Board of Directors, Staff and Advisors
Staff
Yael Reinharz is Founding Executive Director of Surf Point Foundation. Prior to leading SPF, she was Founding Executive Director at Artis (2007-2018), an international nonprofit that supports contemporary artists from Israel. From 2001-2007, she was Assistant Director at Creative Time, the public art organization dedicated to working with artists' voices and visions to shape society and public life. Earlier in her career, she held positions at Christie’s New York, at Matthew Marks Gallery, and at Casey Kaplan Gallery. Yael earned her B.A. in Art History and Studio Art from Bowdoin College and her M.A. from New York University in Interdisciplinary Studies.
Executive Director
Yael Reinharz
photo credit: Hilary Schaffner
Samantha Butler
Program Manager
Samantha is an arts organizer and artist with a rich history of producing artist and community-centered programming, especially supporting emerging artists. In 2018, she co-founded New System Exhibitions and has worked with Maine arts institutions, including SPACE, Running with Scissors, and the Portland Museum of Art. She has served on the board of the Anonimo Foundation since 2022. Prior to her current role at Surf Point, Samantha was the manager of TEMPOart where she led the organization through its annual public art commission. Read about Samantha’s practice supporting creative communities in Maine Magazine. Samantha holds a B.A. from Connecticut College, where she studied the representation of gender and sexuality, American Studies, and Studio Art.
Kenny Lee Shapiro
Administrative Assistant
Kenny Lee Shapiro is a Portland-based artist primarily working in sculpture. He has lived in Maine for the past decade and in that time has held many different hats in the arts. He has worked as a welder and metalworker, a teaching artist, a studio assistant and a museum preparator. Through his varied experiences he has gained a deep appreciation for the richness of Maine’s ever-growing arts community and is excited to serve it as a part of the Surf Point team. Kenny holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College where he studied visual arts.
Board
Myron Beasley
Board Chair; Executive Committee Chair; Program Committee
Myron M. Beasley, Ph.D. is an Associate professor of American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Bates College. He is also an international curator and writes about art. He is the 2024 recipient of the Constance Carlson Prize from the Maine Humanities Council for his stalwart commitment to the Arts and Humanities. Amongst his curatorial projects is Re.Past.Malaga held on Malaga Island, ME. He is also the author of Performance, Art, and Politics in the African Diaspora. The book outlines his interest in the intersections between art, cultural and social policy, and human rights. Myron’s writing and ethnographic research about art and cultural engagement has been acknowledged by The Andy Warhol Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Reed Foundation, to name a few. He is passionate about the power of art to transform communities. He has served on the boards of the Mayo Street Arts, Maine Law, and Indigo Arts Alliance. Myron has been on the Board of Surf Point since 2021.
photo credit: Jesse Wendelken Photography
Christa Blatchford
Vice Chair; Program Committee Chair; Executive Committee
Christa Blatchford, Executive Director of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, directs the vision of the Foundation with the Board of Directors, and oversees the programming, administration, and operations of the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s New York City headquarters and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, LA. Christa previously served as the Foundation’s Artist Support Director, and then Deputy Director, overseeing national programs including the inaugural years of the CALL Program. A visual artist herself, Christa has been dedicated to the support of visual artists throughout her career. Before joining the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Christa spent three years as a Program Officer at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), working to provide a variety of professional development opportunities for artists. She has also worked with a range of non-profit visual arts organizations including Minetta Brook and Eyebeam. At Minetta Brook she worked on critically acclaimed programs such as Robert Smithson’s Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island. Christa Blatchford received her Masters degree in Fine Arts from Hunter College in 2005, taught at Hunter’s Undergraduate Art Department, and has shown her artwork throughout New England. Christa resides in Croton-on-Hudson, NY with her husband and two children.
Titus Dawson Polo
Program Committee
Titus Dawson Polo is an artist based in York, Maine. His paintings explore themes of labor and class, emphasizing process and personal narrative. Born in Madrid and raised in San Jose, CA, Titus pursued Film & Theatre at Occidental College and earned an MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He and his wife settled in various locations, including moving from Chicago to Portsmouth, NH, and then to Madrid, where they welcomed a child and became immersed in the vibrant Spanish art scene.
Passionate about his craft, Titus has supported his artmaking practice with a career in sales, contributing to diverse sectors such as DEI-focused Guerrero Media, SAAS, private aviation, sports tourism, jewelry, and Fintech.
Lisa Fischman
Board Chair Emerita; Executive Committee; Finance Committee
Lisa Fischman is Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director and Chief Curator of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, a position she has held since 2010, and through which she fosters leadership, curatorial innovation, and advocacy for DEAI imperatives and decoloniality initiatives in the field. Fischman has curated scores of exhibitions: at the Davis she has organized Lisa Reihana: In Pursuit of Venus (infected) (2022), Kanishka Raja: I and I (2019), Farideh Lashai: Only A Shadow (2015), Parviz Tanavoli (2015), and Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Olentoja (Creatures) (2013) among many others. Her most recent publications include Kanishka Raja: I and I (2022), Christiane Baumgartner: Another Country (2019), and Eddie Martinez: Ants at a Picknic (2017). Fischman is Chair Emerita of the Board of Directors of Surf Point.
