Tiffany Shafto, PRESIDENT  -  wood

Tiffany is a wood artist, working full-time with her husband, Tim. She received her BA in Interior Design from California State University Sacramento and began transitioning from her design career to woodworking in 2006.

Pursuing her passion for creating with her hands led her to Hawaii Craftsmen and she is pleased to be part of this active and talented group. With a focus on effective marketing for artists, Tiffany hopes to bring awareness to the exhibitions and educational opportunities available through Hawaii Craftsmen to artists living in Hawaii.

 e-mail for contact is info@DeEtteandAllan.com

Theresa Papanikolas, VICE PRESIDENT - is Curator of European and American Art at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Prior to joining the Academy, she served as Wallis Annenberg Curatorial Fellow at the Los Angeles County Museum of art, where she organized the exhibition Doctrinal Nourishment: Art and Anarchism in the Time of James Ensor.

She has also held positions at Rice University, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. A specialist in French Dada and Surrealism, Theresa is author of Anarchism and the Advent of Paris Dada: Art and Politics, 1914-1924, forthcoming from Ashgate Publishing in 2010. She completed her BA in Art History at the University of Southern California, and her MA and PhD in Art History at the University of Delaware.

Photo credit Shuzo Uemoto, courtesy of the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Maya Portner - SECRETARY,

Maya Lea Portner is an active participant in the contemporary art community in Honolulu. Most recently, her work was represented in the “Contemporary Fibers Art of Hawaii” at The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center (2008), as well as “Iterate Reiterate Re,” an exhibit of work from the three fiber faculty of UH Manoa, at Gallery 39 Hotel (2008). Portner was recently included as one of 24 international artists featured in the Holland Paper Biennial, 2008, in Rijswijk, Netherlands ( www.museumryswyk.nl/hpb2008 ). From January to June 2009, she exhibits as a solo artist in the collection of the Museum of Natural History, Zoology Section, ‘La Specola,’ in Florence, Italy (www.msn.unifi.it).

Portner is also currently an art educator. Recipient of the Laila Fund Graduate Teaching Fellowship at UH Manoa in 2005, she has been an instructor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Kapi’olani Community College and Hawaii Pacific University -- teaching “Introduction to Fiber,” “Designing Surface,” and “Applied Textile History,” as well as “Introduction to Visual Art.”

Portner received her BFA in sculpture from Washington University School of Art, in St. Louis. The material sensibility of her artwork led her to the Fiber program at the University of Hawaii, at Manoa where she completed an MFA in 2006. To view more of images of Maya's work, kindly visit: www.mayaleaportner.com

Sharon Doughtie, TREASURER

Peter Bihari

Claudia Coonen - Fiber

Claudia was born in S.F. Bay Area to architect father and a fashion conscience mother.  She came to Hawaii in February, 1969 and settled in Kona. Later, she left for California College of Arts and Crafts, followed by a full scholarship student a S.F Academy of Art. She returned to Kona as a homesteader, mother, artist, farmer. Moved to Maui in '87 after being tired of breathing vog. She had studied Batik in Holualoa from '79 to '87 and thus the fiber passion. Always working on new methods and taking workshops.

She is presently a printmaking studio tech and teacher at Hui No'eau. She is also a member and board member at Maui Crafts Guild. She co-owns a gift shop/gallery at a Arboretum. She is the regional rep for Surface Design Association and  presently a full time artist, with studio at her 3 acre home in Haiku , Maui.  Any free time is spent gardening, raising orchids, and in the past, competed in windsurfing races. She has a passion for travel, with 27 countries visited thus far. Claudia has been active with Hawaii Craftsmen since her Kona days.

www.surface-designs.com

Gail Hercher

Gail moved to Honolulu in the late '60s  and finished school at UH where she received her B.F.A. (painting) and M.F.A. (printmaking).  She then returned to New England where she taught printmaking, papermaking, and bookbinding full time at schools, colleges, museums and art centers for 25 years.  Along the way, she returned to Boston University for graduate work in American Studies/Museum Studies which led to a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Europe, a Certificate in Museum Education, and several museum positions, including one as Director of Education at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, sister museum of the Bishop Museum (its Pacific collection kept her love of Hawaii alive).
 
