Committee Member Bios

Haley Barnett
Pastel / charcoal artist, arts volunteer has a B.A. in Fine Arts with an emphasis in drawing from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Haley is on the visual arts committee for the Women's' Art Series Connective project. As a nationally recognized visual artist who is emerging onto the Chicago arts scene, Haley will present some of her work in the October Women's' Art Series Connective preview at Center Portion. In September 2006 She exhibeted her drawings at Around the Coyote, an annual arts festival in the Bucktown / Wicker Park neighborhood. Visit Haley's hebstudio Web site.

Nancy Clark
Community and arts volunteer and supporter
earned her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in the social sciences, did some graduate work in urban planning, but most importantly, is an alumna of ISOMATA, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, where she discovered her best role is behind the scenes. After years of computer programming and continuing community involvement (AARP Tax Aide, Treasurer of League of Women Voters of Oak Park & River Forest, former Treasurer of the Oak Park & River Forest Day Nursery Board, and Economy Shop volunteer) she hosts occasional house concerts.

Sue Demel
Singer/songwriter, illustrator, teaching artist
is a founding and current member of Sons of the Never Wrong folk ensemble, touring nationally, performing original acoustic music. Sue has her B.F.A. from Northern IL. University, and attended Chicagos Bloom School of Jazz. She collaborates in theatre and performance art pieces - Shadowfax Theatre's Leaving Iowa, Michael Miles' Politics and Song (Chicago Humanities Festival) and 7 Deadly Sins (Avant garde puppet opera). Sue taught at the Old Town School of Folk Music and is a Vocal Coach for performance and recording sessions. Sue is a recording artist on Gadfly Records. She has an expansive Illustration Resume with clients that range from the F.B.I. and the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History to Cricket Magazine and Habitat for Humanity. Sue is a member of the Illinois Arts Education Association and the Chicago Artist Coalition. Buy any or all of Sons of the Never Wrong's five CD's at Amazon.com, Gadfly Records or through their Web site by clicking the link.

Sheila Donohue
Performance poet and developer of communication arts
Sheila Donohue's poetry and character monologues have been seen by audiences at The Steppenwolf Theater, The Rhinoceros Theatre Fest, Ravinia, The Green Mill Lounge, The Chicago Cultural Center and on Oprah Winfrey. She is a four time National Poetry Slam Champion, founder of duets for poetry, Betty's Mouth, Principal Director of thinkvisual.com and author of the book, The Avalanche Expert. Sheila is the Founder of Center Portion, a performance installation space. located in Chicago, IL, Center Portion was designed by Sheila Donohue and born from the vision of writers who present their own work and for individual musicians who value the intimate listening experience. The visual area is arranged like a traditional gallery for the display of paintings, sculpture and visual objects. The stage area is configured for poetry, story telling and music. The attached garden (hidden from busy Fullerton Ave.) is home to the "Celtic ring"--a stone creation that is intended to bring forth spirit of the ancient Celts, who with their strong oratory traditions often created recessed stone circular areas for poetry, story and political discourse.

Anne Hills
Singer/songwriter, social worker, co-producer
has a B.A. in Psychology and a Masters degree in Social Work. In addition to her well-established career as a performer and recording artist, she uses her degrees for family counseling and for co-facilitating her local survivors of suicide support group. Anne was a strong presence in the Chicago folk scene when she resided here in the late 1970s and early 1980s when she also appeared in area theaters. Celebrated as one of the US's premiere singer/songwriters, Anne is now a Pennsylvania resident, but tours in the Midwest on a regular basis. Beauty Attends: The Heartsongs of Opal Whiteley is her contribution to the March Women's Art Series Connective project and provided a springboard for establishing this year's theme of "Imperfect Balance: Women Before Us, Beside Us, Among Us." She will perform excerpts during the October previews. Visit Anne's Web site. Buy her CDs by clicking the link.

Carol LaChapelle
Writer, writing coach
is Chicago-based with 20 years experience teaching writing to adults. She conducts workshops and offers individual instruction for people who are writing personal and family histories, book-length memoirs, autobiographical fiction, and personal essays. She regularly offers her seminar Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Stories at the world-renowned Newberry Library in Chicago. Her book of the same title "Finding Your Voice", "Telling Your Stories" is forthcoming. For more information about Carol's writing and teaching, please visit her Web site .

