In
Alphabetical Order. Meaning of the letters following the
names:
ABM: Advisory Board Members
AIT: Artists featured in current Breaking In Two trailer
FIC: Film Consultants
FTE: Film Team
Kim Abeles is an artist who crosses disciplines and media to explore and map the urban environment and chronicle broad social issues. The Smog Collector series brought her work to national and international attention in the art world, and mainstream sources such as Newsweek, National Public Radio, and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
Abeles' mid-career survey, Encyclopedia Persona A-Z, toured the United States and South America, and was awarded the Best Regional Museum Show category for 1993-94 by the International Association of Art Critics. She continues to exhibit internationally, including recent projects in Vietnam, Thailand, Czech Republic, England, China, and forthcoming in Cuba.
She represented the U.S. in both the Fotografie Biennale Rotterdam and the Cultural Centre of Berchem in Antwerp. Her work is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, United States Information Agency, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and is archived in the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Publication Design Collection of the Smithsonian.
Abeles work was awarded grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation and Peter Norton Foundation and fellowships from J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, Pollack-Krasner Foundation, and the California Arts Council.
(Bio coming)
Alison Saar was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. She studied art and art history at Scripps College and received an MFA from the Otis Art Institute. She has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and two National Endowment Fellowships. Alison has exhibited at many galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Her art is represented in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.. She currently resides in Los Angeles With her husband Tom Leeser and her two children Maddy and Kyle.
SABINE SIGHICELLI – Writer/Director/Producer
Sabine Sighicelli is a Producer/Director/Writer who has worked in the documentary field, both independent and commercial (National Geographic Television, Museum of Jewish History, AMC) for the past 10 years. Her award-winning documentary The Passionate Life of a Father Painter aired on PBS in 2001. A graduate from the photography and film programs of the Massachusetts College of Art and LMU’s school of Film and Television, Sabine has continued to write, direct and produce short and feature projects while teaching all aspects of Documentary writing, production and post-production at the Brooks Institute of Photography (2002-present).
LINDA VALLEJO – Artist, Curator
Linda Vallejo is an artist that consolidates multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico to create images and installations that investigate humanity’s fundamental and metamorphic relationship with nature, and conversely the destruction of natural resources through pollution and waste.
She is represented in the U.S. by the Patricia Correia Gallery and has exhibited her work at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, The Carnegie Art Museum, Armand Hammer Museum, Laguna Art Museum, Bronx Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, San Antonio Museum, Mexico City Modem Art Museum, Galeria Las Americas, Tropico Nopal, Ave 50 Studio Gallery, Patricia Correia Gallery, and Metro Gallery. Her work has been reviewed in ArtNews, Art Business News, Southwest Art, Saludos Hispanos, Los Angeles Times, Artillery, LA Downtown News, and Latin Style Magazine.
Vallejo has received grants and awards from the Durfee Foundation, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, Artist Award, Quien es Quien in US Commerce, National Award, 1994, the National Association Chicano Studies, Distinguished Recognition, 1993, Comisión Femenil de Los Angeles Latinas Making History Award in Art, the California Community Foundation Brody Fund Arts Fellowship, and the California Arts Council.
Vallejo has also studied and participated in Native American and Chicano traditional ceremony for over twenty-five years. She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband of thirty years, Ron Dillaway. Her son Robert attends Georgetown Law School and her son Paul is a student at UC Santa Cruz.
The artist states about her work, “My first memory of painting was at four years of age and it has continued as my life’s dedication. My goal as an artist has been to consolidate multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout United States, Mexico, and Europe. My goal is to create an image that communicates the idea that without nature, humanity, history and culture as we know it are lost, that nature is the thread that encircles and describes all of us, regardless of gender, race, age, or creed, and finally, that nature is beyond politics, religion, market, and even art!
KIM YASUDA – Artist, Co-director/Professor UCSB Institute for Research in the Arts
Kim Yasuda is a visual artist and professor of spatial studies in the Art Department at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is co-director of the U.C. Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA). The UCIRA serves as a major platform for presenting, discussing and advocating for the arts and arts-centered research across the U.C. system. Its newly expanded mission supports active and engaged scholarship models that work transitively through real-world affiliations and settings outside the conventional studio, gallery, museum or performance contexts. Most recently, Yasuda has attempted to activate university teaching with her public art research, developing projects that forge partnerships between UCSB and the community.
Yasuda’s past gallery installations and public projects investigate links between identity and place within the contemporary urban landscape. She has commissioned projects throughout California, including a subway station and bus shelter facility for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Los Angeles and permanent commemorative installations for the City of San Jose and Hollywood. She has exhibited her work internationally in galleries and museums, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Camerawork, London; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Connecticut and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston. She is the recipient of visual arts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, US/Japan Foundation, Eliza. M. Howard Foundation, Art Matters, Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation.
ABM: Advisory Board Members
AIT: Artists featured in current Breaking In Two trailer
FIC: Film Consultants
FTE: Film Team
KIM ABELES - ABM/AIT
Kim Abeles is an artist who crosses disciplines and media to explore and map the urban environment and chronicle broad social issues. The Smog Collector series brought her work to national and international attention in the art world, and mainstream sources such as Newsweek, National Public Radio, and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
Abeles' mid-career survey, Encyclopedia Persona A-Z, toured the United States and South America, and was awarded the Best Regional Museum Show category for 1993-94 by the International Association of Art Critics. She continues to exhibit internationally, including recent projects in Vietnam, Thailand, Czech Republic, England, China, and forthcoming in Cuba.
She represented the U.S. in both the Fotografie Biennale Rotterdam and the Cultural Centre of Berchem in Antwerp. Her work is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, United States Information Agency, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and is archived in the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Publication Design Collection of the Smithsonian.
Abeles work was awarded grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation and Peter Norton Foundation and fellowships from J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, Pollack-Krasner Foundation, and the California Arts Council.
