Team
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Sharon Louden | Executive Director | She/Her/Hers Sharon Louden is a working artist, educator, mentor, community builder, and editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books. With decades of experience, she’s a visionary leader advocating for underserved artists while fostering collaborations across nonprofit, academic, and business sectors. As a catalyst and consultant, she has convened countless initiatives between siloed organizations over the years. Sharon also produced conversation book tours (2013-2018) that included 164 stops across the country and abroad, providing important forums where artists shared their needs and aspirations in supportive, brave spaces. She was the Artistic Director of Chautauqua Visual Arts (2018-2022) and has sat on numerous boards of nonprofit arts organizations. Her work is held in major public and private collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others. Sharon’s forthcoming book, Last Artist Standing: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life over 50, will be published in 2025. To view Sharon’s work, visit her website SharonLouden.com. sharon(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Natalie Renganeschi | Deputy Director | She/Her/Hers Natalie Renganeschi is a practicing artist and art educator who joined the staff in 2017. Since then, she has supported the organization in the areas of internal and external communications, development, marketing, residency management, and the sale of artists’ books. Natalie’s keen eye, attention to detail, and deep knowledge of all aspects of our work will offer the organization both stability and leadership, grounded in thoughtfulness and collaboration. natalie(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Chris Petrone | Studio Manager | She/Her/Hers Chris Petrone facilitates and collaborates on all studio programming and projects in the printmaking and papermaking studios. She manages all technical aspects of the artists- in-residence opportunities, maintaining the studios’ equipment and leading artist book production. She came to WSW as a studio intern in 2004, a year after getting her BFA from SUNY Purchase, and has been a part of WSW’s operations ever since. She sees herself as a practicing technician and collaborator playing a part in a professional workspace that encourages experimentation, mistakes, and play. chris(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Rhonda Lowry | Operations Manager | She/Her/Hers Rhonda Lowry joins WSW as an experienced art administrator with a demonstrated passion for artist-run spaces. Throughout her young adulthood, she actively participated in many underground art galleries and music venues in cities such as Atlanta, Chicago and NYC, both as an organizer and participating artist. From 2016 to 2020, she served on the staff of Flux Factory, a celebrated artist residency and nonprofit exhibition space in Long Island City. Her responsibilities encompassed grant writing, fundraising events, daily financial operations and artist services. After relocating to Kingston in 2020, she expanded her operational skill set as the Warehouse Manager of MINNA, a B-corp certified home goods business specializing in handmade textiles. Her partner of 10 years is a native of Rosendale, encouraging her to build strong ties with the local community surrounding WSW. She is a drummer, DJ and electronic musician and has toured internationally as part of the band Erica Eso. She holds a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. rhonda(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Faythe Levine | Hauser & Wirth Institute Archivist for Women’s Studio Workshop | She/Her/Hers Levine joins WSW with over twenty years of experience as an arts laborer, advocating for creativity to be used as a vehicle to build community, personal independence, and empowerment. As the Archivist for Women’s Studio Workshop, Levine manages and oversees WSW’s archives and special collections, allowing the materials to be accessible to residents and the public by appointment. Before her position as an Archivist, Levine worked as a research assistant for WSW’s 50th anniversary exhibition and catalog. Between 2017 and 2021, Levine was the Director of the Art/Industry program at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Additional milestones include directing and authoring two widely distributed feature-length independent documentaries with accompanying books published by Princeton Architectural Press, Sign Painters (2013) and Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY Art, Craft and Design (2009). Bar Dykes (2016) was published by Pegacorn Press, and her most recent book, As Ever, Miriam (2024), is published by OK Stamp Press. faythe(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Ruth McKinney Burket | Ceramics Studio Manager & Volunteer Coordinator | She/Her/Hers |
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Robert “Woody” Woodruff | Electrician and Maintenance | He/Him/His Woody has been a core member of the WSW staff since 1979. He is a technician, innovator, artist and electrician. He has supported WSW’s mission for decades by assisting artists with inventions and technical support while managing the campus and facilities. Additionally, he is a builder and a licensed electrician. |
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Natalie Thomas | Digital Marketing Assistant | She/Her/Hers |
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Andrea Andalis | SAI & Education Program Coordinator | She/Her Andrea Andalis joins Women’s Studio Workshop as the Summer Art Institute and Education Program Coordinator. Andrea helps ensure the program runs smoothly as well as welcoming the teaching artists and their students. In 2023 she received her Bachelors of Science in Visual Arts at SUNY New Paltz. Andrea is a textile artist and uses materials such as found fabrics, beads, and embroidery to create her illustrations. Her interest in learning from other artists is what brought her to WSW. To view Andrea’s work, find her on Instagram @Messy.Pockets. aandalis(at)wsworkshop.org |
