percussionist • poet • maskmaker • performing & recording artist • educator

A drummer since the age of three, Will has mastered a pan-global palette of percussion in addition to the traditional drumset. Will has recorded over fifty albums, including twenty-five for Canyon Records, where he is regarded as the house percussionist. Will performs and records with R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton, Gentle Thunder, Mary Redhouse, Robert Tree Cody, Arvel Bird, Amber Norgaard, and Gabriel Ayala, among many other internationally-acclaimed artists. Will is a five-time GRAMMY® Nominee, a two-time Native American Music Award® Winner, a New Age Reporter Music Award® Winner, and a two-time TAMMIE® Award Winner, and has been inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum in honor of his long-standing contributions to the musical community in his hometown. His solo album Pathfinder is a 2009 GRAMMY® Nominee for Best New Age Album. Will’s Planet of Percussion® workshop is a perennial favorite with students of all ages and music lovers of all skill levels.

A poet since the age of six, Will has published a book, Dog Light (Wesleyan University Press) and has been featured in numerous anthologies and literary journals. His writing has been honored with the Whiffen Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Margaret Sterling Award, the Tucson/Pima Arts Council Poetry Fellowship, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts Award of Merit for Poetry. His poem The Quiet Power is the official Dedicatory Poem of the Tucson Main Library.

Will is also an accomplished maskmaker and storyteller. His solo performance and workshop Myths & Masks® integrates his original mask art, mythopoetic storytelling, and multicultural music. As an arts educator, Will provides hands-on interdisciplinary workshops, lecture-demonstrations, master classes, and full-length residencies to elementary, middle, and high schools, colleges and universities, art galleries, libraries, adult prisons, juvenile detention facilities, senior centers, parks and recreation programs, retreat centers and resorts, and hospitals. His service to the community as an arts educator has been honored with the Arizona Commission on the Arts Decade of Distinguished Service Award and two Governor’s Arts Award Nominations. Will holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Syracuse University, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Arizona.

 

Susan Corl is a folk artist, from Patagonia, AZ, with specialties in textiles, fibers, mixed media and multi-cultural crafts.  A life long learner, Corl is particularly interested in process and technique, one example: shearing the sheep, dyeing and spinning the yarn before knitting it into a scarf.  For many years she grew extensive gardens that yielded materials for art projects. She “plants seeds” by teaching workshops to all ages.  A member of the Arizona Commission on the Arts Roster since 1996, she has conducted residencies and workshops statewide.  A versatile artisan with a fun-loving approach, Corl engages children (and adults) in a uniquely positive way.  Residencies can include, but are certainly not limited to: Quilts & Story Cloths, Book Arts and Papermaking, Masks, Puppets & Paper Mache, Kolam, “Living Loom”, Illuminated Letters, and Helmets & Headdresses.  Susan’s workshops and residencies connect to curriculum and the Arizona Art Standards.

Susan Ettl is a national textile artist, designer and instructor, who resides in Green Valley, AZ. She was an adult when she discovered the exhilarating world of creativity. Being predominantly left-brained, she believes that if she can be creative, anyone can. Consequently, her goal is to encourage students of any age to learn to develop their creativity in a supportive atmosphere by giving them the knowledge and tools to express their thoughts/feelings or to tell a story. Using educational resources and techniques that address the Arizona Academic Standards, Susan can develop art projects related to literature, social studies, science and/or mathematics. She has taught surface design, mixed media, embroidery, quilting, color, design, and mathematics. Some ideas for residencies are individual or collaborative art quilts, mixed media collages, wall hangings, floor cloths, fabric books or journals, scarves, and belts. Techniques that can be utilized in these projects are motif development, painting, creating stencils, printing with stamps made by students, gel printing, silk screening, using tape and glue resists, embroidery, fabric manipulation, beading, weaving, and attaching found objects.

Arturo Garino is a natural self taught artist from Nogales, Arizona. He works with different mediums – oils, pastels, charcoal and acrylics and specializes in tile and natural stone mosaic art. Mosaic art is the creation of an art piece that consists of the design and the cutting of tile or stone to fit in place. Many colors of tile and grouts are used to better enhance the art work. Residencies include the teaching of this art form to students of all ages, grades and skill levels. The teaching includes the history of this ancient form of art (that was once used to identify residences and market places), the process, technique, mathematics and the application of tile. Art has worked with students at Mexicayotl Academy where they created two mosaic murals. The first mural represented the school logo; their butterfly logo symbolizes life and in other cultures it represents warriors. Students used their knowledge of the Aztec calendar to create the second mural which represented the earth and consisted of a constellation of stars, the moon, and the head of the crocodile (Cipatli). Art has also worked with middle & high school students at Pimeria Alta Academy for the past two years. The students learned about the history of mosaics and created several mosaic murals depicting music, the history of Southern Arizona, and their thoughts about the future. The students entered pieces into the SCC Fair and won lots of ribbons, but most of all pride.

