 Our Talent
Jeffrey Chapline is Director of Creative Aging
Programs at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco. A 2007 recipient
of a Center for Social Innovation Fellowship at the Stanford Graduate
School of Business Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders in the
Arts, Chapline also serves as Artistic Director for the Center for
Elders and Youth in the Arts Program (CEYA). CEYA is an innovative
cross-generational program which he designed and implemented at
the Institute in 1996. Working from a rich pool of professionals
including writers, musicians, and actors, Jeff manages an average
of 20 community projects per year involving multiple artistic disciplines
and languages. The clients' exhibits and performances are enjoyed
by over 4,000 people annually. The program has been cited by the
United Nations, the National Council on Aging and the California
Arts Council for its pioneering approach. The program is also one
of three projects participating in a groundbreaking study by George
Washington University that evaluates the effects of community-based
cultural programs on the health of participating seniors. In August
2006 CEYA maintained it's standing on the National Endowment for
the Arts Best Practices in Creative Aging Programs list for providing
community accessibility to professional arts programming.
Jessica McCracken graduated from San Francisco State University's Master of Public Administration Program in 2006. There she emphasized in nonprofit arts administration and cultural policy. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Theatre, Art, and English from Adrian College where she graduate in 2000. Jessica attended Dell'Arte's International School of Physical Theatre in 2000-2001 and also worked professionally with Dell'Arte as the House Manager and Volunteer Coordinator for the Mad River Festival 1998-2001. With Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre of Portland, OR, she worked professionally as a puppeteer. In 2007, Jessica taught in San Francisco with the BRAVA! Theatre Academy and KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy. Jessica is the Artistic Director for, Trash Mash-Up, a community arts program working with youth in the Western Addition, San Francisco. In 2007 her work with this program was featured in two public performances in addition to exhibited at the African American Arts and Culture Complex.
Kelvin Ming Young is an American painter of Chinese ancestry. He was born in Taiwan and raised in San Diego, California. Currently living and working in the Bay Area, Mr. Young received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, BA from the University of California at Berkeley, and Post-Bacc. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an accomplished teaching background including UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute. Mr. Young's recent exhibits include solo shows at June Steingart Gallery in Oakland, CA (2006) and KTSF Channel 26 in Brisbane, CA (2005); group shows at Togonon Gallery in San Francisco (2006, 2007) and Casa Frela Gallery in New York (2005). Most recently, his work has received honorable mention in the Expressions West 2007 exhibit at the Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon (2007).
Ms. Koning-Martinez earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Evergreen State College in Washington. Ms. Martinez has been in several films including "Sweet November," in 2000, "A Thousand Stars," in 1999 and "Final Analysis" in 1995. In 2003 Tessa was casting consultant and acting coach for Mission Movie, a feature film. Ms. Martinez has done several voice-overs for the "News Hour with Jim Leher" on PBS. She has toured nationally with El Teatro de la Esperanza and Larger Than Life Productions. In San Francisco, she has created roles for new plays at the Eureka Theater company, the Magic Theater, TaleSpinners, and BRAVA!. In 1994 she co-founded the Latina Theater Lab, a Bay Area production company, where she writes, directs, and performs original works. Ms. Martinez's stage work in 2004 has included "Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun" in the role of "Chorus" at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Magic Theatre, San Francisco, California; Featured Performer and Assistant Director for "Bread Poet/Poeta Pan 100 Years of Pablo Neruda", Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco; Guest Director "Denying the Way of All Flesh", Women's Will Company Playfest, Julia Morgan Theater, Berkeley, California.
A San Francisco writer, educator, and artist, Jeanine Briggs creates and exhibits mixed media paintings, wall reliefs, and sculptures. Since 2003 Jeanine has received 5 commissions for her work and has been involved in 7 group exhibitions in the Bay Area.With an extensive publishing career, Jeanine Briggs returned in 1995 to pursue her first passion-art! In 2000, based on her concerns for the environment and work with debris, she was granted a 15-week residency at SF Recycling and Disposal, where she created art from end waste materials in the on-site studio. That same year she completed a three-year docent training program at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, where she conducts public tours and brush painting workshops for school groups. Since 2004, she has offered art instruction at senior facilities through the Institute on Aging's CEYA Program. In her personal studios she experiments with techniques using discarded materials and enjoys the process of discovery. A former Fulbright scholar in Vienna, Austria, Jeanine Briggs gathers ideas through travel and from everyday life at home in San Francisco. Just as nature inspires her work, she hopes to serve nature by suggesting the application of creative and conservational solutions to consumer practices. Her work has been exhibited extensively in California and recently in New York City.
