Paul Kopeikin has owned his eponymous Gallery in Los Angeles since 1991 and has produced over three hundred exhibitions. He has participated in numerous international art fairs and regularly judges art related competitions and reviews. He is known for his unvarnished opinions and wit.

Craig Krull

After studying art history at CSULB and UCLA, and then directing Ace, Robert Berman and Jan Turner galleries in the 1980s, Craig Krull opened his first gallery in 1991. Turner/Krull Gallery was located in the mezzanine space above Jan Turner at 9006 Melrose.  Devoted entirely to photo-based media, the gallery exhibited the work of Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Frederick Sommer and a plethora of rising talent in exhibitions like, Photo Salon. Krull was particularly interested in examining the relationships and integrations between photography and other art forms, as exemplified in his exhibition, “Action/Performance and the Photograph,” which demonstrated the evolving role of photography from merely documenting to performance art  to becoming the essential art form itself, as in Yves Klein’s “Leap into the Void.”  He continued this theme, by exploring the relationship of photography to architecture in his representation of the work of the architectural photographer Julius Shulman.  Though well known, Shulman had never exhibited his work in a fine art gallery before, and Krull’s recontextualization of Shulman’s photographs led to dozens of gallery exhibitions worldwide, and his eventual sale of the Shulman Archives to the Getty.  In fact, organizing and finding homes of lifetime archives has become another of Krull’s passions, and he has placed the archives of Rachel Rosenthal, Jerry McMillan, Pierre Koenig and others.  

In 1994, Craig Krull Gallery opened as one of the founding galleries in the Bergamot Station Art Center.  The gallery was no longer exclusively photo-based, but did continue to curate photo exhibitions such as “Photographing the LA Art Scene: 1955-1975 which collected hundred of images from that seminal period in LA art history by photographers such as William Claxton, Dennis Hopper, Charles Brittin and others.  Krull later curated, along with Walter Hopps, the first major retrospective of Brittin’s extraordinary Beat Generation and Civil Rights photos from the 50s and 60s. A native of Southern California, much of Krull’s work has been focused on the art and history of California, and he often encapsulates this in the poet Gary Snyder’s belief that “our place is part of what we are.”  For example, a few of his longest relationships have been with Light and Space/Finish Fetish artist Peter Alexander, LA Chicano artist Carlos Almaraz, and the legendary portrait artist Don Bachardy. He has also exhibited the work of Alexis Smith, Gronk, Dean Stockwell, Gilbert Lujan, Greg Colson, Gwynn Murrill, George Herms, Llyn Foulkes, Dora De Larios, Eleanor Antin, Jo Ann Callis and others who have impacted the art scene of LA.  In recent years, Krull’s curatorial efforts have included “Narrative Painting in Los Angeles” including the work of F. Scott Hess, Sandow Birk, James Doolin and others, and “of rope and chain her bones are made,” a group exhibition of nine LA women exploring texture, tension, fiber and clay.  Future exhibitions include the work of young talent such as Kelly Berg, Max Hertz, Sydney Croskery and Brittany Mojo.

For a complete list of artists represented and exhibitions over the past 30 years, visit the website: craigkrullgallery.com

or, for current events and photos of artist studios, visit the Instagram @craigkrullgallery.

Michael Lyons Wier

Michael Lyons Wier, of Lyons Wier Gallery in NYC has a B.A. in Art History, with an emphasis in Feminist and Political Art and a M.A. in Arts Administration and Museum Studies. In 1993, Michael Lyons Wier opened LYONS WIER GALLERY in River North Art Community of Chicago and helped establish the second wave of young galleries in that district. Over the past 23 years, LYONS WIER GALLERY has championed contemporary artists who bring a fresh and innovative vocabulary to their chosen genre and hold dear the fiduciary responsibility between the artists they represent and community at large. Lyons Wier Gallery is now based in Chelsea district in New York City.

