Gloretta Baynes is a visual artist, an independent curator, and a consultant. She is the Chair of and an artist/curator in African American Master Artist in Residency Program (AAMARP), an adjunct of the Department of African American Studies at Northeastern University. Gloretta is the exhibition designer for Community Creations, an annual exhibition hosted by the Isabella Stewart Museum, with six communities. Gloretta’s most recent commission is “Home is where the He(art)” for the Children’s Hospital that was installed in June 2009 in the Family House at 241 Kent Street. She is listed in the St. James Guide to Black Artists, and the Private Show Issue of the International Review of African American Art. Her work is many private collections, the Museum of National Center of African American Artists and the Association of African American Museums. Gloretta is a Cambridge native and alumna of Massachusetts College of Art.
Kathleen Bitetti is a practicing visual artist and a freelance curator/arts administrator. For over twenty years, Kathleen has been advocating and advising on local, state and national levels for artist’s rights, first amendment and intellectual property protection, access to affordable health care & health care reform, arts funding, small business issues, the creative and cultural economies, and the development of free or low cost resources/services for artists working in all genres, small arts related businesses, cultural nonprofits, and grassroots organizations. She helped to found the annual Artists Under the Dome event at the Massachusetts State House and is the co-founder of the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition, the Artists Health Care Working Group and the State House Artists Working Group. She also helped to found three artists run organizations/websites: www.healthcareforartists.org, www.artistsalliance.us & www.artistsunderthedome.org. For more info on Kathleen: www.KathleenBitetti.com
L’Merchie Frazier is a visual and performance artist/educator/consultant and the Director of Education at the Museum of Afro-American History, Boston and Nantucket, MA. L’Merchie is the recipient of numerous artistic honors, awards and commissions. Best known for her highly skilled hand crafted beaded jewelry, fiber and metal sculptures, and mixed media installations, L’Merchie is represented in numerous private collections and the permanent collection of the University of Vermont, the American Craft Museum, New York, Smithsonian Institute, and Washington, DC. Exhibition sites, internationally and nationally include the Museum of Afro-American History Boston; Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston; New England Quilt Museum; Museu Lasar Segall, Brazil; Ain Ping Harbor, Tainan, Taiwan; the American Craft Museum, New York; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC.
A native of Jacksonville, Florida, L’Merchie attended the City College of New York, the University of Hartford, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was formerly Education Director of Arts Are Academic serving several Boston cultural institutions, inclusive of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Huntington Theater and the Boston Public Schools promoting art literacy for students and teachers across disciplines. She has taught African American Art and Culture at the Boston Community Academy for at-risk students. She teaches courses in cultural diversity; principal teacher of visual and performance art for the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and workshop instructor for the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, MA. L’Merchie is certified as an artist educator by the Kennedy Center Artists as Educators program. She was commissioned by Legacy Productions for PBS as Art Curator for Black America Facing the Millennium.
Veronique LeMelle is the Executive Director of the Boston Center for the Arts. Originally from Queens, NY, Le Melle came to the BCA from Baton Rouge, LA, where she served as Executive Director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts, a job she started in 2005, right before Hurricane Katrina. Prior to that, Le Melle was the Director of the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, Inc. in Queens and the Director of Culture & Tourism in the Queens Borough President’s Office.
Derek Lumpkins is the Executive Director of Discover Roxbury. He was hired to the head the organization after serving nearly 3 years as its Program and Marketing Manager. During his tenure, he has overseen expansion and diversification of Discover Roxbury’s programming, including new bike tours, art walks, and culinary events such as the Berries in the ‘Bury tea and Roxtoberfest. He initiated the autumn fundraising event, Heart of the Hub, a celebration of Roxbury’s food, music, art and interactive experiences; and he is currently guiding Discover Roxbury into its new position as the organizer for Roxbury Open Studios. As the head of Discover Roxbury, Derek also serves as the chair of the Roxbury Cultural Network, a collaboration of organizations and businesses around Roxbury, which collectively promote and develop new audiences for Roxbury’s physical, cultural, culinary, and historic assets.
Derek graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in English Literature, and from the University of London with an M.A. in International Studies and Diplomacy. He returned to Boston determined to make an impact at a local level and remains committed to this goal. In addition to working at Discover Roxbury and chairing the Roxbury Cultural Network, Derek is a member of the Multicultural Committee of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Catalyst Committee at the Museum of Fine Arts. He is also an avid traveler.
Rick McLaughlin’s work has been heard all over the world. A bandleader, and member of the Grammy-nominated jazz group Either/Orchestra, he has performed on stages and in recording studios in places ranging from greater Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA; from Barcelona, Spain to Rome, Italy; and from Phuket, Thailand to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has been featured on numerous CDs including his own debut as a leader, Study of Light, which garnered critical acclaim. His compositions can be heard on the current Either/Orchestra CD, Mood Music for Time Travellers, and Study of Light, for which his arrangement of the second movement of Ravel’s String Quartet is the first of its kind. In addition to the Either/Orchestra, McLaughlin has shared the stage with musicians as wide-ranging as jazz luminaries Steve Lacy, Danilo Perez, and John Zorn; rock musicians Willie “Loco” Alexander, Morphine and Peter Wolf; and world-music innovators such as Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayhu Eshete, and Mulatu Astatke.
