Arts Impact Ohio Conference Sessions

Tessa Gaffney

Tessa is currently the marketing director for the Center for Applied Drama, and an administrator and actor with QuTheatr.

Janelle Hallett

Janelle Hallett is a nonprofit administrator, artist, and mother. She currently serves as the director of grants and sponsored programs at Otterbein University. She is also a founding member and resident artist at Daylight Artist Collective, and a board member for the Gahanna Area Arts Council. Janelle is a fiber artist with a focus on weaving and jewelry. She has been playing with yarn since her grandma taught her to knit at age 8 and is a mostly self-taught weaver. Her love of art led her to a career in arts administration, with a focus on grants administration. She currently lives in Gahanna with her two sons, husband, a few pets, and a lot of yarn.

Amanda Lewis

Amanda is co-founder and executive director of Watch Me Grow Ohio, a sustainable agriculture nonprofit in Portsmouth. She is also the founder of Trillium Project, a small arts and culture nonprofit focused on advancing community-based art in Southern Ohio. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Shawnee State University with a concentration in watercolor painting and ceramics. Amanda works to promote the arts through resident-led public projects in underserved communities. Her current projects include: Appalachian Visual Poetry, a series of public murals created by local artist and poet partnerships; AfterWord Poetry, a poetry workshop for individuals in recovery; and VIBE, youth-led public art. Amanda is passionate about art, advocacy, and Appalachian tenacity.

Amanda Beagle

Amanda Beagle is a Warren, Ohio, based singer/actor who has spent the greater part of her professional life invested in the development of young people through the arts. She has maintained a private vocal studio since 2001, both in the Warren/Youngstown area and New York City. She has been on faculty with music schools in New York City and South Orange, New Jersey, serving a diverse body of students. An experienced theatre teaching artist, she has also trained extensively with Lincoln Center Education, The Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department, and The City College of New York in educational theatre and teaching artistry.

Amanda currently serves on the musical theatre voice faculty at Youngstown State University (YSU). Amanda's history with SMARTS dates back to 2001 when she was a sophomore vocal performance major at YSU. During that time, she worked on a SMARTS team that facilitated the Metropolitan Opera Guild's education program called Creating an Original Opera in which students wrote, produced, and performed their own works of musical theatre. SMARTS was also Amanda's community service platform as she competed for the job of Miss Ohio.

Sarah Demetruk

Sarah Demetruk is a SMARTS program manager overseeing community programming. She is a graduate of Youngstown State University (YSU) with a Bachelor of Arts in Interpersonal Communications and Nonprofit Management. Sarah additionally studied Music Education at YSU with a focus on cello. Sarah has a background in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to K-12 students. She is also the former youth education director at the Youngstown Playhouse. Sarah has a performing arts background in local theaters and choirs, and still plays the cello for theatrical productions and other events.

Lindsay Goossens

SMARTS Education Director Lindsay Goossens has been a part of the SMARTS team since May 2018 and oversees SMARTS Public and Community Programming, working to train community teaching artists in best practices for teaching and learning in the arts for PK-12 students and producing curriculum that follows state standards for SMARTS partners and SMARTS free after-school classes. She has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Ashland University and completed four majors in English, Journalism, Integrated Language Arts for Grades 7-12, and Creative Writing. While an undergraduate, she was awarded the Journalism Education Association's national "Future Teachers of Journalism" award. She previously taught high school English, journalism, yearbook, and creative writing at Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School in Chardon. She has completed Trauma Informed Care certification to be a trainer for organizations interested in becoming trauma-aware through the Family & Children First Council of Trumbull County and also serves on the Stand Grow Thrive Mahoning Resiliency Movement initiative on behalf of SMARTS. As an artist, she is a writer, photographer, and drummer.

James Hain

Jim Hain is a SMARTS program manager overseeing community programming. He holds a Master's Degree in English from The University of Maine and a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the NEOMFA. He previously worked as an Adjunct Professor at Youngstown State University, Kent State University, and Eastern Gateway Community College, teaching creative writing and composition. He has been published in The Stolen Island Review, Jenny, The Rubbertop Review, and Pennsylvania English, and he has performed locally at the Youngstown Playhouse, Rust Belt Theater, and Mahoning Valley Players, among others.

Simon Kenneally

Simon Kenneally is a singer/songwriter and composer who has established multiple musical projects and solo projects. He has recorded and released thirteen studio albums. He has performed thousands of shows across the country and has been commissioned multiple times to create original scores for plays at various playhouses. He studied classical guitar at the Dana School of Music focusing on music education. He also studied secondary education at Youngstown State University and has been teaching music theory and composition publicly and privately for more than 20 years. Simon teaches rock band; studio recording and production; and ukulele, guitar, and piano to SMARTS students. Simon is also trained in arts integration and leads the SMARTS Beats teaching team for hand drumming for students with special needs.