Deborah Maris Lader
Artist, musician, performer, administrator
is the Founder and Director (since 1989) of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and a member of the touring folk band, Sons of the Never Wrong. Deborah exhibits her prints, drawings, photography, and mixed media artwork internationally, and her work appears in many permanent collections, including the Chicago History Museum, the New York Public Library, and the City of Palo Alto. Awards for her service to the artistic community include "The 1999 Paul Berger Arts Entrepreneurship Award" given by Columbia College, Chicago, and "Cultural Contributor of the Year", presented to her by the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce in 2003. She is a current (and former Board) member of the Mid America Print Council, the Chicago Artists Coalition and the American Print Alliance. Her artwork has been featured in numerous publications, and most recently has been exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center, the NOVA Art Fair, and Purdue University. For big fun, Deborah plays guitar, mandolin, and banjo and writes songs and sings with the Sons! And for even bigger fun, she hangs out with her real sons, Daniel and Evan, and appreciates the support of her husband Michael. Visit Deborah's Chicago Printmakers Collaborative Web site. Buy any or all of Sons of the Never Wrong's five CD's at Amazon.com, Gadfly Records or through their Web site by clicking the link.

Jamie O'Reilly
Singer, producer, consultant, arts activist
has a B.M. from DePaul University School of Music, and is owner of J. O'Reilly Productions, a cultural arts business. Jamie is the producer of the Women's Arts Series project. A strong force in the Chicago area arts arena for over 25 years, Jamie is an award winning vocalist and she creates programs for concert halls, live radio and theater, cultural institutions and organizations. She has nine musical recordings to her credit, including Songs of The Kerry Madwoman, which is a centerpiece for the "Imperfect Balance" Women's Arts Series Connective presentation next March. Jamie is a registered arts consultant with the IL Arts Council and listed with the Chicago Artist's Resource and Beacon St Registry. She is a teaching artist at artScape, a program for Harold Washington College, and an advisor at the Portfolio Center at Columbia College. She is also on the Board of Celtic Women International. Jamie performs in the Jamie O'Reilly Trio with longtime musical collaborator Michael Smith and cellist Bob Weber. Visit Jamie'sWeb site .

Mary K. O'Shaughnessy
Sculptor
received a B.A. from Barat College and an Architecture Masters from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her Daughters of Memory series of sculptures is featured in the 2006/7 Women's Arts Series Connective project. Mary's sculptures depict the torso of a female - the iconic image of the female form - using wire dress forms from the 30's (called "My Double" -shaped to one's form and then sent out to the dressmaker). Intrigued because each form was unique to one individual, but could be altered and recognizing the many women who have struggled with body image, Mary used these surrogates (that could be changed, as the owner changed) as the basis for a series of sculptures. Encased in wet handmade paper to create the form, then manipulated and text added, some works are lit from within, some have sound and each one deals with a primarily female, universal issue. Mary has exhibited her works at Suburban Fine Arts Center, Columbia College, the Wood Street Gallery (which she founded and directed from 1992 to 2002), the Chicago Artist Month Group, the ISC Board Member Show, the Pittsburgh Sculpture Exhibition, the Sculpture in the City, Group Show (Washington D.C.) and the Pier Walk in Chicago. She is an ISC Executive Committee Board Member, a CSI member, serves on the Advisory Council for the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame and is a Board Member of the Illinois Arts Alliance.

Karen Rigotti
Arts volunteer
grew up in Chicago's Southern suburbs, received her B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and has sung in choruses all her life. She began singing with the North Shore Choral Society in 1987 and has held many board positions as well as being involved in two rounds of long-range planning for the Society. During her years at AT&T, Karen has held a number of managerial positions in business operations and is currently the HR / Budget / Escalation Manager for the team supporting AT&T's new Integrated Mobile Services. Karen loves classical and folk music and inputs new recordings into the database for WFMT's "The Midnight Special" program. She is honored to be involved in "Imperfect Balance", the 2006/7 Women's Arts Series Connective project.