JEANNE BEGLEY - FTE
JEANNE BEGLEY – Consulting Producer
With more than 15 years of film and television experience, Emmy Award winning producer/director Jeanne Begley earned her M.A at the Cinema-Television School at USC. She then teamed up with Van Ness Films to produce, direct and write more than 20 hours of the A&E “Biography” series including some of the network’s highest-rated episodes: Henry Winkler, Tim Burton, Shirley MacLaine, Helena-Bonham Carter and the Emmy Award-winning 2-hour Jackie Gleason special. Since 2001, Jeanne has spearheaded several highly-acclaimed television projects: Celebrity Fit Club, the hit reality series for VH1, several one-hour specials for ABC, the recent hit TLC series, My First Home, as well as shows for NBC, Discovery, A&E and AMC.
With more than 15 years of film and television experience, Emmy Award winning producer/director Jeanne Begley earned her M.A at the Cinema-Television School at USC. She then teamed up with Van Ness Films to produce, direct and write more than 20 hours of the A&E “Biography” series including some of the network’s highest-rated episodes: Henry Winkler, Tim Burton, Shirley MacLaine, Helena-Bonham Carter and the Emmy Award-winning 2-hour Jackie Gleason special. Since 2001, Jeanne has spearheaded several highly-acclaimed television projects: Celebrity Fit Club, the hit reality series for VH1, several one-hour specials for ABC, the recent hit TLC series, My First Home, as well as shows for NBC, Discovery, A&E and AMC.
ALAN BERLINER - FIC
ALAN BERLINER – Writer/Director/Producer/Editor
Alan Berliner's uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America's most acclaimed independent filmmakers. The New York Times has described Berliner's work as "powerful, compelling and bittersweet... full of juicy conflict and contradiction, innovative in their cinematic technique, unpredictable in their structures... Alan Berliner illustrates the power of fine art to transform life."
A recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome Foundation Fellowships, Berliner has received multiple grants from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA and in 1998, won his third career Emmy Award (he has also received six nominations) from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association in 1993, and was honored with a "Storyteller Award" from the 2001 Taos Talking Picture Film Festival. In 2002, Berliner was awarded a "Cultural Achievement Award in the Arts" by the National Foundation For Jewish Culture.
In 2006, the International Documentary Association selected Berliner to receive an International Trailblazer Award for “creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema,” presented at the MIPDOC Conference in Cannes, France.
Berliner's experimental documentary films, WIDE AWAKE (2006), THE SWEETEST SOUND (2001), NOBODY'S BUSINESS (1996), INTIMATE STRANGER (1991), and THE FAMILY ALBUM (1986), have been broadcast all over the world, and received awards and prizes at many major international film festivals. Selected retrospectives of his films have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the International Center of Photography (NYC) and at film festivals from Norway and Finland to England, Australia and Brazil. Several of his films are routinely rented for filmmaking and film history classes at universities all across the United States, and are in the permanent collections of many film societies, festivals, libraries, colleges and museums.
Alan Berliner's uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America's most acclaimed independent filmmakers. The New York Times has described Berliner's work as "powerful, compelling and bittersweet... full of juicy conflict and contradiction, innovative in their cinematic technique, unpredictable in their structures... Alan Berliner illustrates the power of fine art to transform life."
A recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome Foundation Fellowships, Berliner has received multiple grants from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA and in 1998, won his third career Emmy Award (he has also received six nominations) from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association in 1993, and was honored with a "Storyteller Award" from the 2001 Taos Talking Picture Film Festival. In 2002, Berliner was awarded a "Cultural Achievement Award in the Arts" by the National Foundation For Jewish Culture.
In 2006, the International Documentary Association selected Berliner to receive an International Trailblazer Award for “creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema,” presented at the MIPDOC Conference in Cannes, France.
Berliner's experimental documentary films, WIDE AWAKE (2006), THE SWEETEST SOUND (2001), NOBODY'S BUSINESS (1996), INTIMATE STRANGER (1991), and THE FAMILY ALBUM (1986), have been broadcast all over the world, and received awards and prizes at many major international film festivals. Selected retrospectives of his films have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the International Center of Photography (NYC) and at film festivals from Norway and Finland to England, Australia and Brazil. Several of his films are routinely rented for filmmaking and film history classes at universities all across the United States, and are in the permanent collections of many film societies, festivals, libraries, colleges and museums.
BETTY ANN BROWN - ABM
BETTY ANN BROWN – Art Historian, Critic and Curator
Betty Ann Brown is an art historian, professor of art history (California State University, Northridge – 1986-present), art critic and curator. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, Brown curated several major exhibitions, including ”Muses," a pairing of nine women artists with nine women writers, Pasadena Armory for the Arts, November 1995; "Family Album," views of alternative families, Cal State Fullerton, September 1994; and "Utopian Dialogues," twelve installations by artists responding to conversations about utopia, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, September 1993. Brown has published on art for three decades. She has worked as a contributing editor for Arts and Artweek, the Los Angeles Reader, Artscene, and was founding editor of Visions, the Los Angeles Art Quarterly. She has also produced and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues. Brown co-authored Exposures, Women & Their Art (Pasadena, NewSage Press, 1989). In the 1990s, she began to investigate community building as an art form. Her edited anthology Expanding Circles: Women, Art & Community, published in Spring 1996, developed out of her 1992 CSUN exhibition, "Communitas: The Feminist Art of Community Building.” Her book "Gradivar’s Mirror" won the 2003 Cal State Northridge Award for Outstanding Scholarly Publication. Brown has been active in several women's art organizations. She was president of the board of the Los Angeles Woman's Building in 1985-86 and in 1995-96 was president of the Southern California Women's Caucus for Art.
