Staff and Directors

Erin Becker (she/her) | Norma Jean Calderwood Director

Erin Becker (she/her) has stewarded the Cambridge Art Association (CAA), in her role as Norma Jean Calderwood Director, since 2012. Her connection to the CAA’s spans 20 years; she was first introduced to the organization as an intern, and served as an Assistant Director from 2004-2007. During her tenure as Director, Erin has worked to steward existing programs while introducing new opportunities for artists to connect, learn and grow. Her passion lies in creating welcoming accessible spaces for all artists.

In addition to her work at CAA, Erin serves on the Dean’s Community Advisory Committee at Lesley Art + Design; and consults to artists and visual arts organizations. She has served as an exhibition juror and portfolio reviewer with a number of organizations, including Danforth Art, RISD, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and Fitchburg Art Museum. She is a co-founder of the Art Centers Alliance, a group of roughly 25 community arts leaders.

Erin holds a BA in Art History from Boston University (2004); a Certificate from Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management Leadership Core Program at Questrom Business School (2015); and a certificate from the Cultural Equity Learning Community (2021). Erin lives in Dorchester with her husband Andy.

Contact Erin at ebecker@cambridgeart.org

Candice Driver (she/her) | Associate Director

Candice Driver (she/her) holds a BA in Art History from Pennsylvania State University (2017), and a MA from Boston University (2020). Prior to the CAA, she worked at various institutions as a curator, preservationist, gallery assistant, among other roles. Her main goal as a member of the arts’ community is to create an inclusive space for everyone to view and/or create art.

Contact Candice at cdriver@cambridgeart.org

Stephanie Todhunter | Program Manager

Stephanie Todhunter (she/her) is a visual artist with 15 years of professional experience. She has managed Jerome Street Studios, a collaborative art space, since 2011 and has served on the boards of West Medford Open Studios (2013-2023) and the Cambridge Art Association (2020-2023).

Stephanie holds a BA from Bowdoin College and completed postgraduate studies at the University of Minnesota. Her recent exhibitions include the Kathryn Schultz and Abigail Ogilvy Galleries, the Danforth Museum, and The Art Complex Museum. In 2017, she was named Artist of the Year by the Cambridge Art Association and received the Mozaik Future Art Award from Mozaik Philanthropy in 2020. She currently resides in Medford, MA, with her family.

Contact Stephanie at stodhunter@cambridgeart.org

Deborah Peeples | President, CAA Artist Member

Deborah (she/her) is an abstract artist who currently paints with molten pigmented beeswax. She holds a BFA from Washington University School of Fine Art and also attended the Lake Placid School of Art. After a long career in community service, political activism, and organizational leadership, she returned to a full time art practice in 2016 after moving to Cambridge. Her work has been exhibited nationally, and in New England at Fountain Street Gallery, Galatea Fine Art, Kobalt Gallery, Jo Hay Gallery, Adam Peck Gallery, Gallery 444 P-Town, Holzwasser Gallery, Truro Center for the Arts, Concord Art Association and CAA.

Paul Beckingham | Paul Beckingham is a contemporary realism oil painter based in New England.

I love realism, particularly landscapes. My work captures the ways in which light falls across a landscape, which can accentuate the interplay of natural and man-made elements. I use this natural and man-made light to create drama and interest within the landscape. I do this to evoke a feeling and add a little mystery to the painting. Contrasts such as fine detail and abstracted texture only add to this effect.

My preferred subject matter is often reminiscent of the past, with nostalgic references, featuring water as a common theme. My inspiration comes from finding calmness in a busy scene, from elevating the ordinary with the application of light. I enjoy creating beautiful compositions from overlooked sources of interest.

My continuous study of the rich and deep craft of painting, materials and techniques, allows me to apply a broad range of skills to create the illusion of form, space and light; to really control the paint. I paint exclusively in oils, mostly using smooth aluminum surfaces to allow for maximum detail where needed. I paint from a variety of sources; from life, from assorted references, from memory, and from an incredible collection of inherited historical photography.

My work is evolving due to a finer sense of composition, growing confidence in bending the narrative, and the acquisition of skills.

