Instructors

Young Artist Studio Program Instructors

Note: Instructors are subject to change.

Tara Beyhm is an animator and filmmaker whose films have shown internationally. As an animator she is skilled in computer animation, drawn animation, and is currently working on a stop-motion short. BFA, California Institute of the Arts; MFA, San Francisco State University

Libby Black is a painter and sculptural installation artist. She has exhibited nationally, with shows at Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Jersey City Museum; and numerous galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Libby 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. Libby is represented by Marx and Zavattero (formally Heather Marx Gallery) in San Francisco. BFA, Cleveland Institute of Art; MFA, CCA

Patrick Dintino is a fine artist whose paintings and collages have been exhibited internationally. He co-founded Artists in Motion art collective, a group of artists that created funk-art fashion, sculpture, and furniture out of reclaimed materials.

In 2000, Dintino was invited as a guest artist to work with Sol LeWitt to create Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective at SFMOMA. A finalist for SFMOMA’s SECA emerging artist award, and a recipient of the Pollack/Krasner Foundation Grant, he was recently included in the group show The Future of Abstraction at the Chelsea Museum of Art in New York City. BA, San Diego State University; BFA, MFA, CCAC

Tony Esola is an artist whose interests began in glassblowing and shifted to sculpture with an emphasis on metal. His work investigates the curiosities of childhood through toys made for adults—pieces that interact with viewers and encourage their participation. His work has been shown internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. BFA, CCA

Scott Hammond is a graphic designer with his own firm, Scott Hammond Studio, based in San Francisco. The firm designs everything from websites to logos, packaging, signage, and advertisements. Prior to opening his studio in 2002 he worked at such San Francisco graphic design firms as Luxon Carra and Zimmermann Crowe Design. BFA, CCA; BA, Vassar College

Ashley Helvey is a felt artist whose work has been exhibited in galleries nationally and in Europe. Most recently she contributed to the Cooper Hewitt International Design Museum's exhibit Fashioning Felt and worked with the cooperative Le Famn Veret in Verettes, Haiti, to develop a line of felted objects to provide jobs for local woman. Ashley teaches workshops at institutions, museums, and galleries and continues to collaborate with artists and designers on felted installations and performance pieces. BA, California State University, San Francisco

Melisse Herman is an artist, writer and teacher who has spent years exploring the possibilities of creativity in everyday life. She has taught in the degree programs at both Mills and California College of the Arts. She is in the process negotiating locations to exhibit her sight specific work as well as writing a book on her research. Melisse has exhibited on both the East and West Coasts and is in a number of significant collections, including the Chevron Corporation and the United States Embassy, Hong Kong. MFA, Mills College

Faye Kendall is an artist whose work reflects her background in fibers, combining natural materials with sculpture in large-scale works that reference animals and biological and social processes. She has exhibited in galleries nationally, including Slought Foundation and Freeman’s in Philadelphia. Faye has developed art programs and taught in public and charter schools. She currently teaches art at Bentley School in Oakland. BFA Colorado State University; MFA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Vanessa Marsh is an artist working in photography and sculpture. She has shown extensively throughout the Bay Area including exhibitions at the San Jose Museum of Art, Southern Exposure Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose and The Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2007 she was awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in Peterborough, New Hampshire. BA, Western Washington University, MFA CCA

Daniel McClain is a painter whose work combines abstract forms with "found" imagery from children's books and other publications. His work explores the daydreams of youth and their subversion by modern life. In addition to being a painter, Daniel runs his own graphic design studio. BFA, CCA

Sean McFarland is a photographer whose work explores the relationships between the process of image making, artifice, photographic truth, and the representation of landscape. Sean’s solo exhibitions include White Columns, New York City, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA, San Francisco Camerawork, and Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. His work has been included in shows at the San Jose Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Headlands Center for the Arts and Art/Miami/Basel Among his awards are a fellowship to the National Photography Institute at Columbia University, 2004, Phelan Award in Photography, 2004, fellowship and residency at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, 2009, Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers, 2009, John Gutmann Award, 2009, Eureka Fellowship, 2011, and a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. BS in Computer Information Systems and Studio Art, Humboldt State University; MFA, CCA