Bill Sattler

Bill Sattler is a founding partner and interactive/brand director at Madhouse. Bill graduated from Kent State University with a degree in Visual Communication Design and has expanded his capabilities beyond a traditional print/illustration background. Raised and ingrained with an entrepreneurial blue-collar work ethic, Bill appreciates a hard day’s work and the satisfaction it brings when a project comes to life. Results driven, not process-obsessed. Push the boundaries of traditional design and get it done on time and on budget, that’s Bill’s mantra and something he tries to impart on all of his team members.

Lindsay Jones

As the owner and principal conservator of Blind Eye Restoration (BER), Lindsay has made a living from her passion for restoring old buildings and fine art. She started BER to offer her blended experience as a material preservation consultant and a contractor, and to share her passion for the environmental and community benefits that preservation affords. Lindsay aims to help share these benefits with the general public through social engagement, educational workshops and speaking, and support for younger generations (especially girls) who are interested in working in the preservation trades. Alongside leading her crew in completing their restoration work, Lindsay sits on the boards for the APT Eastern Great Lakes Chapter and the Lakeside Ohio Design Review Board. She was featured in Preservation Magazine in 2019 and the Smithsonian Institute's Women in Preservation Symposium 2021.

Jon Fiume

Jon Fiume has served Akron’s arts and culture scene for more than 20 years. His past contributions have included serving on the boards of the Akron Art Museum, Weathervane Playhouse, ArtsNow, and Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. He is a Public Arts Commissioner for the City of Akron, board member of Leadership Akron, member of the Diversity and Inclusion committee for ArtsNow, and a member of the Arts Advancement Council for the University of Akron. As of February 2022, Jon has served as the John S. Knight Director & CEO of the Akron Art Museum. Jon graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland with a degree in Spanish and a minor in Marketing. Since 2020, Jon was the interim executive director of the Akron Art Museum. Prior, he held corporate level positions in the for-profit sector with a focus on operations. Jon enjoys the arts, travel, and exercise. Jon resides in Akron.

Jessimi Jones

Jessimi Jones is a passionate believer that museums can positively impact the creative life and well-being of communities. Currently the executive director of the Springfield Museum of Art, she began her career as an art museum educator and has since worked in museums for nearly two decades. Before coming to Springfield, Jessimi worked at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. She presents nationally and has served as a board member for the Museum Education Roundtable and the Ohio Art Education Association, and as a consultant for the Ohio Department of Education. Jessimi holds a BA from Kent State University and an M.S. Ed from Bank Street College in New York. She and her husband Graham are proud to be raising their daughter in Springfield, where they enjoy hiking and, of course, visiting museums.

Claire Bryson

Claire Bryson is a nonprofit arts program director at Keep Cincinnati Beautiful (KCB). She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Architecture from DAAP at the University of Cincinnati. Her innovative art programming at KCB has been recognized nationally for its low-cost, high-impact artistic solutions to neglect and blight. She was honored in 2018 as one of WCPO’s Next Nine Art & Entertainment, and Women of Cincy recently published a piece highlighting her work. In her personal time, she enjoys adventures to new places and nurturing an urban family with her husband, Zach, and two kids, Madeline and Ingrid.

Katie Davis

Katie earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Interior Design from the University of Cincinnati in 2010. Her passion for hands-on work, historic architecture, and preservation of Cincinnati’s under-utilized spaces led her to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful's (KCB) Arts Program, where she has contributed to more than 1,000 public art projects. In her time with KCB she has worked to join community improvement with public art, restoring neighborhood identity and pride. In her free time Katie pursues other creative outlets and forms of making, ranging from fiber arts to ceramics.

Emily Holtrop

Emily Holtrop is the director of learning & interpretation at the Cincinnati Art Museum. With more than 22 years of museum education experience, she has worked in the division she directs since 2002. Her previous position with the museum was as the former assistant curator for school and teacher programs. In her current role, Emily oversees the museum’s interpretive and educational initiatives. This includes public programs for all audiences. She served as the National Art Education Association's museum education division director from 2015-17 and was named the 2018 National Museum Educator of the Year by the same organization. Emily holds an A.A. in Art History from Grand Rapids Community College, a B.A. in Public History from Western Michigan University, and an MSc. in Architectural History from the University College London-Bartlett School of Architecture.

