Instructors

Maggie Simpson Adams

is a multi-media artist whose work focuses on ideas of mortality while expanding the boundaries between cinematic and tangible space. Her films have been screened at domestic and international film festivals.

In addition to her personal work, Simpson Adams is the founder of the video production company Decomp Films, whose recent commissions include a documentary for The Alameda County Arts Commission, focusing on the impact of public art on incarcerated youth. BFA, MFA, CCA.

Mel Adamson

A part-time assistant professor for the pictorial art department at San José State University, Adamson has also taught at Stanford University. She is currently teaching figure drawing at Pixar Animation Studios. Exhibited nationally and locally, Adamson’s work focuses primarily on the figure and landscapes, with a special emphasis on human consumption of natural resources. She studied painting and drawing at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. BA, UC Santa Cruz; MFA, UC Berkeley

Lewis Bangham

An award-winning designer and fine artist, Bangham's range of experience includes storyboard artist, illustrator, animator, and game designer. He has produced projects for a variety of clients including NASA, Capitol Records, 20th Century Fox, Siemens, and Apple. He has exhibited his fine art internationally. Bangham has taught at the Art Center College of Design, Stanford University, and the Art Academy University. BS, Art Center College of Design

Libby Black

A painter and sculptural installation artist, Black has exhibited nationally, with shows at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Jersey City Museum; and numerous galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Black has been an artist in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito and Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga. Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Zink magazine, Flash Art, and the New York Times. She is represented by Marx and Zavattero in San Francisco. Black has worked with both undergraduate and graduate students. BFA, Cleveland Institute of Art; MFA, CCA

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Gregory Cowley

is a San Francisco-based photographer renowned for his ethnographic photography of people from all over the world.

Grogory began his work in San Francisco working with photo imaging and technologies developed for the design industry. He has worked with a variety of technologies ranging from traditional arts to electronics and computer technologies. Starting in the early 1990s Gregory has photographed in over 30 countries amassing a library of over 50,000 images. He specializes in photographing everything from editorial projects to dynamic advertising campaigns with such clients as Intel, Apple, Landor Associates, Ogilvy One, Motorola, IDEO, and Macromedia (now Adobe Systems).

Gregory's work has appeared in numerous publications: Wired magazine and in various galleries throughout the Bay Area and abroad. In addition to his work as a photographer, Gregory has succeeded as a distinguished graphic designer and creative director.

While working toward his BFA in graphic design, Gregory studied at Lancashire Polytechnic in Preston, England.

Marshall Dalva

A jeweler and metalsmith, Dalva has worked as a production jeweler for an Oakland-based designer. Within a short time, he was managing production and the everyday workings of the designer's studio, which has grown into an internationally recognized brand. Marshall's personal work follows a different model; he has a deep love for the flexibility of metal, focusing on metal forming and larger-scale fabrication. With simply a hammer, some patience, and a little skill, the possibilities are endless. In recent years Marshall has returned to his private work, creating metal sculpture and jewelry in his studio using a range of techniques and materials. He has previously taught at The Crucible. BFA, CCA

Richard Elliott

Elliott's work with image transfer and digital processes on paper and manipulated fabric investigates structures and patterns hidden within the body. Elliott is an authority in the field of image transfer and is currently writing a manual on image transfer processes.

He exhibits nationally, lectures, and teaches workshops. Elliott is a recipient of a California Arts Council Artist-in-Residency Grant, and his work is in private and corporate collections, including the State Department of Health Services. BS, Ball State University; MFA, John F. Kennedy University / Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts

Ed Gutierrez

Gutierrez has worked with Disney's Feature Animation unit, animating on such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Lion King, Hercules, and Emperors New Groove, to name a few. He has also worked extensively on television animation shows as an animator, character designer, and layout artist. Since receiving his MFA in 3D animation, Gutierrez has primarily focused his attention on teaching the fundamentals of drawing and animation. BFA, Cal-Arts; MFA, Academy of Art University

Arden Johnson-Petrov

Johnson-Petrov has created more than 15 books for American and International publishers, including Boyds Mills Press, Harper Collins, Leap Frog, Penguin, Pleasant Company - Mattel, Random House, Scholastic, and Warner Bros Elf movie. She has lectured at California College of Arts, UC Berkeley, and Minneapolis School of Design. BFA, CCAC

Caitlin Kuhwald

A full-time freelance illustrator who teaches in CCA's degree program, Kuhwald's clients include Rolling Stone, Spin, Puma, the Progressive magazine, The Criterion Collection, Scholastic Inc., Premiere magazine, Punk Planet magazine, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Philadelphia Weekly, Cosmo Girl!, Philadelphia magazine, Budget Living, Nylon magazine, Sojourners magazine, Utne, Time Out Chicago, and Continental Airlines. BFA, CCAC; MFA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Peter Kuo

is a Certified Technical Trainer and an Adobe Certified Instructor in InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Lightroom. He has over ten years years of experience as a designer and artist working in print, web, and digital publishing. He conducts hands on corporate workshops as well as in-class instruction for Adobe software training.

Erin Lampe

has worked in design since 1994, focusing on print and web. She enjoys finding creative solutions through technology and design and pushing the limitations of each. For the past six years she co-taught CCA's Sputnik design studio, a faculty-elected, student-based group featured in Print magazine (May 2008).

Previously, Lampe held positions in advertising and design, including within the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) undergraduate program in digital design as well as its extended education programs in graphic design and applied digital design. Past Sputnik projects have been shown in SFMOMA as well as published in Communications Arts, HOW, Print and American Museum magazines.

