Speakers

Marquetta Johnson

Marquetta Johnson is a Teaching Artist and Quilter currently residing in Stone Mountain, Georgia. She has over 20 years of teaching experience and professional development in the areas of Arts Integration, Arts Infusion and Inclusive Classrooms. Marquetta has appeared on many radio and television shows discussing and demonstrating her art form, an example being HGTV's "Crafters Coast to Coast". Marquetta's artwork has been featured in several magazines including "Quilt Magazine" and MARTA's "Marta on the Go Magazine". Her artwork is in many private and corporate collections such as B.B King, Faith Ringgold, The University of Maryland, Turner Broadcasting, and The Coca Cola Company. Marquetta is also a published author having written the book "Hand Dyed Quilts" now being sold on Amazon.com. Marquetta has affiliations with VSA International, The Names Project-The Aids Memorial Quilt Foundation, the Atlanta Partnership for the Arts in Learning and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Georgia.

Jeff Mather

Jeff Mather is a lead artist, co-founder, and board president for artsinlearning.org [Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning]. He is a public artist & environmental sculptor and is currently the STEAM Artist in Residence at the premier STEAM school in Georgia, the Drew Charter Scool. Mather has worked in Utah for 4 years and extensively in the Atlanta metro area and throughout the southeast as an independent artist and educator, serving over 120 sites, some having him return year after year. He has conducted hundreds of workshops and assembly programs in schools and other community venues. He has possibly the largest body of public art work of any sculptor in GA. He always works in collaboration with other artists and community members. He is a member of Alternate ROOTS and has had his community-based public art projects funded by ROOTS' Community/Artist Partnership Program three times. He is also a facilitator with Alternate ROOTS' Resources for Social Change training team. He is on the teaching artist banks with Young Audiences at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta and the Georgia Council for the Arts. In addition to his many sculpture residencies, Mather was the lead artist for the Woodruff Art Center's Digital Storytelling Program and is accomplished in digital media. As an APAL partner artist he has co-taught Geometry, Chemistry, and World History, and he has run digital storytelling residencies as part of APAL's intensive partnership with the South Atlanta School of Law & Social Justice for the past six years. He is currently developing a full semester 'Art for Social Justice' course for L&SJ that will be based on a sequence of back-to-back residencies with four other visiting artists participating. He has also been the lead artist for the On Site/Insight Program, coaching multi-school environmental art partnerships in Atlanta Public Schools, one of which resulted in the installation of the first permanent outdoor sculpture on the grounds of the Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta.

Mather has designed and co-facilitated many professional development retreats for educators and teaching artists. He has been an artist-in-residence twice at the High Museum in Atlanta, and was the first visual artist-in-residence for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, developing an object theater + dance collaboration for a series of 20 ASO concerts. He also has orchestrated the start up of the high school artists' "Throwdown", along with John Brandhorst, that has involved several GA high schools and has been hosted at the High Museum and other venues.

Mather is a fire juggler and a mandolin picker – though not at the same time. He is married to Amy Mather, an educator at Morningside Elementary School in Atlanta, who he met when he was artist-in-residence there in 1991. They have two daughters, Katherine and Grace.

Adriana Van Rensburg

Adriana Janse van Rensburg completed her music studies at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa obtaining the degrees B. Mus (Ed), B. Mus Honors, M. Mus and a doctorate in music education. She also obtained Licentiates from UNISA and the ROYAL SCHOOLS OF MUSIC (London) in piano performance. Her Masters dissertation focused on guided composition for teens that included extensive research and practical application in the teaching field. Her doctoral dissertation focused on Songwriting in Adolescence. She continued her studies at Georgia State University where she obtained a second Masters degree in music education. After 26 years in the classroom teaching elementary, middle, high school and college level students in various capacities, she served as Program Manager for a.r.t.s.APS, an initiative in the Fine Arts of Atlanta Public Schools. She formerly served on the adjunct faculty of Georgia State University teaching Arts Integration, served on the Education Board of Spivey Hall at Clayton State University and is a member of GMTA, GMEA and The Piano Guild of America. Ongoing activities include further research in Critical Thinking in Music and Music Composition in the Classroom. She is the composer of several piano compositions for beginner, intermediate and late-intermediate piano.

• Music Composition for Teens - a graded first course
• Music Composition for Teens - a graded second course
• Music Tells my Story - integrating music composition and English Language arts skills
• Music Paints my Picture - integrating music composition and visual arts
• Music Composition - It's Elementary
• Piano Pieces for Kids by Kids

Barry Stewart Mann

Barry Stewart Mann is an Atlanta-based actor, storyteller, educator, and writer. Born in New Jersey and raised in Florida, Barry is a graduate of Harvard University with an M.F. A. in Theatre from the University of San Diego. As an actor, he has appeared in dozens of plays throughout the country, at such theatres as the Old Globe in San Diego, the Studio Theatre in D.C., Arkansas Rep, the South Florida Shakespeare Festival, and Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit, Horizon Theatre, and Shakespeare Tavern. As a teaching artist, Barry leads workshops and residencies through the Alliance Theatre, Young Audiences at the Woodruff Arts Center, and the Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning, where he also serves on the Board. Barry has been a professional storyteller since 1992, and shares tales with thousands of listeners in schools, libraries, camps, and festivals every year. He was named the 1999 "National Storyteller of the Year"; his stories have been heard on public radio stations in many parts of the country through the "Recess!" program; and he was recently featured at the II Festival Internacional de Cuentacuentos in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Barry has also produced two CD's of his original stories, "The King of Cool" and "The Improbable Love of Ethel and Elmer." He is on the faculty of Lesley University, where he teaches "Drama and Critical Literacy" and "Cultural History Through Storytelling" to educators in the M. Ed. Program in Creative Arts in Learning. Barry is a proud member of Actors Equity Association, the National Storytelling Network, the Southern Order of Storytellers, and Alternate R.O.O.T.S. He is married to actor/director Sheri Mann Stewart, and proud father of actor sons Tendal and Royce.