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Celia Shaheen | Studio Intern | She/Her Celia Shaheen is an artist and educator from North Texas. In 2020, Celia graduated with a BFA in studio art, a BA in honors art history, and a museum studies certificate from the University of Texas at Austin. Celia’s studio practice oscillates at the intersection of archiving and making, using materials across the spectrum of textiles, printmaking, papermaking, and metals to investigate the shared language of textiles and storytelling, Lebanese culinary traditions, folklores of the animate and inanimate, and webs of lineage and longing. Celia was a 2022-24 Core Fellow at Penland School of Craft, a 2021 Textiles Studio Assistant at Peters Valley School of Craft, and has exhibited in galleries in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey, and North Carolina. |
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Lily Pinchbeck | Nonprofit Management Intern | She/Her Lily Pinchbeck joins WSW from New York City. She graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in Comparative American Studies, and has worked for several art and poetry organizations, including libraries and foundations. Her strong interest not only in these organizations, but also in artists’ books and other methods of combining image and text brings her to WSW. |
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Erin Moore | Assistant Studio Manager | They/Them/Theirs Erin Moore is a printmaker and designer from Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. In 2022 they graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Printmaking and a Book Arts Minor. They initially worked with Women’s Studio Workshop as a studio intern from September 2022- September 2023. They have also worked with Mullowney Printing Company (Portland, OR), Second State Press (Philadelphia, PA), and Globe Collection and Press (Baltimore, MD). Moore’s printmaking practice is largely research-based, working with found typography and images from queer archives. To view Erin’s work, visit their website EMooreDesign.com, or find them on Instagram @BugPrints. |
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Thaïs Calvarin | Assistant Studio Manager | She/Her/Hers Thaïs Calvarin is a papermaker and printmaker from Princeton, NJ. Since earning her BFA in Chicago in December of 2019, Thaïs has been exploring what visually communicating through paper might mean. She builds off of introspective drawings of her own thoughts and experiences by papercutting, redrawing, layering, translating, and reconfiguring this foundational imagery. When completed, the pieces are always an homage to compromise and a tribute to context. The original drawings act as both records of an evolving mindset and factors of a greater whole: translucent layers in a translucent piece where no single part can be viewed in isolation. |
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Board of Directors
Alexander Campos, Development Officer at Hispanic Society Museum & Library, New York, NY
Alexander is a museum professional with over 30 years of experience working in the NYC cultural arena, including tenures at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and as executive director of the Jamaica Arts Center, and The Center for Book Arts. His experience includes both artistic and administration functions, including institutional and individual fundraising, finance, strategic planning, capital and architectural master planning, government and community relations, special events, curatorial planning, exhibition management, collections oversight, educational and curriculum development, public programs and performances planning and implementation, artist-in-residence management, and art study tours and art travel development and implementation. Alexander is a trustee of the Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum (the oldest freestanding house in Manhattan) and the Bronx Council on the Arts.
Ursula Davila-Villa, Co-Founder Davila-Villa & Stothart
Ursula Davila-Villa is the co-founder of Davila-Villa & Stothart (DVS), an organization devoted to supporting artists and their families on artistic legacy planning and stewardship, studio management, as well as expanding across the globe the cultural and art historical understanding of underrepresented artists. DVS has worked with such artists as Frank Bowling, Mel Chin, Luis Camnitzer, Kurt Kocherscheidt Estate, Lorraine O’Grady, Carolee Schneemann (♰), and Cecilia Vicuña. She was a Partner at Alexander Gray Associates (2012–2017) where she directed the artistic and operational areas of the gallery. She was Associate Curator of Latin American Art at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin from (2005–2012). In 2012 she was co-curator of El Panal/ The Hive: Third Poli/Gráfica Triennal of San Juan de Puerto Rico. In 2008 she curated a mid-career survey of Mexican artist Yoshua Okon at the Städtische Kunsthalle Munich, Germany. Previously, she worked with artist Cai Guo-Qiang at Cai Studio, at the Guggenheim Museum, Art in General (all in New York), and Galería OMR (in Mexico City). She completed her M.A. in Museum Studies at New York University, and holds a BA in architecture and urbanism from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico, Université Laval, Quebec, Canada, and the Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands. She has served as a juror for United States Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Artist Pension Trust, and the II Texas Biennale. She served on the board of VisualAIDS from 2019 to 2022.
