Charlotte Sáenz

Executive Artistic Director

Charlotte Sáenz works globally in community as an artist, activist, and educator towards social and political change. Using multimodal teaching and learning strategies as well as diverse media and forms of creative expression, she collaborates with others on documenting, researching, storytelling, healing, and connecting with each other. She is interested in how creative learning processes can disrupt dominant narratives, expand our perspective, reveal us to ourselves, and lead us to new social action.

Among her collaborations are video and performance projects with pan-Arab youth & Palestinian refugees throughout Lebanon, immigrants in Chicago, Nahua youth in Tlaxcala, and a Tzotzil/Tseltal women’s playwright and theater group in San Cristóbal de las Casas. She is a member of Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas and worked with UniTierra Oaxaca on a traveling program called “Beyond Globalization.” She leads a winter study-trip to Chiapas focusing on Zapatismo, a Dia de Muertos trip to Oaxaca, and researches contemporary global community feminisms.

In San Francisco, she currently teaches Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. In Lebanon she worked with the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts and Brummana High School. In Chicago she was Co-Director of Street-Level Youth Media and on the Board of Women in the Director’s Chair. In Mexico D.F., where she was born and raised, she served as Deputy Director of Academic Planning at the National Center of the Arts. She holds a BA from Yale, an International Education Ed.M. from Harvard, and a MFA in Film, Video & New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

 

Lyz Luke 

Director of Performance Programing 

Lyz Luke is a successful promoter and artist manager based in San Francisco, and doesn’t actually have time to finish this bio due to writing a couple of press releases, organizing 100 musicians on a tribute project, coordinating a show on a farm, organizing an East Coast tour for DRMS, planning a wedding (not hers) and a themed birthday party for about 4 of her friends at this very moment. For more information check out www.UnderCoverPresents.com, or please contact her via Facebook, Twitter, and text simultaneously. She also has an NCAA Championship ring for fencing and her favorite colour is leather.

Born in Los Angeles, CA (don’t judge), and lived in New York, NY.

 

Erin MacDonald

Web Manager

Erin MacDonald came to the Red Poppy Art House as a Public Relations intern and is now also happy to support the Poppy as its website manager. Veteran of the natural products retail industry, she has crossed over into writing and the wide world of tech and social media. Erin grew up on a organic farm in New York State, but gladly calls the west home. She loves making blogs, the exchange of information, and being part of a non-corporate arts-music-community entity in the neighborhood she lives in–the Mission. In a somewhat previous chapter she performed in a Brazilian dance ensemble and in a Cuban dance recital. Recently she was seen dancing Thriller and Madonna with the Bay Area Flash Mob.

 

Julianne Quimby

Administrative Support

Julianne is a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz and a recent transplant to San Francisco. She is actively engaged with the Bay Area arts community and is enjoying serving as a PR Coordinator for the Red Poppy. Julianne is interested in cross-cultural communications, art education, and cultural diplomacy. She is an avid traveler and her love of culture, language, and art have brought her to many different countries around the globe.

  

Jeremy Allen

A/V Specialist

Jeremy Allen is a multi-instrumentalist, educator, composer, producer, and audio engineer. He specializes in Venezuelan traditional music, as well as the music of other Latin American countries and the Caribbean. Allen has performed nationally and internationally for over 17 years showcasing the music of Latin America.

He is bassist, percussionist, and founding member of the pan Latin-American jazz group Quijeremá; performing, touring and recording with the multi-media arts ensemble since 2002. In addition to national and international performances with Quijeremá, Allen produces Quijeremá’s original music and sound design for documentary and short feature films. Most recently he recorded, co-produced, and co-arranged the score and musical audio for the PBS/ITVS film “Archaeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi en Trés Cantos”.