Betty Ann Brown is an art historian, professor of art history (California State University, Northridge – 1986-present), art critic and curator. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, Brown curated several major exhibitions, including ”Muses," a pairing of nine women artists with nine women writers, Pasadena Armory for the Arts, November 1995; "Family Album," views of alternative families, Cal State Fullerton, September 1994; and "Utopian Dialogues," twelve installations by artists responding to conversations about utopia, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, September 1993. Brown has published on art for three decades. She has worked as a contributing editor for Arts and Artweek, the Los Angeles Reader, Artscene, and was founding editor of Visions, the Los Angeles Art Quarterly. She has also produced and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues. Brown co-authored Exposures, Women & Their Art (Pasadena, NewSage Press, 1989). In the 1990s, she began to investigate community building as an art form. Her edited anthology Expanding Circles: Women, Art & Community, published in Spring 1996, developed out of her 1992 CSUN exhibition, "Communitas: The Feminist Art of Community Building.” Her book "Gradivar’s Mirror" won the 2003 Cal State Northridge Award for Outstanding Scholarly Publication. Brown has been active in several women's art organizations. She was president of the board of the Los Angeles Woman's Building in 1985-86 and in 1995-96 was president of the Southern California Women's Caucus for Art.
NANCY BUCHANAN - ABM
NANCY BUCHANAN – Artist
Nancy Buchanan began using video as a natural extension of performance and installation in the late 1970s. Her works, which are often socio-documentary with a wry sense of humor, have been exhibited and screened in the U.S., Europe, and Korea, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the New Museum (NY), The Centre Pompidou, Paris, the American Center in Paris, Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and Steirischer Herbst, (Graz, Austria). She received four NEA Artist Fellowships to support her work in New Genres, Performance, and Video. In 1996 she received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to complete "Developing: The Idea of Home", an interactive CD-ROM examining the notion of home in the context of the politics of land use. She is on the Film/Video faculty of California Institute of the Arts, where she has taught video since 1988. She also produces mixed-media work, drawings, and digital prints on paper and fabric. Buchanan was an original member of F Space Gallery in Orange County, and participated in various artist-run organizations such as Grandview I & II Galleries at The Los Angeles Woman’s Building, later continuing her involvement with feminism and art through Double X; she also served on artists' committees at LACE. She was a co-producer of CLOSE Radio with artist Paul McCarthy and has curated various exhibitions.
Nancy Buchanan began using video as a natural extension of performance and installation in the late 1970s. Her works, which are often socio-documentary with a wry sense of humor, have been exhibited and screened in the U.S., Europe, and Korea, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the New Museum (NY), The Centre Pompidou, Paris, the American Center in Paris, Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and Steirischer Herbst, (Graz, Austria). She received four NEA Artist Fellowships to support her work in New Genres, Performance, and Video. In 1996 she received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to complete "Developing: The Idea of Home", an interactive CD-ROM examining the notion of home in the context of the politics of land use. She is on the Film/Video faculty of California Institute of the Arts, where she has taught video since 1988. She also produces mixed-media work, drawings, and digital prints on paper and fabric. Buchanan was an original member of F Space Gallery in Orange County, and participated in various artist-run organizations such as Grandview I & II Galleries at The Los Angeles Woman’s Building, later continuing her involvement with feminism and art through Double X; she also served on artists' committees at LACE. She was a co-producer of CLOSE Radio with artist Paul McCarthy and has curated various exhibitions.
SARA CANNON - ABM
SARA CANNON – Curator
Sara Cannon is a curator and the Director of the Museum Education and Tours Program at the Municipal Art Gallery and Hollyhock House. She is a lecturer, teacher, writer and gives workshops and presentations to museum professionals, teachers and general audiences in the field of Museum Education and art. She was president of the Museum Educators of Southern California, a networking and education resource for museum educators. She is also a member of the Southern California chapter of ArtTable, a networking organization for women professionals in the arts. She produced a video documentary on the rehabilitation period of Hollyhock House. Sara co-curated the “Inspired Vessel” exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery, curated multiple exhibitions on art and architectural history for Hollyhock House and guest curated exhibitions around the Los Angeles area. Her education programming has gotten grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Museum Grants Program and from private foundations.
Sara Cannon is a curator and the Director of the Museum Education and Tours Program at the Municipal Art Gallery and Hollyhock House. She is a lecturer, teacher, writer and gives workshops and presentations to museum professionals, teachers and general audiences in the field of Museum Education and art. She was president of the Museum Educators of Southern California, a networking and education resource for museum educators. She is also a member of the Southern California chapter of ArtTable, a networking organization for women professionals in the arts. She produced a video documentary on the rehabilitation period of Hollyhock House. Sara co-curated the “Inspired Vessel” exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery, curated multiple exhibitions on art and architectural history for Hollyhock House and guest curated exhibitions around the Los Angeles area. Her education programming has gotten grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Museum Grants Program and from private foundations.
CAROLE LEE DEAN - FIC
CAROLE DEAN – Producer, Film Consultant
Thirty years ago Carole Dean took a $20 bill and turned it into a $50 million a year industry when she reinvented the tape and short end industry in Hollywood, NYC and Chicago. Carole coined the phrase “short ends” and began buying and selling film ends left from production. She was instrumental in the birth of the Hollywood independent film community because she offered film to Indies at prices they could afford, allowing many producers to go on to great success. Customers like Corman and Cassavetes took chances with her raw stock and succeeded.
As president and CEO of From The Heart Productions, between 1992 to 1998 , Carole produced over 100 television programs including the popular cable programs Filmmakers and HealthStyles, where she interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry including, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Weil and Dr. Caroline Myss.
In 1992 Carole created the Roy W. Dean Grant Foundation in honor of her late father. To date Carole’s grant and mentorship programs have provided filmmakers with millions of dollars in goods and services and have played an instrumental role in establishing the careers of some of the industry’s most promising filmmakers.
A sought-after international speaker, Carole has toured the U. S. with her popular book, "The Art of Funding Your Film: Alternative Financing Concepts” teaching filmmakers how and where to find funding.
Thirty years ago Carole Dean took a $20 bill and turned it into a $50 million a year industry when she reinvented the tape and short end industry in Hollywood, NYC and Chicago. Carole coined the phrase “short ends” and began buying and selling film ends left from production. She was instrumental in the birth of the Hollywood independent film community because she offered film to Indies at prices they could afford, allowing many producers to go on to great success. Customers like Corman and Cassavetes took chances with her raw stock and succeeded.
