ADVISORY BOARD
Javiera Benavente (she/her)
is a facilitator, educator and artist interested in the practice and imagination of collective freedom and what this teaches us about creating new futures of care. She is the Assistant Dean of Collaborative & Community Engaged Learning at Hampshire College. Javiera received her artistic training in physical theatre, improvisation and living culture at Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA.
Donnabelle Casis (she/her)
is a Filipina-American artist, curator, radio show host, and community arts advocate. She has received numerous grants and awards. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad, and is included in several public and private collections. www.donnabellecasis.com
Carla Costa (she/her)
is a career coach and leader of interdisciplinary arts programs in higher education.
Matthew Glassman (he/him)
I am a father, theatre artist, and organizer working at the intersection of imagination, community, and the natural world. I am the Artistic Director of the Unnameable Children’s Project, and Co-Founder/ Co-Director of the Long Match Art & Culture Project. For over 20 years, I was a member of the Double Edge Theatre Ensemble, as well as its Co-Artistic Director.
Catrin Lloyd-Bollard (she/her)
is a multidisciplinary artist and non-profit arts administrator. She is the Deputy Director, Programs, at HB Studio, a historic NYC acting studio. She is a life-long creator and performer of theater and music, and currently performs with Brooklyn-based experimental theater companies Object Collection and Title:Point. She was born and raised in Northampton, MA, and is thrilled to have recently relocated to the area after many years away.
Trenda Loftin (she/her)
is a multi-passionate creative and co-operative real estate professional with an entrepreneurial spirit. She is committed to mobilizing collective resources of all kinds to cultivate a deeply felt sense of liberation.
Art Middleton (he/him)
is an educator and writer who has been teaching for over a decade in colleges and universities here in Western Massachusetts and in the Bay Area of California. From 2018-2021, Art was the Forbes Library Writer in Residence where he curated the Our Work and Why We Do It reading series
Mary Ramsay (she/her)
has worked in grant writing and project development for museums, colleges, and arts organizations in Massachusetts and Hawaii and recently co-founded Nonprofit GrowthGen, a small consulting business that trains and mentors grant writers and provides grant writing services. She is a longtime practitioner of authentic movement, is trained in social justice mediation, and is currently studying somatic abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem and is using authentic movement to explore how white people embody and enact oppression, privilege, and reparations.
Mary Ramsay (she/her)
has worked in grant writing and project development for museums, colleges, and arts organizations in Massachusetts and Hawaii and recently co-founded Nonprofit GrowthGen, a small consulting business that trains and mentors grant writers and provides grant writing services. She is a longtime practitioner of authentic movement, is trained in social justice mediation, and is currently studying somatic abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem and is using authentic movement to explore how white people embody and enact oppression, privilege, and reparations.
ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
A.P.E. was founded by and for artists in 1977. Since its founding, A.P.E.'s work and spirit has been shaped by numerous artists who have found a home in A.P.E.'s spaces. Their creative work and wisdom continue to inform A.P.E.'s programming and vision.
Gordon Thorne was the Founding Director of A.P.E. (1977) and the Open Field Foundation (1996).
“I make a wide range of stuff, some of it art. All the stuff, including the art, has a story embedded in it, often about survival. I think life is fundamentally, although not exclusively, about survival. Surviving white water in a canoe, requires paddling faster than the current. Surviving as a creative person during this stage of civilization’s evolution, in the powerful currents flowing toward destruction, demands that we create more than we destroy. When a new image or a new sound emerges out of this struggle, the soul is always interested. The stuff I make and collect speaks to me at this level, and increasingly in the simplest of phrases.”
“I make a wide range of stuff, some of it art. All the stuff, including the art, has a story embedded in it, often about survival. I think life is fundamentally, although not exclusively, about survival. Surviving white water in a canoe, requires paddling faster than the current. Surviving as a creative person during this stage of civilization’s evolution, in the powerful currents flowing toward destruction, demands that we create more than we destroy. When a new image or a new sound emerges out of this struggle, the soul is always interested. The stuff I make and collect speaks to me at this level, and increasingly in the simplest of phrases.”
Roy Faudree is the co-director and co-founder of No Theater (referred to by NPR critics as "the best-kept secret in experimental theater") with Sheena See, and has been associated with A.P.E. since its founding in 1976, after years without a physical home (a situation which gave the group its name). No Theater is the "resident theater" of A.P.E. and has been closely affiliated with the gallery. Roy is also an actor with the Wooster Group in New York City. He has been producing the Young @ Heart Chorus since its first show in 1983.
Andrea Olsen was Professor of Dance and held the John C. Elder Professorship in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, in Middlebury, VT. She also taught on the Monterey, California campus each spring, bringing embodiment practices into advanced courses on international communication. She’s the author of Bodystories, A Guide to Experiential Anatomy; Body and Earth, An Experiential Guide; Moving Between Worlds and The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dance and Dance Making, in collaboration with Caryn McHose. Andrea performs and teaches internationally and considers A.P.E. her creative home. andrea-olsen.com
Photo credit: Alan Kimara Dixon
Photo credit: Alan Kimara Dixon
Peter B. Schmitz was a long-time artistic figure in Northampton as a dancer, actor, choreographer, and teacher, while also working extensively in New York City and internationally. He arrived in the region in l975 as a founding member of Dance Gallery, which remained resident dance company at A.P.E. in Thornes Market from l978-2003 and contributed to the artistic revitalization of the community involving multiple art forms. Peter was on the Board of Directors of A.P.E. (Available Potential Enterprises) in Northampton, MA and lived at Bramble Hill Farm in Amherst, MA until his death August 10, 2022. A.P.E. created The Creative Coaching Fund as a way to honor Peter's influential work as a mentor, advisor, and teacher.
Sheryl Stoodley is the Artistic Director & Co-founder of Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble. She has performed, taught and directed with regional and academic theatres throughout New England for the past 30 years. Several of her productions have toured nationally and internationally. She received her MA in Theatre from Smith College. Sheryl teaches ensemble acting and the Serious Play! physical theatre-making process, “total physical expressiveness on stage,” at Holyoke Community College, and with the Serious Play! Associate Artists locally, nationally and internationally. Sheryl is currently co-facilitator of the LAB at A.P.E. with co-director/steward Mollye Maxner.
Michael Tillyer is a visual artist and Director of the Anchor House of Artists, a subsidized studio and gallery. Its mission is to create and expand creative careers available to artists living with persistent neurodiverse conditions, fight the social stigma that they face, and contribute to the cultural enrichment of Western Massachusetts and beyond. The Anchor House has exhibited work by hundreds of artists for over two decades. Michael has a long association with A.P.E. and currently provides curatorial and design support.
Jil Crary-Ross is a New York City-based painter. Crary-Ross uses figurative painting, portraiture, and material study to investigate concepts of contemporary folklore; exploring how land and the built environment shape iterations of the self. In addition to painting, Jil self-publishes zines and artist books and makes three-dimensional objects out of paper pulp and concrete that she calls ‘object paintings.’ Jil was a 2022 fellow at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation (Taos, NM) and is currently included in the White Columns Curated Artist Registry. Jil has served as a curator and designer with A.P.E. and was part of the team that created A.P.E.'s ARC program (initially called 6x6). jillcraryross.com