Walter Maciel

Walter Maciel has established himself as an arts professional who has worked in contemporary art galleries for the past 26 years.  After a brief introduction to gallery operations as an intern at Gallery Paule Anglim, Maciel became the Associate Director of Braunstein/Quay Gallery from 1992 through 1998.  He then became the Director at Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco from 1998 through 2005.  He moved to Los Angeles to create a program for his own space that opened in March 2006.  The gallery is located in the Culver City district in Los Angeles among many of the top galleries on the west coast.  The gallery expanded in 2015 taking over the entire building with 4,000 square feet of space.  A second gallery space at the Pacific Design Center was in operation in 2010 and featured the work of gallery artists and special projects.  The gallery has participated in several international art fairs including Pulse Art Fair Miami/Miami Beach 2005-2007, 2014-2015; Pulse Art Fair New York 2006-2008; Pulse Art Fair London 2007; Swab Art Fair Barcelona 2007; Aqua Art Fair Miami 2008-2009, 2011; NADA Art Fair Miami Beach 2010; Miami Project 2012-2014; Volta Art Fair New York 2009, 2012-2013; Art on Paper New York 2016-2017; NEXT Art Fair Chicago 2010; Edition Chicago 2013; San Francisco International Art Exposition 2010; San Francisco Art Market 2014-2017; San Francisco Art Pad 2012-2013; Art San Diego 2012. 

Maciel has served on many boards and committees including Southern Exposure, Headlands Center for the Arts, Hospitality House and the San Francisco Art Dealers Association. He has been on lecture panels at University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Berkeley; San Francisco Art Institute; California College of the Arts; University of Missouri, Kansas City; Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University; San Francisco State University; Mills College, Oakland and Institute for Contemporary Art, San Jose. Walter has been on the Selection Committee for the stARTup Art Fair for both the San Francisco and Los Angeles venues.

Daniel Maidman

Daniel Maidman is best known for his vivid depiction of the figure. Maidman’s drawings and paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Long Beach Museum of Art. His art and writing on art have been featured in The Huffington Post, PoetsArtists, ARTnews, Beautiful/Bizarre, Forbes, W, Juxtapoz, Hyperallergic, International Artist, American Art Collector, D/Railed, Whitehot and Manifest. He has been shown in solo shows in New York City and in group shows across New York, the United States, and Europe. He is a repeat guest critic at the New York Academy of Art. His books, Daniel Maidman: Nudes and Theseus: Vincent Desiderio on Art, are available from Griffith Moon Publishing. He lives and paints in Brooklyn, New York.

Melissa Morgan

Gallerist Melissa Morgan is the owner of Melissa Morgan Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA. The gallery represents contemporary 2D, 3D and New Media artists both nationally, internationally and evolved from “Modern Masters Fine Art."  The El Paseo gallery was opened by Melissa and her late husband in 2002. Melissa is also a private art consultant and advisor.

Melissa Morgan Fine Art represents cutting-edge international contemporary art for both the savvy collector and for those newer to the art world. In its 6000 square foot show-space, the gallery features paintings, mixed media, sculpture, glass, tapestry and photography. Additionally, the gallery showcases an extensive schedule of solo, thematic group exhibitions, interpretive programming, artist and curator lectures and panel discussions. The gallery also provides private consultations and confidential advice to collectors, corporations and institutions regarding identifying, locating, and sourcing works of art world-wide. Melissa and her team exhibit annually at multiple art fairs throughout the year including Palm Springs Art Fair, SOFA Chicago, Art Aspen, Art Market San Francisco, Seattle Art Fair, Texas Contemporary, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Show and more.

Melissa Morgan is active in many local organizations. Melissa has been active in the Palm Springs Art Museum, Desert Aids Project, Digicom and many more charitable organizations. She was on the committee for Behind a Miracle, raising over 6 million dollars in 9 years to help combat breast cancer locally within the Coachella Valley. She was on the Palm Desert Strategic Planning Committee . Her galleries have hosted dozens of fundraising events for not for profit and Educational organizations over the years; BAM, Visiting Nurses Association, Coachella Valley Health Care Initiative and many more. The gallery hosts an annual exhibition for the Idyllwild Arts academy  and has also hosted student exhibitions for College of the Desert.

Donna Napper

Donna Enad Napper’s career in the field of contemporary art combines more than twenty years as a gallery owner, exhibition curator, and art consultant in both Northern and Southern California. Donna’s flair for providing high quality artwork for clients began when she founded and directed her own art gallery in Los Angeles for eight years. In 2012 she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work as the Curator and Director of Public Programs for San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.

