Founders
Scott Browning is the Founder and former Director (1999-2007) of Hall Farm Center. Located on a 221-acre retreat in Townshend, Vermont, Hall Farm provides direct support for artists through no-cost summer artist residencies; offers workshops and retreats for educators on the integration of the arts into school curricula; and provides space, instruction, and resources to young and emerging artists.
In 2001 he founded and served as Co-Director of Exposures, a cross-cultural youth exchange program that establishes the arts as a tool for personal exploration and as a common language among youth from diverse communities. Each year students (ages 14-22) from Vermont, New York City, the Navajo Tribe in Arizona, and the Oglala Lakota Tribe in South Dakota spend several weeks together at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota participating in the cultural life of the community and sharing artistic skills and personal experiences with one another.
From 2002-2007, he served as Chair of The Brattleboro Literary Festival, one of the largest such festivals in New England. This annual celebration of the literary arts in Brattleboro, Vermont features readings, panel discussions, and special events by emerging and established authors.
Since 2008, he has served as Project Director of Snapshot Nation, a nonprofit social history project combining historical snapshot photography and narrative history in order to create a broad, compelling, and democratic narrative of American life between 1888 and 1988.
An independent filmmaker and writer, his work has been shown at the International Toy Theater Festival and the Omaha Film Festival, and has appeared in Esquire, The Believer, and Sarah Lawrence Magazine. He is a former artist-in-residence at The Serenbe Institute. www.herecomesthecircus.com
He holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a Masters Degree from The New School.
Marilyn Carino gained notoriety as the singing and songwriting half of Brooklyn's Mudville. Her contributions to Mudville's three critically-acclaimed albums and her own solo efforts were lauded as "Nina Simone coming back from the dead to front Morcheeba" - her unique, moving voice hailed as "fearless," "enchanting" and "otherworldly".Carino has collaborated and recorded with members of REM, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Norah Jones and Sly and Robbie. Her song "Wicked" from Mudville's 2007 album "Iris Nova" won the 2008 Independent Music Award for Electronica Song of the Year. www.mudvillemusic.com
Michael David is currently teaching at Georgia Tech with Herman Howard, a senior architect at HOK Architects to develop models and charettes for the Greenhouse Project at the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, and at the Serenbe Institute in Chattahoochee Hills, GA. David has been a professor at the Savannah College of Art And Design, where he was also the head of the School of Fine Arts Visiting Artist Program. He has also taught at Princeton University, and has lectured at The School of Visual Arts in New York, New York Studio School and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1981 David's first one-man show was at the Sidney Janis Gallery, he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that year. In 1982 was awarded an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize, in 1980 – 82 he was awarded an Albee Foundation Grant and in 1984 was awarded a grant from the NEA. He went on to exhibit at galleries worldwide and was represented by Knoedler & Co. for the next 25 years. David has also exhibited at the Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ, Meredith Long and Co, Houston, TX, the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, the Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO, the Dart Gallery, Chicago, IL. Best known for using the encaustic technique of painting, David built his early career on abstraction and religious iconography. Since 1999 he has experimented with representational painting and traditional photography.
Michael David writes: “Through my own experiences and those of my students I have seen art make a difference – opening minds and hearts, raising spirits, and making us feel we are a part of something larger than ourselves, providing providing great meaning to our lives After years of isolation in the studio, I also found that collaboration and teaching enriched and deepened my own artistic practice ways I never imagined possible. I discovered that the most enriching expression of this experience was to be found in cross-disciplinary teaching and learning methodologies. In collaboration with Tom Swanston the Fine Arts Workshop at Serenbe philosophy has evolved from this pedagogical approach.
David holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. www.michaeldavidartist.com
Gail Foster attended the Maryland Institute College of Art on a full scholarship, matriculating Summa Cum Laude in 1978. Foster graduated in 1980 from the Parsons School of Design Master of Fine Arts program, New York, NY. with honors.
Foster taught undergraduate drawing and painting for two years at the Maryland Institute College of Art, moving to Atlanta to start a fine art gallery & consulting business. After developing a business model that provided non-exclusive representation to an underexposed artist population she led a team of 10 full and part time employees, managing the business development and financial oversight, growing sales to 1MM within the first five years. In 1989, after negotiating the sale of the gallery/consulting business, Foster dedicated herself to making art.