Ellen Golden
Secretary; Executive Committee; Finance Committee
Ellen Golden is an artist with a studio in Brunswick. A long-time advocate for social and economic justice, she worked for many years at Coastal Enterprises, Inc., a Brunswick-based nonprofit community development corporation, where she oversaw program and policy work focused on women’s economic development, microenterprise development for immigrant communities and impact investing. She has served on a variety of boards and commissions and is currently on the boards of the Ellis Beauregard and Anonimo Foundations. She is an inductee of the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame and a past recipient of the Small Business Administration’s Women in Business Advocate, Minority Advocate, and Financial Services Advocate awards for Maine. A graduate of Barnard College and the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine, she lives in Woolwich.
Jennifer Ritvo Hughes
Treasurer; Finance Committee Chair; Executive Committee
Jennifer Ritvo Hughes has spent the last 12 years leading performing arts organizations through a period of seismic change. She currently serves as CEO of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In her role, she leads a national team that supports one of the world’s top orchestras by developing critical opportunities for cultural ambassadorship and raising friends and funds from the US and Canadian markets.
Previously Hughes served as Executive Director of Boston Baroque. As the chief administrative officer for America’s first Baroque orchestra and six-time GRAMMY nominee, she built a groundbreaking digital revenue stream that accounted for 30% of earned revenues, produced a brand new digital portfolio of 22 musical programs, 40 documentary shorts, 1 feature-length documentary, and one nationally-acclaimed children’s program, and improved the organization’s financial position, bringing balance sheets to positive net assets for the first time in a decade.
Prior to joining Boston Baroque, Hughes served as Executive Director of Cantata Singers for six and a half years. In her previous experience as Director of Publicity and Coordination for the Arts at Wellesley College, she led the promotion of the College’s public arts and cultural events and ran the Music Department’s Concert Series.
Hughes has been teaching at Boston University's Graduate Program in Arts Administration since 2020.
In addition to Surf Point, Hughes serves on the boards of the Boston Lyric Opera and North Star Baroque. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in music from Wellesley College, and earned a master’s degree in musicology from Brandeis University. A native of Newton, she lives in the town of Needham with her husband, who works as an attorney for UMass Memorial Health Care, and two daughters.
Tessa Greene O’Brien
Program Committee; Surf Point Alum 2022
Tessa Greene O’Brien is a Maine-based artist and curator with a multi-faceted painting practice. She views painting as a framework through which she connects to the world and deepens her understanding of it. Working in a variety of media and scales that range from architectural exterior murals to postcard-sized watercolor painting, O’Brien is perpetually interested in the possibilities of paint.
O’Brien has shown throughout the United States, including recent exhibitions at Dowling Walsh Gallery and Buoy Gallery in Maine, and Sears Peyton Gallery in NYC. She currently a 2022-2023 Residential Fellow at the Lunder Institute at Colby College, and has attended residencies at Surf Point Foundation, the Tides Institute, Monson Arts, Open Studio Residency at Haystack, Hewnoaks, Vermont Studio Center, Joseph A Fiore Art Center, and the Stephen Pace House residency. Her practice has received support through grants including the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, St Boltophs Emerging Artist Grant, Ellis Beauregaurd Travel Grant, Maine Arts Commissions Project Grant, The Joseph A. Fiore Painting Prize, Kindling Fund Grant through SPACE Gallery, and a Professional Development Grant through Maine College of Art. She is a co-director of Able Baker Contemporary Gallery, and lives in South Portland, ME.
Nikki Yanok
Finance Committee
Nikki Yanok Schneider is a native Mainer raised on the islands of Harpswell in Casco Bay, but currently residing in Freeport. She works with Coastal Enterprises, Inc and is passionate about economic development and impactful investments in her home state. She volunteers with a number of organizations and is particularly passionate about education, working with first-generation college students like herself as they navigate higher education and milestones beyond. Nikki fostered a love of the arts at a young age and worked as a student docent at Colby College to bring the resources of the college museum to young students in central Maine and encourage their curiosity of the arts like she had.
We extend our deep gratitude to past Board members: Michael Bartner, Daisy Desrosiers, Debra Drew DeVaughn, John D. Duffy, Marc Gotlieb, Margaret Hickey, Benjamin-Emile Le Hay, Becky Linney, David Linney*, Peter Pitegoff, Deborah F. Taylor, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, and Katharine Watson.
