Kipaipai, meaning 'To Encourage and Inspire,' is a special program that focuses on professional practices in areas of gallery representation and museum exhibitions, self-promotion, use of social media in promotion, the importance of relevant critical writing, publishing, presentation and identifying and strategizing personal/professional goals.

How to apply: Fill out application, upload images that best represent your body of work and pay the application fee before deadline of March 1, 2020 at 5pm. 16 participants will be selected by our Jury.  Accepted artists will be notified by Saturday, March 7, 2020 and must pay their tuition of $850 in advance in order to confirm and hold their place.  Participants are responsible for their own travel and housing expenses. Workshop will run Thursday - Saturday, July 30, 31 & August 1, 2020 from 9am - 4pm, with optional morning and evening activities. Check in for artists will be Thursday, July 30, 2020 after 3pm. A Welcome event will take place Thursday, July 30 following check in. Deadline to apply is March 1, 2020 at 5 pm PST. Details about the program can be found at www.kipaipai.com

Through private one-on-one sessions and group meetings, participants will have the rare opportunity to meet with a team of guest professionals. This year's faculty includes:

Sanie Andres MA is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist. He is currently Program Director for College Community Services – CalWORKs in Anaheim, CA and Adjunct Psychology Professor at National University. For the past 15 years, Andres has been a practicing therapist in private practice, community mental health and hospital settings. Previously, he was Core Faculty at Phillips Graduate Institute and Guest Lecturer at Antelope Valley College. In 2015, after six years of dedicated service, He was honored with emeritus status as Board President of The OUTreach Center, the LGBTQ community center in Lancaster, CA. In 2012, Andres was presented the State Farm Good Neighbor Award by Equality California for his grassroots activism supporting LGBTQ families in rural Northern Los Angeles County. He served on the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation from 2011 to 2012. Andres is in his second year singing bass with the West Coast Singers - the LGBTQ Chorus of Los Angeles.

Robert Benitez began his career with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in 2009 as a volunteer and officially joined the museum’s education team in 2010. As one of the museum’s education specialists, Benitez led the organization’s flagship outreach program, Discovery Trunks, connecting thousands of students to art and history through object based presentations. Additionally, Robert developed the museum’s Young Artist and Family Matters Workshops. In 2014, with the acquisition of MOAH:CEDAR, the Museum of Art and History’s primary community engagement space, Benitez began curating solo and group exhibitions and developing programming that is increasingly accessible to both local artists and the community-at-large. Benitez’s vision for MOAH:CEDAR is to create a space that fosters emerging artists and reflects the community in which it serves. In keeping with this idea, Benitez created the museum’s first community engagement focused artist-in-residence program, which has hosted both local and international artists. Benitez also launched the Andrew Frieder Creative Space, which functions as a community art studio that offers art making equipment, materials and space to the public at no cost. Robert worked to expand the museum’s annual high school exhibition to a daylong arts festival known as, CedarFest. Robert created the Young Curators Program, in which students from the Antelope Valley’s high schools, introduced to principles regarding curation and exhibition design. Currently, he oversees the operation and programming of the museum’s three facilities: MOAH, MOAH:CEDAR and the Western Hotel. Most notably, Robert spearheaded the successful effort to designate downtown Lancaster as a California Cultural District. Lancaster enjoys this designation along the with fourteen others, including Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo and San Diego’s Balboa Park.

Kimberly Brooks is an American painter whose work integrates figuration and abstraction to explore a variety of subjects dealing with history, memory and identity.  Brooks has solo exhibitions throughout the United States and her work has been showcased in juried exhibitions including curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. For two years, Brooks maintained a weekly column, entitled First Person Artist which then led to her founding the Huffington Post Arts Section. She founded Griffith Moon publishing which focuses on artist monographs. Brooks received her BA at UC Berkeley and studied painting at Otis and UCLA. A coffee table book of her work will be available Fall 2018 (Vivant Publishing).

