Meet the people behind the Danforth

Kimberly Aaronson has lived most of her life as an artist and designer, since her early teens. She has always been driven by the creative thinking process and the need to create. She attended undergraduate school at both USC School of Fine Arts and Architecture, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she completed my BFA in Design, Photography and Textile Design. She also received her master’s certificate in Design Management and Marketing, and an MFA in Integrated Media Design. Kimberly spent most of her professional years as a Design and Creative Director, having received multiple awards for Design, Branding, Advertising and Editorial Design, as well as being nominated in the International Design Awards for Branding, Motion Graphics, Poster Graphic Design and Presentation Design in the categories of innovation, creative talent and design excellence.

Kimberly has been teaching college level art and design courses for 22 years, and has also taught private and small group painting and drawing classes called “Art on the Trails”, where she takes participants on hikes and nature trails while stopping to draw the surrounding nature. She now teaches at St. Mary’s School in Danvers, where she encourages students to use their imagination and to think outside of the box in order to find creative solutions, to ideate, innovate and have fun! Kimberly firmly believes that whether or not someone decides to integrate art fully into their life or not, it is essential to expose everyone to different perspectives and to the “Art of Possibility”.

Angela Ackerman received a B.F.A. in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.Ed. in Art from Framingham State University. She worked as a product designer at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri where she designed cards, gift wrap, books, and related products. Later, she started her own successful design firm which included clients such as The Washington Post, Psychology Today, Avon, The Family Therapy Networker and Random House. Angela’s images have appeared on numerous products, including calendars, mugs, ornaments, sweaters, gift bags, tea pots, music boxes, home decor, baby bedding, stamps, photo albums, fabric, and social expression products. In addition to her Danforth classes, Angela currently teaches Design at the McAuliffe Regional Charter Public School in Framingham, MA.

Stevie Leigh Andrascik is a fashion artist residing and working in
Worcester, MA. Her work focuses on taking discarded materials and
upcycling them into wearable art. Earning a BFA in sustainable fashion design from Parsons: The New School for Design, she now operates a custom clothing design and tailoring studio where she works with clients of all ages and sizes to make their fashion dreams come true!

Stevie has had her work exhibited at many museums and art galleries
including: Fitchburg Art Museum, Worcester Historical Museum,
ArtsWorcester and LexArt. She has taught sewing and fashion upcycling classes at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, MA and LINX in Wellesley, MA. When not sewing, you can find Stevie at an alternative rock show or adventuring with her 5lb Papillion dog, Sprinkles.

Lee is an oil painter born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1970. She studied Architecture at North Carolina State University School of Design and received a Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture. She also earned a BFA from Meredith College in Raleigh, NC, concentrating in Painting and Sculpture, followed by a teaching certificate. She taught secondary Visual Art for twelve years, ten of which were at Athens Drive High School. Lee’s work has been juried into regional and national shows including the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh Fine Art Society, Visual Art Exchange, and Cambridge Art Association. Much of her work is inspired by her interest in theatre, museums, and travel. She now lives in Franklin, Massachusetts, but returns to Johnston County often.

Nadia Bycko is an interdisciplinary artist and designer. She graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2020 with a BFA in Fashion Design. She has also studied Lunéville Embroidery at École Lesage in Paris, France. She worked as an Adaptive Clothing Designer right out of college and now is a Technical Designer for Childrenswear and Adaptive Costumes. In her professional work, she is very passionate about adaptive design and strives to design with purpose. In her personal work, she focuses on the intersection of fine arts and design and is very passionate about embroidery and beading. She is so excited to be able to share her love of fiber art and design.

After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University Catherine worked in the fashion industry in NYC for Calvin Klein Inc, Isaac Mizrahi, then Polo Ralph Lauren for over a decade. Within that time Catherine worked in Production and Product Development fulfilling a multitude of roles. She then earned an A.A.S. in Fashion Design from Parson’s School of Design where she learned all of the skills that she would use when designing, pattern-making, constructing, producing and marketing her own clothing lines. During that time she worked for a Tony Award- winning costume designer and in the design dept for Calvin Klein Collection. Catherine designed and sold her own line of custom clothing and later, inspired by her own children she went on to design and sell a line of creature-inspired children’s-wear. Her teaching goal is to make the process of designing and making accessible to young people, giving them the skills they need to better express their unique points of view through the fascinating cultural language of fashion. Catherine currently teaches both fashion design as well as art classes at the school.