Allen holds a B.A. in American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley with an emphasis in Urban Education and is the owner and engineer of Musiquito Studios, an independent recording studio in Oakland, California. Allen also is an adept instructor of youth multi-media education, producer of the Albany Film Festival and moonlights in customized audio-visual installations for municipal government and arts organizations.

www.musiquitoproductions.com

www.quijerema.com

 

 

Alicia Arroyo

 Performance Anchor

Alicia’s own interest in engaging communities through visual and performance art was what brought her to the Red Poppy Art House. Alicia started as a volunteer and is now an Anchor for the Performance Arts Program. She received a BS in Geology at the University of Maryland and moved to San Francisco from New York after completing her MA at Parsons, The New School for Design in exhibition design and practice.  Prior to her graduate studies she lived abroad in Spain where she took courses at the Universidad de Sevilla in art history and museum studies.  She is actively training as salsa and flamenco dancer. She has worked in museums, art non-profits, and academic institutions in the realms of curatorial, exhibition and education development. She currently works for a non-profit that provides educational support to low income youths.

Languages: English, Spanish

Born in Washington D.C and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland

   

 

Adrianna Gluck

Family Art Anchor

Wanting to combine my enjoyment and love of being creative, working with children, and speaking Spanish, I stumbled upon the Family Art Program- the perfect combination! These Saturdays allow me not only to be creative with so many little ones of different ages, but also to connect with the families and encourage/support their involvement in the art activities with their children. Watching families spend invaluable moments together being creative and learning, is why I’m a volunteer. In 2007, I graduated with my Masters in Social Work and have since been working or volunteering with children and families. Many of these positions, also incorporate art in some form, which further allows me the opportunity to share my creative side with others.

Languages: English and Spanish.

Born in Los Angeles. Raised in NYC

 

 

Cristina Ibarra

Performance Anchor

Cristina Ibarra is a Performance Anchor, creative professional, and proud resident of the Mission District.  Coming from a long background of performing and visual arts, she discovered the Art House one October night while riding home on her bike, and has been a part of its nebulous and exciting community ever since.

In recent years she has worked both domestically and abroad, dealing extensively with artists, media makers, and activists in San Francisco based non-profits, and working with international educators in Braziland New Zealand. She is an organizer and curator for the Mission Arts Performance Project (MAPP), and in 2011 she was an artist-in-residence at the Poppy’s sister space EDELO in Chiapas, Mexico. When not traveling, Cristina can be found exploring San Francisco with her sketchbook in hand, learning to tango, and gardening with the good folks from the Free Farm Stand.

Languages: English, Spanish, Basic Portuguese, Italian, currently studying Filipino

Born and raised in San Diego, California

 

 

Melita Morales

Performance Anchor, Figure Drawing Class Instructor

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

 

 

Kate Perdue

Family Art Anchor

I grew up in Southern California and after attending college in Rhode Island moved to San Francisco to work as a grant writer for the Glide Foundation through Americorps VISTA, a national service program dedicated to fighting poverty.

New to San Francisco, I came to the Poppy looking to meet new people and for an enjoyable way to spend my Saturday afternoons while working with my two favorite things – art and kids. However, I found myself investing more and more time in the program as I witnessed the visible effects that art was having on shaping children’s lives and bringing families together. I have constantly been inspired by the innovative and passionate spirit that everyone at the Poppy displays in all aspects of their work and life.

Languages: English conversational Spanish

Born and raised: Sourthern California

 

 

Sandra Wong

Family Art Anchor

I was inspired to volunteer at the Red Poppy due to my infinite passion in Art and working with Children. It is truly self rewarding to be able to give back to the community and witness the creativity of our youth.

I was born and raised in San Francisco, speak both English and Chinese, and studied Psychology and Business at the University of California, Riverside. I now run Performance Marketing campaigns for a German Gaming Company in San Francisco. I would like to apply my expertise in Marketing and Social Media outreach to help the Red Poppy Art House grow.

Languages: English & Chinese

Born and Raised in San Francisco

 

 

 

 

 

 

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