Betty Ann Brown is an art historian, critic, and curator. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art in 1978 and joined the California State University at Northridge faculty in 1986. Her research and teaching have ranged from the ancient--Precolumbian Art of Mexico--to contemporary--Los Angeles Art Today. Brown has curated retrospective exhibitions for Hans Burkhardt, Roland Reiss, the Saar Family, Linda Vallejo, June Wayne, and John White, as well as numerous themed exhibitions. Her most recent curatorial project was Time, Space & Matter: Five Installations Exploring Natural Phenomena, which featured the work of Lita Albuquerque, Suvan Geer, George Geyer, Mineko Grimmer, Tom McMillan, and Christine Nguyen.

Andi Campognone is California-based curator, author, and film producer, known for championing contemporary southern California artists. Andi has over 25 years of arts experience in the southern California region.  She is the Owner/Director of AC Projects, a private consulting organization focused on promoting arts and culture. Projects include developing museum exhibitions, public engagement, mentoring programs and book and film publications of historically relevant southern California artists. Campognone is also the Museum Manager/Curator for the City of Lancaster.  She is responsible for the development and maintenance of partnerships and community engagement initiatives with local artists, local businesses, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles County Supervisors office and higher level institutions.  She develops curatorial direction for exhibition programming and educational programming and additionally she is directing the Museum accreditation process for MOAH. She has previously served the City of Pomona as Cultural Arts Commissioner where she co-wrote and implemented the City’s Master Cultural Arts Plan and the adopted Arts in Public Places Policy. She volunteers as a regular speaker and mentor to art students at both the undergraduate and graduate level and is on the advisory boards of LMPAF and Los Angeles Arts Association.  She is a member of ArTTable.

Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic & curator. She is based in Downtown Los Angeles, Dambrot is currently Arts Editor for the LA Weekly, LA Editor for Whitehot Magazine, contributor to KCET’s Artbound, Flaunt, Huffington Post, The Creators Project, Fabrik, VS. Magazine, Palm Springs Life, and Porter & Sail. She studied Art History at Vassar College, writes loads of essays for art books and exhibition catalogs, curates and/or juries a few exhibitions each year, sometimes exhibits her original photography and publishes short fiction, and speaks in public at galleries, schools, and cultural institutions nationally.

Aria Gannon, the founder of aPR Creative Marketing Management, has over twenty years of experience consulting on brand building, brand management and with marketing strategies. Aria’s public relations outreach has secured thousands of editorial placements in high-profile national and international media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, Conde Nast Publications, Time-Life, Inc., Hearst Corporation, Grazia Japan, Pan Pacific News and Huffington Post. She has also initiated and secured exhibitions in major national museums and galleries for the artists she represents. She has cultivated a global network of key media figures, tastemakers, major curators, leading educational institutions, and national and international media figures. This network, combined with significant marketing expertise and her unique brand strategy, has provided high-profile exposure and brand awareness opportunities for her clients.
 

Aria travels extensively, organizing venues and events related to her clients, and researching and compiling information to serve her clients. Highly regarded in her field as an expert advisor and strategist, she has secured museum exhibitions and high exposure art installations across the nation and was the keynote speaker at the 2010 Canadian Trade Commission's “Business of Fashion” seminar in Vancouver B.C. Aria is an active member and committee participant of ArtTable, a leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts. Philanthropy is an important aspect of Aria's work, and she has consulted to develop programs for various non-profit entities such as LA’s Best's after-school enrichment program, United Way of Orange County, Mama Earth and the Manhattan Borough President’s Office in New York City. Aria was owner and director of the North Spring Street Gallery in Los Angeles's Chinatown for seven years, exhibiting unique works by international contemporary artists and designers. Aria resides in Los Angeles with her family of three beautiful children. 

