Staff, Instructors & Affiliated Artists

One of the most extraordinary and inspiring aspects of the Art House is that it has flowered because of the sheer quantity and quality of time and care given by so many volunteers. The Art House staff runs almost entirely on a volunteer basis (along with some bartering of skills).   It is a profound statement about how the quality of human connections can, collectively, bring to life a truly inspired space for ceative work and interaction.

We understand our collective future to be something defined by the quality international and intercultural relations we share. We see the Art House as a meeting ground for these relations to form. Through international artistic collaborations we can learn from one another and begin to explore a new definition of ourselves as human beings.

Founder, Director, and Resident Artist

Todd's background represents a 15-year process of integrating the arts with intercultural education and community development. In 1993, Todd completed his BA in Fine Arts at the University of Vermont with an independent study in Spain through the School for International Training. To balance his artistic training he simultaneously pursued studies in African and African American literature and political history. After graduating, Todd enrolled in training programs for Health Realization, further developing as a youth educator and group facilitator. In 1998 he came to San Francisco where he continued Health Realization work in correctional facilities and centers for domestic violence education and recovery. Originally with the intention of co-founding a Health Realization practice, he enrolled in and graduated from, the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center's Business Training Program, acquiring skills that would later prove invaluable. Throughout this entire period Todd was delving deeply into dance/music studies of Cuban and Haitian folkloric traditions, as well as Argentine tango. In 2001 he co-founded the SF sister project of Argentine-based dance/street theater group, Tango Protesta, later to be named, in SF, the Milonga Masala Tango Project. It was at this time, through transforming his garage and garden into an interdisciplinary cultural meeting space, that one can see the seeds that took root to eventually become the Red Poppy Art House and the MAPP (Mission Arts & Performance Project). As a visual artist, Todd has been painting for 19 years, focused in oil, acrylics, and mixed media. In 2006, Todd was recognized by SF Weekly's Best of the Bay as one of the MasterMinds 2006 Honorees for outstanding artists in the bay area. In 2008, he was a featured artist for the Red Poppy Art House Annex at Yerba Buena Center for the Art's BAN5 Exhibit. Equally, in music, Todd has two decades of experience, the last two years of which have been dedicated to a project he co-founded with Meklit Hadero - the music ensemble Nefasha Ayer ~ The Space of In Between. Nefasha premeired its completed works in February 2009 at San Francisco's Brava Theater. Todd was recently selected by San Francisco's de Young Museum for a month-long Artist Residency in June 2009. As Commissioned Artists, Todd, and fellow artist Meklit Hadero, will be working on-site at the de Young to produce new works evolving from the inter-relationship of processes: painting, installation, and musical composition.

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"In seeing the impact that the Art House has had, as small as it is, on the lives of so many people, I realize now more than ever how deeply we need spaces that offer us a wider and more connected feeling of being in the world. People often say the Art House has a kind of magic. I see it as the very pulse of life within us; as individuals, as artists, as members of families and communities. We need spaces that invite us to feel that pulse and its creative force. It makes us shine, makes us radiant, like plants that just keep growing and growing. And it just so happens that the arts represent one of the most open, least ideologically constricted paths for this growth. Our cultural expressions flower naturally with its presence."

Languages: English & Spanish

Born and raised in the Green Mountain state of Vermont (6th generation).

Performance Anchor

Noemi serves as an Art House Performance Anchor, handling space set-up, sound equipment, volunteer supervision, and artist presentation for performance events. From September 2008-September 2009 Noemi served as the House Steward / Manager of the Red Poppy Art House, working closely with the Artistic Director, overseeing all Art House operations and staff management. During her time at the Art House she was also enrolled in the Arts Presenting & Street-Level Curating Immersion and Training Track Program, now known as the N.I.C.E. project.

Originally from Woodland, California, Noemi relocated to Los Angeles from 1997-2006 where she gained several years work experience in the arts, including working as an Art Educator for the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art and as the Community Workshops Coordinator for Self Help Graphics & Art in ELA. Artistically, she spent 5 years training and working as an actress, having studied under Arthur Mendoza at the Actors Circle Theatre in Los Angeles and most recently at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. In Los Angeles, she was an active participant in the Spoken word scene and an avid dance student, including 6 years of Danza Azteca. Noemi currently lives in Woodland, California, where she is planning to complete her degree in Art Studio at CSU Sacramento.

"I fell in love with the Poppy the moment I took my first step inside. It felt like "home" and I haven't left since. I am very excited to be working with such  an amazing, creative, talented and inspiring group of individuals. The Poppy combines my passion for the arts, community arts organizing, and the pure and profound arts experience that stirs the intellect, the emotion and the spirit."

Languages: English & Spanish

Second Generation Mexican-American. Born and raised in California.

Performance Program Coordinator / Performance Anchor / Arts Presenter in Training

Najva handles all correspondences and scheduling of performing artists regarding the Performance Calendar (International Performance Series), and also serves as a Performance Anchor. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Eugene Lang The New School for Liberal Arts (New York). In NYC, she co-founded The Lowbrow Society for the Arts, a collective that produces many events including public art parades and multimedia art parties. She  organized with FIERCE, a non-profit group that empowers and educates queer youth of color. In her free time, Najva follows her passion for her own breed of personal documentary photography (especially Polaroid), writes poetry, and dabbles in various fine arts.

Languages: English & Farsi

Born and raised in Maryland, recently moved to San Francisco!

Family Art Assistant Coordinator

Tsedey innovates and oversees Family Art activities as well as training of new Family Art volunteers. She also handles graphic design for Family Art Forum, Family MAPP, and various printed materials. She holds a BA in Spanish with special focus on Pre-Colombian History and Culture of South and Central America from University Of Missouri Kansas City and from the University Of Veracruz, Xalapa, Mexico and a BA in Studio Arts with Graphic Design Emphasis from University Of Missouri Kansas City. y story was featured on children's radio program and have read her poems on several occasions. Her work experience includes bilingual/bicultural elementary education.

Languages: Amharic, English, Spanish

Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

(photo by Noah Kavic)

Volunteer Coordinator / Performance Anchor

Sylvia coordinates and maintains the Volunteer Program at the Red Poppy Art House, handling all recruiting, training and scheduling of volunteers for our concert and performance series. She is a classically trained dancer, singer and actress, with nearly two decades of ballet, modern and jazz dance training, a B.A. in Theater and training in classical voice. In her four years in San Francisco she has also acquired skills and interest in Salsa dance, Tango, and songwriting. Parallel to her training and performance arts is her work in arts education and community engagement. She has worked as an early childhood teaching artist in music and dance in Berkeley, a theater teaching artist in Oakland elementary schools, and is currently teaching dance at the Academy of Art University. In her free time, Sylvia enjoys baking cakes and developing a greater understanding of the temperament of chocolate.

Languages: English and Spanish
Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Cleveland, Ohio

Performance Anchor / Arts Presenter in Training

Melita Morales is dedicated to encouraging an acknowledgment of the creative self as a way to open up to the world, express stories, notice and appreciate commonalities and differences, and heal and connect the disparate spheres of our right and left brain as equally important to being whole.  She works as an art teacher, artist and author, holding a BA in studio art, and a secondary school credential, as well as being inspired a myriad of other educational experiences, both inside and outside the realm of a classroom. She is most inspired by the complex frailty and strength that comprise the human condition, and the tensions between wealth and poverty that rub like a fault-line against each other in her native home of the Bay Area.

Languages: English

Costa Rican / American

Resident Artist / Grant Writer / N.I.C.E. Project Curator

Sandhya Kumar is a resident artist working in film, video and photography.  She oversees general operations at the Art House, and works as a street-level curator for the N.I.C.E. Project (Neighborhood Initiative for Cultural Engagement). She comes to San Francisco from New Delhi, India, where she worked in documentary films, various non-profit media foundations, and in her spare time also as a dancer, puppeteer and radio newsreader. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Delhi University (2002), and an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute (2009). Her passion for dancing now combines with her passion for the visual image to work on a range of art works from documentary films to video and dance installations. In terms of visual art, her work seeks to make visible the poetry in the commonplace. Her stories embrace the realm of non-fiction and her images emerge through a looking at spaces in landscape and architecture - as records of human emotion, as containers of stories waiting to be told.

Languages – English, Hindi, Malayalam.
Born and raised in New Delhi, India.

Assistant to the House Manager/ Steward / Graphic Designer

Alexandria works in close relation to the Red Poppy House Steward/Manager, handling financial reports/request for payments/deposits and general administrative task managing. She holds a BA in Comparative and World Literature (Anglo-American Literature, Italian Language and Art History) from SFSU, and is presently applying to graduate programs in museum studies, training with the Library of Mill Valley in their history room to learn about archiving historical documents, works of art, and photographs.

Languages: English, Italian, currently studying German

Born and raised in the Bay Area.

Staff Editor

Dominic edits the Red Poppy’s online and printed materials. He’s spent the past ten years as a journalist, scholar, and editor.  

Languages: English, conversational French and Spanish  

Born and raised in Appalachian Mountains of Northern Virginia 

Website Administrator/ Emailer Administrator

Languages: English, Hindi, Telugu.

Born and raised in a beach town in South India.

Publicist

She grew up in Bhopal, India and came to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Genetics. She moved to San Francisco in September, 2006 to continue her research at UCSF as a Postdoc. She visited the Poppy with a friend one night and fell in love with the space and all the positive energy bursting out of everyone and every corner of the little art house and has been coming back since.

Languages- Urdu/Hindi, English
Born and raised in Bhopal, India

Graphic Designer

Sabine handles graphic design for Red Poppy Art House printed materials (monthly calendar, posters, flyers, brochures). She holds a degree in Graphic Design, from Blocherer Schule, in Munich, Germany, 1996, and a degree, from Freie Kunstwerkstatt, Fine Art School, in Munich, Germany. Her Work Experience includes: Freelance Art Director August 2008 (SF), Volunteer at Obama HQ, SF, CA, Sept-Nov. 2008. Art Director:Klaus Neuser Werbung (Formerly Massmann, Neuser) Berlin, Germany, 2005-08. Art Director: Der Mittermeier, Munich, Germany, 1997-2005. Design Experience includes: Oversaw all aspects of print collateral material produced for national movie releases of Sony Pictures Releasing. Handled major work for Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, including conceptualizing, layout, and final retouching for DVD packaging, disc art, in-store displays, and banners, design and art direction relating to print medium such as consumer brochures, photography, trade marketing collaterals, poster design and Significant Creative Projects.

Languages: Native German & English

Austrian Citizenship, U.S. Green Card, presently based in Berlin, Germany.

The Art House gives special thanks to Alexander Allende , Todd's original partner, whose personal commitment, friendship, renovation skills, and extensive labor, was essential in getting the Art House off the ground. And to Mark Eisner , founder of Red Poppy (501c3), who partnered with Todd during the second year while producing Festival Neruda . Mark's   generous support carried the Art House through a time of great vulnerability. You can visit Mark and learn about his work on the life and poetry of Pablo Neruda at www.redpoppy.net.

Since its first days the Art House it has survived and thrived on the direct support of so many friends and volunteers who together with Todd, Alex and Mark, made it happen. Their names include: Clara Cheeves (intern, art teacher, sidewalk mural), Elwyn Crawford (intern/curator), Koch (art installation & frame and piano donation), Nyarkoa Yaa Mensah (for loving guidance and rekindling the spirit), Fernando Perez (carpentry/framing), Alexandra Rodriguez (intern), Elyse Hogue (spirits), Michelle Amador and the True Believers (for a year's commitment to playing jazz at the Art House), Riaz Abdulla (concert support and piano serenades), Chris Studley (lighting), Frances Vieras (event coordinator & hostess with the mostest), Luis Vasquez-Gomez (Reiki sessions), Manuel Trujillo (Noches Bohemias), Eric Flanniken (Carpentry/Catoring), Veronica Solis (support & community outreach), Susana Aragon (art teacher), Jim (skill saw & heater), DJ Lamont Young, Rennea Couttenye & Ritmo de Cascabel, Jef Stot & Soozyq, Techung, Yumi Thomas, Guitar Box Story, the Zach Hash Trio, the Wiatt Grant Trio, (for donating their performances at our benefits), RUPA (for her assistance at our events, for researching sound equipment, and for donating proceeds from her concert), Carmen (flowers from the corner), Denhi (Friday bread/tapas & Marvelous flower arrangements), Alexandra Jones and Leda (for their good taste & commitment to supporting the arts), John (donation of the printing press and canvases) Indira Urrutia, Ella Noe, Susana, Diana Suarez, and Aaron Keirbel and all the other volunteers (performance night support), Eric Moffat (mics & recording assistance), Marcus Shelby (for spreading the word in the press), La Tania (offering free flamenco to the community), Chelis Lopez at KPOO, Michelle Gutierrez and Alfonso Tuxedor at El Techolote, Rene Yanez at SOMARTS, Alexandra Post (updating our emailer), Alexandra Rodriguez (intern/admin), Alexa Fabrega (for her extensive hours dedicated to PR and her for crucial role in the development of our performance series), and, of course, our families who supported us through it all, and our neighbors Maria (with her family) and Rene (with his family) who patiently put up with us. Todd would like to thank everyone else whose names are not here but whose contributions, in talent, time, goods, or monetary assistance, have helped the Art House hold its course. Todd would also like to thank Beverley Deberry-Cannady, whose friendship, courage, and guidance served as a living example in learning to trust in what has yet to be known or seen.