NNEALP Advisory Committee

Natasha Becker, Ted S. Berger, Devin Colman, Glenn Gissler, Sue Higby, Valerie Hird, Saul Ostrow, and Mark S. Waskow.

NATASHA BECKER is an independent curator and one of the co-founders of Assembly Room, an exhibition space for women curators in New York City. Most recently Natasha co-curated the inaugural exhibition for the new Ford Foundation Exhibition space entitled Perilous Bodies. Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, she came to New York in 2003 to pursue a doctoral degree in art history and migrated to curating, honing her practice at various arts organizations, commercial art galleries, and independent art spaces. In addition to her curatorial practice, Becker also taught art history at the School of Visual Arts and the New School University. She has held curatorial positions at the Goodman Gallery in South Africa, and was the assistant director for Mellon Foundation initiatives in global art history at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In 2009 she founded, with artist Bradley McCallum, the Brick+Mortar International Video Art Festival in Greenfield, MA, and oversaw the festival’s four editions. As an international curator, she is particularly interested in art that responds to socio-political subjects. Her past exhibition highlights include “Speaking Back” and “Shirin Neshat: Dreamers” at Goodman Gallery and “Weights and Measures: Portraits of Justice” at the Constitution Hill Museum (South Africa); “Americanah,” Spring Break Art Show (New York), “Dialogues in Drawing”, Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, and more recently, “Multiplicities Vol. 1” at Assembly Room. She regularly consults for Foundations, galleries, arts and educational organizations, and collectors.

THEODORE S. BERGER has held positions as Treasurer of the Board of Director and as Trustee of the Joan Mitchell Foundation. He is the Executive Director of NYCreates and has served as a consultant as Project Director of the Urban Artist Initiative/NYC, and numerous other organizations including the Brooklyn Public Library, the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation, the Robert Giard Foundation, and Rutgers University. He is Executive Director Emeritus of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Ted serves on numerous boards and committees, including: ArtsConnection, the Asian American Arts Alliance, the Center for West Park, the CUE Art Foundation, the Design Trust for Public Space, HB Studio and Playwright’s Foundation, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, and the New York City Arts Coalition. He is also a member of the Honorary Board of the Alliance of Artist Communities, and on Advisory Committees for the Actors Fund, CERF+, and the Research Center for Arts and Culture. He was formerly Assistant Dean for the Graduate Faculties (now Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) and the School of International Affairs at Columbia University.

DEVIN COLMAN Grew up in Minnesota and attended Colby College in Maine, where he earned a BA in Art with concentrations in Art History and Studio Art (sculpture). He then worked as the director/curator of the Macalester College Art Gallery before pursuing graduate studies at the University of Vermont. He earned a MS in Historic Preservation and wrote his thesis on modernist residential architecture in northwestern Vermont. Since 2006 he has worked at the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, and is currently the State Architectural Historian.

GLENN GISSLER Integrates rigorous training as an architect with a rich knowledge of design and decorative arts. Gissler has served as an art advisor for many of his clients. He has placed works by Joan Mitchell, Larry Poons, Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero, Cy Twombly, Pablo Picasso, Brice Marden, Jacob Hashimoto, Donald Judd, Richard Tuttle, and many others. From 2006 to 2016, Gissler sat on the Board of Governors of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and has taken a strong lead in building the institution’s collection of 20th century design through donations of objects. Gissler has also been a visiting critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the Parsons School of Design.

SUSAN HIGBY Executive Director of Studio Place Arts (SPA), a regional not-for-profit art center in Central Vermont, and previously served as the Board Chair during the start-up phase. Studio Place Arts, under Sue’s leadership, has been a pioneer in the creation of Artist Legacy-related programming through exhibitions and panels on topic. Sue has more than thirty-six years of nonprofit management, communications, marketing, and program development experience, with sixteen years of experience at national/international research institutions and environmental nonprofits based in Washington, DC. These include Resources for the Future, the National Council for Science and the Environment, and The Nature Conservancy.

VALERIE HIRD Is a contemporary visual artist who graduated with a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Vermont College. The Nohra Haime Gallery in NYC has been her primary representation for the past twenty-six years and has been responsible for her US and international exhibitions. Hird is a Vermont native with close creative ties to the people and countries of the Middle East and Central Asia where she has worked and traveled for 30 years. She has participated in a number of exhibitions including the Center for Book Arts NY, MASSMoCA, Portsmouth Museum, The Monmouth Museum and the Tampa Art Museum. The U.N. Art in Embassies program has three times acquired Hird’s work for their embassies in Turkey, Chile and Cuba. Other collections include the US State Department, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Fleming Museum, and Standard Charter Bank. Hird is at present an adjunct professor of art at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, lectures at Champlain College and in their CORE program. Awards and grants include several Vermont Arts Council fellowships, residency at The Studios of Key West, Vermont Community Foundation, and the Orton Foundation. 

SAUL OSTROW is a critic and the founder of the The Critical Institute, an organization that fosters research, teaching and practice dedicated to social justice and change. A renowned thinker and writer, he has four decades of experience in the contemporary art world. He was previously acting head of MFA studio program at New York University and Director of the Center for Visual Art and Culture at The University of Connecticut. He is Art Editor at Bomb and Editor of the Routledge book series Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture. Founder of Art Legacy Planning a for-profit entity providing one-on-one counsel that analyze, prescribe, and facilitate the necessary course of action to clients. 

MARK S. WASKOW is a philanthropist and collector of contemporary art and design. He has served on several boards including; The Main Street Museum in White River Junction, VT, and served as the President of its Board; the T.W. Wood Art Gallery in Montpelier, VT; the South End Arts and Business Association (SEABA), in Burlington, VT, and as Chair of its Board, Chair of its Curatorial Committee, and as Chair of the South End Art Hop, the largest visual arts event in Vermont, which draws over 40,000 people to Burlington each year; The Center for Book Arts in New York City, and as Chair of its Audit and Museum Assessment Program Committees. He continues to work as (Volunteer) Archivist for Studio Place Arts in Barre, VT, while devoting much of his time to the development of The Waskow Study Collection. Mark works professionally as an Estate and Financial Planner, specializing in Asset Allocation Modeling, Tax Efficient Inter-Generational Transfer of Closely-Held Intra-Family Businesses, and Strategic Wealth Planning. 

Guiding Stars - Special Acknowledgement: Sarah Bouchard, Janie Cohen, Ruth Fine, Leslie Fry, Christina Hunter, Marco Nocella, Shervone Neckles, Lowery Stokes Sims, Julia Schwartz, Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz and Christine J. Vincent.