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Carol Selberg — Learning Science Through Art

Carol explores the electromagnetic spectrum with children through workshops on additive color, the colors of the elements, crystal patterns, and natures’ numbers.  She developed a fusion of “Learning Science through Art” while working for 12 years as an Artist in Residence at Corvallis Montessori School. A graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, with a BA in Art Education, Carol has also taught at LBCC, Winter Wanderings at OSU (TAG program), and as a teaching artist with The Arts Center.  Her students range from 3 to 83.

Carol Soth — Storytelling and Visual Arts

Carol is an educator and an artist who enjoys combining art, storytelling, nature awareness, and myth into an eclectic mix. She loves collaborating with teachers to layer classroom studies with artistic expressions. Her personal art work includes collage, artist’s books, paper mache sculptures, found objects art, nature assemblages, mandalas and more.  Carol’s English bow-ledged gypsy caravan has been known to follow her to school!

Cheryl French — Printmaking, Murals, Painting

Cheryl has worked as a teaching artist since 2008, both through the Arts Center’s Globetrotters Camps and Arts-in-Education School Residency Program.  Her specialties include printmaking, basic painting, and mural painting. Cheryl also specializes in projects that focus on arts integration into core curriculum.  She has taught art classes at the Oak Creek OYA Juvenile facility, and at Santiam Crossing, a private wilderness school for teens.  Cheryl’s murals can be seen on the columns in the Children’s Room at the Albany Public Library.

Diana Ryan — Drawing, Painting, Clay, Sculpture, Innovative visual arts

Diana Ryan is a professional teaching artist located in the Corvallis/ Albany area. She currently teaches children's visual arts classes at the Arts Center, the Children's Farm Home, Artful Voice, the Boys and Girls Club and through various residencies in schools. She also teaches adult ceramics classes through the Oregon State University Craft Center.  When Diana is not teaching, she can be found in her own studio in Corvallis making amazing sculptures and paintings.

Visit Diana Ryan's website.

Gina Gambony — Theatre, Mask, Puppets, Arts Integration Specialist

Gina Gambony recently relocated to Corvallis from Wilmington, NC where she was the Director of Education at Thalian Hall, the Artistic Director of Stageworks Youth Theatre, a teaching artist for the Dreams Center, and a writer/performer with Brawdeville: Women in Performance Art.  Gina also directed the 2010 Port City Puppet Festival for the Puppeteers of America and acted as Gallery Manager for the Wabi Sabi Warehouse.  Her teaching experience includes over 15 years working with youth and adults in public and private schools, summer camps, theaters, and various arts organizations

Visit Gina Gambony's website.

Jennifer Richter — Creative Writing and Poetry

Jennifer Richter’s poetry collection Threshold has been a national bestseller and was selected by Robert Pinsky as a 2011 Oregon Book Award Finalist.  Richter’s work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, The Missouri Review, and A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-five Years of Women’s Poetry.  She was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship in Poetry by Stanford University, where she taught in the Creative Writing Program.  For four years, Richter led poetry workshops for recovering substance abusers at the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco; she has taught for various poets-in-the-schools organizations in California and Oregon, and she currently teaches at the Corvallis Arts Center and for Stanford University’s Online Writer’s Studio.

Jess Graff — Visual and Performing Arts

As an artist , Jess is a Jack (or perhaps Jill) of all trades. She loves working with children to expand their creativity and to blend interdisciplinary skills with arts education. In her teaching, Jess balances fun, spontaneity, and creative construction, with focus and a love for the process and final product . She has a background in performance that includes dance, music, puppetry, and theater, as well as in fine art. Her areas of knowledge in fine art include sculpture, ceramics, painting, drawing, fibers, and mixed media. Through all of these forms of art Jess believes that as a society we can create bonds of understanding, compassion, and learning that are vital both in the short and long term.

Kiko Denzer — Sculpture and Community Building through the Arts

  Name & kinship: Kiko Denzer, son of Ann Sayre Wiseman and Peter W. Denzer, husband of Hannah Field, father of Isaac and Eben Denzer.