As president and CEO of From The Heart Productions, between 1992 to 1998 , Carole produced over 100 television programs including the popular cable programs Filmmakers and HealthStyles, where she interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry including, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Weil and Dr. Caroline Myss.
In 1992 Carole created the Roy W. Dean Grant Foundation in honor of her late father. To date Carole’s grant and mentorship programs have provided filmmakers with millions of dollars in goods and services and have played an instrumental role in establishing the careers of some of the industry’s most promising filmmakers.
A sought-after international speaker, Carole has toured the U. S. with her popular book, "The Art of Funding Your Film: Alternative Financing Concepts” teaching filmmakers how and where to find funding.
BRURIA FINKEL - ABM
BRURIA FINKEL -- Artist/Curator
Bruria Finkel creates works in a variety of media, porcelain bronze, paint, terrazzo, and photography. She works on temporary and permanent installations. She uses geometric language, symbolic imagery with content both abstract and familiar. Her major concerns are: ecology, survival, women issues, and the times we live in. Her work is found in many private and public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. she had over 56 solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries in the USA and Europe. She has been curating shows since the seventies.
In the 1970's Bruria was a founding member of Womanspace and the Los Angeles Council of Women in The Arts, in 1982 she was a founding member of the Santa Monica Arts Commission, and in 1995-2002 she was elected to the Santa Monica rent control board. Bruria has worked with kids at risk and sits on many boards.
Bruria has four children and four grandchildren.
Bruria Finkel creates works in a variety of media, porcelain bronze, paint, terrazzo, and photography. She works on temporary and permanent installations. She uses geometric language, symbolic imagery with content both abstract and familiar. Her major concerns are: ecology, survival, women issues, and the times we live in. Her work is found in many private and public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. she had over 56 solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries in the USA and Europe. She has been curating shows since the seventies.
In the 1970's Bruria was a founding member of Womanspace and the Los Angeles Council of Women in The Arts, in 1982 she was a founding member of the Santa Monica Arts Commission, and in 1995-2002 she was elected to the Santa Monica rent control board. Bruria has worked with kids at risk and sits on many boards.
Bruria has four children and four grandchildren.
LOIS FREEMAN-FOX - FTE
LOIS FREEMAN-FOX – Editor
Lois Freeman-Fox, A.C.E., has been involved in the art and practice of film editing for 25 years. Her feature film editing credits began with Teen Wolf and include Turner & Hooch, K-9 and Air America. She also edits Movies of the Week for network and cable and won an Emmy and an A.C.E. Eddie in 1994 for And the Band Played On, a film about the discovery of the Aids virus. Returning to her art roots, she has edited animated features in recent years, including Fantasia 2000 and Osmosis Jones. She is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, American Cinema Editors, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has taught film editing at the USC school of Cinema and Television and has been teaching film editing at Brooks since 2003.
Lois Freeman-Fox, A.C.E., has been involved in the art and practice of film editing for 25 years. Her feature film editing credits began with Teen Wolf and include Turner & Hooch, K-9 and Air America. She also edits Movies of the Week for network and cable and won an Emmy and an A.C.E. Eddie in 1994 for And the Band Played On, a film about the discovery of the Aids virus. Returning to her art roots, she has edited animated features in recent years, including Fantasia 2000 and Osmosis Jones. She is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, American Cinema Editors, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has taught film editing at the USC school of Cinema and Television and has been teaching film editing at Brooks since 2003.
ROBERTA FRIEDMAN - FIC
ROBERTA FRIEDMAN – Writer/Producer/Editor
Roberta Friedman has had a wide and varied media career, and continues to take on new challenges. Her work spans a large assortment of film and video productions, which have been shown extensively in the United States and Europe. Friedman has extensive production and post-production television credits. She worked with Michael Moore on The Awful Truth, his weekly documentary series for Bravo Channel and Britain’s Channel 4 in the U.K. She has worked for HBO, Bravo, A&E, WNET, Channel 4 and more. She was the executive producer of HERE! Family, a television series about gay, lesbian and transgender families, currently being broadcast on the HERE! Network. She produced the biography of Stockard Channing for Bravo, and produced and developed a one-hour weekly series “ID: It’s Dance!” an issue based rock and roll weekly dance/talk show for WWOR. Friedman’s documentary credits include: Producer/Post Supervisor of “One Man’s Greed”, a hard look at corporate greed and the destroying of the Redwoods in Northern California - a high definition documentary feature film currently in post production; Kids on Tour, A mini DV pilot for a series about 2 ten year olds on the road with a rock band, The Music In You, for Mattel Entertainment Corp. released worldwide on DVD, Cabinet of Spells, an NEH funded series about Cinderella, women and storytelling; Pearl Harbor: A Time to Remember which aired on PBS and Art and Remembrance for German Television ZDF. She also worked on feature documentaries Soldier Girl and Tattooed Tears with Joan Churchill and Nick Broomfield. As an independent filmmaker, she has produced and directed many short films, receiving grant funding (including NYSCA, NEA, a BFI Filmmaking Grant, Australian Film Commission grant) and winning awards at various festivals (including Athens International Festival, Sinking Creek Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, FILMEX) Her film, “Bertha’s Children” screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February, 2008, and her film “Future Perfect” screen at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January, 2008. Her experimental films are in the collection of the Australian National Film Library, Berlin Film Festival Archives, and have been selected to be preserved and housed by the Academy of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California. She was appointed Assistant Director of Film, for the New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting serving during the Koch administration, and was a liaison between the film community and all of New York City.