Elizabeth maintains studios at the Saxonville Mills in Framingham and at her home in Wellesley, creating wheel-thrown and altered functional and sculptural work in porcelain, as well as mixed media with natural material such as wasp nest, mushroom spores and mulberry paper. She has taught workshops and classes for all ages at Snow Farm Center for Craft, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Rhode Island College, The Rivers School,The Perkins School, and many others. She holds a B.A. in English from Tufts University and a M.A.T. from Simmons College.

Kathy found herself interested in the arts from a young age, which led to her pursuing a degree in drawing and digital media  from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts.  During her degree she honed in on her skills and talents and found that she most enjoyed drawing from life, focusing on the figure. Following her degree Kathy has worked as a preschool teacher where she daily gets to express and pass on her creative interests to the next generation. With Kathy’s  combined love for Arts and children she brings a warm and caring approach to teaching our youngest artists the skills to pursue lifelong art goals.

Paula DeSimone, artist, author, and educator is a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Ms. DeSimone has over 30 years of experience in arts education and has taught at such prestigious institutions as RISD – Continuing Education, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Attleboro Arts Museum, the DeCordova Museum and now at the Danforth. She is a current member of the Cambridge Art Association as well as the Monotype Guild of New England. Ms. DeSimone has authored numerous instructional texts available worldwide. Her work is held in distinguished hospital and corporate collections, including Children’s Hospital – Boston, Newton Wellesley Hospital and U-Mass Memorial, as well as private collections internationally. She is represented by L”Attitude Gallery, Newbury St., Boston, MA. pauladesimonefineart.com.

Nan received her B.F.A. from SUNY at Buffalo and completed an M.A. in painting at Goddard College and an M.F.A. at Vermont College. She has taught at a variety of art institutions including the Worcester Art Museum, the DeCordova Museum, and Danforth Art (which she helped found) as well as Framingham State College. Since 1999 Nan has also taught painting in France, Italy, Greece, Mexico, and has run the Artist Loft on the Oceania Cruise Line. All these trips have become a source of inspiration for her landscapes paintings as well as her love of painting interior spaces too. Nan works in a wide range of mediums such as painting, mixed-media, and encaustics. Over the past forty years she has had over 40 solo exhibitions and has been included in group shows and received numerous awards on the national, state, and local levels. Nan’s work is represented in numerous corporate and private collections throughout the United States, England, Mexico, Japan, and France.

Erica Frisk is an artist and educator who is a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a Dual Degree in Art History and Photography. She also holds a Master of Arts in Teaching for Art Education from Tufts University. She has taught art classes to children in a variety of institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, The Maud Morgan Arts Center and Sociedad Latina. She currently teaches Visual Arts at Andover High School in Andover, MA.

Art has always been an important part of Lynda’s life, and has allowed her to share her love and wonder of nature and life with others.

Lynda has exhibited in New England in both solo and group shows, and have received numerous awards. Her work is in many corporate, private, and non-profit collections in the U.S. and abroad.  

Lynda is a member of the: National Association of Women Artists (NAWA); Monotype Guild of New England (MGNE);  Nature Printing Society (NPS); Unbound Visual Arts (UVA); Newton (NAA), North Shore (NSAA), and Rockport (RAA) Art Associations.  Lynda lives in Newton during the year and summers in Rockport, MA.

Leslie Graff holds Bachelors and Master’s degrees from Brigham Young University. She spends her time working in acrylics and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo shows across the country in various museums, universities, and galleries and is held in many personal collections. Her work has been featured in books, magazines, and blogs including a profile on Forbes. Leslie has taught creative arts in California, Utah, Massachusetts, and Virginia and lectures frequently. She is active in humanitarian work and is passionate about building opportunity for others.