Spring Starr Pillow

Spring graduated from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in musical theatre performance and holds Masters Credits from the University of Cincinnati in education and counseling. She is currently employed as the director of school programming for Wordplay Cincy, where she plays an active role in the initiative to combine theatre and education. She has developed several after-school and in-school workshops combining curriculum and drama in the tri-state schools. Spring has worked for several tri-state theatres, including Ensemble Theatre, Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, Covedale Theatre, and The Showboat Majestic, and was a featured cabaret performer at The Celestial. Spring has also had the privilege of singing and writing with David Kisor, a prolific children’s song writer, on several nationally recognized c.d. 's and play projects through Growing Sound. In her spare time, Spring enjoys writing poetry, short stories, plays and music, rehabbing old homes, singing with her band No Guarantees whenever possible, and spending time with her boys, Nick, Eli, and Max and her dogs, Sophie and Herman.

Scott Woods

Scott Woods is an Emmy award-winning writer and event organizer in Columbus. Woods is the author of "Urban Contemporary History Month" (2016), "We Over Here Now" (2013), and "Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods" (2017). He has been featured multiple times in national press, including appearances on National Public Radio. He is the founder of Streetlight Guild, a performing arts nonprofit; a 2018 Columbus Foundation Spirit of Columbus Award recipient; and the Greater Columbus Arts Council winner of the 2017 Columbus Makes Art Excellence Award for his event series “Holler: 31 Days of Columbus Black Art." He is the 2022 winner of the Press Club of Cleveland’s Ohio Excellence in Journalism award for Best in Ohio Essay Writing. In 2006 Scott became the first poet to ever complete a 24-hour solo poetry reading--a feat he bested seven more times without repeating a single poem.

Jarrod Hartzler

Jarrod Hartzler has served as the executive director of the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education since September 2019. Previously, he was the executive and artistic director of Tuesday Musical Association in Akron. He has coordinated community arts and education programs and worked to establish partnerships with schools and other arts and community organizations all around the state of Ohio.

A Wooster native and graduate of The College of Wooster, Jarrod has worked as a not-for-profit arts manager and arts educator at both the local community and statewide levels. He has worked at Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster, the Delaware County Cultural Arts Center in Delaware, and served as co-executive director of VSA Arts (now Art Possible Ohio) in Columbus, Ohio. Jarrod has participated in several education programs of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He was a 2008 fellow in the Kennedy Center’s Arts Management Institute where he studied with Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser.

Robert Morrison

Robert B. Morrison is founder and CEO of Quadrant Research, the nation’s leading arts education research organization, where he has created a deep body of research and policy work. Bob is recognized as a pioneer in statewide arts education status and condition research. He leads the groundbreaking national Arts Education Data Project coordinating the reporting of arts education data from 31 states representing more than 70 percent of the student population in the United States. These efforts have directly impacted millions of students. Bob is the founder of Music for All, was the first CEO of the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, and helped create the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. He has been recognized for his work to add the arts as a core subject to the nation’s education goals in 1994. He served as director of market development for NAMM and the director of marketing for Pearl. Bob also founded Arts Ed NJ, the Center for Arts Education, and Social Emotional. Bob's advocacy work has earned him both a Primetime Emmy and a Peabody Award and the New Jersey Governor’s Award for Arts Education, and he has received an honorary doctorate degree from the State University of New York. He is a member of the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame.

Barbara Fant

Barbara Fant has been writing and performing for 15 years. She has represented Ohio in nine National Poetry Slam competitions and is a World Poetry Slam Finalist.

For more than a decade, she has led healing-informed poetry workshops for youth and adults who are incarcerated, adults in recovery, and survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence. She is the author of two poetry collections, Paint, Inside Out (2010) and Mouths of Garden (2022). Her work has been featured by Button Poetry and Def Poetry Jam, and has been published in the McNeese Review and Electric Literature, amongst others.

She has received residencies from Idyllwild Arts in California and Connect Arts in Havana, Cuba. She holds both an M.F.A. in Poetry and a Master of Theology. She is the founder of the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective and co-founder of The Senghor Project, West African International Artist Residency. Currently, she is the artistic director of Street Poets, Inc. in Los Angeles and is an artist-in-residence at both Harmony Project and Thiossane West African Dance Institute, both in Columbus, Ohio. Barbara believes in the transformative power of art and considers poetry her ministry.

Aseelah Shareef

Aseelah Shareef offers a unique combination and understanding of inspirational leadership, operations and logistics, organizational programming, and artistry, developed through intense non-profit environments demanding excellence, flexibility, and the capacity to master multiple roles. Just a few of those roles include performing in Step Afrika!, the world’s only professional dance company dedicated to the art of stepping (body percussion), which toured nationally and internationally, and teaching and co-creating new curriculum for dance at Cuyahoga Community College.