Zarco Guerrero has been a force in the Arizona art scene since the early seventies, as a multi-media artist and community arts advocate. He has participated in the Artist in Education program of the Arizona Arts Commission and has conducted workshops throughout the U.S. since 1972. In 1993, he was awarded Arizona’s Governor’s Arts Award for his artistic contributions to the community. Zarco offers a wide variety of educational arts programs including Dia de los Muertos or All Souls Day activities including Papel Picado workshops, Mask-Making workshops, Dia de los Muertos-A Celebration of Life lectures, and Altar/Shrine Making Workshops. In addition, Zarco reveals the awesome power of the mask to transform in his unique Face to Face in Frenzy performances that force the audience to examine their most innate feelings and thoughts on such themes as bigotry, aging, abuse and denial. Zarco also offers custom-designed mask-making residencies that can be applied to other curriculum areas such as social studies, geography, creative writing, etc.

Laura LaFave was born in Washington, D.C., received a BA degree from the College of William and Mary in psychology. She worked as an art therapist for three years in Virginia, after which she moved to Arizona. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from Arizona State University and a Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from the University of Arizona. Laura has been an Artist in Education for the Arizona Commission on the Arts since 1996. She is currently an interdisciplinary artist in painting, drawing and creative writing. She was a lecturer on emotional, social and intellectual development through art, with particular focus on brain development. Currently Laura’s work balances itself between the fields of psychology and art. She strives for an intuitive aesthetic, aspiring to challenge the perception of the world we live in as driven primarily by humans. Laura has also exhibited regionally and nationally. Laura focuses on how the creative process enhances the academic environment, furthering achievements in other subjects. Her residencies can focus on painting, drawing and creative writing and are tailored to fit the needs of the schools and the curriculum. Laura has done several artist-in-residence programs with Young Audiences including a “garden theme” mural created by Kindergarten students and an “ocean theme” created by elementary school students after researching marine biology. The Bracker Elementary “ocean” mural currently hangs in the Nogales Unified School District’s administration building on the top floor.

Red Rohall has been a professional visual artist since 1979. His specialty is Silkscreen Printing. He uses the processes, techniques, and the bold rich colors and designs of Silkscreen Printing to explore this art form with students of all ages, grades, and skill levels. Red offers several programs in the exotic and ancient art of Silkscreen Printing. These teach the fundamentals and nuances of this unique and unusual printing method. Residencies can be customized around classroom curriculum.

Silkscreen Printing–An Introduction. Students learn about this art form; its history and the printing methods of the professionals. Each participant then prints a simple silkscreen print on paper (K-12)

Silkscreen Printing – Hand-printed T-Shirts. Students learn about this popular technique, in which each participant designs the artwork and prints their one-of-a-kind shirt. Finished shirts are permanent, washable, and VERY colorful (Grades K-12)

Arizona History! (With Silkscreen Printed T-Shirts) is tailored to 4th grade students to compliment their Arizona History studies. Students use Arizona subject matter (such as state bird, flower, historic events, etc) to design their shirt. In addition, each shirt is printed with the wording “Arizona History” and the school’s name.

Custom Tailored Residencies – these longer-term programs involve students in the creation of quilts, banners, murals, and other permanent artworks using the silkscreen printing method (K-12)

Janet Winans is a poet living now in Patagonia, AZ. Her teaching background has been in public & private schools, K-12, as well as community college instruction, with Elderhostel, and for ten years as a Poet-in-Residence in schools statewide with the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has a B.A. degree in Education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC. She writes and publishes poetry and as a teacher, seeks to encourage students to express themselves with economy, candor and pleasure. She comes to the classroom with a variety of triggers to start the flow of ideas, and after students have captured their own thoughts on paper, encourages them to share their work and to experience the breadth and depth of the creative energy generated. Janet believes as well that writing is, first of all, a personal endeavor which may or may not become shareable, and she brings to the classroom examples of her own work and that of students who have found their voices and their own words. Every student is different, every day is different, and out of this belief emerges student writing which exemplifies and celebrates creative individuality. Janet has been working as a Young Audiences artist-in-residence for several years working with middle and high school students. During the 2007-08 school-years, 9th grade students at Rio Rico High School actually created a book of poetry – “The Sound of Me”.

Ann Lapidus has been teaching art to children, Pre-K through 12th grades, for the past 13 years. She focuses on watercolor painting projects of the desert and our surroundings. Basic color theory and watercolor techniques are emphasized as well as the children’s own creativity. Currently, Ann is teaching children’s art classes for the Marana Unified School District LEAP program and is also the art resource teacher for Temple Emanu-El Religious School in Tucson, Arizona. She has a BA in Fine Arts from Pomona College, Claremont, CA, and a semestrial degree from the Sorbonne, Paris, France. Her artwork is in collections in the United States.

 

 

Ruby Firecat was born in Austin, Texas. Her mother was an artist and nourished her creativity. As her muse, she challenged her in her early years to draw and sew. Ruby studied film making and Fine Arts at the University of Texas. She moved to Tucson in 1970 and opened a craft gallery. It was a success. She chose leather design as the medium and began “Ruby Firecat Leather Design” as her livelihood since 1972. Ruby says, “The irony that I have always had art to fall back on has never escaped me. I studied printmaking at the University of Arizona, and The Chicago Art Institute”.