Class Instructors

I’m a retired educator and business owner and have been painting Fantastic Furniture for 20 years. It all started with a class given by my mentor, Ginny Boylan, at the Marblehead Arts Association. Prior to moving to the Cape, I was the co-owner of Yellow Dog Designs. We created custom work for clients on the Northshore of Boston including painted furniture and floorcloths. Currently I paint for pleasure and for a wonderful non-profit called Painting for a Purpose. They hold an annual auction to benefit the Portland Public Schools. One of my chairs was featured on poster promoting the event. Each year I paint dozens of pieces for the auction.

Barry is a long-term committed practitioner of Tai Chi and a graduate of the Tree of Life Tai Chi Center’s teacher training certification program, based on the Harvard Medical School’s Guide to Tai Chi and its Eight Active Ingredients of Tai Chi curriculum. In addition to teaching his own classes Barry teaches sessions for the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard University Library, and has been a featured instructor at the Harvard Medical School’s Herbert Benson MD Course in Mind Body Medicine, The Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and The Cambridge Health Alliance’s Center for Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, as well as at the Tree of Life Tai Chi studios in Watertown.

Barry brings his experience as a life-long soccer goalkeeper coach to bear in providing a welcoming environment for the cultivation of fitness, health and mental well-being. Learn more at www.findingbalancetaichi.com.

Award-winning Cape Cod artist Joe Gallant has been a full-time painter and instructor on Cape Cod for 25 years. He has conducted his popular Big Brush painting workshops for beginners and more advanced students at Cotuit Center for the Arts for a number of years. In 2019 and 2021, Joe also conducted all-day painting workshops sponsored by Cape Cod Collaborative for Cape and Islands public and private school arts teachers. He employs a casual and fun approach to painting instruction that his students enjoy.

Joe has an in-home gallery in Sandwich that is open by appointment. His original art, prints, boxed note cards and boxed Christmas cards are also sold in retail stores and on his website at www.capecodwatercolors.com.

Melanie Gillis is an artist and art teacher. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Teaching Visual Art from Bridgewater State University. She enjoys teaching a variety of mediums that include drawing, painting, printmaking, mixed media, and clay. She has taught at The Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University and currently teaches in public school and at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. Melanie loves to teach students of all ages and to encourage them to explore, take chances and develop their creative voice. When Melanie is not teaching art she is engaged in making artworks in a variety of mediums; photography, printmaking, clay, and fiber art.

Neil Grant is an English representational sculptor who makes fine art through a slightly different lens. The winner of the 2018 Newby Patrons Award at the National Sculpture Society’s Annual Awards Exhibition, he combines technical skill with storytelling and humor.

Neil lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts where he sculpts out of his studio, and is part of the teaching faculty at Cotuit Center for the Arts.

“Sculpture is how I put my thoughts out into the world, and so I try to make sure that they are ideas worth sharing,” says Neil. “All sculptures have an origin story, and mine normally begin with questions such as, ‘I wonder if anyone has ever attempted that in clay before?’ or ‘It’s probably not what you’d call classical sculpture, but I wonder if people would like it?’ I love sculpture and any other form of art that fuses skill, emotion, and—if it can—a bit of humor. That’s what I aim for in my work."

More details about Neil and his work can be found at www.granty-art.com.

Steve Gregory is the owner of Score Music in Sandwich, MA where he and his instructors teach musical instruments and voice.

He founded the Cotuit Center for the Arts Ukulele Orchestra series of classes in 2011, has taught music, ukulele and guitar at the Cape Cod Conservatory and Rock Band classes Falmouth Academy.

Steve is currently the Saturday Service Music Director at West Parish Church in West Barnstable. He's also performed for 45 years as a guitarist and vocalist for his own groups as well as a sideman for several Cape Cod based acts.

www.lisagorenpaintings.com

Lisa Goren was born in California and raised in NYC. And yet she has dreamed of Polar landscapes since she was in her teens. Her first trip took her to Antarctica where she was inspired and captivated by the landscape. Later travels to Iceland, Alaska, increased her love for the Polar Regions. Her watercolors show an unfamiliar landscape in a new light. By using vibrant colors and taking risks with different surfaces, she makes the viewer reevaluate their understanding of both these landscapes and their beliefs in the potential of the medium. Her works create questions about the nature of abstraction and our planet as many of her pieces are representations of unfamiliar, threatened terrains.

Lisa’s work can be found in personal collections worldwide, from Australia to Iceland, and the United States. Her place on the 2013 Arctic Circle Residency was chronicled in an article she wrote for the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1PAO5mr) and led her to her next phase of her Polar work. She had two pieces in “Gaia - Les femmes et l'ecologie” in Paris to coincide with the COP21 Climate talks. Recently, her Google Talk (http://bit.ly/lisagorengoogle) gave her a larger platform to discuss her travels, art, and the Polar regions.

Lisa has been working out of Boston, Massachusetts for the past 25 years and is Vice-President of the National Association of Women Artists (Mass. Chapter). During the Pandemic, she has been working on smaller paintings of Animals Taking Over during the Quarantine as well as portraits of health care workers (chosen to be in The Best Art Created by Washington Post Readers During the Pandemic by Washington Post).