Roberta Friedman has had a wide and varied media career, and continues to take on new challenges. Her work spans a large assortment of film and video productions, which have been shown extensively in the United States and Europe. Friedman has extensive production and post-production television credits. She worked with Michael Moore on The Awful Truth, his weekly documentary series for Bravo Channel and Britain’s Channel 4 in the U.K. She has worked for HBO, Bravo, A&E, WNET, Channel 4 and more. She was the executive producer of HERE! Family, a television series about gay, lesbian and transgender families, currently being broadcast on the HERE! Network. She produced the biography of Stockard Channing for Bravo, and produced and developed a one-hour weekly series “ID: It’s Dance!” an issue based rock and roll weekly dance/talk show for WWOR. Friedman’s documentary credits include: Producer/Post Supervisor of “One Man’s Greed”, a hard look at corporate greed and the destroying of the Redwoods in Northern California - a high definition documentary feature film currently in post production; Kids on Tour, A mini DV pilot for a series about 2 ten year olds on the road with a rock band, The Music In You, for Mattel Entertainment Corp. released worldwide on DVD, Cabinet of Spells, an NEH funded series about Cinderella, women and storytelling; Pearl Harbor: A Time to Remember which aired on PBS and Art and Remembrance for German Television ZDF. She also worked on feature documentaries Soldier Girl and Tattooed Tears with Joan Churchill and Nick Broomfield. As an independent filmmaker, she has produced and directed many short films, receiving grant funding (including NYSCA, NEA, a BFI Filmmaking Grant, Australian Film Commission grant) and winning awards at various festivals (including Athens International Festival, Sinking Creek Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, FILMEX) Her film, “Bertha’s Children” screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February, 2008, and her film “Future Perfect” screen at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January, 2008. Her experimental films are in the collection of the Australian National Film Library, Berlin Film Festival Archives, and have been selected to be preserved and housed by the Academy of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California. She was appointed Assistant Director of Film, for the New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting serving during the Koch administration, and was a liaison between the film community and all of New York City.
ERIKA GIESCHEN - FTE
ERIKA GIESCHEN – Sound Mixer
When not working at home in Los Angeles, Erika Gieschen works almost anywhere else around the world. An audio mixer for over a decade, she's worked on countless hit reality television shows and loves the spontaneity of unscripted narrative, whether she’s following an American family into the remote deserts of Ethiopia or charting the progress of hopeful surfers competing on Oahu’s North Shore. Erika is currently working on a documentary film series entitled ANGELS AMONG US – inspiring stories of philanthropic organizations and the lives they have changed.
When not working at home in Los Angeles, Erika Gieschen works almost anywhere else around the world. An audio mixer for over a decade, she's worked on countless hit reality television shows and loves the spontaneity of unscripted narrative, whether she’s following an American family into the remote deserts of Ethiopia or charting the progress of hopeful surfers competing on Oahu’s North Shore. Erika is currently working on a documentary film series entitled ANGELS AMONG US – inspiring stories of philanthropic organizations and the lives they have changed.
SHANA HAGAN - FTE
SHANA HAGAN -- CINEMATOGRAPHER
Shana Hagan has photographed over 30 documentary and narrative films, shot countless hours of documentary and reality-based television programs, and worked with such distinguished filmmakers as Michael Apted, Kirby Dick and Jessica Yu. Her work includes BREATHING LESSONS, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 1996 Academy Awards, SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005, and AFTER INNOCENCE, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005, was released in theaters in Fall 2005, and was recently placed on the “short list” of 2006 Academy Award nominees. Shana also shot the award-winning PBS documentary HOMELAND, Michael Apted’s MARRIED IN AMERICA and Kirby Dick’s THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.
Shana Hagan has photographed over 30 documentary and narrative films, shot countless hours of documentary and reality-based television programs, and worked with such distinguished filmmakers as Michael Apted, Kirby Dick and Jessica Yu. Her work includes BREATHING LESSONS, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 1996 Academy Awards, SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005, and AFTER INNOCENCE, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005, was released in theaters in Fall 2005, and was recently placed on the “short list” of 2006 Academy Award nominees. Shana also shot the award-winning PBS documentary HOMELAND, Michael Apted’s MARRIED IN AMERICA and Kirby Dick’s THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.
JESSICA HECHT - AIT
(Bio coming)
SUZANNE ISKEN - ABM
SUZANNE ISKEN – Director of Education at the MOCA
Director of Education Suzanne Isken has led education initiatives at The Museum of Contemporary Art since 2001, following 10 years of service as coordinator of school and teacher programs and gallery educator. Prior to joining the museum's staff, she was an instructor for youth programs in conjunction with Southern California Institute of Architecture and The Wilderness Institute while maintaining her own private social work practice. Isken received a certificate of recognition from The Los Angeles Unified School District in 1999 and has made numerous presentations at venues across the country. In 2005, Isken co-authored a policy paper for the California Alliance for Art Education entitled Quality, Equity and Access. She was named 2004 Pacific Region Art Educator of the Year by the National Art Education Association.
Director of Education Suzanne Isken has led education initiatives at The Museum of Contemporary Art since 2001, following 10 years of service as coordinator of school and teacher programs and gallery educator. Prior to joining the museum's staff, she was an instructor for youth programs in conjunction with Southern California Institute of Architecture and The Wilderness Institute while maintaining her own private social work practice. Isken received a certificate of recognition from The Los Angeles Unified School District in 1999 and has made numerous presentations at venues across the country. In 2005, Isken co-authored a policy paper for the California Alliance for Art Education entitled Quality, Equity and Access. She was named 2004 Pacific Region Art Educator of the Year by the National Art Education Association.
ALLIE LIGHT - FIC
ALLIE LIGHT – Filmmaker/Writer
Allie Light has had a few lives as mother, teacher, writer and filmmaker. She works with Irving Saraf, her partner in love and the movies. Of their 15 films together, In The Shadow of the Stars won the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, Dialogues With Madwomen was an Emmy Award winner and Rachel’s Daughters, Searching for the Causes of Breast Cancer was broadcast on HBO. Allie taught in the Women Studies Department at San Francisco State University for 11 years. With the composer, Betty Siu Junn Wong, she is working on a series of poems set to music about Iraqi children. The San Francisco Community Music School’s children’s chorus has performed the first one, Lament of Iraqi Children. Allie has just finished her first novel. Allie and Irving have six children between them, none together.