Paul Allen Hackett is an artist-teacher living in Massachusetts. He was born in Charlottesville, VA, and raised in Portland, ME. Paul holds a BFA in Glass and MAT in Art Education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He has taught drawing, painting, ceramics, glassblowing, and mixed media at a variety of institutions in the Boston and San Diego areas including the Boston Arts Academy, Losina Art Center, USES Children’s Art Centre, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Paul previously served as the Summer Arts Coordinator for Danforth Art and currently teaches with the Winchester Public.

Steve Hayes has been an instructor and artist in the Providence and Boston area for 25 years, leading courses in drawing, painting, scenic design for theater, 2D and 3D design. With a BFA in Painting and Art Education from Umass Dartmouth, and an MFA in Scenic Design for Theater from Umass Amherst, he has worked with a diverse population of students, from elementary level to college undergraduates. For the past 18 years he has been working as an instructor for the Rhode Island School of Design Continuing Education Department, and as a landscape painter.

Katie Lee Mansfield is an artist and educator in Boston, MA. She was a finalist for the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Award in 2024. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Mansfield is a recipient of a Montague Travel grant supporting her project American Archetypal Cowboy Culture in Japan, and research grant for her project Considering Queerness within Rural Recreation: The International Gay Rodeo and recently curated Strength in Number, a four woman show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has exhibited work both nationally and internationally. Mansfield teaches at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and Danforth Art School at Framingham State University.

Meaghan Kacavich grew up in Natick, MA and graduated from UMass Dartmouth with a Master’s degree in Art Education. She currently works as a Pre-K teacher, which she finds very rewarding. When she is not playing and learning with children, Meaghan enjoys watching movies, going on mini adventures, and playing hockey. She has a great appreciation for art and culture, and hopes to inspire others to develop the same appreciation through creative and engaging art experiences.

Ron holds an M.F.A. in Printmaking and Painting from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and a B.A. from Brandeis University where he studied printmaking with Michael Mazur. He has taught at Mass Art and the Museum School and has twice in his life left and then returned to studio art. His prints are mostly still lives and interior spaces and his paintings often include interiors and buildingscapes. As a teacher he is especially interested in art and visual perception and in helping people use what they already know to explore what inspires them at the same time as they learn the basics.

Christopher LeGare is a Cambridge based interdisciplinary artist whose work blends fine art elements of collage, sculpture, and painting with cartographic and orthographic drawing methods. Although his image-making is rooted in traditions of abstraction, it engages with narratives of the built environment and memory as something both spatial and personal. 
He holds a BFA in Animation and a Masters Degree in Art and Teaching from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Additionally Chris has filmed and produced short documentaries for artists and teaches middle school math in Newton Massachusetts.

Casey Libuda was born and raised in Framingham. As a teenager, they worked at the Danforth art school as an assistant for several summers. After high school, they pursued art full-time and graduated from the University of Maine with a BFA in Studio Art. Now, Casey hopes to share their passion for art with students, and specializes in cartoon work and animation. Casey builds lessons around the imaginations of students, encouraging them to bring their own twists to new projects.

If not teaching at Danforth, you can also find them roller skating, traveling, or spending down time making digital art!

Karen Lucy is an artist and teacher, who has shared her love of art with preschoolers, early-elementary students, elementary students, and students with special needs through her teaching roles in public schools in Hopkinton, Natick, and other local communities.  Graduating from Gordon College with degrees in Early Childhood Education and Special Education and a concentration in Art, she furthered her studies by receiving her M.Ed. degree in Curriculum Design & Creative Arts from Lesley University.  Karen is an accomplished mixed-media artist, having shown her work at several juried shows.  Her current creative focus is on weaving and fiber arts and the integration of fiber arts with other media.

Karen views teaching as a performing art and she enjoys creating a fun environment using humor to help students feel comfortable taking risks as they further develop their artistic skills and talents. She hopes to help her students find confidence and joy in creating.