I like my work to present a viewing experience that encourages a closer look.

I am self-taught, with significant training from Mark Carder, Alex Tzavaras and Chelsea Lang, and have been painting for almost seven years, professionally for almost two.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer | Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is a painter, printmaker, and collage artist who constructs vibrant compositions. Her artwork investigates the interplay of identity and perception, inviting viewers to take a longer look. Julie works in layers, both physically and metaphorically, exploring what is visible and what is concealed. Passionate about connecting with and inspiring other artists, she shares her expertise through in-person workshops and her online classroom at MyArtPractice.com. Julie’s achievements include high-profile clients, multiple publications – including her book, “Carve Stamp Play” – and exhibits in New York City and Greater Boston. She is a graduate of Brown University.

Chris Gill | Chris Gill is an abstract, improvisational action painter, who lives with his wife, the artist, Jane Goldman, in the Mixit Artist Cooperative in Somerville, Massachusetts. Chris and Jane also have a house in Maine. Chris grew up in the Boston suburbs and has lived on both the East and West Coasts. He has 4 adult children. He attended Boston University as an undergraduate, and later the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Chris’ “day job” has been as psychotherapist, with 30 years of practice in the field, primarily working with adolescents and families. Chris is also a musician. Chris played drums in several bands in the San Francisco and Boston new wave and punk rock scenes in the late 70’s and early 80’s, including Ultrasheen and Vitamin. He has also written and recorded many songs and has performed as a performance and spoken word artist.

As a painter, his primary media are watercolor and gouache. He paints on large rolls of paper, which he often cuts up later to make different size paintings. Chris rarely touches a paintbrush to the paper, though he uses one to splatter, drip and mix paint. Most of the time he spills, pours, squirts and drips paint on the paper from containers of various types and sizes. He also uses a variety of imprinting techniques, whereby he folds and rolls sections of the freshly painted paper onto itself, creating layered and textured effects.

As a lifelong musician, who plays the drums, Chris tends to paint very rhythmically. He considers much of his work to be a kind of visual music. He sees it as a birthing process, in which he finds great excitement and joy in the discovery aspect of how each painting, as a unique, organic creation, grows and evolves as a natural entity. Chris does not paint figuratively, per se, but sees his painting as about nature, the world and the universe. Chris states that he “channels nature” through his painting processes. which mirror those of nature, and his paintings often have a naturalistic look.

Nathalie Jean | Executive Director, Brockton Redevelopment Authority. Nathalie Jean holds a BA in English from the College of the Holy Cross and MA in urban planning and public policy from Tufts University.  At the undergraduate level, she wrote plays and performed in them through her year long, first-year program class.  Those skills are now long dormant, and Nathalie has been attempting to use them again by journaling and immersing herself in music.  Creative cake baking is a new interest that she explores through social media.  Her next step will be to take a class that teaches her how to make the kinds of beautiful cakes she admires on Instagram and other platforms.  Nathalie joins the board with the goal of helping under-served community residents tap into their creativity through the Cambridge Art Association and its resources.  She looks forward to working with the CAA community. 

Erica Licea-Kane | Erica has had a long career as a studio artist and college art instructor, including 17 years as the Gallery Director at Wheelock College. She received her BFA at the Parsons School of Design, and her MFA at the Massachusetts College of Art, earning both degrees in the field of fine art, textiles. Erica has exhibited her work extensively throughout the United States and abroad.

Recent exhibitions of Erica’s work include The Krakorian Gallery at the Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester MA, The Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, Site:Brooklyn, NY, Able Baker contemporary, Portland, ME, the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, the Andrews Art Museum, Andrews, NC, the Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA and the Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, MA.

Erica has been the recipient of several grants and fellowships including the 2018 Artist Fellowship in Painting from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the A.R.T Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and a Regional Fellowship from the New England Foundation for the Arts of the National Endowment of the Arts.

Her work has been reviewed in several publications with recent coverage in the Portland Phoenix, the “Take” section in the Boston Globe, The Portland Press Herald and Take Magazine as well as past reviews in the Boston Globe Magazine, The Boston Herald, Surface Design Journal and several of the Lark Publications, Fiberarts Design Book, #’s 3, 4, 6 editions. Currently she is a visiting lecturer at several institutions in the Boston area.

