Christian Olson
Christian is a communications specialist with King County supporting the Inquest Program and the Department of Executive Services. If not for the kismet opportunity to work for the county in which he grew up in, he long thought he would wind up a high school teacher – having come from a family of educators and graduating with an English major from Western Washington University. Considering himself a decent artist and musician, art has always been an important part of his life. Since high school, he has also found himself working for or volunteering with various youth-centered art groups or clubs. Christian is passionate about public service and supporting his community, and he is incredibly thankful for the opportunity to work with Arts Corps.
Diane Korf
Diane Korf works as a juvenile program services supervisor with Juvenile Court Services. She is responsible for the direct oversight of King County Superior Court’s Education and Employment Training program (EET) for court involved young people. Diane is passionate about finding ways and means to support young people in overcoming challenges, as well as defining and working toward realizing their dreams.
Diane is also a mixed media artist, primarily working in acrylics, who seeks to connect with and honor the simple beauty of nature in her work. As a long practicing artist, Diane recognizes the benefits of the arts as a format for integrating social emotional learning, as well as the benefits of incorporating the arts as a trauma responsive support for people of all ages. She has worked to incorporate the arts into the Juvenile Court’s programming options. She advocated for the Youth Gallery in the Clark Children and Family Justice Center and secured funding to add an arts component to the EET program. Diane has facilitated arts activities with youth, their friends and families, as well as employed teaching artists, and supported her staff in facilitating arts programming. Diane believes some of her most meaningful work to date has been finding ways for young people to be empowered to create and display their art, experience the possibility for developing community in the arts, and to see how the arts might be a viable career path or financial support for them.
Gail Sehlhorst
Gail Sehlhorst is the Visual and Performing Arts Manager for Seattle Public Schools. In the 9 years she has served in this role, she’s closed arts access gaps across the district doubling the number of music and visual arts programs, collaborated with over 250 arts teachers to create curriculum that activates 21st century skills, is culturally responsive and antiracist, and has partnered with multiple stakeholders on The Creative Advantage, a city-wide initiative to establish equitable access to arts education for every student in Seattle Public Schools. Prior to this role she was the Director of Education for Book-It Repertory Theatre’s Arts & Education Program and worked as a teaching artist in K-12 classrooms with ACT, Arts Impact, Book-It, Seattle Children’s Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. She has been a consultant for arts-based program evaluation and curriculum design such as the WA State Teaching Artist Training Lab and the University of Washington’s Arts for Learning Project. Her focus as a teaching artist and educator have been to develop curricula and programs that integrate theatre and literacy, as well as teacher professional development to incorporate arts into the classroom. Gail has been a commissioner for ArtsWA, has a BFA in Acting from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, and an M.Ed. from the University of Washington in Curriculum and Instruction: Language, Literacy, and Culture.
Greg Thornton
Greg Thornton is a teaching artist, small business owner, visual artist and screen printing instructor who has a great passion for teaching youth. Greg was a restaurant manager and had been for many years when he was asked in the fall of 2013 by a local school district to present a curriculum for an art program in the district’s middle schools. From the first minute of his first class, Greg knew he had found the job that he wanted to do for the rest of his life – teaching and engaging students with art. At the beginning of his teaching artist career, Greg also had an opportunity to teach teens at an inpatient drug/alcohol treatment facility and at programs involving court-involved youth. Those experiences solidified Greg’s desire not only to teach students in a public school setting, but also to work closely as a teacher and mentor at-risk youth and youth in need. Greg engages students in the creative process by focusing on them as individuals, helping them to express their fears and their dreams, to set goals, and to develop the desire to succeed despite possible difficulties. Greg’s main goal is that each of his students learn to express their own voices in a creative and positive way. Greg’s lessons also teach skills that translate to other areas of the students’ lives – collaboration, leadership, acceptance, empathy, public speaking. Greg realizes that not every youth will become a great artist during his courses – but that truly is not the goal. Greg simply asks each student to embrace the journey of discovery and hopes that creating art helps build confidence in his students and that they have fun.
Hilary Cherner
Treasurer
Hilary is a problem solver and dot connector. A self-described philanthropy geek, Hilary has a passion for effective giving and, in particular, harnessing technology to unlock impact. She leads Sand Technologies’ social impact practice and previously held multiple leadership positions at Arabella Advisors. Hilary holds a BA in sociology from the University of Colorado and an MA in public affairs with a concentration in nonprofit management from Indiana University. She lives in Seattle with her husband and rescue pups.
