Whidbey Island Art Council Board of Directors
We are a small working board dedicated to working diligently for the prosperity of the Whidbey Island Arts Community.
We are a small working board dedicated to working diligently for the prosperity of the Whidbey Island Arts Community.
|
Kay Parsons, President
Kay is an artist working in the medium of watercolor and also a graphic design artist. She lives just off of Penn Cove and volunteers for the Council, Whidbey Working Artists and Spin Cafe. Kay graduated St. Mary's College of Southern Maryland, served in the United Stated Navy as an air traffic controller before settling on Whidbey Island with her partner and spouse of 30 years, Diane. lookingglasscottage.com lookingglasscottage@gmail.com |
|
|
Frank Rose, Co-Vice President
Frank Rose has been involved in the arts on Whidbey Island since 1985 primarily as a board member of the Whidbey Island Arts Council (WIAC) and the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA). In this time he has gained extensive experience in marketing, project management, fundraising and strategic planning. Currently Vice President of WIAC and Chairman of the Langley Arts Commission. (LAC). frankirose798@gmail.com freelandartstudios.com |
|
|
Brian Mahieu, Co-Vice President
Brian Mahieu is a plein air landscape painter who devoted the first thirty years of his artistic career to painting the Missouri River Valley, while dreaming of living in the Pacific Northwest. In 2016 he relocated to Whidbey Island. This thrilling new landscape provides views of ocean, forest and mountain enveloped in a pearly, atmospheric light—perfect motifs for his painterly aesthetic records. He has exhibited nationally including the cities of New York, Carmel and Santa Cruz. Brian's paintings are in public and private collections throughout the United States, Europe the United Kingdom and Australia, including the contemporary artist collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri. “I want my art to be transparent, primal, and tactile, and above all honest to my experiences. I want it to reach out and elicit a visceral experience in the viewer. To do that it needs to be created in nature, not in a studio.” brianmahieu.com brian@brianmahieu.com |
|
|
Catherine Reid, Secretary
|
|
|
Diane Cheek, Treasurer
Diane graduated from the University of Georgia with a BBA. She served in the US Navy as a Flight Engineer and Aviation Electrician, retiring after 27 years. She has performed volunteer work for the Disabled American Veterans and is pleased to be currently involved with the arts and culture of Whidbey Island. diane.a.cheek@gmail.com |
|
|
Madisun Elizabeth Clark, Media Specialist
Madisun is joining the Whidbey Island Arts Council with a decade of experience in coordinating press specifically for non-profit community events focused on arts and culture. In addition to promoting, Madisun has experience in every aspect of coordinating, producing and managing special events as a self-proclaimed community activist. In mid-2016, Madisun and her partner co-founded Pink Parasol Productions, a program under the WIAC umbrella that works to provide free access to arts and cultural events on Whidbey Island. A Pink Parasol is Madisun's signature symbol for guiding community at various parades and social gatherings, usually accompanied with the exclamation, "Follow the Pink Parasol!".
|
|
|
Elaine Gore, Arts in Education Program Director
Dr. Gore is a long-time educator who has taught Music Pre-kindergarten through Grade 12 and Elementary Teacher Education at the college level. The US Navy brought her middle son and his family to Whidbey five years ago and she was pleased to relocate here in 2014. Although education has always been the fabric of her life, she thinks of the arts as the threads which bind her life together, a concept she shares with students, her children, and her grandchildren. Service on the Whidbey Island Arts Council is another way to continue that effort.
|
|
|
Sheila Weidendorf, Music Programs Director
Music Programming Director Sheila Weidendorf is a professional pianist & harpsichordist, regularly performing chamber music concerts here in the Pacific Northwest. She is also the founder and Artistic Director of Island Consort, one of WIAC's umbrella partners. When not immersed in the world of chamber music, she can be found teaching piano out of her home studio, providing musical direction for area musical theater productions or even playing the occasional pop or jazz gig, as the mood strikes. A resident of Whidbey Island since 2010, Sheila hails from Minneapolis, MN where--in the distant past--she earned her BA in Piano Performance from the University of Minnesota School of Music and (following injury that kept her away from the keyboard for a few years) her MA in Feminist Theology from United Theological Seminary. Sheila is devoted to music, musicians, sharing the love of music broadly and working to create a true culture of support for quality music performance here on Whidbey Island. sweidendorf@whidbey.com |
|
|
Elizabeth Herbert, Performing Arts Director
Over 40 years combined experience in acting and directing, teaching, coaching, child development, operations management, personnel training, supervision and motivation, public relations. Member of South Coast Repertory Theatre’s resident acting company straight out of college, actor and Board Member of Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills for ten years. Professional actress beginning at age four in Los Angeles. penncoveproductions@gmail.com |
|
|
|
Tom Harris, Media Assistance
Tom is a recent transplant to Whidbey Island from the midwest. He capped off a 30 year career in Community Banking, 19 years in local government including 11 years as a city councilman, serving on numerous city boards and commissions including municipal power, parks and rec, historic preservation, planning and zoning and community branding. He worked for 11 years helping to organize a signature community festival concentrating in public relations and marketing. But above all, helping groups and organizations see the big picture and focus on the path ahead. Along the way Tom found photography to be a powerful artistic outlet and is spending quality time discovering his new home through the lens of a Nikon. tlh4104@me.com |
|
