2023 Faculty

Designed for Educators

Richard Jenkins

Richard Jenkins, Instructor

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Since 1996, Richard Jenkins has been a professional cartoonist, illustrator, and educator. He has had multiple comic books, graphic novels, short stories and one teacher's curriculum published. Among his work can be found the cult classic "Sky Ape" graphic novels, the "Comics in Your Curriculum" arts integration textbook, and the haunting short story about Thomas Edison's involvement in the development of the electric chair entitled "Death in the Wires." Richard also provides illustration services for TV storyboards, products, books, magazine covers, and video games.

In addition to his artistic career, Richard has also worked as a teaching artist, training students and teachers across the country in drawing, painting, and comics. He currently serves on the teaching artist roster for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is teaching visual art at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Oklahoma City. 

richardjenkins.com

WORKSHOP Comics in Your Curriculum
Cynthea Liu

Cynthea Liu, Instructor

McKinney, Texas

Cynthea Liu writes for young people of all ages. For Disney and Marvel, her titles include board books, picture books, Little Golden Books, chapter books, and junior novels for Disney and Marvel. She has also authored works for other major trade publishers including THE DARE (originally published by Penguin Random as PARIS PAN TAKES THE DARE), an Oklahoma Book Award Honor. Cynthea's picture book BIKE ON, BEAR! (Simon & Schuster) is an Illinois Reads title and Oklahoma Book Award Winner. Her work has been translated into multiple languages including German, French, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese. Cynthea has also published WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE to help others ramp up quickly on the business of writing for children and teens.

WORKSHOP Writing for Children and Teens: A Crash Course

Kelly Doremus Stuart, Instructor

Concord, New Hampshire

Kelly Doremus Stuart/Dance Educator/Choreographer

Ms. Kelly Stuart has been sharing her love of dance and expressive movement with people of all ages and abilities in a wide range of venues throughout New Hampshire for over 30 years. Professional teaching credits include; Roster Artist/Trainer with VSA Arts NH, The State Organization on Arts and Disability, Roster Teaching Artist with the N.H. State Council on the Arts, Arts-in-Education and Arts in Health Care programs (1989-2018), Part-time faculty, New England College (NEC) Theater Department, (1988 - 2019), Visiting Artist, Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center residential school, K-12, (2011-2018), Co-Director Petit Papillon, The Ballet Theatre of NH (1989–2016). Stuart integrated dance with classroom curriculum in her school residencies. She was a lead teacher trainer with VSA NH. She directed and choreographed over 30 original productions for NEC’s Annual Dance/Movement Concerts and the Ballet Theatre of NH. She believes in the transformative power of dance to strengthen the human spirit.

WORKSHOP Creative Movement and Dance: Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom

Photography

Troy Word, Instructor

Bio coming soon!

WORKSHOP Photography

Writing

A black and white headshot of a middle-aged person looking up with glasses.

Brian Turner, Instructor

Orlando, Florida

Brian Turner is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently: The Wild Delight of Wild Things (2023), The Goodbye World Poem (2023), and The Dead Peasant’s Handbook (2023), all forthcoming with Alice James Books. His other collections include Here, Bullet to Phantom Noise, and the memoir My Life as a Foreign Country. He is the editor of The Kiss and co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres anthologies. A musician, he has also written and recorded several albums with The Interplanetary Acoustic Team, including "11 11 (Me Smiling)" and "The Retro Legion’s American Undertow." His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Harper’s, among other fine journals, and he was featured in the documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was nominated for an Academy Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Orlando, Florida, with his dog, Dene, the world’s sweetest golden retriever.

brianturner.org

WORKSHOP The Writer's Toolbox

Music

Marc Silverberg

Marc Silverberg, Instructor

New York, New York

Dr. Marc Silverberg has established himself as one of the leading voices in a cappella education today. He has served on the executive board of CASA.org as Director of Education and presented workshops on vocal improvisation at over twenty national and state festivals. 

Beginning in 2020, Dr. Silverberg pioneered two new breakthroughs in a cappella education: A cappella Masterclass (acappellamasterclass.com) and VocaVersity, the world’s first, certified online school for contemporary a cappella. In spring 2020, Dr. Silverberg released his first published book, co-written with Deke Sharon and Dr. J.D. Frizzell, with GIA Publications titled Teaching Music Through Performance in Contemporary A cappella. Under his pseudonym “Docacappella,” (docacappella.com) he has released several humorous a cappella parodies, which have been nominated for 11 Contemporary A cappella Recording Awards. University of Delaware (B.M.), Westminster Choir College (M.M.), and Five Towns College (D.M.A.).

marcsilverberg.com

WORKSHOP Contemporary A cappella 101

Visual Arts

Misty Gamble

Canyon, Texas

Misty Gamble’s work is inspired by the human figure and its infinite capacity for communication. Gamble’s current work, life-size ceramic figurative sculptures and installations of multiple figurative fragments, focuses attention on issues surrounding femininity and challenges conventional standards of morality, normalcy and propriety. Misty has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, New Harmony Clay Project and the Armory Art Center, Project Art, C.R.E.T.A Rome, SACI Florence, Woodstock Byrdcliffe, Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, Buffalo Creek Art Center, Rowan University, Wildacres, and Vermont Studio Center. Gamble is the co-founder of Studio Nong: International Sculpture collective and residency program which travels to China and the US to accomplish residencies that focus on clay figurative sculpture. Misty was a full time Assistant Professor at the Kansas City Art Institute for nearly a decade and has taught throughout Italy. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Art at West Texas A&M University.

WORKSHOP Ceramics: Focus on the Face
Ben Long

Ben Long, Instructor

San Francisco, California

Ben Long is a San Francisco-based photographer, writer, and teacher. The author of over two dozen books on digital photography and digital video, he is also the author of several best-selling LinkedInLearning.com photography courses. His photography clients have included 20th Century Fox, Blue Note Records, Global Business Network, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Pickle Family Circus, and Grammy-nominated jazz musicians Don Byron and Dafnis Prieto. He has taught and lectured on photography around the world, including workshops at the Santa Reparata International School of the Arts in Florence and a class for imaging engineers at Apple, Inc. He occasionally dabbles in computer programming and has written image editing utilities that are used by National Geographic, the British Museum, and the White House. Long was an OSAI acting student in 1985.

completedigitalphotography.com

WORKSHOP Storybook with Artificial Intelligence
Joel Nakamura

Joel Nakamura, Instructor

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Joel Nakamura is an image maker, writer, and art educator. Nakamura creates art for commercial clients and galleries. He has won numerous awards of excellence for his advertising, editorial, and corporate illustrations. His clients and projects include the 2002 Winter Olympics opening and closing program illustrations, Nike, Time magazine, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Nakamura’s illustrations and graphics for Maxalt, a Merck Pharmaceutical migraine medicine, made it the number one recognized medical branding in the world. He is the author and illustrator of the award-winning children’s books Go West! and I Dreamed I was a Dog. Go West! was chosen to represent the State of New Mexico Library Association at the Library of Congress Book Fair in Washington D.C.

joelnakamura.com

WORKSHOP Random Narratives

Kayla Ohlmer, Instructor

Bio coming soon!

WORKSHOP Kiln-Formed Glass