Sheila Metcalf Tobin is an artist, raised with a southern flavor, whose work is inspired by experiences in both past and present gardens. As a child she learned a deep respect for the traditions of making by hand and tending the earth and was encouraged to draw. Her work exemplifies the experiences of discovery through observation and has been exhibited nationally in both solo and group shows. She teaches at Laney College and previously in CCA’s Young Artist Studio and degree programs. BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art; MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Sian Oblak is a painter whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally. She 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

Jennifer O’Keeffe is an artist whose photographic work explores and blurs the lines between fact and fiction, the discovered and the imagined. She also works as a freelance photographer, shooting portraits for national and international publications. She has exhibited her work locally and nationally and currently teaches black-and-white photography at CCA. Jennifer has also been a visiting lecturer at Modesto Junior College and the Fostering Art program in San Francisco. BA, Barnard College; MFA, CCA

Greg Piatt is a fine arts printmaker who specializes in lithography, monotype, and relief work. He uses these distinctive techniques in his studio / print shop located in Pleasant Hill, California. Since 1992 Greg has worked as curator of the Summit Gallery, located in Mount Diablo State Park at the top of Mount Diablo. He teaches in CCA’s Printmaking Program and has taught as a guest artist and master printer at a number of schools, including the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Kala Institute in Berkeley.

Pam Stalker received her undergraduate degree in Advertising Design at The Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and a minor in photography (specializing in filmmaking and animation). She has an MFA in Film Graphics from CalArts, where she studied animation with former Disney animator Jules Engles.

Pam has worked in the animation industry for many years contributing to Warner Brothers comedy One Crazy Summer, Disney's Brandy and Mr. Whiskers cartoon series, Rocko's Modern Life, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, and Betty Boop's Hollywood Mystery. Pam has worked on commercials for ILM, Disney, Klasky Csupo, Film Roman, Wildbrain, and Colosal Pictures. She is currently represented by Acme Filmworks in Los Angeles.

Pam entered the digital age in the mid-80s, when she started work on Airheart, an early game for the Apple II E computer. She also animated Living Book titles in the 90s including Arthur’s Reading Race and tellaluna. She was an animation director at Purple Moon, an early pioneer in bringing girls to the computer and the Web, and continued her children’s software expertise at The Learning Company, where she was the principal lead on such games as Oregon Trail 5, Reader Rabbit, Strawberry Shortcake, PowerPuff Girls, and Scooby-Doo titles. She also created Leapfrog books for Reader Rabbit and helped to bring Reader Rabbit to DVD.

As a freelance animator, illustrator, and designer Pam has worked for Bay Area companies in traditional media in the following mediums: paint on glass, silhouette-jointed figures, pastels, color pencils, and cutouts, as well as various digital programs.

Rommel Taylor is a designer and an artist. His professional design experience has focused on work for nonprofit organizations, public housing, single-family homes, and public work. In his art he explores the aesthetic, social, and narrative potential of public and private spaces. Rommel is passionate about exposing young persons to architecture, art, and design. He currently works for the San Francisco Department of Public Works Bureau of Architecture. BArch, CCA

Anna Vaughan is a nationally exhibited, multimedia artist whose work explores concepts of family, migration, and memory. She has been a juror for exhibition programs at the Oakland Museum of California and has helped organize exhibitions for several nonprofit galleries, including Pro-Arts Gallery, NIAD Art Center, and Cell Space. BFA, Kansas City Art Institute; MFA, Mills College

Rebecca Young is an artist who has exhibited her work nationally. She has taught middle and high school sculpture courses at the University of Arizona and currently teaches at Canyon Elementary School. MFA, University of Arizona