Donna Melanson received her B.A. in Art and Psychology from Regis College, with a certification in Art Therapy from Lesley University.  Believing that the process of making art is as important as the result, she teaches new skills, encourages creative ideas and helps students bring their innate artist out. The joy of creating results in beautiful artwork.

Donna taught art for 15 years at deCordova Museum and has continued for the last 12 years at her own studio in Maynard.  In addition to teaching at Silk & Clay Studio (which she shares with a dear friend/potter), she creates scarves, purses and fine art quilts from hand painted silk. 6 Bridges Gallery, Maynard and deCordova/Store, Lincoln carry her work.

Jill M. Pottle is an artist from Worcester County and she exhibits her paintings and pastels locally and nationally. In 1977 she graduated from Syracuse University with her B.F.A. and in 1989 she graduated with her M.F.A. from the Museum School in Boston. Jill won two grants from the Somerville Artists lottery and has published in the Artist’s Magazine. Her works have been included in shows at the Fowler Art Gallery, Provincetown Artists’ Association, the East End Gallery in Provincetown, and she has had a one woman show of still life paintings at the Attleboro Art Museum. Her work can also be seen at the Powers Gallery in Acton, L’attitude Gallery, Boston and at the Walside at Fruitlands Museum, where she was artist in residence through November 2011. Jill taught for many years at the DeCordova Museum, and has also taught at RISD and at Mass College of Art and Design. Collections include: Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged in Roslindale, MA, Sterling Drug Inc., and Fidelity in Boston. You can view more of her work on her web site, www.pottleart.com and on her blog, jillpottle.blogspot.com.

Anna is a mixed-media artist and an art educator, certified in Social Emotional Arts. She began down this path after receiving her Masters in Art Education at Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She has since been inspired by children and families all across the country: from a therapeutic high school in Massachusetts, where she created art curricula to connect her students to community and a deeper sense of personal strength; to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, where she designed and taught museum-based workshops. After becoming a mother, Anna taught parent-toddler and preschool art classes in Northern California where she fell in love with art-making all over again. Her young students’ fearless creativity rekindled her dedication to creative expression, motivating Anna to complete a Certificate Program in Social Emotional Arts through UCLArts & Healing department.

Farzaneh Safarani ( born 1990- Iran)  is an interdisciplinary artist and works with her twin sister Bahareh, they explore the convergence of visual art, new media, and performance. They have been on a creative journey since they began painting at the age of thirteen. They earned their B.A. degrees in painting from Tehran University and moved to Boston to pursue their master’s degrees at Northeastern University. Renowned for their signature “video-paintings” overlaying choreographed movement onto figurative oil-on-canvas works, their fluid approach has gained national and international acclaim in solo and group exhibitions and art fairs around the US (e.g., Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Florida) and abroad (e.g., Paris, London, and Beijing, Istanbul, Dubai). Their collaborative exhibitions have received extensive promotion and press coverage, including features by NPR, The Boston Globe, and WCVB Channel 5, among many others. Moreover, nine of their major art pieces have been recently collected by prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Morris Museum in New Jersey, Akron Museum of Arts in Ohio, Tank Shanghai Museum in China, and Accor Academy in Paris.

Ruth Scotch received her M.F.A. and B.F.A. at Boston University in painting, and a B.A. in Art History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After painting full time for many years, Ruth recently earned her teaching license at Framingham State University. Ruth has taught at Boston University, Kendall Center for the Arts, Montserrat College of Art, and currently serves on the faculty at Danforth Art as well as Framingham State University. Ruth has exhibited her paintings throughout New England, and the current focus of her artwork is figures in interiors.

Chaitrali, is a passionate artist and educator. She has a Masters degree in Computer Science and teaches Mathematics at the Russian School of Math. Chaitrali is a versatile artist. She enjoys making jewelry, crocheting and making decorative artifacts. She has been making paintings in different media such as acrylics, oil pastels, pencil, watercolor and oil. She is also practicing Indian Folk Art Forms such as Madhubani Art, Gond Art, Kalamkari, Warli Art. Chaitrali is a designer at Creations-handmade art and jewelry and has been exhibiting at local galleries and selling her work online and at local fairs.