Monica Kass Rogers
Writer, journalist, photographer, book artist
has a B.A. in Journalism from Texas Woman's University where she also studied Fine Art Photography, Letterpress Printing and Book Arts under Susan Kae Grant. Monica also did post-graduate studies in photography with Grant at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a letterpress apprentice to Bruce Beck at the Turtle Press in Evanston. Monica is an award-winning national business journalist specializing in strategic analysis and has written for more than a dozen business publications, among them "Crain's Chicago Business", "Restaurants and Institutions", "Women's Wear Daily" and "Plate" magazine. In the consumer press, Monica currently writes frequent features as a freelancer for several sections of the "Chicago Tribune" and has been a feature writer and food critic for "Chicago Social Magazine" and the "Naperville Sun". An avid children's literature buff, Monica loves good stories, "telling them, hearing them, writing them, reading them" a passion she shares with her husband Todd and their four children, Emily, Ethan, Noah and Charlie. While her book arts have largely been shelved during parenting years, Monica is currently re-establishing her letterpress workshop at her home in Evanston.

June Shellene
Singer/songwriter, musical director and arranger, playwright
has performed extensively in clubs and restaurants throughout the Chicago area - most recently Nick's Fishmarket in Rosemont, Davenport's, Katerina's and Burning Ambitions in Palatine. Her performances feature original songs as well as standards from the forties on. Comfortable in front of or behind the piano, she has served as pianist, composer, performer, and Musical Director for numerous theatrical productions such as Steppenwolf Theatre's 1995 production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, (Chicago and Broadway.) June accepted an offer by Cliff Colnot, director of Chicago's Civic Orchestra, to produce a CD of her songs. The Lost Art of Love went on to win two Achievement Awards from Billboard's Songwriting Contest. In 2005, two of June's songs were chosen for My Kind Of Tune, a showcase of Chicago composers presented at the Chicago Cultural Center. Six members of the CSO recently accompanied her on a recording of O Chicago, An Anthem for a Great City. June's music and lyrics, as well as prose and poetry are heard throughout "Imperfect Balance", the 2006/7 Women's Arts Series Connective project. Visit June's Web site.

Ellis van den Boogaard
Art historian, art consultant, Web designer
graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors from the University of Gronigen in the Netherlands, where she studied Art and Architectural History and Archeology (B.A.). She received a full scholarship two years in a row to finish her Master's degree in art history at the University of Leuven in Belgium (Cum Laude), during which she also obtained a certificate from the university's School of Education for teaching art history & pedagogy. Ellis worked as a scholar/researcher at the University of Leuven's Manuscript Illumination Research Center, the Leuven Patrimoine Artistique, and the Musee de Spoelberch in Belgium for three years. She also worked as a consultant for two art-consulting companies in her native country. While living in Chicago, she worked on several research projects in the Netherlands between 2001-2004 and conducted research at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe's precious old master painting collection. In 2004 Ellis began working as Web designer and founded the company Wonderland Web Design in 2005. She started as an art consultant in the U.S. around the same time and launched the art consulting company Artishock, LLC in 2006. Her long-term goal is to open a gallery to help both artists and audience focus on personal passion and style.

Lisa Wagner
Actor. executive director, Still Point Theatre Collective
is the founder (in 1993) and director. Combining ministry and theatre, she has toured here and overseas with Haunted by God: The Life of Dorothy Day. While researching the play, she met the St. Catherine of Genoa Catholic Worker community and volunteered for six months before becoming a full-time Catholic Worker while living in the community for two years. Wagner has also performed in and produced the internationally toured Points of Arrival: A Jean Donovan Journey, which explores the life and commitment of one of the four North American church women killed in El Salvador in 1980. Lisa co-wrote with Virginia Smith Walking with Them (2001 - commissioned by the Sisters of Mercy). She is currently touring around the U.S. and overseas with Haunted by God and Deep Listening, (her theatre's new production on death and dying). In 1998, Lisa began a theatre program for women at Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center and was named their Volunteer of the year in 2006. She recently expanded the program to three other Illinois institutions. Lisa is the founder and co-director of The Imagination Workshop - now over ten years old - a theatre company for adults with developmental disabilities based at Esperanza Community Services. Lisa received a B.S.E. degree from Emporia State University where she was named the outstanding recent graduate in 1997. Download Still Point Theatre Collective information(pdf)