For the seven years before moving to Hawaii, Gail owned and directed  'The Paper Crane,' a gallery/teaching studio/store in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she taught print/book/paper workshops, sold handmade papers from around the world, and exhibited a wide range of art by New England paper artists.
 
Since returning to Hawaii in 2006, Gail has been working in clay (applying techniques from papermaking)  with which she produces distinctive planters and wall pieces.   In 2009 she was awarded an  apprenticeship at The Moravian Pottery and Tileworks in Pennsylvania and now primarily makes tiles and mosaics for residential and garden use.Gail is still enthusiastic about teaching, and works at Linekona in its Art To Go Program and for VSA/Linekona, developing a tile/mosaic business staffed by people with diabilities.  With 2 books and many published articles behind her, Gail is currently working on a book about mosaics in Hawaii.

Susan Horowitz

Jay Jensen

Diane Chen KW
Born in Chicago, Illinois

Diane and her family moved to Honolulu from California in the early 1970’s. Her previous career in medicine took her to NYC, Boston and Switzerland, but she was finally able to return to Hawaii permanently in the early 1990’s, dedicating her time to art and to local volunteer actvities. Diane is a full-time studio ceramics artist– with a major obsession carving clay. She collaborates with several ceramic artists in Honolulu who wheel-throw forms for her to carve. Her collaborative work is represented by the Cedar Street Gallery in Honolulu and by the Mercury Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts and can be found in private collections in the USA, Europe and Japan.

Email: lavaflowceramics@att.net

Jackie Mild Lau  - Clay, Metal

Jackie Mild Lau, born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1958, studied architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park, but holds a BFA, 1982, and a MFA, 1987, from the University of Hawai‘i. She is assistant curator/art instructor at the Academy Art Center, Honolulu. She has completed commissions for the Hawai‘i Maritime Center and Bishop Museum.

Jo Rowley - Ceramic

Esther Shimazu - Ceramic Sculpture

Born and raised in Honolulu, Esther went to public school and the University of Hawaii/Manoa before transferring to the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and completing a BFA and MFA in ceramics with sides of jewelry, sculpture and printmaking.

Currently Esther is a a studio artist represented by John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, California.  She teaches adult ceramics classes at The Honolulu Academy of Arts and Hawaii Potters' Guild and workshops here and on the Mainland.

Maui-born Michael Tam, returned to Hawaii with an accomplished track record leading global companies with a strategic marketing focus on re-branding and re-positioning. Tam believes that as long as a company had “good bones and soul,” strategic focus will insure long term success.  In 2008, Tam became the majority owner and CEO of Martin and MacArthur, the premiere Koa furniture maker and retailer in Hawaii for fifty years.   He is responsible for providing the strategic vision and plan to lead Martin and MacArthur to achieve sustainable, profitable, and long term growth.   He has made it his mission to specifically, drive new markets for their fine hardwood furniture and create the infrastructure to manage growth effectively.   

By the time Tam returned to Hawaii, Michael had accumulated extensive executive experience with global companies that included Nordstrom, Starbucks, Borders, McDonalds, and American Eagle Outfitters. His career is marked with success in creating corporate business strategies; developing new brands; reposition existing brands; introducing brands into global and domestic markets; leading internet and ecommerce plans; developing and implementing retail loyalty programs; and developing plans to generate incremental profit from the customer database.

After graduating with a Master of Management degree in marketing and finance at Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University, he joined Leo Burnett as senior media planner for Procter & Gamble and was International Vice President responsible for McDonald’s Corporation.

Honorary Director:  Liz Train, Fiber

lizabethtrain@hotmail.com