Since then Gail has had 22 solo exhibitions, 9 museum exhibitions including a solo exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art, and has been included in 58 group exhibitions across the US. Her work is found in galleries in The Lowe Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Horizon Gallery and 707 Gallery, Santa Fe, NM., Lyon & Lyon Fine Art, New Orleans, LA., The Lowe Gallery, and the Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA., Todd Crockett Gallery, Little Rock, AR.,, collected by Laura Turner Seydel, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Halle Berry. Foster received two Ford Foundation Grants, a Rubenstein Fellowship and has been a twice invited Fellow at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Hambidge Center for Arts & Sciences.
Foster has a solo exhibition schedule at the Lowe Gallery; Atlanta GA. in 2010. Currently Gail focus is on bringing an awareness of non toxic media, materials and working methods to artists. Foster, the first artist in Serenbe has a studio and residence in the community which is founded on the principles of culture, environmental preservation and sustainable development.
Tom Swanston graduated in 1980, in the first Masters of Fine Art class, at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY. participating in a year at the Artist for Environment in the Delaware Water Gap, NJ. Swanston had matriculated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY. in 1978 with a Bachelor of Art. His undergraduate degree included study in London, and at the New York Studio School, New York, NY.
Swanston moved to Atlanta in 1982 where he was a co-founder of a successful fine art consulting firm & gallery. In addition to client/collector management, he oversaw all phases of exhibition planning, scheduling, installation and promoting exhibitions. Selling the business in 1989 Swanston returned to art making and teaching. Swanston has taught at the GLCA New York Arts Program, New York, NY and within the University of Georgia system at Kennesaw and Gordon Colleges, Atlanta GA. He has lectured at The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.
Swanston has exhibited regularly at Erdridge White Fine Art in Boston, MA., the Lowe Gallery in Atlanta GA. and Los Angeles, CA., M-13 in New York, NY., and 707 Gallery, Santa Fe, NM. including 14 solo and 46 group gallery exhibitions. He has been included in 8 museum exhibitions and published in over 55 trade and lifestyles magazines. Swanston’s work is collected in corporate and private collections in the US, Europe, Korea, China, Japan, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Currently Swanston owns StudioSwan, the first fine art gallery and studios in Serenbe. He is the Chairman of the Serenbe Institute Visual Arts Committee. Swanston also resides in Serenbe. www.studioswan.com
Advisory Board
Jeffrey Hoffeld is the Associate Dean of the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. A former curator of medieval art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Director of the Neuberger Museum, Hoffeld has operated his own gallery in New York and worked for several other New York dealers; most recently he was agent for the estate of Louise Nevelson. He is former Vice President and partner of Pace Gallery, and owner of Jeffrey Hoffeld Fine Art, Inc.
As the Director of the Great Lakes Colleges Association NY Program for 20 years Alvin Sher developed the premiere undergraduate residential arts intern program in New York city. As a sculptor Sher has had 25 solo shows and works included in more than 150 exhibitions including the Corcoran Gallery of Modern Art, Washington DC and the Cite International des Arts, Paris. Sher has commissions in Europe and the U.S. and has completed installations in Central Park and Dulwich Cathedral in London. Sher has received a Fulbright Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Sher was also a founding student of New York Studio School.
Caitlin Strokosch has 10 years of arts management experience in marketing, development, communications, and program management. Most notably, she served as General Manager of Bella Voce, one of the country’s premiere professional chamber choirs, and as Executive Director of CUBE, a new music ensemble based in Chicago.
Strokosch has lectured at Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University, Brown University, Roger Williams University, and the Rhode Island School of Design on a range of topics, from grant writing to contemporary music to intersections of art and architecture. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in music performance from Columbia College Chicago and a Master’s in musicology from Roosevelt University, where her research focused on music as a tool for building communities of resistance and social dissent.
She moved to Rhode Island in 2002 as a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at Brown University. She continues her creative work as a songwriter, poet and writer, and in 2005 she was an artist-in-residence at the Ucross Foundation.
In her tenure with the Alliance, Strokosch was responsible for the 3rd edition of the popular book Artists Communities: A Directory of Residencies that Offer Time and Space for Creativity, published in 2005, and The Ultimate Residency Resource Guide; launched the Alliance’s first advocacy initiative; organized 14 conferences and regional meetings; led the creation of the new Leadership Institute and Emerging Program Institute; and launched the “Be Our Guest” program, a series of public events for artists.