Timothy (Tim) Delaney, Retired, Glenford, NY – Executive Committee, Treasurer
Tim has been a WSW member, supporter and student since 1980. He retired as General Manager of Negotiation Analysis at K&R Negotiation Associates. He worked to create and teach negotiating techniques in more than 20 countries negotiating business proposals of up to $2.2B US across a variety of industries. He also created and taught methods to express business value in negotiations. Previously, he worked for IBM as a large project development manager and as Program Director, Premier Accounts, negotiating and managing partnership agreements in numerous countries. Tim’s non-profit experience includes 7 years with Ulster County Habitat. He graduated from the University of Connecticut as a Departmental Honors Fellow in Mathematics.
Elizabeth Donsky, Artist, Queens, NY – Executive Committee, Vice President
Since her beginnings as a practicing artist, Elizabeth has concentrated on multiple drawings in site-specific installations. Her projects begin with hundreds of works on paper and an investigation of how discrete still, permanent images can account for the passage of time and the unending transformation of matter. In her installations she de-centers the individual artwork within an ever-shifting whole in an array of shifting sculptural pictures that create multiple points of view. Her work has been exhibited in commercial, nonprofit and academic spaces. Alongside her studio practice, Donsky has many years of financial management experience in nonprofits and with artists, galleries and in the tech sector. Born in Buffalo, New York, Elizabeth has lived and worked in Puerto Rico; she currently lives in New York City. Elizabeth received a MA in Arts and Humanities from New York University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently teaches drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design; she has taught at Brown, Hofstra and Drexel universities.
Hayley Ferber, Operations Director at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, Brooklyn, NY
Hayley Ferber is a contemporary arts administrator, curator, educator and artist living in Brooklyn, NY. In her current role as Operations Director at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center and previous role as Deputy Director of Chashama, she supports a creative community of multidisciplinary artists. Independently, she has curated exhibitions for SVA Residencies, Equity Gallery, New York Artists Circle, and the Yard: Williamsburg, among others. As a visiting curator, Hayley has worked with artists from Residency Unlimited, ISCP, NARS Foundation and Kunstraum. Hayley’s personal artistic practice explores nautical themes through artist books and printmaking. She has exhibited her work at the Kalamazoo Book Art Center, the Pelham Art Center, 440 Gallery, 92NY and Highline Nine, among others. She was a resident artist at ChaNorth in 2021 and received her MAT in Art & Design Education from RISD and BS in Studio Art from NYU. www.hayleyferber.com, @hayleyferber
Richard D. Forbes, Attorney, Richard D. Forbes, Esq. Law Office, Newburgh, NY
Richard attended Tulane University on a Tulane Honor Scholarship where he received his B.A. in 1988 in a dual major of Political Science and Language Writing and Rhetoric. He received his J.D. in 1992 from Brooklyn Law School where he was a Richardson Scholar. Mr. Forbes is admitted to practice in New York and is a member of the New York State Bar Association. From 1992-2000 he served as the General Manger of SunStorm Arts Publishing, an international art publisher of its own Fine Art art magazine, as well as a variety of books, lithographs and other products for the art community. Richard Forbes currently serves as a Professor at Marist College (2000-present), teaching Business Law at the undergraduate and graduate levels, both as an adjunct and as full-time faculty, and is the current President of the Parish Council of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Newburgh, NY (Parish Council, 2011-present). This is Richard’s second time serving on WSW’s board as he previously served 2010-2016, including a time as Secretary.
Bhavna Mehta, Artist, San Diego, CA – Executive Committee, Secretary
Bhavna Mehta works with paper and fabric; cutting and embroidering to tell stories that combine figurative and landscape imagery with botanical motifs, text, and shadows. Using paper as skin and thread to connect and mend, she makes work about relating and remembering. Mehta has exhibited widely in San Diego and Southern California. She is the recipient of the Individual Artist Fellowship grant (2021), Artists In Communities grant (2017, 2019) from the California Arts Council and the Creative Catalyst grant from The San Diego Foundation (2015). She has won multiple awards in juried shows and she was one of the San Diego Art Prize emerging artist winners. She collaborates with artists making public art, using paper as a design medium. She has engineering degrees from both India and US and worked as a software engineer for many years before turning to art. http://bhavnamehta.com/
Timea Tihanyi, Artist, Founder of Slip Rabbit, Seattle, WA
Timea Tihanyi is a Hungarian born interdisciplinary visual artist and ceramicist living and working in Seattle, Washington. Tihanyi holds a Doctor of Medicine degree from Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; a BFA in Ceramics from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston; and an MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington. Tihanyi’s work has been exhibited in the United States, Brazil, Australia, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands, including the American Museum for Ceramic Art, Shepparton Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, Bellevue Arts Museum, Mint Museum of Art and Design, Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburg, Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, Foundry Art Center, International Museum of Surgical Science, SculptureSpace NYC and the Museum of Glass, Tacoma. She has received many recognitions, including the 2018 Neddy Award in Open Media and a 2021 Mellon Foundation grant. Tihanyi is a Teaching Professor in the Interdisciplinary Visual Arts program at the University of Washington and the founder and director of Slip Rabbit, a pioneering technoceramics studio located in Seattle.
