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Joy Suarez has over twenty years experience as a teaching artist and educator. After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in Anthropology, Joy moved to New York City, building a strong career designing and implementing programs and curricula for educational organizations including the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, New York City Housing Authority, New York City Department of Education, The Fashion Center, Children for Children and the Lower Eastside Girls Club. Joy has been Friends of Materials for the Arts' (FOMA) lead teaching artist designing and conducting workshops for art educators since 1995. Joy’s other full time passion is working with her partner Louie Miranda in Jerry Joy Music where together they co-write and co-produce studio recordings of their own brand of informational music that is for children and their families to grow with. Currently they have six CD recordings. Louie performs their music nationwide.
Melanie Adsit has worked as a museum educator/teaching artist at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, The Morgan Library, Materials for the Arts, and The Leadership Program. In addition, Ms. Adsit is the Project Outreach Coordinator of Foster Pride, a non-for-profit organization that provides free after-school art classes to children in foster care. She is also finishing her Master's Degree in Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Susan Springer Anderson is an artist working and living in New York City. She is a graduate of Anderson University in Indiana with a B.A. in Graphic Design and a working emphasis in sculpture and painting. Her personal work focuses on exploring and exposing the different layers of the human experience. She has worked with children in the classroom, after school and in camp settings helping and encouraging kids to create art relevant to them. She has also designed printed materials for artifact cases and displays at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
Timothy D. Bellavia is an award winning children’s author, illustrator and educator with a M.F.A. from Pratt Institute. He is an alumnus of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Mr. Bellavia recently presented his doll making curriculum on the International Day of Tolerance at the United Nations. The New York City Department of Education realized the value of the curriculum and awarded Mr. Bellavia's T.I.M.M.E. Company a contract. This contract has allowed Bellavia to amplify the company’s mission to teach tolerance to New York City’s school children while integrating the arts into the literacy curriculum. He teaches in the School of Education & Psychology, Graduate Division at Touro College, in New York City. Jane Broaddus has over thirty years experience in quilting, embroidery, and fiber arts. She is a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates, Empire Quilters Guild, Quilters of Color Network of New York, and International Friendship Quilters. As an artist member of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, she participates in an embroidery group called “Auspicious Stitches,” whose mission is to create needlework, appliqué and other fiber arts inspired by the RMA collection. She is currently participating in a museum project to appliqué and embroider leaves for a tree-of-life tapestry to benefit an Afghan girls’ school in northern Pakistan. Jane has exhibited her work in several galleries in her home state of Georgia. Recently, her works have appeared in Quilting Arts and Quick Quilts Magazines. Originally a traditional quilter, she now uses the quilt “sandwich” as a platform to create images from a variety of materials including paper, beads, threads, found objects, and all types of fabric. Her formal education is in science, culminating in a Ph.D. in forest pathology from North Carolina State University.
Eleanor “Cookie” Harris is a diverse teaching artist with experience in doll making, greeting card design, story telling, and poetry. Ms. Harris attended Borough of Manhattan Community College and has studied at the Alvin Ailey Dance Center and the Negro Ensemble Acting School. She has worked with Materials for the Arts, Hostos Community College, the New York City Department of Education, Our Children's Foundation, August Aichorn Center and the Ophelia De Vore School of Charm.
Pamela Isaac is a self taught artist and jewelry designer. She has worked at the Queens Botanical Gardens and the State University of New York. Presently, Ms. Isaac is a workshop facilitator for the Queens, Brooklyn and New York Public Library systems. In 2001, Ms. Isaac was awarded the Courage Award to End Domestic Violence and a $5,000 scholarship by Governor Pataki and the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. Skip Laplante invents, builds, composes for, performs on and teaches with musical instruments built from trash. He has built about 300 instruments for his own use and tens of thousands more. He has created instruments for Blue Man Group and the Capital Children's Museum and is co-founder of the composer's collective MUSIC FOR HOMEMADE INSTRUMENTS. Skip has composed for over 100 modern dance and theater productions, most notably the original production of TONGUES and SAVAGE LOVE by Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard. Recordings of his music (and MUSIC FOR HOMEMADE INSTRUMENTS) are available from Frog Peak Music and on the web at CD Baby. Deborah Jane Slavitt is a photographer and travel writer, teacher, art therapist and fiber artist who lived in Asia, Europe and South America much of the 1980’s and 1990’s. She and Jane Broaddus co-teach the fabric crafts classes at MFTA, and Deborah has worked in the Fabric area of MFTA since 2003, transforming its organization. Deborah graduated from Smith College with a major in developmental psychology and a minor in studio art with certifications in art and elementary education. She completed her M.Ed. In Expressive Arts in Therapy and Education at Lesley University. Further course work has included certification in ESL and myriad art classes from embroidery with a LeSage trained teacher, to mosaics at L’Ecole du Louvre to Photoshop Elements and Special Projects at the ICP. Deborah speaks Spanish and French and enjoys using these skills to enrich her travel and her daily life. |