Jared McConnell
My experience consists of over 12 years in the banking industry with the last six years being in the Business Banking space. I have worked in various roles such as Small Business Advisor, SBA Advisor and now a Business Banking Relationship Manager where I manage a portfolio of clients in a very wide range of industries. I have participated many times with organizations such as Junior Achievement of WA to lead financial wellness classes as well as partnered with the University of Washington Foster School of Business to provide hands on teaching to students in the finance program and assist them in understanding financial statements and building a business plan for their final projects. I have also spent a large portion of my time in the Business Banking space dedicated to working with individuals who would like to start their own business. This work consists of helping them understand how to best position themselves to start a business using the SBA program. I have done dozens of SBA start up loans over the last six years and work very closely with our in-house SBA experts to always ensure I am up to speed on any SBA changes. Helping individuals down a path of starting their own business is a true passion of mine. I have a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting that has been very valuable when it comes to my role at the bank and also with the volunteer activities I enjoy participating in that are noted above.
Keenan Peery
Keenan is a 4th-year at Seattle University majoring in Public Affairs with a focus on Urban Development and Equitable Community Sustainability as well as minoring in Philosophy. He believes that, at any age, a connection to the arts is an invaluable resource that not only builds but emotionally fortifies communities through the intimate connections art brings. In his own life, he follows and supports Asian and Asian- American artists that use their work to build a noncentralized community through shared socio-cultural experiences.
Kim Hasegawa Darcy
Kim Hasegawa Darcy is the daughter of two amazing educators. She grew up on two coasts as her father was a professor in upstate NY and her mother, a Professor in Seattle. She racially identifies as Japanese American and has embraced her Japanese culture and heritage into her and her family’s lifestyle. She visited Japan every year and eventually lived there while her father was a professor at Hokkaido University. As a graduate of WSU, she currently serves students in the Shoreline School District as the District’s Equity Specialist centering BIPOC voices and student outcomes. She is passionate about racial equity work and is honored to serve on the Arts Corps Board.
Kris Evans Bien
Board Chair
After graduating with a B.A. in Communications/Broadcast Journalism, Kris spent the first part of her career working in live, network television production in LA and NY. Transitioning to the tech sector was a natural progression to combine a love of content creation and storytelling with creative writing, UX design, and TV programming while envisioning the future of television by creating interactive television prototypes at Microsoft. Kris’ work was published in two books. Once she had children, she transitioned to teaching K6 visual arts as an art docent in the Northshore School District, working for the Northshore Schools Foundation, and then as an art docent trainer for parents. Kris connected with Arts Corps to develop a new docent curriculum for the district, after partnering with the Museum of Women in the Arts, focusing on equity, diversity, and gender parity. She worked on Arts Corps’ Learning Immersive Technology pilot by recruiting an advisory board and trained as a teaching artist at ArtsWA’s TAT Lab. Kris served as Lead Ambassador for Arts Ed Washington, advocating for arts education across Washington state. She sees an education as incomplete without the arts and thinks districts must create more arts equity in schools. She misses her time with students in the classroom and has three children: one in college and twins finishing high school.
Michael Hepburn
A native of Oregon, Michael Hepburn has carved two successful careers, in music and in law. In the mid and late 1970’s Michael’s music achieved worldwide recognition through the success of his band, Pleasure. His compositions have been featured in the works of contemporary, mainstream, hip-hop, and rap artists, including the soundtrack for the movie, “House Party” (“Kid vs. Play, the Battle”), Janet Jackson’s 1997 release, “The Velvet Rope” (“Free Xone”) and Will Smith’s 2002 release, “Born to Reign” (“1000 Kisses”). In 2019, Pleasure released Now is the Time, available worldwide on Pleasure Records. An interview of Michael by Oregon Public Broadcasting journalist Paul Marshall featuring Michael’s personal story about the band Pleasure can be read, or heard, here. One can also find a fascinating reference to the musically influential legacy of the Pleasure band in Questlove’s 2021 New York Times bestselling book, “Music Is History,” where he mentions the Pleasure hit song, “Glide” and its impact on him. Questlove also included two versions of “Glide” on the curated playlist for former First Lady Michelle Obama’s book tour for her 2018 memoir, “Becoming.” Artists like Janet Jackson, Daft Punk and others have sampled Pleasure‘s work. Recently retired from his practice as a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County, Michael continues his songwriting, recording production, arranging, keyboard and vocal performance work in Seattle.
Olivia “LIV” Thomas
LIV is a Pacific Northwest Native (to be specific, from the 253) who at her core, values creativity, living freely, and the service of others. Her creative process is a reflection on love, community and what it means to be black and outspoken while shaping the world around you. LIV’s work ranges from music, to Directing, video production, project management, branding, graphic design, and marketing. She is most known for abilities to soundly execute a creative story, organize and produce dynamic visuals for a brand, crafting unique aesthetics, and successfully collaborating with others.