Allie Light has had a few lives as mother, teacher, writer and filmmaker. She works with Irving Saraf, her partner in love and the movies. Of their 15 films together, In The Shadow of the Stars won the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, Dialogues With Madwomen was an Emmy Award winner and Rachel’s Daughters, Searching for the Causes of Breast Cancer was broadcast on HBO. Allie taught in the Women Studies Department at San Francisco State University for 11 years. With the composer, Betty Siu Junn Wong, she is working on a series of poems set to music about Iraqi children. The San Francisco Community Music School’s children’s chorus has performed the first one, Lament of Iraqi Children. Allie has just finished her first novel. Allie and Irving have six children between them, none together.
ANDREA LISS - ABM
ANDREA LISS – Art Historian, Cultural theorist
Dr. Andrea Liss is the Contemporary Art Historian/Cultural Theorist at California State University San Marcos where her teaching focuses on feminist art and theory, photographic theory and representations of memory and history. She has published Trespassing through Shadows: Memory, Photography and the Holocaust (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), as well as over one hundred book chapters, essays and exhibition catalogs. Her son Miles is now eighteen-years-old and her book Bodies of Knowledge: Feminist Art and the Maternal will be out in September 2008 with the University Of Minnesota Press.
Dr. Andrea Liss is the Contemporary Art Historian/Cultural Theorist at California State University San Marcos where her teaching focuses on feminist art and theory, photographic theory and representations of memory and history. She has published Trespassing through Shadows: Memory, Photography and the Holocaust (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), as well as over one hundred book chapters, essays and exhibition catalogs. Her son Miles is now eighteen-years-old and her book Bodies of Knowledge: Feminist Art and the Maternal will be out in September 2008 with the University Of Minnesota Press.
FREYDA MILLER - ABM
FREYDA MILLER – Artist
Freyda Miller resides in Los Angeles where she has worked as a fine art photographer, painter, and conceptual artist since 1978. She is a graduate of the UCLA Fine Art Department, with a major in Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts and an emphasis in fine art photography. While attending UCLA, Freyda was married and raising 2 children. For 20 years she used her artistic vision in the field of production styling and coordinating for national print ads and commercials. She provided sets, wardrobe, props, casting, location scouting and full production for clients such as: Altoids, Sheraton Hotels, Kodak, Mattel, ABC TV, United Airlines and Sprint. During this time period she continued exhibiting, photographing, painting, and incorporating her intuitive skills of collecting and assembling elements to create her personal work. Freyda’s consistent focus on the feminine is translated through these various mediums of her art and has naturally evolved into her present series of assemblage. Miller’s work is in the collections of The St. Louis Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Rijksmuseum: Amsterdam, Tokyo and Fuji Art Museum: Tokyo, Peter Palmquist Archives: Women in Photography International, and The UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.
Freyda Miller resides in Los Angeles where she has worked as a fine art photographer, painter, and conceptual artist since 1978. She is a graduate of the UCLA Fine Art Department, with a major in Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts and an emphasis in fine art photography. While attending UCLA, Freyda was married and raising 2 children. For 20 years she used her artistic vision in the field of production styling and coordinating for national print ads and commercials. She provided sets, wardrobe, props, casting, location scouting and full production for clients such as: Altoids, Sheraton Hotels, Kodak, Mattel, ABC TV, United Airlines and Sprint. During this time period she continued exhibiting, photographing, painting, and incorporating her intuitive skills of collecting and assembling elements to create her personal work. Freyda’s consistent focus on the feminine is translated through these various mediums of her art and has naturally evolved into her present series of assemblage. Miller’s work is in the collections of The St. Louis Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Rijksmuseum: Amsterdam, Tokyo and Fuji Art Museum: Tokyo, Peter Palmquist Archives: Women in Photography International, and The UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.
MARYLINDA MOSS - ABM
MARYLINDA MOSS – Sculptor
A graduate from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Marylinda Moss works mostly in sculpture and installation art. She has participated in many group and solo shows in Los Angeles and Chicago. In the last few years, she has taken time away from the studio to be with her two young children. The experience of mothering has connected her more deeply to herself and the world around her. Her newer works tend to respond to current situations while resonating with intimate and personal experience. Marylinda's work delves into the ephemeral, the transitional, the transformative, the vulnerable point from which we come to a new awareness of self. Her sculptures are an abstracted embodiment of our emotional and spiritual experiences, often relating to the cycles and elements of the natural world. Her use of materials is conceptual as well as aesthetically engaging; the intricacy of detail and the sensuality of surface invite an intimate, fresh look at how we experience the body and ourselves.
A graduate from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Marylinda Moss works mostly in sculpture and installation art. She has participated in many group and solo shows in Los Angeles and Chicago. In the last few years, she has taken time away from the studio to be with her two young children. The experience of mothering has connected her more deeply to herself and the world around her. Her newer works tend to respond to current situations while resonating with intimate and personal experience. Marylinda's work delves into the ephemeral, the transitional, the transformative, the vulnerable point from which we come to a new awareness of self. Her sculptures are an abstracted embodiment of our emotional and spiritual experiences, often relating to the cycles and elements of the natural world. Her use of materials is conceptual as well as aesthetically engaging; the intricacy of detail and the sensuality of surface invite an intimate, fresh look at how we experience the body and ourselves.
SANDRA MUELLER - ABM
SANDRA MUELLER – Artist, President of SCWCA
Sandra Mueller is the founding director of BeARTrageous Creativity Workshops for women and serves as the Community Arts Advocate for A Window Between Worlds, a nonprofit that brings art to domestic violence shelters. She received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley in Intellectual History and later studied expressive painting and visual thinking at Mt. St. Mary’s College with Leonard Schwartz. She had a prior career in publishing as an editor/writer and produced more than fifty interactive media titles including the award-winning Vienna: Legacy of a City, Creation of the Universe and Citizen Kane 50th Anniversary videodiscs. She led the editorial team for Voyager's Expanded Books project, which won an Eddy Award. Her abstract paintings, collages and digital photographs have been shown throughout the Southern California region. She currently serves as President of Southern California Women's Caucus for Art (SCWCA) and as regional coordinator for The Feminist Art Project and as a member of the national Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) board.