* indicates deceased
People We Work With
Elizabeth Brown
Gardener, Wild Knoll Foundation Garden
Elizabeth Brown is the owner of Foxglove Farmhouse, a cut flower garden near the tidal York River. She is a graduate of the Gardeners' Workshop Farmer Flower School, a certified therapeutic horticulturist, and a Maine Master Gardener. A lifelong York resident, Elizabeth had the pleasure of growing up down the road from Surf Point, and counts the magic of her childhood, spent wandering the woods and rocky shoreline, as the foundation for her interest in growing flowers for her community.
Tyler Conaway
Property Manager
Tyler Conaway is the owner of Alchemy Woodworks, a custom residential and commercial carpentry and woodworking business with clients in the Maine and New Hampshire seacoast. Prior to woodworking full time, Tyler captained boats up and down the east coast and in the Caribbean sea. Tyler is passionate about the arts, architecture and the outdoors. Tyler lives in Dover NH with his wife artist and Surf Point alum Carly Glovinski.
Kerry Constantino
Photographer
Kerry Constantino is a Southern Maine based photographer who creates thoughtful, lasting images of people who want to honestly preserve important moments in their lives. As Kerry puts it:
Artistic creation is part and parcel to who I am. As long as I can remember, I have been creating something. I found photography after spending most of my life studying dance and the performing arts. What is thrilling about photography is that it transcends visual art. Photography is not just a medium for documentation, it is a time machine. Year after year, we can return to these images and feel the gravity of the passage of time. We experience the “visual absence” of a particular time and place, often just a fraction of a second, that has been preserved in our images. I believe photography has the power to transport us back to a moment we thought was lost or forgotten, a place we can no longer go, and a feeling that we long for. It is a great responsibility to be invited in to people’s worlds to do this important work. I strive with every shutter click to honor the trust that has been granted to me and to hold space for my subject, so that I can bring my skill and compositional eye to every shot.
Dan Gardoqui
Nature Guide, Founder of Lead with Nature
Dan Gardoqui is a mammal, like you :) For over 30 years, he's been sharing his passion and knowledge of the more-than-human-world. Naturally curious and playful, Dan enjoys mimicking bird sounds, asking questions and challenging assumptions about nature. His specialty areas are nature-connection mentoring, wildlife tracking and bird communication. Dan runs Lead with Nature, where he consults, mentors and educates individuals and businesses. Dan is well-known for his "Learn a Bird" series on YouTube & Instagram TV. His certifications include: Registered Maine Guide, Wilderness First Aid and Wildlife Tracking.
Carly Glovinski ‘21
Artist, Wild Knoll Foundation Garden
Carly Glovinski makes work that explores the make-do, resourceful attitudes associated with domestic craft and a reverence for nature and the great outdoors. The elements of time and place are embedded in her work, measured by tides and seasonal flower blooms, and marked by labor and repetitive process. She received her BFA from Boston University and is represented by Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York. She has been awarded residencies at Surf Point Foundation in 2021, and the Canterbury Shaker Village in 2020, and grants from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and the Blanche Colman Trust. Her work has been in major publications such as New American Paintings, ArtMaze Magazine, Hyperallergic, and Vice, and is held in collections including Colby Museum of Art, Fidelity Investments, and the Cleveland Clinic.
Olga U. Herrera
Art Historian, Surf Point Alum 2022
Olga U. Herrera is an art historian, independent curator, and scholar. She is currently Managing Director of the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the intersections of globalization, networks of cultural production, and circulation of modern and contemporary art of the Americas. She is the author of American Interventions and Modern Art in South America (University Press of Florida, 2017) winner of the 2018 SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication; Toward the Preservation of a Heritage: Latin American and Latino Art in the Midwestern United States (University of Notre Dame, 2008); and editor of the books Scherezade García: From This Side of the Atlantic (AMA, 2019), and iliana emilia García: The Reason/The Object/The Word (AMA, 2019). Her essays and interviews have appeared in publications of the International Center of the Art of the Americas, Archives of American Art Journal, MIT ARTMargins, Diálogo, Public Art Dialogue, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, and others. Herrera holds a Ph.D. in Latin American modern and contemporary art history and theories of globalization from George Mason University. She is the founder of Artista, a Latinx and Latin American women artist digital platform.
Acadia Tucker
Gardener, Wild Knoll Foundation Garden
Acadia Tucker is a regenerative farmer, climate activist, and author. Her books are a call to action to citizen gardeners everywhere, and lay the groundwork for planting an organic, regenerative garden. For her, this is gardening as if our future depends on it. Before becoming an author, Acadia started a four-season organic market garden in Washington State inspired by farming pioneers Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier. While managing the farm, Acadia grew 200 different food crops before heading back to school at the University of British Columbia to complete a Masters in Land and Water Systems. She is the author of Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits, & vegetables , Growing Good Food: A citizen’s guide to backyard carbon farming, and Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food without a yard. Acadia is an Ambassador for regenerative agriculture for The Rodale Institute. She lives in Jonesport, ME.
Thank you to our other collaborators:
Danny Gugger, Website Designer
Aubin White, Archivist