MORE INTERVIEWS
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Phoebe Leona is a dancer, speaker, author, yoga teacher, and transformational guide who helps us feel more embodied through somatic, movement, and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who we are, who we are becoming, and our having a greater sense of belonging. After a year of extreme loss in 2013, she found herself in the vast open space in between her old life and a new life, and later began her company, nOMad to help others through their own transition and the spaces in between. She tells her story on her TEDx Talk, her podcast The Space in Between, and her multi-author international bestseller Caged No More. Her newest book, Dear Radiant One is excerpted in Sanctuary.
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Beverly J. Armento was inspired by the many teachers who mentored her and became an educator who enjoyed a fifty-year career, working with middle school children as well as prospective teachers. As the “Seeing Eye Girl” for her blind, artistic, and mentally ill mother, Beverly was intimately connected with and responsible for her, even though her mother physically and emotionally abused her. In her emotional memoir, Seeing Eye Girl: A Memoir of Madness, Resilience, and Hope, Beverly shares the coping strategies she invented to get herself through the trials of her young life, and the ways in which school and church served as refuges over the course of her journey.
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Photo Credit: Bob Klein
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Karen Brooks Hopkins was an employee of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (“BAM”) for 36 years, serving as its president from 1999 until retiring in 2015. Karen answers questions about life as a nonprofit leader - her greatest challenges, most memorable moments, and advice for those struggling with fundraising during an economic downturn. Her memoir, BAM…and Then It Hit Me, is an inspiring look into her years at the iconic cultural institution, America's oldest performing arts center. This book delves deeply into her journey as the institution’s leader and the challenges she faced and overcame.
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Photo Courtesy: Les and Sue Fox
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Authors Les and Sue Fox share their two-year journey documenting the life and work of Fern Isabel Coppedge. In 1990, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania celebrated Fern Coppedge's work with an exhibition titled "A Forgotten Woman." Accompanied by a 48-page catalogue, which included beautiful images and a summary of Coppedge's life, this exhibition left Les and Sue wishing someone would reveal much more about the extraordinary life of this turn-of-the-century woman (1883-1951). So, they decided to take up the challenge. They have also founded the nonprofit Fern Coppedge Art Scholarship fund for aspiring, female artists.
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Photo Credit: Paul Backalenick
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Karen Loew is a long-standing artist member of the Salmagundi Club, one of the oldest art clubs in the U.S. She serves on the club's Board of Directors and is the first woman committee chair of the Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP) sponsored by Salmagundi. She has led COGAP's committee since 2001 and was recently honored with Emeritus status. COGAP uses fine art to educate audiences about the United States Coast Guard. The program provides visual testimony of the U.S. Coast Guard's multifaceted roles as a military, humanitarian and law enforcement organization. Today, the collection comprises over 2,000 works showing the missions performed by the service’s force of nearly 42,000 active duty members.
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2021 INTERVIEWS
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Sarah Nannery is Director of Development for Autism Programming at Drexel University. She holds a master’s degree in conflict transformation and was recently diagnosed with Autism. Sarah is the co-author of What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life and Love with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Simon & Schuster, 2021) which is excerpted in Sanctuary this month. In this book, Sarah reflects on her personal experience living as a professional woman with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Together, with her husband, Larry, she offers timely advice in this communication guide for anyone on the autism spectrum looking to successfully navigate work, life and love.
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PARENT TO PARENT: Leslie Crawford was a primary caregiver to her son, Andrew, for 29 years. She offers advice to other parents, incorporating what she learned on her own journey. "For all the challenges we’ve been through as a special needs family, it has also been an interesting life with highlights that most people will never experience. It’s made me a better person, and we’ve met so many wonderful people along the way, broadening our small circle into a big circle of really caring, 'salt of the earth' friends and caregivers."
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Photo Credit: Shawn Inglima
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Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American artist creating books, films, plays, paintings, installations, and more. She founded Quail Bell Magazine and runs Quail Bell Press & Productions. Her single author books include Heaven is a Photography, Naomi & The Reckoning, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, and other titles. She has shared her creations and talents with The Huffington Post, the New York Transit Museum, the Elisabet Ney Museum, the Kennedy Center, the New York City Poetry Festival, and beyond. Learn about the inspiration behind her visual poetry film Butterflies.
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2020 INTERVIEWS
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ARTIST TALK with Yehudit Feinstein Mentesh: Her "Untitled" piece was chosen for Barrett Art Center's MARGINS, an international juried exhibition. Yehudit is a Brooklyn-based artist who was born and raised in Israel and relocated to the United States in 2000. She received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a master's degree in psychoanalysis from The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. Her art has been exhibited in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. She has also had careers as a therapist and an art teacher.
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ARTIST TALK with Loren Eiferman: Loren's piece "Nature Will Heal/Electronics" was chosen for Barrett Art Center's EARTH WORKS: Art in Ecological Context, a national juried exhibition. She is a New York-based artist whose wood sculptures have been exhibited extensively throughout the Tri-State region - from galleries in NYC to galleries, alternative art spaces and museum exhibits in the Hudson Valley Region of New York and Connecticut (including the New Britain and Dorsky Museums). Her work is included in numerous corporate and private art collections. In 2014, she was commissioned to create decorative railings for the NYC MTA.
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Jennifer Cook is an award-winning author of seven bestselling books which have been translated into six languages. Autism in Heels is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller WINNER for “Top Autism Books of All Time.” Jennifer's other titles include her Asperkids series (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) and Sisterhood of the Spectrum (Jessica Kingsley Publishers).
At the age of thirty-five, Jennifer Cook (then O’Toole) was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (autism) just after her three young children had been similarly identified. She is a sought-after keynote speaker at large events, including the Autism Society of America’s National Conference, the USAAA World Conference, and many more. She has spoken frequently alongside her colleagues (and close friends) Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Tony Attwood. She sits on the Autism Society of America’s Panel of People on the Spectrum, and she is a columnist/expert panelist for Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party. |
Photo Credit: Bonnie Auchincloss
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Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson is a poet, author, performer, songwriter, community “Artivist” and speaker who is pushing the boundaries of poetry and the spoken word. Appointed the 2017 and 2018 NYS Dutchess County Poet Laureate, Poet Gold is the recipient of numerous awards. With countless recitations, she has opened for Grammy-nominated artists and has spoken at renowned organizations, such as Omega Institute and Self Employment in the Arts. Currently, she is the co-host for the iHeart Radio podcast “Finding Out with Pete and The Poet Gold.” Her distinct voice will be heard, playing the role of God, in the upcoming animated short film “The Creation,” poem by James Weldon Johnson, directed by award-winning animated filmmaker, Steve Leeper.
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