Sandra Mueller is the founding director of BeARTrageous Creativity Workshops for women and serves as the Community Arts Advocate for A Window Between Worlds, a nonprofit that brings art to domestic violence shelters. She received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley in Intellectual History and later studied expressive painting and visual thinking at Mt. St. Mary’s College with Leonard Schwartz. She had a prior career in publishing as an editor/writer and produced more than fifty interactive media titles including the award-winning Vienna: Legacy of a City, Creation of the Universe and Citizen Kane 50th Anniversary videodiscs. She led the editorial team for Voyager's Expanded Books project, which won an Eddy Award. Her abstract paintings, collages and digital photographs have been shown throughout the Southern California region. She currently serves as President of Southern California Women's Caucus for Art (SCWCA) and as regional coordinator for The Feminist Art Project and as a member of the national Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) board.
GLORIA F. ORENSTEIN - ABM
GLORIA F. ORENSTEIN – USC Professor/Author
A tenured Full Professor in Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at USC, Professor Orenstein has written extensively on women in the arts. She is a past recipient of a California Council for the Humanities grant, to support the conference on Ecofeminism: Culture, Nature and Theory – which resulted in the publication of the collected essays Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. Back in the early 70s, she was the first to publish on Frida Kahlo and Women of Surrealism in the U.S.. Along with her many publications on women in the arts and literature – ecofeminist artists, the re-emergence of the Goddess, contemporary Jewish women artists – she contributed to The Power of Feminist Art and is the author of The Reflowering of the Goddess. Professor Orenstein was the co-founder of The New York Woman’s Salon, a gathering venue for feminist artists and writers in the seventies, and was also on the Board of Directors of The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles in the eighties. More recently, she has co-created a SALUTE TO WOMEN ARTISTS with the Veteran Feminists of America, for which she organized a prestigious panel of feminist artists to recognize the unique contribution of women artists in the U.S.. The resulting DVD is now in the collection of the Radcliffe Schlesinger Library on Women’s History.
A tenured Full Professor in Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at USC, Professor Orenstein has written extensively on women in the arts. She is a past recipient of a California Council for the Humanities grant, to support the conference on Ecofeminism: Culture, Nature and Theory – which resulted in the publication of the collected essays Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. Back in the early 70s, she was the first to publish on Frida Kahlo and Women of Surrealism in the U.S.. Along with her many publications on women in the arts and literature – ecofeminist artists, the re-emergence of the Goddess, contemporary Jewish women artists – she contributed to The Power of Feminist Art and is the author of The Reflowering of the Goddess. Professor Orenstein was the co-founder of The New York Woman’s Salon, a gathering venue for feminist artists and writers in the seventies, and was also on the Board of Directors of The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles in the eighties. More recently, she has co-created a SALUTE TO WOMEN ARTISTS with the Veteran Feminists of America, for which she organized a prestigious panel of feminist artists to recognize the unique contribution of women artists in the U.S.. The resulting DVD is now in the collection of the Radcliffe Schlesinger Library on Women’s History.
STEVE REICH - FTE
STEVE REICH – Writing Consultant
Steven Reich worked at National Geographic Television as a writer, researcher and associate producer. There he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on "Avalanche: The White Death"! Other documentary credits include: the National Geographic Special, "Wolves: A Legend Returns to Yellowstone", "Valley of the T-Rex" for Discovery, "Science at the Edge" for TLC, "Dating for Dummies", "Marriage for Dummies" and "Parenting for Dummies" for Discovery Health, "The Liberty Bell" which screens at Independence Hall and "Alive From Pop!Tech" on PBS as well as a series of short films for George Washington's Mt. Vernon Estate. Reich recently completed "One Man's Greed", a feature documentary on the aftermath of the hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber - as well several short films for The History Channel Foundation profiling Abraham Lincoln. And he's forever in production on his passion project - "King of Fools" the story of an unlikely group of performers, mimes, musicians, fortune-tellers, jugglers, clowns and trolls. Reich is on the Board of Directors of the International Documentary Association.
Steven Reich worked at National Geographic Television as a writer, researcher and associate producer. There he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on "Avalanche: The White Death"! Other documentary credits include: the National Geographic Special, "Wolves: A Legend Returns to Yellowstone", "Valley of the T-Rex" for Discovery, "Science at the Edge" for TLC, "Dating for Dummies", "Marriage for Dummies" and "Parenting for Dummies" for Discovery Health, "The Liberty Bell" which screens at Independence Hall and "Alive From Pop!Tech" on PBS as well as a series of short films for George Washington's Mt. Vernon Estate. Reich recently completed "One Man's Greed", a feature documentary on the aftermath of the hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber - as well several short films for The History Channel Foundation profiling Abraham Lincoln. And he's forever in production on his passion project - "King of Fools" the story of an unlikely group of performers, mimes, musicians, fortune-tellers, jugglers, clowns and trolls. Reich is on the Board of Directors of the International Documentary Association.
ALISON SAAR - AIT
Alison Saar was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. She studied art and art history at Scripps College and received an MFA from the Otis Art Institute. She has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and two National Endowment Fellowships. Alison has exhibited at many galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Her art is represented in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.. She currently resides in Los Angeles With her husband Tom Leeser and her two children Maddy and Kyle.
SABINE SIGHICELLI - FTE
SABINE SIGHICELLI – Writer/Director/Producer
Sabine Sighicelli is a Producer/Director/Writer who has worked in the documentary field, both independent and commercial (National Geographic Television, Museum of Jewish History, AMC) for the past 10 years. Her award-winning documentary The Passionate Life of a Father Painter aired on PBS in 2001. A graduate from the photography and film programs of the Massachusetts College of Art and LMU’s school of Film and Television, Sabine has continued to write, direct and produce short and feature projects while teaching all aspects of Documentary writing, production and post-production at the Brooks Institute of Photography (2002-present).
LINDA VALLEJO - ABM/AIT
LINDA VALLEJO – Artist, Curator
Linda Vallejo is an artist that consolidates multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico to create images and installations that investigate humanity’s fundamental and metamorphic relationship with nature, and conversely the destruction of natural resources through pollution and waste.