Her most recent role is vice president + chief operating officer at Karamu House, where she implements operational efficiencies across product lines, has developed new arts residency programs, and curates socially and culturally responsive community arts experiences including after-school and weekend arts education models for life-long learners.

Aseelah holds a Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science from the Florida State University.

Tony Sias

Tony F. Sias is the President + CEO of Karamu House, Inc., America’s oldest Black producing theatre. Under Tony, since 2015 Karamu stabilized finances, and raised more than $10 million for restoration and increased attendance. Prior to his tenure at Karamu, Tony served in several progressive roles for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) including director of arts education and artistic director of Cleveland School of the Arts.

As a creative, Tony has produced, directed, and performed in more than 100 productions. He most recently received critical acclaim for directing Karamu’s production of Freedom on Juneteenth, and in October 2021 Tony performed narration with The Cleveland Orchestra in Sinfonia No. 5 “Visions” by George Walker. His work has been highlighted nationally in The New York Times, American Theatre Magazine, on NBC’s Today Show with Al Roker, and more. Tony served as a delegate from the U.S. Department of State in Istanbul, Turkey, representing the Council of International Programs in the Youth Arts for Peace Project. In 2018, he was inducted into The HistoryMakers, the largest African American oral history archive collection in the U.S. In 2019, Tony was named the Cleveland Arts Prize, Barbara S. Robinson award winner. In 2021, Tony received the Community Leader Award from Cleveland Magazine. He is a fellow of the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program through Harvard Business School. Tony serves as a national board member for the League of Historic American Theatres. He is a board member of the Cleveland School of the Arts and the Assembly for the Arts. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in dramatic art from Jackson State University and a Master of Fine Arts in acting from Ohio University.

Stuart James

Stuart joined the independent living movement as the executive director at the historic Center for Independent Living in Berkeley (TheCIL). During his seven-year tenure, he renewed TheCIL’s commitment and vision for a truly inclusive world and nearly tripled the organization’s endowment. TheCIL adopted the “Be Your Own Normal” slogan and reorganized its services, communications, and operating philosophy around the idea that “normal” is everyone and that we all possess talents, skills, qualities, and responsibilities that contribute to our community. Stuart led the organization in developing and updating programs, including an expanded AT program, new Lifestyles events, a life-changing Residential Access program, and the evolution of TheCIL’s Youth programs. Additionally, he brought new corporate partnerships and attention to TheCIL through the PowerOn! web series and its annual Ed Roberts Day event.

Before his tenure at TheCIL, Stuart spent more than 20 years as an executive in the sports and entertainment industry, living and working across four continents. He is an avid sports fan with allegiances to his childhood teams—the New York Giants and Knicks—but he’s vowed to be a die-hard fan of the Toledo Mud Hens and University of Toledo Rockets. Stuart has a master’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology and sits on the Advisory Board for the Kennedy Center's VSA program.

Betty Siegel

As the Kennedy Centers’ Accessibility/VSA Director, Betty Siegel believes arts and cultural experiences accessible to, and inclusive of, people with disabilities of all ages is a civil, cultural, and human right. She champions and leads disability arts, education, employment, and cultural practices. A career highlight is the recognition of the Centers’ work as a cultural rights defender by a UN Special Rapporteur 2020 report. Another was convening a field of more than 900 arts, education, and cultural access, equity, and inclusion professionals in 2019. As a respected and sought after speaker, delivering training, lectures, and presentations around the world and across the United States, Betty addresses disability rights; compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; and access, equity, and inclusion. She acquired her Juris Doctorate in 2009 from the Columbus School of Law and founded the Accessibility Advisory Group, LLC, in 2021.

Calcagno Cullen

Calcagno Cullen is a social practice artist, arts educator, and curator. She is founder and executive director of Wave Pool Arts Center, a gallery, studio space, and socially-engaged arts activator in Cincinnati. She is also the co-founder of The Welcome Project, a social-enterprise and makerspace for and by Cincinnati’s refugees and immigrants that exists as part of Wave Pool. She has previously worked in the education department of SFMOMA, the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, California. She was also previously the director of Adobe Books Backroom Gallery in San Francisco. She is a member of the women’s art collective The FemFour, and collaboratively organizes the traveling exhibition and catalog of Women’s March posters entitled "Still They Persist." She has also curated and organized a multitude of exhibitions including "Dial Collect" in 2013 at SOMArts in San Francisco, "Social Medium" at Wave Pool, a segment of "Bay Area NOW 7’"at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and "Survival Adaptations" at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. She has been artist in residence at The Center for Great Neighborhoods in Covington, KEntucky; Lo Studio dei Nipoti in Calabria, Italy; Teple Misto in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine; and in Sardegna, Italy. Her work has been shown in solo shows at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, and elsewhere.