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Real Art Ways notes with profound sadness the passing of our beloved friend and Board member Jeffrey Hayes. Jeffrey loved movies, poetry, music, food and wine, and created a sense of play and joy with everything he did. Jeffrey left us all too soon; we will continue our work with his spirit in our hearts. |
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STAFF Will K. Wilkins - Executive Director [bio] Lori-Beth Muñoz - Hospitality Manager [bio] BOARD Maria Gabriela Galarza-Block - Chair - top - |
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Will K. Wilkins Will K. Wilkins is Executive Director of Real Art Ways, one of the United States’ leading contemporary multi-disciplinary organizations, in Hartford, Connecticut. Real Art Ways supports artistic innovation, and connects artists and community. Programs include visual arts, theater, music, spoken word, and film and video. Mr. Wilkins has overseen the $1.8 million development of the Real Art Ways Arts Center, a place for art, ideas and social interaction, which includes a comfortable cinema (35mm, 16mm and video; also used for live arts), three beautifully renovated gallery spaces, a video room, the Loading Dock Lounge, and the Real Room. Among the highlights of Mr. Wilkins’ tenure has been a series of commissioned artist’s projects, many in public settings and involving community participation, including projects by Mel Chin, Mark Dion, Lillian Hsu-Flanders, Ellen Driscoll, Pepón Osorio, Karin Giusti, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Carl Pope, Jr., Rachel Berwick, James Luna, Josely Carvalho, Liz Miller, Nikki S. Lee, Verandah Porche, and Group Material. Mr. Wilkins is an innovator at linking contemporary art and ideas with community. In recent years, Real Art Ways has sponsored a design competition, with neighborhood residents as jurors, for neighborhood gateways; has commissioned three major artist’s residencies with the neighborhood senior center; and has been a key participant in an inclusive neighborhood planning process, resulting in a redesign of the central commercial district. During Mr. Wilkins tenure, Real Art Ways has been a strong supporter of artists’ rights and freedom of expression, and has received support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Mr. Wilkins has served on grant review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts International, the Wallace Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Ct. Commission on the Arts, and the McKnight Foundation. Prior to joining Real Art Ways in 1990, Mr. Wilkins worked at Central Park Summerstage and WBAI in New York. - top - |
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John Morrison John Morrison started the Amherst Film Cooperative in 1972, which showed the first continuing program of foreign films in the Connecticut Valley. He also became the Valley Advocate’s first film critic in the premiere issue of 1973. In 1976 he co-founded the Pleasant St. Theater in Northampton, the first art theater in the area; in 1986 he co-founded Pleasant Street Video, which has been called the best video store in New England; and in 1988 he co-founded Tower Theaters in South Hadley, a commercial theater initially funded by Mt. Holyoke College. He was a City Councilor for 8 years in Northampton, MA and Chair of the City Property Committee. He was a co-founder of both the New England Film Festival and the Northampton Film Festival. Since 1995, Morrison has been the Director of Film Programming for Real Art Ways. He created Real Art Ways’ International Family Film Festival, now in its 9th year, as well as many smaller festivals. Real Art Ways’ Cinema has won the “Best of Hartford” award 8 years in a row. He moved to San Francisco in 1999 to take the position of Outreach and Education Director for the California Film Institute and as the Children’s Film programmer for CFI and the internationally acclaimed Mill Valley Film Festival. He continues to direct film programs for RAW, often finding ways for CFI and RAW to do joint programs. - top - |
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Kristina Newman-Scott Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Ms. Newman Scott is a practicing artist. She joined the Real Art Ways team in 2005. - top - |
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Tora Buttaro Tora Buttaro was born in NYC, raised in Connecticut, and received an art education in Florence, Italy, where she spent her junior year of college. This is not to say that she didn’t learn anything about art during the other three years of college, but it all paled in comparison. She holds a BA in Graphic Arts and has worked in marketing and advertising. Being surrounded by creative people is the thing she’s most enjoyed about her work experience. And it is one of the many reasons she is so pleased to be a part of Real Art Ways. She and her husband have two sons, a dog, and two cats. When she isn’t caring for all of them, her creative endeavors include watercolors, photography, volunteering her desktop publishing skills, and writing children’s stories. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, she aspires to find a publisher for at least one of her manuscripts. She plans to someday retire on a Caribbean island where she will paint watercolors and her husband has volunteered to sell them at the nearest beach bar. Named after her Norwegian grandmother, she sends a shout out to all of the Scandinavian relatives in Fargo, ND. - top - |
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Abby Ohlheiser A West Hartford native, Abby briefly relocated to the Pioneer Valley where she earned a degree at Hampshire College. She then returned to the Hartford area eager to put to use her extremely practical triple concentration in American studies, religion, and creative writing. Abby feels quite at home in Real Art Ways' multidisciplinary space. Abby spends her free time chatting up preachers, rewriting myths, uncovering state secrets, and reading everything from the Metamorphoses to the instructions on her shampoo bottle.
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Madison Day Madison is from St. Louis, MO. Growing up, she spent most of her free time on a farm riding horses and competing in equestrian events on a national level. Madison attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, and earned her BA in History in 2001. After graduation, she worked for three years as the Executive Administrator at a non-profit organization for child and adolescent psychiatry in Washington, DC. Madison and her husband, Bob, relocated to Connecticut in 2004 after Bob received an Assistant Professorship at the University of Connecticut School of Business. They live in Coventry and “love to spend the night with Peggy Day,” their dog.