She is represented in the U.S. by the Patricia Correia Gallery and has exhibited her work at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, The Carnegie Art Museum, Armand Hammer Museum, Laguna Art Museum, Bronx Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, San Antonio Museum, Mexico City Modem Art Museum, Galeria Las Americas, Tropico Nopal, Ave 50 Studio Gallery, Patricia Correia Gallery, and Metro Gallery. Her work has been reviewed in ArtNews, Art Business News, Southwest Art, Saludos Hispanos, Los Angeles Times, Artillery, LA Downtown News, and Latin Style Magazine.
Vallejo has received grants and awards from the Durfee Foundation, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, Artist Award, Quien es Quien in US Commerce, National Award, 1994, the National Association Chicano Studies, Distinguished Recognition, 1993, Comisión Femenil de Los Angeles Latinas Making History Award in Art, the California Community Foundation Brody Fund Arts Fellowship, and the California Arts Council.
Vallejo has also studied and participated in Native American and Chicano traditional ceremony for over twenty-five years. She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband of thirty years, Ron Dillaway. Her son Robert attends Georgetown Law School and her son Paul is a student at UC Santa Cruz.
The artist states about her work, “My first memory of painting was at four years of age and it has continued as my life’s dedication. My goal as an artist has been to consolidate multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout United States, Mexico, and Europe. My goal is to create an image that communicates the idea that without nature, humanity, history and culture as we know it are lost, that nature is the thread that encircles and describes all of us, regardless of gender, race, age, or creed, and finally, that nature is beyond politics, religion, market, and even art!
RUTH WEISBERG - ABM
RUTH WEISBERG – Artist, Dean USC Roski School of
Fine Arts
Ruth Weisberg is Dean of the University of Southern California’s Gayle Garner Roski School of Fine Arts. As an artist Weisberg works primarily in painting, drawing and large-scale installations. A documentary entitled Ruth Weisberg: On the Journey by Laura Vazquez was released in April, 2003 and won a Gold Medal at the Aurora Film and Video Festival. In 2006, Weisberg completed a large scale mural commission for the New York Jewish Federation. Honors include Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, Hebrew Union College, 2001, College Art Association Distinguished Teaching of Art Award 1999, Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome 1995, 1994 and 1992, National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar 1994, a Senior Research Fulbright for Italy in 1992, School of Art University of Michigan Distinguished Alumni/AE Award for 1992; Weisberg was also President of the College Art Association 1990-92.
As an artist, Weisberg has been a particularly active exhibitor with over 75 solo and 170 group exhibitions. Two retrospective exhibitions were mounted in 2007: Ruth Weisberg ‘Unfurled’, Skirball Museum and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California and ‘Michigan Collects Ruth Weisberg’, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan. Her work is included in sixty-five major Museum and University collections including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, California; The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The Biblioteque Nationale of France, Paris, France; The Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, California; Istituto Nationale per la Grafica, Rome, Italy; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.
Weisberg was chosen as the artist for the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s (the Reform Movement) new Haggadah, which is now in its second printing. A related exhibition “The Open Door Haggadah,” has been shown at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and New York; Jewish Community Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Sylvia Platkin Museum, Scottsdale, Arizona; and at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. In addition, work by Ruth Weisberg has recently been in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers State University, New Jersey; the Frye Museum, Seattle, Washington and the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland. Ruth Weisberg is represented since 1982 by Jack Rutberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles.
Ruth Weisberg is Dean of the University of Southern California’s Gayle Garner Roski School of Fine Arts. As an artist Weisberg works primarily in painting, drawing and large-scale installations. A documentary entitled Ruth Weisberg: On the Journey by Laura Vazquez was released in April, 2003 and won a Gold Medal at the Aurora Film and Video Festival. In 2006, Weisberg completed a large scale mural commission for the New York Jewish Federation. Honors include Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, Hebrew Union College, 2001, College Art Association Distinguished Teaching of Art Award 1999, Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome 1995, 1994 and 1992, National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar 1994, a Senior Research Fulbright for Italy in 1992, School of Art University of Michigan Distinguished Alumni/AE Award for 1992; Weisberg was also President of the College Art Association 1990-92.
As an artist, Weisberg has been a particularly active exhibitor with over 75 solo and 170 group exhibitions. Two retrospective exhibitions were mounted in 2007: Ruth Weisberg ‘Unfurled’, Skirball Museum and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California and ‘Michigan Collects Ruth Weisberg’, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan. Her work is included in sixty-five major Museum and University collections including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, California; The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The Biblioteque Nationale of France, Paris, France; The Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, California; Istituto Nationale per la Grafica, Rome, Italy; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.
Weisberg was chosen as the artist for the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s (the Reform Movement) new Haggadah, which is now in its second printing. A related exhibition “The Open Door Haggadah,” has been shown at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and New York; Jewish Community Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Sylvia Platkin Museum, Scottsdale, Arizona; and at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. In addition, work by Ruth Weisberg has recently been in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers State University, New Jersey; the Frye Museum, Seattle, Washington and the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland. Ruth Weisberg is represented since 1982 by Jack Rutberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles.
KIM YASUDA - AIT
KIM YASUDA – Artist, Co-director/Professor UCSB Institute for Research in the Arts
Kim Yasuda is a visual artist and professor of spatial studies in the Art Department at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is co-director of the U.C. Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA). The UCIRA serves as a major platform for presenting, discussing and advocating for the arts and arts-centered research across the U.C. system. Its newly expanded mission supports active and engaged scholarship models that work transitively through real-world affiliations and settings outside the conventional studio, gallery, museum or performance contexts. Most recently, Yasuda has attempted to activate university teaching with her public art research, developing projects that forge partnerships between UCSB and the community.
Yasuda’s past gallery installations and public projects investigate links between identity and place within the contemporary urban landscape. She has commissioned projects throughout California, including a subway station and bus shelter facility for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Los Angeles and permanent commemorative installations for the City of San Jose and Hollywood. She has exhibited her work internationally in galleries and museums, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Camerawork, London; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Connecticut and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston. She is the recipient of visual arts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, US/Japan Foundation, Eliza. M. Howard Foundation, Art Matters, Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation.