Cora Mirikitani
Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles
Cora Mirikitani is the President and CEO of the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI). Cora’s extensive career in the arts includes more than 10 years in philanthropy as Program Officer for Culture at The Pew Charitable Trusts and later as Senior Program Director at The James Irvine Foundation in charge of their Arts program and Innovation Fund. She has also held key leadership positions as an arts administrator, as CEO of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, Director of Performing Arts and Film at the Japan Society in New York, and Executive Director of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.
In addition to working as a consultant to foundations and nonprofit arts organizations, Cora has been a lecturer, writer and advisor on numerous arts funding, policy and advisory panels and boards during her career. She served on the board of directors of Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) and chaired the 1999 GIA Conference held in San Francisco. She was appointed as a member of the Los Angeles Mayor’s Council for the Arts in 2004 and has served on many national advisory committees including the Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts Japan program in the U.S. from 2002-2004, and The American Assembly. She also served as a member of the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) from 2003-2007, and is the current recipient of a Durfee Foundation Stanton Fellowship award for 2008-2009.
Marisa Barrera
Executive Vice President,
ACCION New Mexico · Arizona · Colorado
Accion is an award-winning New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that increases access to business credit, makes loans and provides training, which enable emerging entrepreneurs. Marisa’s responsibilities include board support, donor development, stakeholder relations and organizational oversight. Marisa has been a member of the ACCION New Mexico • Arizona • Colorado team since 1996. In 2005, the New Mexico Business Weekly named Marisa among the top “40 Under 40″ business figures in the state. The U.S. Small Business Administration honored Marisa with the New Mexico Financial Services Advocate of the Year Award in 1999. Marisa is a board member of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), a national association of over 400 microenterprise development programs in the United States. Marisa received her master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1996. She earned her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of New Mexico, graduating summa cum laude.
Tana Kelch
Creative Entrepreneur/President
Bohemia: An Artists’ Emporium, Tucson, Arizona
Bohemia was created by two friends with a dream. Tana Kelch (an idea gal and go-getter) and Daria Sandberg (an inspirational artist and visionary) planted the seed of Bohemia years ago, when they were comrades and co workers first in the retail field and then in the social work realm. From there, Daria took the leap to be a full-time, self-supporting artist and Tana moved into event planning and management. Tana watched Daria’s art and talent grow, as did the idea seed they had planted all those years ago. Tana also watched Daria and other artists struggle with venues, shows and marketing…they both knew it was time to create a place where great artists could show their goods for great people to buy them! So in 2003, Bohemia finally sprouted. Bohemia’s policy is to deal only with local Tucson artists. We feel this provides a wonderful sense of community for the artists and customers alike. And it gives Bohemia an amazing selection of handmade goodness that represents the art of the southwest. Each purchase is a little part of Tucson and Arizona…and it goes right back into the economy of this fine town!
Roberto Bedoya, Executive Director
Tucson Pima Arts Council, TPAC
As the designated local arts agency for the City of Tucson and Pima County, the Tucson Pima Arts Council provides arts and cultural development services through direct funding, technical assistance, and commissions and contracts to artists and arts organizations and selective special cultural project and cultural development studies facilitation. Through Grants, Community Arts Development, and Public Art Programs, the Arts Council encourages neighborhood, youth and community involvement in the arts. It provides employment opportunities for artists, and crucial support for arts organizations, and it enhances education and promotes heritage-based artistic traditions. Other services include support for International Exchange, and Marketing and Organizational Development assistance for artists and arts organizations. In addition, the Arts Council’s advocacy efforts increase awareness of the importance of the arts and culture to our quality of life, making Tucson and Pima County a better place to visit and live, and contributing to the economic development of the region.
Anne-Marie Russell
Executive Director, MOCA
The mission of the Museum of Contemporary Art is to provide a forum for the
development and exchange of ideas about the art of our time. Through varied programs,
MOCA supports the critical interpretation and display of the highest quality of
contemporary art in service to our community as a public trust. MOCA is supported by
the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Tucson-Piima Arts Council, and members of
our community. MOCA is a not-for-profit 501 (c)3 organization.
Karen Falkenstrom,
Taiko Drummer, Odaiko Sonora
Rhythm Industry Performance Factory
Karen started studying taiko with Stan Morgan in 2001. When he fell ill, She and Rome Hammer and founded Odaiko Sonora to keep playing and so Tucson would have a taiko group. Since then, Karen studied mainly with Tiffany Tamaribuchi (Sacramento Taiko Dan) and San Jose Taiko. Before taiko, Karen was an arts administrator and poet, she has a BS in architecture from UVA and an MFA in creative writing from U of A. She directed the Tucson Poetry Festival, worked at the UA Poetry Center, and founded Kore Press and InConcert! Tucson. Karen was recipient of a 2008 YWCA Woman on the Move award and the 2009 Pan Asian Community Alliance Woman of the Year.
Daniel Buckley,
Musician, Reporter,
The Tucson Citizen, The Tucson Weekly
Dan Buckley is a writer, videographer, composer, musician and recovering scientist. He moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1971 to study lunar and planetary geology at the University of Arizona. Along the way he worked in (and later ran) a record store (Record Bar in El Con Mall), became a performance artist and composer, joined and became president of a Tucson art gallery (The Central Arts Collective), wrote for Newsreal Magazine, The Tucson Weekly, The Tucson Citizen and Stereophile Magazine, created video projects for the Tucson Citizen and did a whole lot of other stuff. He was the first performer to appear at Tucson’s famed Club Congress in the historic Congress Hotel, and had a comedy/performance art group called The Little Dinks.
Vicky Westover,
Program Director of the Hanson Film Institute
University of Arizona
Vicky Westover serves as the Program Director of the Hanson Film Institute at The University of Arizona (since 2004); she is also an adjunct faculty member in the School of Media Arts. She oversees all aspects of the Institute, which offers programs for students, emerging filmmakers, and media entrepreneurs who want to contribute significantly to the art and/or business of filmmaking. Vicky develops and coordinates diverse local and nationally affiliated collaborative media programs, including Native Eyes Film Showcase and Tucson Cine Mexico.
A native of Washington, D.C. and a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Vicky received training in non-profit arts management through the National Endowment for the Arts and has worked in non-profit management for over 20 years, in particular in the field of development and strategic planning. She received a Governor’s citation for her work promoting filmmaking in Maryland and has served on numerous non-profit boards, committees, and panels, including for the AFI in Washington, D.C., and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers).
She is the co-founder of a long running Baltimore City youth media program BYTV (Baltimore Youth Television.) Vicky is an exhibiting photographer, has produced radio programs, is the founding Producer of Independent Eye on Maryland Public Television, and currently produces independent films.