Caroline Killhour has 25 years of executive level experience, she leads Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center — Maui’s only studio based community art center. Each year, the Hui offers around 300 educational classes, workshops, exhibitions, and events for locals and visitors. Killhour's talents are grounded in her own studio practice and her background in marketing and community engagement. She has more than 20 years of professional design experience directing everything from technical product design to branding, merchandising strategy, and product conceptualization and development for companies such as L.L Bean, Red Sky Design, Entertainment Properties, and Sanroy. She holds a BFA from Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art, an Associate Degree in Design from New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology and is a post-graduate student of Maine College of Art and University of Chicago’s Graduate School.

Paul Kopeikin has owned his eponymous Gallery in Los Angeles since 1991 and has produced over three hundred exhibitions. He has participated in numerous international art fairs and regularly judges art related competitions and reviews. He is known for his unvarnished opinions and wit.

Melissa Morgan is the owner of Melissa Morgan Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA. The gallery represents contemporary 2D, 3D and New Media artists both nationally, internationally and evolved from “Modern Masters Fine Art."  The El Paseo gallery was opened by Melissa and her late husband in 2002. Melissa is also a private art consultant and advisor.

Melissa Morgan Fine Art represents cutting-edge international contemporary art for both the savvy collector and for those newer to the art world. In its 6000 square foot show-space, the gallery features paintings, mixed media, sculpture, glass, tapestry and photography. Additionally, the gallery showcases an extensive schedule of solo, thematic group exhibitions, interpretive programming, artist and curator lectures and panel discussions. The gallery also provides private consultations and confidential advice to collectors, corporations and institutions regarding identifying, locating, and sourcing works of art world-wide. Melissa and her team exhibit annually at multiple art fairs throughout the year including Palm Springs Art Fair, SOFA Chicago, Art Aspen, Art Market San Francisco, Seattle Art Fair, Texas Contemporary, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Show and more.

Melissa Morgan is active in many local organizations. Melissa has been active in the Palm Springs Art Museum, Desert Aids Project, Digicom and many more charitable organizations. She was on the committee for Behind a Miracle, raising over 6 million dollars in 9 years to help combat breast cancer locally within the Coachella Valley. She was on the Palm Desert Strategic Planning Committee . Her galleries have hosted dozens of fundraising events for not for profit and Educational organizations over the years; BAM, Visiting Nurses Association, Coachella Valley Health Care Initiative and many more. The gallery hosts an annual exhibition for the Idyllwild Arts academy  and has also hosted student exhibitions for College of the Desert.

Mike O'Connor  For over 20 years Mike has been training, counseling and leading workshops with financial advisors throughout the Mainland, Hawaii and Guam.  Mike’s focus is on identifying one's own story and how to use it to become a more effective sales person.  Mike’s Mantra for his workshops is “to learn your story and learn to tell it effectively”. Mike not only guides participants through the storytelling process, he also spends time on presentation skills and warding off that innate fear of public speaking.  Mike’s presentation, Sell Yourself Through the Fine Art of Storytelling was developed to aid artists, gallerists and museum directors on the importance of the WHY, not the How or the What of your work. 

Mike was a presenter for the two Kipaipai workshops at the Donkey Mill Art Center and is still counseling many of the attendees on perfecting their story and their delivery skills.  Mike is a frequent stage presenter at “The Moth” where he develops stories on the fly based upon a prescribed subject and presents them in a very entertaining manner.

Linda Vallejo Linda Vallejo has over forty years of experience as a development consultant and grant writing instructor. She has written and received millions of dollars in grant funds from foundation, corporate, government and individual donors for her many clients nationwide. As a development consultant she has extensive experience in all aspects of development including donor communications, partnership building, and program development and planning.

As an artist, Linda Vallejo consolidates multiple, international influences gained from a life of study and travel to works that investigate contemporary cultural, spiritual and political issues. Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions and is in the permanent collections of East Los Angeles College Vincent Price Museum, The National Museum of Mexican Art, Carnegie Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California, Santa Barbara, (CEMA), California Multicultural and Ethnic Archives, and UCLA Chicano Study Research Center.

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