Tanya is a Los Angeles-based artist/designer/craftsperson who was raised in Tijuana, Mexico. She holds an MFA in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design and a BA from San Diego State University. In her formative years she created various collaborative installations with the Border Arts Workshop, an artists’ group that engages the languages of activism and community-based public art. Her current work uses craft as a performative medium to generate dialogues about identity, culture and gender while creating community. Aguiñiga is a United States Artists Target Fellow in the field of Crafts and Traditional Arts, a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) and Creative Capital 2016 Grant Awardee. She has been the subject of a cover article for American Craft and has been featured in the PBS series, Craft in America.

In my 30-year career working at the National Endowment for the Arts in the field of folk and traditional arts, I became acutely aware of the value of our nation’s diverse cultural heritage. It also became clear to me that individual craft artists frequently work both without the benefit of broad public recognition and beyond the reach of most established mechanisms for financial support. When I retired, I wanted to devote a good portion of my free time to organizations like CERF+ that provide valuable services to artists and art forms that have made a significant contribution to the quality of my life.

I am involved with CERF+ because I understand the work, the lifestyle and the financial insecurity typical of our constituents. Having been a victim of the Federal Levee Failure that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I saw first hand how CERF+ acted as first responders as well as how the organization reacted to the enormity of the disaster by upgrading their preparedness programming and increasing grants and loan amounts to provide greater financial assistance to those applicants with greater needs. I truly enjoy working with all the people of both the board and the staff–a highly productive group of professional who care deeply about our mission and its execution.

Donald received his BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from Rhode Island School of Design in 1982. He has been a leading figure in contemporary American jewelry and has served a term as President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and earlier as Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board of Metalsmith magazine. His jewelry has been shown in galleries and museums all over the world and is in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and others. In 2003 he was the first jeweler to be an Artist in Residence at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass.Since then he has been an artist in residence in Austria, Australia, and Taiwan and was a speaker at a number of universities and international conferences. In 2011 Donald was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers and a featured speaker at a jewelry conference in Dubai, UAE. In 2012 he was an Artist in Residence at California College of Art in both the glass and metalsmithing programs for the spring semester. In 2014 he was an Artist in Residence at the Uroboros Glass Factory in Portland, Oregon. In 2016 he will be the keynote speaker at the annual Society of North American Goldsmiths conference in Asheville, NC, and will be lecturing at the Smithsonian as part of the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist Series.

CERF+ does such important work supporting artists, most especially artists who need help with emergencies and maintaining professional studios. I have seen up close how artists work and know the challenges they face on a day-by-day basis. CERF+ understands the needs of artists on a deep and informed level, and is a fierce advocate to advance effective and strong professional studio practices and creating and sustaining safe and healthy work environments.

As a staff member of a state arts agency (and state government) I see many ways our goals intersect with CERF+’s goals. We both want to help artists realize their dreams and make the most of their talent and ensure their ability to thrive. I am on the board because I think we can do this better together!

“My passion in the arts has always been focused around material-based studio art. I’ve been a high school art teacher, art museum executive director, art consultant, and artist advocate. I am blessed to have the opportunity to serve on the CERF+ as a board member. Connecting my sphere of friends and associates in the home furnishings industry to the artist maker community is my focus.

I intend to have a blast while making new friends, broadening the reach of CERF+, and bringing additional support to the mission of ensuring studio artists thrive and have a safety net of resources to sustain their livelihood.

YEAH! I love what I do!”

I agreed to serve on the CERF+ board of directors for one simple reason: to continue to help artists grow their businesses. For more than twenty-five years, I have worked with artists, makers, and designers to help them to explore ways to grow their business through the use of sound marketing and public relations principles, get themselves and their work published, and sell their work in markets that range from small but important street fairs where one can establish a career, to galleries and retail shops, to exhibiting in large international fairs for wide-ranging audiences. By being part of CERF+ I also get to play a small role in assisting these individuals in a time of need when their livelihood has been threatened by natural or man-made disasters, or health issues that prevent one from continuing to work to make a living. CERF+ celebrates the value that artists bring to our daily lives while helping to ensure their career survives life’s uncertainties.

Sylvie Rosenthal is a woodworker and sculptor. She received a BFA in Woodworking and Furniture Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, and has taught or been a visiting artist at Anderson Ranch, Arrowmont, Tainan National University in Taiwan, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Penland. Awards include a North Carolina Arts Council Crafts Fellowship and two Windgate Wood Fellowships. Her work has been in exhibitions at the Mint Museum, North Carolina; at the Society of Arts and Crafts, Massachusetts; and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts & Design, New York; Fuller Craft Museum, Massachusetts; and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Gallery. Currently, Sylvie is an MFA Candidate 2014 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, researching sculptural and conceptual methodologies while considering attachments to hand work and risk, the field of craft writ large, and the performative capacities of making.

“I am honored and excited to join the board of CERF+” Sylvie says. “There is important work to be done sustaining a growing and changing field. I am looking forward to serving and how we can engage with issues of sustainability, both physical and psychic.”

Paul has extensive experience in higher education, administration and leadership in not-for-profit arts organizations. He served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently executive director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He is a fellow with the National Council of Arts Administrators and has most recently served on the board of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). As a sculptor, Paul is interested in the collision of abstraction, urban planning and utopian systems. He has produced multiple large-scale projects, designed for specific institutions such as: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. He has been the recipient of numerous artist residencies including: the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts and the Arts/Industry Program at Kohler Company.

“I was delighted to join the CERF+ board of directors because I have seen firsthand how vitally artists need a “Safety Net.” Both in my current role as an independent consultant and during my previous decade as the Executive Director of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville, I am driven by the belief that artists are vital contributors to our communities who should be nurtured, mobilized, and valued as one of our greatest assets. My work focuses on working with artists to build their capacity and empower them to act as both entrepreneurs and community change agents. I am proud that CERF+ positions artists at the center of everything we do and ensures that these artists will not just survive these bumps in the road, but thrive.”