Rachel Weiss, Curator and Writer – Executive Committee, President
Rachel is a curator and writer, and Professor Emerita at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she founded and then led the graduate program in Arts Administration & Policy. She brings decades of experience in organizational governance and leadership, through her work on Boards ranging from artist-run spaces to national service associations. Rachel’s curatorial work has included the landmark exhibitions “Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s” (with Luis Camnitzer and Jane Farver) and “Ante América” (with Gerardo Mosquera and Carolina Ponce de León). Her writing addresses issues in contemporary art, and especially about the dynamics between art and social change. She has published widely in the US, Latin America, and Europe, and is the recipient of numerous grants and awards. Rachel has a BA from Marlboro College and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art.
Kristin Wenger, Retired Arts Education Director, Co-Founder and Partner, KCK Bearsville Co. – Executive Committee
Kristin received the Outstanding Lifetime recognition at the 2018 NJ Governor’s Awards, recognizing her 30-year contribution to arts education. Kristin retired as Co-Director of Arts Ed NJ in 2017. Previously, Kristin was the Director of Young Audiences NJ. She served as board president of Susan G. Komen North Jersey. Kristin has a BA from Skidmore College and a MS from Boston University. In 2018, Kristin and her husband moved to Woodstock, NY and established KCK Bearsville Holding Co., a construction and architecture firm specializing in thoughtfully designed, unique, artistic homes. Kristin serves on the Board of the Ulster Literacy Association.
Cat Willett, Artist, Brooklyn
Cat Willett is a Brooklyn-based artist. She has written, illustrated, and published two full-length books, The Queen of Wands: The Story of Pamela Colman Smith, the Artist Behind the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, and Women of Tarot, An Illustrated History of Divinators, Card Readers, and Mystics. Cat is fascinated by tarot as a facet of art history, and the women behind its evolution. She’s dedicated the last few years to telling these magical stories in her published books. Cat also makes illustrated comics about parenting, motherhood, gender, and animals, and is a regular contributor to the Washington Post. Her comics channel personal experiences with pregnancy and postpartum, as well as other topics like travel and animals. Cat holds her MFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Illustration. She received her BFA from the University at Buffalo with a minor in Art History and also studied at the Scuola Lorenzo de’Medici in Florence, Italy.
Lauren V. Walling, Advising Member
As former Co-Executive Director, Lauren Walling has grown the organization’s financial capacity by increasing the donor base and investing in projects that promote self-reliance. Currently, she is responsible for all strategic advancement, fundraising and fiscal management including annual audits. She deeply understands the financial management needs specific to the arts nonprofit sector and is committed to creating economic opportunities for all artists as a matter of principle and right. Prior to her time at WSW, she was an art educator for 15 years. She has degrees from Wells College, Yale University, and Columbia University.
Founders
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Ann Kalmbach, Co-founder of WSW Ann Kalmbach has an M.F.A. from Rochester Institute of Technology and a B.F.A. from SUNY New Paltz. Ann has produced a number of artists’ books with her long-time collaborator, Tatana Kellner, under the acronym KaKe Art. She has also been a resident artist at Visual Studies Workshop, University of Southern Maine, and the MacDowell Colony. As a co-founder of WSW, Ann has helped hundreds of artists print portfolio editions and artists’ books over the years. |
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Tatana Kellner, Co-founder of WSW Tana Kellner holds an M.F.A. from Rochester Institute of Technology and a B.A. from the University of Toledo. Tatana (Tana) has received numerous awards for her work including two New York Foundation for the Arts individual artists’ grants. She has been an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Banff Centre, Lightworks, the Millay Colony, ArtPark and Visual Studies Workshop. Her work can be viewed at tatanakellner.com. |
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Anita Wetzel (1949 – 2021), Co-founder of WSW Anita Wetzel held a B.F.A. in Painting from SUNY New Paltz. Anita was an artist-in-residence at Blue Mountain Lake Center for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Weir Farm Trust, as well as at international residencies in France, Spain and Costa Rica. Her work can be viewed at https://anitawetzel.com/. In memory of Anita Wetzel: 1949 – 2021 |
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Barbara Leoff Burge, Co-founder of WSW Barbara Leoff Burge is a founder of Women’s Studio Workshop. Her work is in university and museum collections, including Yale, Harvard, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Museum of Modern Art. She’s a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a practicing and teaching artist in New Paltz. |
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