Faculty Bios

Lisa Bebi, since a small child, has loved two things: looking through snapshots in her family album and painting as expression. For over three decades, the San Diego native has married these two things together, and her work has received international awards and recognition for its content, style, and color. Lisa received her BA in fine arts from San Diego State University (SDSU), where she developed as a colorist, straddling representation with abstraction. Daughter of a journalist, Lisa always finds ways to tell the untold story she sees in snapshots.

Pierre Bounaud is a San Diego–based ceramic artist working from his home studio overlooking the scenic Talmadge neighborhood canyons. Born and raised in the Provence region of France, Pierre studied chemistry before clay took over his life and became his muse. Combining his love of experimentation and architecture, Pierre creates original, colorful, and textural functional wares, as well as sculptural vessels and geometric abstract structures. Pierre is a member of the San Diego Potters’ Guild, exhibiting in the guild’s gallery and twice a year during the guild’s semiannual shows.

Judith Christensen has been making books for 25 years. She has taught book-making at Grossmont College and has been an artist-in-residence at numerous elementary schools in San Diego County. Working with San Diego Book Arts Education and Outreach Programs and the County and the City Schools’ Deaf Education Program, she has designed and directed artists’ books projects for K–8 students, teachers, and school administrators. Her artist’s books are widely exhibited and are included in the UC San Diego Special Collections, the Arthur and Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts, and the University of Washington Libraries' Special Collections, among others.

Marty Davis is a sculptor, illustrator and animator whose work has appeared in video games for Sega, Sony and Disney/Pixar. As a sculptor, Marty assisted former La Jolla Athenaeum instructor and master sculptor A. Wasil on many San Diego public sculptures over the years, including the Stations of the Cross at Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, and Mary Star of the Sea in La Jolla. Additionally, Marty taught at the La Jolla Athenaeum for many years prior to moving away from San Diego. Now that he and his wife have moved back to town, he is excited to resume his association with the Athenaeum.

Sharon Carol Demery moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, where she studied and began her career. There she developed her modern art with an affinity for vibrant color, purity, and simplicity depicting images of abstraction that retain their cohesiveness. She was associated with the 1970s Abstract Illusionism movement. Primarily considered to be an abstract painter, her artistic facility and mixed-genre style depict an artist capable of eluding classification working in both abstraction and representational painting. Sharon has shown in galleries and museums around the country, and her work is in many private and public collections.

Anna DiMartino is an artist, writer and educator. She has a BA in Art with an emphasis in Printmaking from UC Santa Cruz and an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry from Pacific University. Anna enjoys ceramics, printmaking, wood carving and fiber arts.

NEW INSTRUCTOR! Sarah Ekedal, Art Coordinator at Grant UTK–8 Elementary in Mission Hills, specializes in creating art projects that connect young artists with the broader community. While teaching art at Grant, Sarah coordinates numerous young art displays in the community, including the coordination of the production of 70 hand-painted banners for the annual Colors on Canvas Banners contest. She partnered with the New Children’s Museum to implement their Social Emotional Learning Through Art curriculum. Previously, Sarah was the art coordinator at Lindbergh-Schweitzer Elementary (now Clairemont Canyons Academy) and taught at Clay for Kids. 

Ken Goldman studied at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League, and New York Studio School. A recipient of numerous awards, Ken has exhibited widely in various group shows and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in Holland, Paris, Mexico, China, Italy, Greece, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Diego. Ken’s work is included in the permanent collections of SDMA, Hilbert Museum of California Art, North Carolina’s Hickory Museum of Fine Art, the San Diego Museum of Natural History, and the Zuo Wen Museum in Qingdao, China.

Stephanie Goldman is known for her richly colored figures, insightful portraits, boldly painted miniatures and dynamic charcoal, graphite, and ink drawings. Having studied with and been greatly influenced by artists Ken Goldman, Wolf Kahn, and Nelson Shanks (at Studio Incamminati), she imbues her work with focused creativity and experimentation. Memorable exhibitions include 15 unique portraits of children entitled I Am A Child at the Riverside Art Museum; Bearing Exquisite Witness at the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego; and many national and international group exhibitions.

