Adam Collet
Staff Teaching Artist
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Adam has been taking photographs and making art since childhood. Adam went to school in Seattle, also attended Seattle Central Community College and the UW where he earned a BFA in Photography. In 2008, he began teaching and passing on an interest in art and design to the next generation. Still living in Seattle with wife, children, and cat.
Besides Adam’s photography and illustration work he’s also a Teaching Artist specializing in Visual Art with a focus on integrating Art and STEM disciplines. In addition to Arts Corps, he’s taught classes, and online content for King County Library System; Seattle Public Library; stArt Exploring, a project of Sound Transit; Seattle Parks and Rec; High Point Neighborhood House; Yesler Terrace, Youth Tutoring Program; Family Learning Program; and various schools in Highline and Seattle Public Schools.
Recent projects include Essentially Seattle – photographing essential workers for City of Seattle/SPU, from the Office of Art & Culture; Public Art Program – photographing publicly sited artworks for City of Seattle, from the Office of Art & Culture. Ethnic Artist Roster, Seattle; Creative Advantage Arts Partner Roster, Seattle; ShoreLake Artist Roster, Shoreline.
Carina A. del Rosario
Staff Teaching Artist
Born in the Philippines, Carina immigrated to the United States as a young girl. She earned her B.A. in Communication from Santa Clara University in 1991. She has studied photography with Magnum Photographer Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, Raul Touzon and Eddie Soloway, and a variety of visual arts media at Pratt Fine Arts, Cornish College of the Arts and other cultural institutions. In addition to her own creative and documentary projects, she is a teaching artist and helps youth use visual arts and digital media to explore their communities, advocate for what matters for them, and express their own experiences. She works with a number of schools, cultural institutions and community-based organizations to help students develop 21st century skills through the visual arts. She collaborates with non-profit organizations and educational institutions to help illustrate issues such as poverty, education, health and civil rights. She also founded IDEA Odyssey, a collective that promotes cultural diversity, community development and economic prosperity in the International District/Chinatown neighborhood through visual arts. In 2013, the International Examiner honored her with a Community Voice Award for an Individual Artist. Carina was recently recognized by KCTS 9 for her work as an educator and cultural worker in Washington State. See the full story here. Carina’s website
Eris Eaton
Program Manager
Eris Eaton is an avid singer and performer who loves exploring all art forms as a way to connect with others. As a performer, board member, and social engagement leader for the Level Up! Vocal Ensemble, Eris brings her passion for art and music to the broader community.
Grecia Leal Pardo
Development & Communications Coordinator
Grecia (she/her/ella) was born and raised in the cultural hub of Morelia, Mexico before moving to Southwest Washington at the age of 9. She studied Classics and Drama at the University of Washington, gaining a deep appreciation for how humans have long used art and storytelling as a way of making and finding meaning through time and space. She has had the pleasure of working and playing with various arts organizations across town as stage manager, director, translator, and community member.
Greg Thorton
Staff Teaching Artist
Greg 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.
Maria Luisa Guillen-Valdovinos
Staff Teaching Artist
Maria (Poesia Mariarte) is a visual creative thinker/artist, educator/art therapist and Indigenous Rights observer in environmental, food, and social justice movements; based in occupied Coast Salish Territories. Art ingrained in cultural experience, she graduated in 2010 from the University of Washington in Bio-Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies. She was born in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero Mexico and after studying graffiti in Lima, PERU IN 2009 with Jorge Miyagi and drawing flowers in Biology projects begun building creatively in cultural political movements, traveling with the National Indigenous Congress, parents of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, and visited Autonomous Zapatista communities as a human rights observer with FRAYBA, an indigenous human rights organization based in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas Mexico. Featured as a performer in BBC’s 100 Womxn in Mexico City 2016 and A Published Writer featured in “Chapter 9: Travels of a Diaspora Community: From La Sierra Madre Y Tierra Caliente to the Pacific Northwest” MEXICAN-ORIGIN FOODS, FOODWAYS, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A DECOLONIAL PRESPECTIVES, The University of Arkansas Press 2017; Publication “Xin Fronteras”, Seattle Journal for Social Justice Seattle University School of Law. Overall she is a lover of all things creatively expressive.