Holly Heaslip, B.S. Art Education, M.F.A., has worked in clay for over 45 years and continues to find magic in the process. Inspired by students, she has taught at Rochester Institute of Technology, The Cultural Center of Cape Cod, and Art Park in N.Y. State. She also works as the on-site program coordinator for The New England Craft Program at Snow Farm. Teaching Tai Chi is another of Holly’s passions.

Sam Holmstock, a founding member of the band Entrain, has taught Afro-Caribbean drumming for 35 years. For the last eight, he has taught on the Cape at Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cape Cod Community College, and at the Brewster Treatment Center, a residential program for incarcerated teen boys.

Sarah Kahn has studied and taught art for over thirty years. She received an MSW, from NYU, in 1984, after graduating from Bennington College, in applied art and early childhood studies- (BS). She has been on-staff at The New Art Center, in Newton Ma., for the past 10 years, and initiated two community art programs there . Her Sunday art class was designed for young adults with developmental disabilities, and she led a series of classes to women impacted by domestic violence.

She has taught art classes and planned art curricula for children, and currently teaches art students and adults interested in beginning an art practice, at Provincetown Art Assn., and Museum (PAAM), The Falmouth Art Center (FAC), as well as workshops at NAC, in Newton Ma. She was under representation for 15 years, at Soprafina Art Gallery, S.O.W.A. Art district, downtown Boston, and is an exhibiting NOS (Newton Open Studios) artist.

Sarah loves watching students find joy and a sense of connection to personal imagery, by teaching mixed-media collage. The freedom to access and become familiar with an assortment of art supplies offers students the freedom to explore, play, and find comfort without rigidity.

Lucy Lee is a highly trained dancer with years of experience teaching ballet and movement to students of all ages and skill levels. Her style of instruction is rooted strongly in fundamental technique and a deep passion for the art of dance. As a teacher, her goal is to foster a love of movement and enjoyment of dance in her students. She has been teaching at Cotuit Center for the Arts for many years, the community is grateful to have her.

Léonie Little-Lex is a fine artist and illustrator from Cape Cod, MA. She graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a BFA in Illustration, then went on to complete her Masters of Arts in Teaching. She shows her work in galleries and art shows on Cape Cod and in the greater Boston area, and has also exhibited nationally in Oregon, New York, and North Carolina. She works in a variety of mediums with an emphasis on painting and pen-and-ink drawings. She recently illustrated her first children's book, "A is for Always: An Adoption Alphabet", published in August 2022. In addition to her work as an artist, Léonie has been an instructor in drawing and painting for over 10 years, both in private and community settings.

After decades of teaching drawing and painting to children and adults it is her conviction that thinking you have no ability or so-called “talent” can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Creativity can be learned and this is one of the premises of her classes, to dispel all the misconceptions about art. Her focus is to relax, inspire confidence, encourage and minimize inhibitions while enjoying the journey of creating.

Before moving to Cape Cod she taught painting in her home studio in Millis, Ma. Conducted workshops and classes at Boston Public Library, Copley Society of Boston, art guilds, schools and libraries on Cape Cod, in Rhode Island, the North Shore and New Hampshire.

She was the founder/director of the Stoney Brook Arts Guild at the Stoney Brook Nature Center in Norfolk, Ma. Since moving to the Cape she has taught at Falmouth Arts Guild, Sandwich Arts Alliance, Cape Cod Arts Assoc. Upper Cape Tech. H.S. and Cotuit Center for the Arts where she loves being a part of for the past several years.

Canadian-American artist Jackie Reeves uses mixed media to bring together figurative and abstract elements in her art. She was raised in Montreal by architect parents and studied design art at Concordia University. Her artistic career began as a professional mural painter for corporate, private and public spaces. Concurrently, Reeves co founded the Plymouth Community Art Center. In 2010 she earned her MFA in painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design at the Fine Art Work Center in Provincetown. She has since exhibited in solo and group shows in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington DC and North Carolina. She has been profiled in numerous publications including WHITEHOT Magazine, the Boston Globe, Art New England and Artscope Magazine.

Reeves is an active member of the Cape Cod community offering mentorship through her art classes, public art and work with youth in creating murals that tackle issues of inclusion, diversity and acceptance.

Jackie works out of the Old Schoolhouse Studios in Barnstable Village and lives with her husband and three daughters in Sandwich, Massachusetts.

Bob Singer is a Cape Cod Art Center juried master artist in fine art photography, an NECCC Master Member and photography instructor whose images have won hundreds of awards in exhibitions and salons around the world, have appeared in and on the covers of national and regional publications, in corporate annual reports, advertising, and brochures. His limited editions hang in galleries, homes and offices across the US, Canada and Europe. Bob has taught photography/digital editing classes and workshops, has presented programs and has judged exhibitions at photo conventions, camera clubs and art centers from New England to Florida for over 35 years.

Michael Walter has been an artisan working with glass and wood for over 20 years. The joy of the project is his motto. He has studied in glass at Diablo School of Glass and wood at The North Bennet School and Penland School of Craft. His love of tinkering and learning new skills leads him in many directions; electrical, metal, tile, plastics. You never know what might add flair to a project. He loves to mentor and teach people of all ages. He thinks everyone should be able to work with their hands and make something they are proud of and hang on their wall or "window":) Or better yet, leave as legacy piece to their kids or grand kids to be handed down for generations.