For the past four years she has focused on art advisory work, currently with Art Consulting Services, Inc. where she places art for corporate clients in industries such as health care, real estate development, legal, banking, and technology.

Donna presently serves as the Co-Chair for the Northern California chapter of ArtTable, a national organization for women holding leadership positions in the visual arts. She also serves on the Advisory Council and Curatorial Committee for Root Division, an arts non-profit in San Francisco.

She has a passion for supporting artists in professional development and is regularly invited by art organizations and institutions to critique artist portfolios and to curate and jury group exhibitions. Most recently she has served on the panel for Public Art for the City of Walnut Creek.

Mike O'Connor

An all too often situation arose recently where a gallery owner informed Mike that in their gallery, there are talented artists whom they will not allow to speak with potential collectors.  The reason?  “They lose more sales than they make!” Yes, I know, your gallery is supposed to be your spokesperson, not you.  However, remember this: “What you say about your work is what others will say when you are not there.”

An effective, compelling story and presentation will attract and retain more collectors than a poorly worded, read or memorized, artist description or statement. During your session with Mike in the Kipaipai workshop you and he will discuss what you say, and begin the process of creating an effective and compelling initial presentation, or elevator pitch. In addition, you will be introduced to the process of presenting in a gallery, museum, or studio tour, or to present your work to new gallerists, consultants and museum directors.

For over 20 years, Mike has been a featured presenter and speaker leading workshops with financial advisors throughout the Mainland, Hawaii and Guam. Mike’s focus is on the person, identifying their own story and how they can use it to become a more effective advisor and sales person. Mike’s Mantra for his workshops is “to find your story and learn to tell it effectively.” Mike has tailored this workshop to aid Artists to master their presentation, and for galleries and museums to enhance the professionalism of the sales staff. Mike has been on the Kipaipai faculty since its inception and is still counseling many of the attendees on perfecting their story and their delivery skills, as well as preparing for an upcoming Gallery talk.  

Mike is a frequent stage presenter at “The Moth” where he develops stories on the fly based upon a prescribed subject and presents them in a very entertaining manner. Your session with Mike promises to be enlightening, rewarding and thought provoking—a perfect addition to the other faculty presentations.

James Panozzo

James created the non-profit social enterprise LAUNCH in 2010 to oversee the production of TarFest annually while also providing unique programming and exhibition opportunities to important artists in Los Angeles. He served as the Director of Lawrence Asher Gallery from 2004 – 2010, exhibiting emerging and mid-career painters, sculptors and installation artists. James co-founded TarFest in 2003 and continues to develop and manage its programs which provide opportunities to emerging artists at venues in the Miracle Mile District of LA.

Cynthia Penna

Born in Naples, Italy, she lives and works in Naples, Milan and Los Angeles. Penna is a consultant for contemporary art at Centro museale MUSA Portici (NA), Advisor of The Beverly Arts - Beverly Hills (CA), Juror of ArtEmerge Gallery Los Angeles (CA), Juror of Los Angeles Art Association -825 Gallery, Member of AAMC – The Association of Art Museum Curators, Member of Fractured Atlas, Member of ACACIA Art Association of Milan Italy and donor of Museo del Novecento – Milan Italy, Patron of J. P. Getty Foundation Malibu, and regularly collaborates with the following art magazines: ArtStartWeb e ARTE IN in Milano.

Penna graduated in Jurisprudence at the University Federico II in Naples, Italy. First high school studies of Art History with Professor Adriana Catalano. She followed photography courses with the photographer Gianni Cesarini in Naples in the 70ies; obtained a diploma in Antiques from the Popular University of Naples in 1992 and practiced the art of restoration of ancient paintings in a prestigious private studio in Napoli. She speaks fluently as well as Italian, French and English. From the late 1990s she became a collector of contemporary art, and met artists, gallery owners, curators who opened up a different world from her cultural background in classical art. Since 2006 she entered the world of Californian art, her second home, having the opportunity to get to know and penetrate the lively artistic world of Los Angeles. In 2007 the definitive push for the foundation of the Cultural Institution ART1307 which acts as a bridge between Italy and California, Over the years she has curated hundreds of exhibits in Italy and abroad for public and private institutions and for prestigious museums such as the Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Musa Center at the Royal Palace of Portici, the Museum of Art and History of Lancaster, California, the Metropolitan Museum of Tokyo, the Municipality of Teglio, the Istituto Arte Japan in Milan, the Ambassade du Tourisme in France and many others. She gave dozens of conferences and lectures in many Universities and other institutions around the world. Since 2021 has become consultant for contemporary art of Centro MUSA at Royal Palace of Portici: this center collects 7 science museums and is connected to University of Napoli Federico II.