McLaughlin is currently on the faculty at New England Conservatory of Music, and is Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music. He is an endorser of AlterEGO instruments and Gallien-Krueger amplifiers. http://www.rickmclaughlin.com
David Reichert is a resident of Boston with a studio in the South End since the late 80’s. He exhibits in Boston and Provincetown, most recently at the Mills Gallery and Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center. He currently is a member of the Artists’ Studio Program at the Boston Center of the Arts. David also has more than 12 years of program development experience with global high tech companies and their international customers. Focused on social media and social networking, he is developing programs for online community development.
Seth Resler is a social media marketing expert specializing in arts and entertainment. He has fourteen years of experience in the music industry, working for alternative rock radio stations in New York, Boston, Seattle, St. Louis and Providence. His social media consulting services have been employed by GE Capital, Bryant University, the Twin River Casino, the New England Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, and the Newport Comedy Series. He has helped produce numerous events, including the WBCN River Rave, the WBRU Summer Concert Series, the New England Nightclub and Bar Expo, the Rhode Island World of Flavors Competition, Boston’s MysteryMeet.org and the Global Institute for Leadership Development. His work has been recognized by the Mayor of Providence, profiled by The Boston Globe, named “Best of Rhode Island” by Rhode Island Monthly and featured on Fox TV. He is currently the Campaign Marketing Manager for Linkage, where he uses blogs, email, Facebook, Twitter, GoogleAds, direct mail and search engine optimization to generate leads. He graduated from Brown University with degrees in Political Science and Philosophy.
Dawn Simmons is the Director of Programs at StageSource. Dawn is also a playwright and a writer/director. A graduate of SUNY Buffalo, Ms. Simmons holds a BA in English Literature and studied dance for 23 years. While attending college Dawn taught intermediate jazz dance at the Sam Smith School and choreographed a variety of fashion shows for local retailers and salons. After graduating, Dawn moved to Boston where she attended playwriting workshops at Boston University under the direction of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass. Since finishing the workshops, Ms. Simmons has worked for several local theatres including New Repertory Theatre, Boston Theatre Works, The Theater Offensive, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and Merrimack Repertory Theatre (Lowell, MA) and in Buffalo, New York, at the New Irish Classical Theatre and Shakespeare in Delaware Park.
Mark VanDerzee is a Co-founder of and Education Director at Company One. He attended Clark University where he received his B.A. in Theatre Performance and dual certification in Elementary Education and K-12 Performing Arts, and recently received his MA Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Phoenix. Stage One: Theatrical Training, Company One’s Dramatic Education Program, is under Mark’s helm. He has developed the curriculum for several different branches of the program, including Stage One’s summer camp, a series of intensive after-school theatre courses, an educational tour of ARTiculation, and professional development for actors. a Stage One professional apprenticeship program. Most recently, Mark has launched a school day poetry/theater class in four Boston Public Schools and a new Saturday morning theater class for teens, as well as a professional apprenticeship program. Under Mark’s guidance, Company One’s Stage One program has now begun to educate people from the ages of 4 to 40 (and beyond) with quality artistic programming. Mark began his public school teaching career in the Worcester Public Schools, and currently teaches Technical Theater, Design for the Stage and Improv at Brookline High School. Proudly, Mark is also an educator for Stage One.
Jason Weeks is the Executive Director for the Cambridge Arts Council (CAC), a public non-profit agency in Cambridge, MA. CAC provides services and direct programming for Cambridge residents and visitors designed to stimulate public awareness of and support for the arts. In his capacity as executive director, Jason works with the CAC Board of Directors, Trustees of the Arts Council’s non-profit corporation, Public Art Commission, city administration and full and part-time staff to oversee core agency programming, including: An award-winning Public Art/Percent-for-Art Program, the annual Cambridge River Festival, the CAC Artist Grant Program, Cambridge Open Studios, Summer in the City, the CAC Gallery exhibition program and a lively Street Performer Program. In addition to his role at CAC, Jason lectures at schools and universities in the Boston area and regularly participates in conferences and symposia to discuss issues, challenges and effective strategies related to the field of arts administration.
Prior to his work with CAC, Jason spent 10-years working in the for-profit sector in Boston and as a producer and presenter of music and arts festivals in his home state of North Carolina. Jason has a background in music and theatre and holds a BA in Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC and a Masters degree in Arts Administration from Boston University.
Marc Zegans has worked as an advisor to artists, writers, and creatively driven businesses, public organizations, foundations and international donor organizations since 1990. Clients have included the World Bank, the Ford, Rockefeller, Ewing Marion Kauffman and James Irvine Foundations, the Carnegie Corporation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, From the Top, GrantCraft, The Actor’s Shakespeare Project, Opera Boston, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The Ariel Group, XVIVO, Nature Stage, Philistine Records, the Social Innovation Forum, Theater Offensive, Embody Yoga, Chelsea Pictures and a variety of prominent artists, writers, actors, musicians and directors. Marc has also advised the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations on fostering innovation in the public sphere, and managed the City of Boston’s goals program, integrating strategic planning with the city’s first program-based budgets.
Marc served as Executive Director and Research Director of the Innovations in American Government Program, a joint venture of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University from 1988 through 1995. Marc is a produced playwright, a published poet, a 2004 writer in residence at Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes California, and a 2005 Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Marc is presently completing a book entitled The Essential Work of Public Management. He has a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School. His play, Mum and Shah, was a Boston Globe Pick of the Week. His spoken word album, Night Work, was released in August 2007 by Philistine Records, and Pillow Talk a book of poems with graphite drawings by Gabrielle Senza was released in February 2008. His second album, Marker and Parker, with legendary Jazz Pianist Don Parker, appears in January 2010 on Tiny Mind Records.