Mary Alison Lucas

is the visual merchandiser for The Gardener in Berkeley, where she specializes in home-decor aesthetics and arrangements. Her colorful bio-morphic abstract sculptures have been exhibited internationally. She enjoys nurturing her succulent garden which brings her infinite inspiration. BFA, CCA; MFA, UC Davis

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Briggs MacDonald

MacDonald's work ranges from residential to hospitality, commercial, and institutional interiors. Her private-practice clients have included Vitra, Artemide, and Design Within Reach Showrooms. He has formerly held positions as principal at Alamosa Design Associates, director of interior architecture at EHDD Architecture, and as design director at Mancini Duffy, all in San Francisco. MacDonald has also worked with Andree Putman and Vignelli Associates in New York. In addition to his private practice, he teaches in CCA's Interior Design Program. BArch, Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)

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Sheila Metcalf Tobin

An artist whose work exemplifies the experiences of discovery through observation, Tobin has been exhibited nationally in both solo and group shows. A former adjunct professor at the college and current instructor for CCA Extension and the Young Studio Artist Program, she also teaches at Laney College in Oakland. BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art; MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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Tomoko Murakami

Murakami is passionate about exploring printmaking as a multidimensional art form, pushing the boundaries of traditional art and bringing attention to new possibilities in the mixed-media art world. She creates an interplay among space, light, and time through her unique style of art, called Yusaifu. Her current work involves video, performance, and installation that focuses on interconnections between reality and dreams.

Murakami received the Kala Art Institute fellowship in 1992. Her work has been exhibited at Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles; Gallery on the Rim, San Francisco; Tomura Gallery, Tokyo; the Richmond Art Center, California; and Sebastopol Center for the Arts, California.

As an art educator, Tomoko sees teaching as the opportunity to build on her own explorations as a multidisciplinary artist. She uses her personal creative experiences as referents and brings her current creative energies and directions into the learning process. Her love of teaching flourishes in the exchange of creative ideas with her students. BFA, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music; MFA, San Francisco Art Institute

Sian Oblak

A painter whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally, Oblak has been teaching drawing and painting at colleges and other institutions in the Bay Area for six years, including CCA. Local galleries showing her work include the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco. BFA, Saint Martins School of Art, London; MFA, CCAC

Craig Petey

An award-winning ceramicist whose work is a mix of rough and smooth textures, Petey's pieces are wheel formed and then altered to their most pure and naturally earth-like stage to best reflect the origins of the clay. Petey is currently CCA's Ceramics Program studio manager. BS; MS, Pennsylvania State University

John Poole

A sculptor whose work has been exhibited both internationally and nationally, Poole has worked at three professional foundries and taught numerous university courses in sculpture and casting. BA, UC Berkeley; MFA, University of Arizona

Mel Prest

A figurative painter for a decade before turning to abstraction, Prest's recent exhibitions include The Space Between at San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; Touch at Bus-Dori, Tokyo; TRANSformal at Pharmaka in Los Angeles; and TRANS: form | color at Meridian Gallery in San Francisco. Prest has been an artist in residence at the de Young Museum, the Legion of Honor, and at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her work has been featured in Artweek, Art Papers, the San Francisco Chronicle, and New American Painting. Her paintings can be seen locally at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco. BFA, Rhode Island School of Design; MFA, Mills College

Merl Ross

A painter whose work has been exhibited nationally and is included in numerous public and private collections, Ross is the recipient of a California Magazine Discovery Award and presently teaches painting at UC Berkeley. BA, MA, MFA, UC Berkeley

Douglas Sandberg

A commercial and fine art photographer working in the Bay Area for over 30 years, Sandberg is the former director of photography at Bonhams / Butterfields. He currently provides photo services for Sotheby’s, SFMOMA, San Jose Museum of Art, and numerous magazine and book publishing firms. His client list includes work with Ralph Lauren, Rolls Royce, Chronicle Books, Oliver Peoples, Silver Oak Vineyards, and the celebrated adventure photographer, Peter Beard.

Sandberg's most recent publication, Book Art Object, is the Codex Foundation's comprehensive catalog of unique artists books. He has taught large-format studio lighting at CCA and enjoys a long working relationship with major graphic design firms. His film and video work currently runs at the Smithsonian. BFA, CCAC

Lynn Sondag

Sondag is the current interim chair of the Art Department at Dominican University of California, where she teaches watercolor, drawing, and life drawing. During a residency in India, she grew to love the simplicity and complexities of watercolor, using the medium to render the natural phenomena in local landscapes. Her watercolors are exhibited in group and solo shows at Triangle Gallery in San Francisco. BFA Savannah College of Art and Design; MFA CCA

Stacy Speyer

is an artist curious about structure. For over a decade she explored lines in space through her large-scale installations made of dyed and woven sewing thread. Experiments through a variety of mediums, ranging from natural materials to digital imagery, have led to a series of geometric structures and an Artist in Residence at the SF Exploratorium. Ms. Speyer’s work has been exhibited nationally and is represented in private collections. BFA, Kansas City Art Institute; MFA, CCA.

Eugene Young

A graphic designer and illustrator living and working in the Bay Area, Young has taught in CCA's undergraduate Graphic Design Program, the Pre-College and CCA Extension programs, and at City College of San Francisco (including the CCSF Design Collaborative program). As sole proprietor of Eurayo Design, he has produced marketing collateral for several Bay Area community-based arts organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses. Eugene also is known for his unique style of science fiction and fantasy art, which earned him Adobe's 2008 Photoshop Users award for illustration. BFA, CCAC; MFA, CCA

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