Emma Saperstein

Emma Saperstein is a curator and educator based in San Luis Obispo, CA. Her diverse experience includes serving as studio manager to internationally recognized artist Titus Kaphar and nearly a decade of administrative, editorial, and curatorial projects in alternative arts and publishing communities. From 2016–2021, she worked both as the Gallery Coordinator and Curator of the Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery at Cuesta College and as the Global Portal Curator for Shared_Studios, managing complex dialogue-based programming projects with the UN, BBC, the Obama Foundation, WGBH, and more. She has guest curated exhibitions and public arts projects in California and beyond.

Emma holds a Master’s Degree from Cal Poly in Educational Leadership with a thesis focused on the gallery as a teaching space and access in the educational gallery. She holds a second Master’s Degree in Curating from the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Nicole Slater

Since 2005, Nicole Slater has been focused on helping creative people share their message with the world and make more money. She brings proven strategies and is a fountain of fresh marketing ideas. She loves helping artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs develop marketing strategies and get results. If you want to learn vital digital marketing skills, she is a dynamic and patient teacher and is ready to show you the way!

Linda Vallejo

Linda Vallejo has over forty years of experience as a development consultant and grantwriting instructor. She has written and received millions of dollars in grant funds from foundation, corporate, government and individual donors for her many clients nationwide. As a development consultant she has extensive experience in all aspects of development including donor communications, partnership building, and program development and planning.

As an artist, Linda Vallejo consolidates multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel to works that investigate contemporary cultural, spiritual and political issues. Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions and is in the permanent collections of East Los Angeles College Vincent Price Museum, The National Museum of Mexican Art, Carnegie Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California, Santa Barbara, (CEMA), California Multicultural and Ethnic Archives, and UCLA Chicano Study Research Center.

Dr. Nicholas West

Nicholas West is the Curator of Collections at the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Oxford and a masters in Arts and Cultural Management from Claremont Graduate University. At the Picker Art Gallery, West oversees the research, interpretation, and exhibition of the museum’s collection, conceptualizes and manages temporary exhibitions, and coordinates related programs, such as artist residencies and panel discussions. Recent exhibitions include Three Acts: Felix Gonzalez-Torres · Senga Nengudi · Joe Overstreet (2019) and Landmarked: selected landscapes from the permanent collection (2017). Nicholas also works closely with faculty across departments and Colgate students to generate exhibitions and programs such as Making Space: Uzumaki Cepeda (2019) and Labor and Literature (2018). Previously, West has worked in several administrative and curatorial roles in the Los Angeles area, including the University of Southern California Fisher Museum of Art, City of Lancaster Museum of Art and History, and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Mark Zimmermann

Mark Zimmermann, an American artist and writer, was born to a military family in Munich, Germany, in 1967 and grew up in Hawaii and the southern United States. Since 1998, he has exhibited his paintings in 18 solo shows and numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe.

Zimmermann’s paintings are based on the marriage of meditative fields, architectonic structures and an organic gestural line. In discussing this work, the editor and writer, Larry Qualls noted, “…a majestic landscape narrative… they illuminate the nature of painting itself. In a sense what these paintings do is bring a synthesis of the conceptual and the realistic; it is as if there is the conflux of two grand traditions: the purely abstract and the purely objective.”

In 2000, Zimmermann became the first American artist to exhibit in a commercial gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2009, he was commissioned to create of suite of monumental paintings for the VIP Lounge of the Palazzo Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2010, he was photographed by Andres Serrano, in a project documenting New York artists. Most recently, Zimmermann has been the subject of 3 short films by Los Angeles filmmaker, Eric Minh Swenson and London based filmmaker, Lawrence Berry.

As a writer, he has widely published poetry and short fiction, as well as essays and critical works on painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, theatre, and film throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. His writing has been translated into six languages. He lives and works in New York City and Encino, California.