Stan Goudey, AWS, SDWS, WFWS, started painting in grade school. He received formal training at Grossmont College and studied figure drawing and illustration at the Art Center of Design, Los Angeles. He was commissioned for illustrations for books and magazines, including Psychology Today and Oceans. His constant goal is to try to paint to the standards of the masters—the old ones as well as the new. Personal favorites include Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn, Arnie Westerman, John Salminen, and Ted Rose.

Emily Grenader is an artist and arts educator living in San Diego. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Emily uses various mediums in her artwork and enjoys sharing a multidisciplinary perspective with students. Her work has been published and exhibited across the country. 

Tammy Hills is a teacher at La Jolla United Methodist Nursery School. She graduated from UCSB with a B.A. in Psychology in 2011 and in 2021 completed her M.S. in Child and Family Development from SDSU. Over the years, she has worked in various spaces and learned to love every age group. She is passionate that play-based learning offers limitless learning opportunities and growth.

Suda House is a photographer of national and international reputation living and working in San Diego. She has taught photographic processes since 1977, first in the Los Angeles area. Since 1980 she has been a professor of art and photography at Grossmont College, where she has also served as Art Department chair and coordinated the Digital Media Arts Lab.

NEW INSTRUCTOR! Erica Hurley is a third grade teacher at Gillispie School. She recently returned to college and fulfilled her goal of earning a CA single-subject teaching credential in art. She is thrilled to begin a new chapter as an art teacher. She especially enjoys mixed media and three-dimensional art. When she’s not in the classroom, Ms. Hurley can be found spending time with her two children, gardening, baking, and of course, making art! 

Kevin Inman was born in Honolulu and grew up on US Military installations around the world. He attended the Universitat de Valencia, Spain, graduated from the University of Virginia, and earned an MFA in oil painting from Radford University. Inman formerly worked in IT. During graduate school, he transitioned from large abstract canvases to an approach informed by the Bay Area Figurative School and the Spanish Baroque. He has traveled extensively around Spain and Italy studying painting, especially the Venetian school. The recipient of numerous awards for plein air painting, Inman has been a professional artist for 10 years.

Pat Kelly is an accomplished and versatile artist known for her large-scale floral paintings in oils. Proficient in plein air, landscape, and still life, she is especially admired as a colorist and for her color theory workshops. A dedicated and experienced painting instructor, her teaching method includes elements of art history, classical painting technique, and color theory. Pat received a BA in visual art from UCSD and currently maintains a studio in Ramona. She teaches painting classes and workshops at the Athenaeum and The Art Center in Ramona and is represented by Santa Ysabel Art Gallery.

NEW INSTRUCTOR! Canada Kerwin has worked as a K–Grade 2 art volunteer since 2005, creating age-appropriate lessons that include introduction to art theory and artists’ biographies and tie-in to curricula as needed. Retired from the healthcare field, Canada also served in the US Navy. She applies her background experience to her ongoing art studies at Mira Costa College, focusing on the human form through life drawing and sculpture. She says, “Capturing the infinite expressions of the body through gesture and line is a very fascinating and gratifying practice.”

Eileen Kitrick is a letterpress printer and printmaker whose practice began at Colorado College. She has experience working at both commercial print shops and small fine art presses. Her work includes traditional prints, artists’ books, broadsides, and zines.

Gloria Kondrup spans both fields of art and design. As a design consultant to national and international firms she has helped evolve extensive branding, identity, and packaging systems. Companies benefiting from her expertise include Aon, Avon, and Goodwill Industries. As a full-time professor at ArtCenter College of Design, Gloria Kondrup has been a dedicated design educator for over two decades. As Director of Archetype Press, ArtCenter’s unique and vibrant letterpress studio, she redefines the value of typography and analog technology in the digital landscape. Her fine art printworks and books are in private and public collections including AIGA, The Getty, and the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. She was awarded the AIGA Greening of Design in 1997. Kondrup received her bachelor’s degree in fine art and her master’s degree in design. She was the founding executive director of the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography.