Naho Shioya
Co-Executive Director of Development & Operations
Naho is a mission-driven and value focused leader and consultant in Education, Arts & Culture, and Race and Social Justice. A strategic thinker through equity lens, she facilitates organizational transformation work in nonprofit, public, and private sectors. She is a thoughtful bridge builder with the aptitude to connect our culturally and socially diverse communities. She has the ability to engage people from all walks of life and inspire them through compassion and creativity. With over 20 years of experience, she is well versed in navigating non-profit management strategy, board relations, guiding organizational strategic plan development, designing and facilitating race and social justice workshops, and facilitating arts and arts-integration trainings. She is a member of Seattle Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts Department’s Anti-Racist and Culturally Responsive Arts Education framework – “Roots” team and Ethnic Studies/Theatre of the Oppressed project team.
As an actor, she has worked internationally in Asia, Canada, Europe and the U.S. Locally she has appeared at Intiman Theatre, ArtsWest, Seattle Children’s Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Public Theatre, and On the Boards, among others. As a director and teaching artist, she has worked with various organizations and schools in the greater Puget Sound area including Seattle Repertory Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Youth Theatre Northwest, Studio East, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, Seattle Public Schools, and City of Seattle. She is a graduate of the University of Washington, School of Drama, Professional Actor Training (MFA) Program, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in Education degree through University of Washington College of Education, Leadership for Learning (Ed.D) program.
Patrick Kang
Program Manager
Patrick grew up in Southern California and holds degrees in English and American Studies. He comes to Arts Corps with a passion for programming, initiatives, and movements designed for young people, particularly those driven for and by the community. Previous work includes promoting educational equity and building power within local youth leaders. Informed by personal experiences – challenging fears on stage as a shy adolescent/young adult, forming bonds through arts & crafts events, and connecting with family history through studying performance – he has a deep appreciation for the capacity of the arts to promote community, reflection, creative expression, and healing. In his spare time, Patrick likes to swim, eat anything with chocolate in it, and learn new ideas and skills.
Saeko Keller
Bookkeeper
Saeko was born in Tokyo, and first visited the US at 17 as part of a high school study abroad program. She has worked in accounting for ten years. She moved to the US permanently in 2015, when her husband retired from the Air Force. She is excited to apply her expertise as part of the Arts Corps team. During her time off, she enjoys painting, interior design, and relaxing with her Shiba Inu.
Shawn Roberts
Co-Executive Director of Education & Advocacy
Shawn Roberts (she/her) has a personal mission of “empowering people through the artform of dance and the arts.” She is grateful to have served the Puget Sound Region over the past 30 years through the impactful programs she has helped build and direct. Shawn is very clear about the impact the arts can have on the quality of people’s lives. Through her own journey as a dance educator and her work in the Puget Sound region, she has helped build local, national, and international dance, arts, and personal development programs from the ground up. In 2015, Shawn helped launch STG AileyCamp in collaboration with Seattle Theatre Group and Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. To date, this impactful personal development and dance program that was created by Alvin Ailey, has changed the lives of hundreds of middle school youth in the Seattle Region. Shawn is the former (founding) School and Education Director of Spectrum Dance Theater, under the Artistic Direction of Donald Byrd. In her 19 years at Spectrum, she taught, directed, produced student performances, and transformed the School of Spectrum Dance Theater from a community-based dance school, into a successful curriculum-based school with over 500 students and 68 classes a week in a variety of dance styles for beginning through pre-professional dancers. During her time as the School Director at Spectrum, she built the Academy Program, the pre-professional division of the school, that is still going strong today. In 2008, Shawn completed the Mark Morris Dance Group, Dance for Parkinson’s introductory training and has been teaching the classes and directing the Seattle Theatre Group program for the past 16 years. Shawn then went on to complete the Dance for PD® teacher certification, making her one of the first certified Dance for Parkinson’s teaching artists in the nation, outside of the founding teachers. Shawn is currently training to be a Dance for Parkinson’s teacher trainer to support the training of Dance for PD® teachers locally, nationally, and internationally. Shawn is a certified transformational life-coach and consultant and owns and operates a successful life-coaching business as well as a couple’s coaching business with her husband. Shawn holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and dance and a Masters of Arts in Social Sciences with a focus on Transpersonal Psychology from Antioch University.