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Meghan Maguire Dahn Meghan Maguire Dahn holds a Masters in English from the University of Connecticut, where she focused her studies on Postcolonial literature and visual art. While at UConn, Meghan taught freshmen composition, participating in the planning and implementation of the first year of the Freshmen English Human Rights Pilot Program. At UConn, she also directed Poetic Journeys, a program that puts poems by students and faculty on the busses in the places normally reserved for advertising. Prior to returning to graduate school Meghan worked in Membership and Development at Mystic Seaport. She is also a poet and is in the process of completing her first manuscript, which was partially inspired by an early RAW Specifics project, Passionate Attitudes, by Ellen Driscoll. When she is not incorporating 19th century medical practices into contemporary poetry, she is playing with her cat, learning to play cello, or cooking. - top - |
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Erinn Roos Emerging from the snow and ice of the northland, this Minnesota native joined Real Art Ways in September 2008. Putting away the "uffda," Erinn attended the University of Kansas and obtained undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and History. During her time as a Jayhawk, Erinn rowed port-side on the KU Women's Rowing Team, an experience that taught her that the human body is an amazing machine. Realizing that her childhood dream of working with chimpanzees was hindered by her dislike of science, Erinn turned her career focus to the culture arena. After moving to the Big Apple, Erinn got her first job at the New York Historical Society on the American Revolution Digital Education Project. Wanting to explore the exotic east coast further, Erinn took up residence in Washington, DC where she was the Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the National Association of Attorneys General and most recently worked on the Heritage Programs at Cultural Tourism DC. Erinn is enjoying her newest adventure as a New Englander. Beyond apple picking and hikes through breath-taking hillsides, she is quickly embracing the contemporary art world thanks to Real Art Ways.
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Originally born in Norwalk, Connecticut Barbara Hocker studied Fibers and Printmaking at Syracuse University and Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her mixed media work fuses the material sensibilities of fiber with computer manipulated photo based prints and abstract monotypes to create works on paper, panels, and sculpture. She has exhibited extensively in the Boston and Hartford areas and currently resides in Coventry, CT with her own personal Muse (otherwise known as her husband Tim) and two very spoiled cats. To support her artistic habit she has held a variety of real jobs including jewelry buyer for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum Shop, Star Wars Exhibition store manager and buyer for the Museum of Science, Boston, fabric store manager, art supply warehouse order picker, audio services technician, and bookkeeping for college bookstores, cake bakers, jewelry makers, museums, and engineers. She has 10 years retail management experience and 8 years small business management and accounting experience. - top - |
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Jean Paul Leblanc Jean-Paul attended Coventry High School and is a graduate of Bryant (College) University. He has been involved with Real Art Ways since about 1992, beginning as an event volunteer. Jean-Paul became an employee in the café selling movie tickets and refreshments once the movie theater shortly after it opened in 1996. After about 18 months Jean-Paul moved to the office as a bookkeeper and now serves as Business Manager. He is the RAW “phantom” employee as his working hours are usually Monday and Friday evenings as well as special events. He has participated in most aspects of Real Art Ways over the years, serving as a stage hand, set up crew member, sound assistant, cleanup crew member, café sales person, etc. He has been employed as the Director of Business/Finance at LEARN, a Regional Educational Service Center in Old Lyme, since 1994. He oversees an agency budget of approximately $22,200,000 which is comprised of more than 100 individual program budgets. Prior to his employment at LEARN, Jean-Paul was employed as an accountant at the Capital Regional Education Council in Hartford. - top - |
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Brandy Rollins bio coming soon! - top - |
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Lori-Beth Muñoz Born and raised in Windsor, CT, LB has taken the circuitous route to returning to her Greater Hartford roots. She attended Emerson College in Boston as a Musical Theater major before finishing her studies in Education at the University of North Texas. In her various travels, LB has found herself as a Radio DJ in Maine, booking bands in Boston, running an alternative coffee house is Delaware, singing in a cover band on Martha’s Vineyard, and teaching drama to 5 and 6 year olds in Texas. - top - |
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Kyle Andrew Phillips Kyle Andrew Phillips is a dedicated emerging artist living in Hartford, CT. In 2008 he graduated from the Hartford Art School with multiple awards, most notably the prestigious Henrik Mayer Prize. Recently he had his first solo show Frames of Mine at Brick Walk Fine Art in West Hartford, CT. Exhibited were twenty oil on panel still lifes painted in the trompe l' oeil style.
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Diana Rosen Diana is currently pursuing two bachelor degrees in Audio Engineering Technology and Cinema at the University of Hartford. She has extensive film production experience, primarily helping with the growing Connecticut film movement. Her hobbies include 16 and 35mm film manipulation, knitting, reading, feeding her coffee addiction, and making noise. One day, Diana will be a phenomenal foley artist for independent films around the world. - top - |
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John is the President and CEO of RC Knox and Company. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Greater Hartford YMCA. He also serves on the boards of the Bushnell, the Boys and Girls Club of Hartford and Duncaster. He is a corporator of Hartford Hospital, St. Francis Hospital and the Hospital for Special Care and a member of the Hartford Rotary Club. John received his B.A. from Clark University and his J.D. from Western New England School of Law. - top - |
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Audrey Conrad A familiar face in the crowd at RAW for more years than she cares to admit to, Audrey is a long time supporter of RAW as well as The Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective and Our True Colors where she has volunteered and made presentations. Formerly Executive Director of The Connecticut Outreach Society (a Transgender support and social group), she speaks to high school and college students about gender issues and her life experiences. Audrey was born and raised in the Chicago area. After graduating from Northeastern Illinois State University, she taught in City of Chicago public schools for five years prior to pursuing a career restoring, caring for and writing about historic railroad equipment. She compares her work to “being a zookeeper for dinosaurs”. Her spare time is divided between visiting museums and galleries, exploring industrial archeological sites, hiking and dancing. She is honored (and flattered) to be a member of the RAW Board. - top - |
Jeffrey Hayes