Jean Krumbein embraces all aspects of drawing. An artist, teacher, and model; she is a guest artist/figure-drawing instructor for the Canyon Crest Academy EVA Conservatory program and Founder of the Encinitas Library Figure Drawing Group. A New York transplant, Jean studied at the Huntington Fine Arts League, Friends World College, and the Art Students League. She teaches for art retreats and workshops in Southern California, specializing in life drawing, portrait, and still-life drawing classes for adults and teens. Her work has been shown in many group and solo shows in San Diego and New York.

Carolyn LaFrance is an artist and architect. She produces charming and beautifully illustrated books and makes prints inspired by nature and wildlife she encounters every day in her garden and surroundings. She holds a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin. Carolyn’s work has been exhibited at Bay Park Press and the Athenaeum, among other institutions.

Ron began his artistic journey in the high-adrenaline world of extreme sports, where creativity had to move as fast as the culture itself. Designing graphics for skateboards, snowboards, and surfboards, along with shoes, wheels, apparel, and gear, he forged a flexible, fearless imagination—one shaped by constant problem-solving and an instinct for visual rhythm.

California native, Jennifer McHugh, is a full-time abstract artist and art instructor.  Creativity and art classes were always a part of her life, but when she was a new mother, her need for a creative outlet led her to an abstract art class and she was hooked. In 2015, after 7 years of painting and selling art in her spare time, Jennifer left her 20-year career as English instructor to become a full-time artist. When she started teaching local art workshops and classes in 2019, it was a natural transition, as it blended her two passions. Jennifer has explored many styles to help her evolve as an artist, but her work is always process-driven.  Guided by intuition and spontaneity, she translates her inspiration without any idea of what the final product will be.

Graham Moore is a graphic designer/artist and educator, originally from the UK, based in Los Angeles. His creative career has spanned many diverse disciplines, including magazine design, music packaging & music event promotion and entertainment design. He has taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Otis College of Design, and Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles and currently teaches at Woodbury University in Burbank and Barnsdall Art Center in Los Angeles.

NEW INSTRUCTOR! Thomas O’Brien is a landscape painter living in San Diego, California. He received formal art training during his undergraduate studies at the University of New Mexico. Upon graduation, Thomas joined the United States Marine Corps and is currently serving as an active-duty engineer officer. His work often leverages a full-spectrum value scale while incorporating as much color as possible. He emphasizes key elements of a subject through deliberate design choices and thoughtful composition. His aim is to create evocative compositions by combining the major tenets of representational painting.

Sfona Pelah is an award-winning San Diego–based printmaker with many years of experience in the medium. She has an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology, majoring in printmaking with a minor in photography. Sfona has been teaching fine art and printmaking at UCSD and San Diego Community Colleges for over 40 years. She has exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally.

Robin Sanford Roberts is an artist and theatrical scenic designer working in models and mixed media. She has designed scenery for multiple theaters including The Old Globe, San Diego Repertory, Denver Center Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, and Broadway. She holds a degree in architecture from LSU and an MFA in scenic design from UC San Diego. She also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau and at Sir John Cass School of Art, London Polytechnic. Robin currently teaches in the undergraduate theater department at the University of San Diego and at Art on 30th.

June Rubin has been teaching art for over 30 years. She is a graduate of both University of California Los Angeles and Art Center College of Design with degrees in Art & Cultural Anthropology. She has an art studio in Liberty Station, Point Loma. She loves teaching art to kids—sharing her enthusiasm for art and encouraging everyone's creativity. 

Sibyl Rubottom holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she was awarded European Honors and studied in Rome for a year. For over 25 years Sibyl made fabric art for the interior design trade. She is former proprietor of Bay Park Press, which was a small fine arts press specializing in limited edition artists’ books and fine intaglio prints. Sibyl is currently manager of the Print Studio at the Athenaeum Art Center. Sibyl’s books are held in numerous collections, including the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, John Hay Library at Brown University, Sterling Library at Yale University, Geisel Library (Mandeville Special Collections) at UCSD, the Malcolm A. Love Library at SDSU, the Athenaeum, and various public and private collections.

Judi Tentor is a book artist, photographer, and educator living in San Diego. She earned her bachelor’s degree at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and her MLA at Ohio State University. Her work focuses on issues of the environment, aspects of memory, analog photo print processes, and the history of photography.