Mary Stewart

Author, artist, and educator Mary Stewart is the Foundations Program Director for the Art Department at Florida State University and co-founder of Integrative Teaching International, a professional organization devoted to strengthening college-level teaching. She regularly gives workshops and lectures on creativity, curriculum design, visual communication, leadership, and visual narrative. Her artwork has been shown in over ninety exhibitions nationally and internationally, and she has received two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants for collaborative choreography. Her most important publication to date is Launching the Imagination: A Comprehensive Guide to Basic Design. First published in three versions by McGraw-Hill in 2002, Launching the Imagination is the first art and design fundamentals text explicitly written and designed for college students in the 21st century. Designed for courses in Creativity, Two-, Three- or Four-Dimensional Design, Launching the Imagination offers a comprehensive framework on which students, teachers, and administrators can build. It uses over 600 examples drawn from traditional and contemporary sources in all media. Interviews of artists and designers, known as Profiles, introduce students to working processes, career choices, and criteria for excellence from a remarkable group of masters. Stewart has received the National Council of Arts Administrators Award of Distinction, the FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education) Master Educator award and an award for excellence in teaching from SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference).

Stephanie White

Stephanie is an adjunct lecturer in the Theatre Arts Department at Utah State University. Her dance training is extensive and includes studying with Maggi Moar, Irene Bates, Marsha Knight, and Sandra Emile. She continues to perform as well as choreograph for musical theatre, ballet, opera, and choral works (Included affiliations: Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre, Lyric Theatre, American Festival Chorus and Orchestra, USU Theatre, Cache Valley Civic Ballet, Music Theatre West, Festival of the American West, USU Sunburst Club). This past year's contribution included Cinderella (playing wicked Stepmother) with Cache Valley Civic Ballet, My Fair Lady and Fiddler on the Roof with Music Theatre West, Family Pops Concert with Dr. Craig Jessop's AFCO company, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde with Cache Theatre Company, and Sideways Stories with USU Theatre. Stephanie continues her work with local high schools with musical productions and show choirs. She holds a Masters of Education and focussed her studies on arts integration in the elementary schools. She is honored to be a part of the ARTS Access conference.

Courtney Bryant

Ms. Bryant attended college at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art, studying Art Education and Design. There, she learned about STEAM–design education with multidisciplinary, problem-based investigation–before the acronym existed.

Ms. Bryant has taught K-12 students in public schools and museums in Cleveland, Charlotte, and Atlanta, almost exclusively in low-income communities. She created the Animation Program at South Atlanta High School. She then went on to create the school's Engineering Design Program. While there, she earned CTAE Teacher of the Year for Atlanta Public Schools as a result of the innovative STEAM/PBL/student-centered curriculum. Additionally, her students won Art School of the Year for Atlanta Public Schools for three consecutive years. One of her students also won the prestigious American Institute of Architects High School Design Competition.

She pursued a graduate education at the Maryland Institute College of Art, researching the cultivation of creativity through technology and generating a body of work in animation. Her research results were published in the Journal of the National Art Education Association's March 2010 edition. Currently, she utilizes her research and passion for designing innovative curriculum in her work with students and teachers at Drew Charter School as the STEAM Coordinator. In April of 2015, School Arts Magazine highlighted her students' work for their design and build of the STEAM based TinkerYard. She also presented at the 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017 National Art Education Association Annual Conferences. In 2015 Ms. Bryant and her team won a STEM Education Award, granted by the Technology Association of Georgia and she was named as a winner for Governor's Innovation in Teaching Award for her work with her K-5 Design Program. In 2016, she was named an Allen Distinguished Educator. Additionally, in March 2017 Drew's Elementary Academy was STEAM certified by the state of Georgia.

Gerard Stropnicky

Gerard Stropnicky is in his 44th year as a multi-faceted theatre professional. After graduating Northwestern, he studied with Alvina Krause, and in 1978 co-founded Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE), where he worked for the next 35 years, becoming Emeritus in 2012. He's acted in over 100 productions, and directed 70 to date, including classic, contemporary, new, original or devised plays at BTE, Maryland Ensemble Theatre, Touchstone Theatre, Sandglass Theatre, Florida Shakespeare Festival and elsewhere. He's written, co-written or devised a score more. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, culled from 200 years of letters to local newspapers, was published as a play by Baker's Plays/Samuel French and as a trade paperback by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. In rural communities, in Appalachia, Pennsylvania, and the deep South, he writes and directs large-scale site-specific productions featuring diverse community casts employing local story to celebrate, challenge, and address intractable issues. Several were co-written with poet and playwright Jo Carson. Recently his practice expanded to communities in Uganda and Rwanda. He is an occasional writer for AMERICAN THEATRE magazine. He has served as a panelist or reporter for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Pew Charitable Trust's Philadelphia Theatre Initiative. A co-founder of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, the national service organization for ensembles, he currently serves on NET's Board of Trustees. He was named USA Lowe Fellow in Theater in 2010. With his wife of 30 years, Kathleen Baas, and inspired by their son who has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), they co-founded and serve as Executive Co-Directors of CampEmerge, a camp for families touched by autism. Now heading into its 20th year, CampEmerge invites families for a fun fellowship weekend full of arts, crafts, fishing, swimming, boating, climbing, archery – really just normal camp stuff – including a hayride and s'mores around a campfire. Last year, CampEmerge served 72 families, 90 on the spectrum, and a total population of 333. For his service to the autism community, he was the 2010 Temple Grandin Award winner for service to the autism community.