Augusta Talbot received her BFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1973. She has exhibited her works in numerous museums and galleries across the United States. In addition, she has illustrated a series of children's books called The Elf Books, written by Pamela Myers, for the San Francisco School. In 2005, Ms. Talbot had a solo exhibition at The Cue Art Foundation in New York City.
Jim Murdoch first performed in the San Francisco Bay with The Pickle Family Circus. Jim has since pursued a variety of interests including jazz and classical piano, accordion, and dance. For five years, he studied flamenco dance with Rosa Montoya in San Francisco. In addition to his work with the Center for Elders and Youth in the Arts, Jim also performs and coordinates artists at the UCSF Mount Zion Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2002, the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum transcribed and published Jim's oral history of a Bay Area Vaudevillian, Thelma Langston. Jim released his first cd in 2006, "Waltz to the Sea", a collection of original and traditional music. He will return to the recording studio in 2008 to begin recording his next cd, "The Heart and the Feather". Jim has done performed in a long list of festival since 1996. In 2007 he has performed in festival throughout California including, the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras, the Pacific Grove Good Day Celebration, and the Petaluma Day of Accordion.
Nanliee Robarge received her MFA with emphasis in textiles in 1994 from San Francisco State University, Summa Cum Laude. Her quilts have been shown across the United States since 1993 and she has been cited in numerous publications commending her textiles imagery. Ms. Robarge had Residency at the de Young Art Center in 2004 and is an Elected Board Member of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Textile Arts Council. In addition, she is an elementary school teacher for San Francisco Unified School District.
Upon receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from C.W. Post College and a Master of Arts degree in theater from Long Island University, Mr. Finocchiaro established himself as a writer, actor, producer, and director of theater and video productions in California and New York. From 2002-2007, Paul has participated in European Tours with the Word for Word Theatre Company of San Francisco. Mr. Finocchiaro has taught acting at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco since 1992 and Chabot College since 1995. Mr. Finocchiaro is a founding member of the Bluegrass band, Philboyd Studge, which performs throughout the Bay Area. In 2002 he had roles in "Stories" by Tobias Wolf at the Magic Theater and "Rhinoceros", Berkeley Repertory Theater. In 1993 he was nominated for a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for his performance in Eugene O'Neill's Four Plays of the Sea. Mr. Finocchiaro's awards include a Bay Area Critic's Award for his performance in Steven Berkoff's "East" in 1991 and for playwriting, he won the Double Image Theatre Fest award for "When the Gnats Leave the Cellar."
Mr. Centolella earned his MA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, before becoming a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has taught creative writing, poetry and literature to elders as well as youth at UC Berkeley, the College of Marin and in the California Poets in the Schools Program. His writing has won the American Book Award, The National Poetry Series, the SF Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He has published several books of poetry, including Views from along the Middle Way (2002), Lights and Mysteries (1995), and Terra Firma (1990), all by Copper Canyon Press. Mr. Centolella has taught writing and poetry at the California Poets in the Schools program in San Francisco, and at the College of Marin in the North Bay since 1986. Tom has been published in the Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, the Los Angeles Times, Ploughshares and the New England Review, among other prominent publications. His work has been featured in many anthologies, including Don't Tell Mama: Italian American Writing (Penguin Books), as well as on National Public Radio.
Zimou Lawrence Tan was born and raised in Canton, China until age of 14 when his family immigrated to America. Mr. Tan graduated from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco in 1999. There he earned degrees in both Traditional Illustration and Fine Arts. In 2006 Mr. Tan won Best of Show at the Morro Bay Art Association Group Exhibit. In 2005, he was the Gold Medal Winner at the Hudson Valley Art Association's 74th Annual Exhibit. Recently, he has exhibited with the California Art Club's gold Medal and Group Exhibits. His paintings have been presented in the New York Portrait Society Gallery in New York City; American Artists Professional League- 73rd Grand National Exhibition in the New York City; de Young Museum, San Francisco, California, and Asia Society of Arts of America, San Francisco, California. Mr. Tan is a member of the California Art Club, Oil Painters of America, American Society of Portrait Artists, American Artists Professional League, and Laguna Plein Air Painters Association. Zimou's work has been featured in "International Artist Magazine" and "Art of the West Magazine". |
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