Erica is currently represented by SJ Art Consulting in Haverhill, MA.

www.licea-kane.com

David Rabkin | David Rabkin’s interests and experience span three careers, one in software and general management, a second as a museum leader, and now a third as an artist. While finishing college, he designed and developed a PC-based project management system for an architectural firm, a project that catalyzed a career in software development for factory scheduling, decision support, and customer relationship management. Along the way, he earned a PhD in technology and innovation management from MIT. In 2000, he joined Boston’s Museum of Science in a unique role: to engage and facilitate the Museum’s senior team and staff in a collaborative process to imagine and implement a new strategy to add technology as a core topic to the Museum’s focus on science. In that role, and in subsequent management roles at the museum, he led teams developing a wide range of programs for children and adults, producing media from podcasts to planetarium shows, creating exhibits, and curating an art gallery.

Today, he is a lens-based artist living in Cambridge, MA. His grandfather was a photographer, woodworker and painter, and he can hardly remember a time before his first camera or when he wasn’t drawing and working with any material he could get his hands on, particularly wood. While he has worked in many media, photography is the only art form he has pursued continuously since his childhood.

He is married to an elected official in Cambridge, and they have a son and daughter in their twenties. He’s an avid sailor, hiker, and chef. Plus he does stage makeup.

Dana Rashti | Dana is a business planning and strategic marketing executive with a proven record of accelerating revenue growth, building customer-centric brands, and guiding companies through periods of transformation. He has over 30 years of experience in strategic planning, marketing, corporate communication, product management, and organizational development in the health care and finance sectors.

Most recently, Dana was Chief of Staff to the President at Mass General Brigham Health Plan where he led strategic planning and organizational development, as well as integration initiatives with the Mass General Brigham hospital enterprise. Before becoming Chief of Staff, Dana served for several years as the health plan’s Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. 

Prior to Mass General Brigham Health Plan, Dana served as Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Dana also has broad executive experience in the finance industry, at Fleet Bank and Bank of America, where he had leadership roles in marketing strategy, corporate communications product management, merger integration and delivery network planning.

Dana graduated from Phillips Academy Andover, MA. He earned a Bachelors degree from Wesleyan University, CT in Political Science and Studio Art, and a Masters degree from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University, MA in International Business.  

He has served on the Board of Overseers for the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Board of Trustees for the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts, and the Boards of Directors for the Ad Club of Boston and the Boston Public Market Association.

Ingrid Schorr | Ingrid Schorr is a longtime Cambridge resident and a transplant from Georgia. She is an arts administrator at Brandeis University, where she produces the annual Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts. Professional passions include promoting access to the arts and connecting people to resources. Personal passions include knitting and weaving, kittens, Leonard Bernstein, and the Beatles.

Kristen Sherman | Head of Development & Finance, Rehearsal for Life Kristen Sherman (she/her/hers) has overseen philanthropy, marketing, and administration for many organizations. Currently serves as head of development and finance at Rehearsal for Life, she has worked in museums, public parks, education, and nonprofit foundations in Boston and NYC. Kristen studied Art History at UMass Amherst and received her MBA from Endicott College. A daily dose of art continues to be a connective thread in both her professional and personal life. Kristen believes the arts are a tool for change and serve as an important lens to interpret current events.

Mark Zieff | Mark Zieff is a still-life pencil artist who creates artistically realistic drawings of commonplace man-made objects. Mark holds a degree in Industrial Design from Syracuse University and has held senior leadership roles at a number of leading consumer products companies including Tupperware, Parker Brothers (Hasbro) and Highliner Foods.

As both a designer and artist, Mark has always been fascinated with man-made objects and uses his artwork to explore the relationships between object and user; both the physical and emotional connection we have with inanimate objects. His drawings are characterized by a high level of detail, soft tonal transitions and dramatically lit compositions.

His work has been selected by juries for regional and national competitions and is regularly seen in museums, universities and galleries including 13FOREST Gallery and Galatea Fine Art.