Home: Big Elk Watershed, Yaquina drainage, west slope of central coast range mountains, OR Arts: Sculpture in various media, especially those most locally available (earth, sticks, sand, rock, etc.),gardening, construction, design, drawing,  community-building, spoon- and bowl-carving, etc.

Experience: educational projects local and distant, including Da Vinci Days and various Corvallis and Oregon schools, the N. Am. Sch. of Natural Building,  Aprovecho Inst., North House Folk School, Echoes- in-Time (Salem), the Buckeye Gathering  (Sta. Rosa CA), Proyecto San Isidro (Mexico), The Sustainability Ctr of Permanent Publications (UK), etc.

Interests: working with teachers/staff/students to use the arts in teaching and build them into school culture  .

Visit Kiko Denzer's website.

Mamadou Thioub — West African Rhythms & Drumming

Mamadou is the son of Meissa Thioub, master drummer and Director of the Ballet African Sangomar.  Born in Dakar, Senegal, Mamadou now resides in Oregon and teaches throughout the state.  He was raised in the traditions of his Griot family and uses music, dance, and storytelling to preserve culture, passing history from one generation to the next.   A gifted teacher, Mamadou has participated in artist residency programs in Oregon and Californa for over 13 years.  

Mimi Chen

Mimi was born in Taiwan and has been a resident of Oregon since 2004.  She has over 25 years of experience choreographing and teaching various dance styles including ballet, modern, jazz, theatre dance, and traditional Chinese dance.  Mimi graduated from the University of Arizona with a MFA in Dance. Since her move to Oregon, Mimi has worked with the Majestic Theater, Corvallis Community Theater, Willamette Apprentice Ballet Company, Oregon Dance Company and Arts Center’s Globetrotter program. She has also directed and choreographed for the Chinese New Year Celebration at Oregon State University (China Night), Franklin school, Corvallis Chinese School, and Willamette Chinese school.

Samuel Becerra — Music and Sculpture

Samuel Becerra, born and raised in Mexico City, studied music at the G. Martell School of Music. He plays multi-instruments -- wind, percussion, and strings -- in a variety of styles from salsa to Latin Jazz, Mariachi, and pre Colombian music. Samuel has played with regional premier Latin music groups such as Grupo Condor, Caliente, and Sonmelao.   Samuel offers a hands-on program that explores ancient Mexican culture through music, his extensive flute collection, and clay sculptural works.  Through an exploration of ancient Latin American and Andean culture through music instruments and artifacts, he shares his skills and knowledge about traditional and ethnic music and artistic expression.  *Bilingual presentations.

Musico y escultor se especializa en la Cultura antigua Mexicana trabajando en diferentes organizaciones en los ultimos 15 anos   haciendo programas de educacion y residencias en diferentes escuelas del estado de Oregon  (Lane arts council, Young audiences, Umpqua valley association, Oregon library association y recientemente Corvallis art center) como musico cuenta con una variedad de instrumentos de tiempos ancestrales y de instrumentos sudamericanos. Como escultor se especializa en esculturas mesoamericanas e instrumentos  echos de barro de diferentes regiones y culturas de Mexico.

Visit Samuel Becerra's website.

Victoria Wills -Movement, Environmental Education, Arts Integration

Victoria Wills has enjoyed over twenty years as an experiential educator motivating students of all ages to find success learning while expanding the range of their own creativity. With degrees in both Dance and Environmental Biology, Victoria excels at balancing planned activities with taking advantage of spontaneous teachable moments and encouraging students to influence the material. Her teaching modalities apply interdisciplinary narrative art forms, (dance, drama, music, visual arts) to reach and inspire students of diverse learning styles and abilities.  She feels passionate about transforming any classroom into a community of folks moving around, making things, and sharing the fun of learning. 

William Walther — Puppetry and Sculpture

Master Puppeteer and teaching artist, William Walther, has been presenting residencies in Oregon schools for over 30 years.  William travels throughout the state showcasing his puppets at various community art festivals and participating in Artist in Residence programs.  He loves teaching the students puppet making, and after they are made, how to bring their puppets to life.