Executive Director
Sage Paisner
Sage Paisner received a MFA in Photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts. He earned his BFA in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico. He has been nominated for awards such as, the Baum Award for An Emerging American Photographer in January 2014, and the 5th Annual Jeunes Talents Photography Program in January 2011. He was born in Oregon in 1982. His family moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1988, where he grew up. Paisner is currently Executive Director of Foto Forum Santa Fe, The Head of the SFCC Photography program, and special faculty at Calarts.
Board of Directors
Scarlett Widgeon PHD
Scarlett Widgeon was born in Barranquilla, Columbia and grew up in Albuquerque, NM. She received her BS in Chemistry from University of New Mexico 2007 and her PHD from UC Davis in 2013. Dr. Widgeon completed the University of California presidents postdoctoral fellowship at UC Santa Barbara. She continues her teaching and research in Santa Fe New Mexico.
Charleen Touchette
Charleen Touchette is an artist, author, educator, and activist. She studied art and art history at Wellesley, RISD, Brown, and Bard. She received a BA in painting from Bard in 1975, where her mentor was Elizabeth Murray. She is the celebrated author of It Stops With Me, Ndn Art, and a chapter in Feminist Art Criticism. She was a national board member of the Women Caucus for Art, and the New Mexico WCA. In 1998, she was awarded the WCA President's Award. Touchette founded the Spiderwomen World Arts Network in 1990. She lectures widely at museums and art institutions, and was a visiting artist at arts colleges including MCAD, and Colorado University Boulder, and was adjunct faculty at IAIA in 2001. Touchette was featured in the What Follows video series on contemporary artists. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and been published in the Women's Art Journal, Native Peoples, American Indian Art Magazine, and New Directions for Women. She has curated exhibits nationwide, including at the Queens Museum, Chicago Cultural Center, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Santa Fe Art Institute.
Arnoldo Vargas is an artist and educator whose work focuses on social and cultural issues that impact working class communities of color. He received his BA from UCLA in fine art in 1999 and his MFA in Photography and New Media from CalArts in Valencia, CA. in 2010. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. He is a native of Wilmington, California, where he currently teaches advanced placement art and photography at Banning High School.
Advisory Board
Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, born into the Bear Clan of the Taskigi Nation, born for Tsi’naajinii of the Dine’ Nation, adopted into the Eagle House of Metlakatla, adopted in to the Killer Whale Fin House of Klukwan.
Tsinhnahjinnie arrived in Oakland, CA, 1978, transferring from the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, NM) to the California College of Arts and Crafts, during her residency in the Bay Area (1978-1997), she worked with the San Francisco Indian Center, Intertribal Friendship House, and numerous Indigenous organizations nationally and internationally.
In 2004, Tsinhnahjinnie was appointed Director of the C.N. Gorman Museum and a faculty position within the Native American Studies Department at the University of California Davis.
Tsinhnahjinnie is known nationally and internationally as a multimedia artist creating portraiture/social commentary works. In addition to creative works, Tsinhnahjinnie served as a board member or advisor on the following organizations, American Indian Contemporary Arts, Intertribal Friendship House, Gay American Indians, Native American Advisory Committee DeYoung Museum, and is currently serving as Vice President for the Native American Art Studies Association.
Tsinhnahjinnie’s work is held in several collections including, NMAI, MoMA, The Eiteljorg Museum, Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art.
As an artist, Tsinhnahjinnie, continues to create evocative visual statements that address Indigeneity, and continuance.
PEN DENSHAM rode into the movies at age 4 on a live alligator in one of his English parents’ theatrical shorts and started a love of cameras and story. He founded the Trilogy Entertainment Group in Canada and then LA with John Watson and recently took sole ownership. Their 16 feature films and nearly 300 hours of TV series, collaborating with some of Hollywood’s most creative filmmakers, have grossed more than one billion dollars. Pen has earned Oscar nominations and over 80 international awards, including a medal from the Queen of England. His first drama as a writer/director, IF WISHES WERE HORSES, about an owner fighting to save the life of his horse, was reviewed by Canada’s TV Guide as “the best film of any length that the CBC has ever screened.” The film spurred Norman Jewison to mentor Pen and bring him to Hollywood. He was a creative consultant on ROCKY II and FOOTLOOSE. And when studios rejected Pen’s revisionist story for ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, he wrote it anyway. As producers, he and Watson shepherded their script, starring Kevin Costner, to be Warner’s largest grossing movie to that time. Among the features Pen has written and directed are his personal version of MOLL FLANDERS, starring Morgan Freeman & Robin Wright, and HOUDINI for TNT, based on Pen’s fascination for one of America’s most extraordinary characters. It starred Johnathon Schaech and Mark Ruffalo. Pen is a producer on all of Trilogy’s films, including: BLOWN AWAY with Jeff Bridges, THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS with Jodie Foster, BACKDRAFT with Ron Howard directing, LARGER THAN LIFE with Bill Murray, and BUFFALO SOLDIERS with Danny Glover. This year he is a producer on THE LAST FULL MEASURE, about a Medal of Honor winner, with Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan, William Hurt, Peter Fonda and Christopher Plummer. Pen is the originator and an Executive Producer on the multi-awarded HARRIET with Cynthia Erivo, Oscar-nominated for playing Harriet Tubman. Pen revived his favorite anthology TV shows, THE OUTER LIMITS and THE TWILIGHT ZONE, to award-winning network runs. His best-selling book on creative scriptwriting, RIDING THE ALLIGATOR, has been translated into Chinese. Current projects are: LAND OF ENCHANTMENT, a visionary murder mystery set in the world of the Navajo, and ANSEL’S ISLAND, an environmental dolphin adventure.
Aydinaneth Ortiz, best known as Aydi (pronounced I.D.) received her B.A.
in Art at the University of California, Los Angeles and her MFA
at the California Institute of the Arts. She works in digital and
chemical-based photographic processes as well as traditional printmaking
mediums such as relief, etching and serigraphy. Utilizing documentary,
portrait, and street photography, she focuses on intersections between
urban structures, familial relationships, and social contexts. Ortiz has
exhibited her artwork in a wide range of venues, most notably at the
Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont and the Museum of Latin
American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, where she is now part of their
permanent collection. In 2016 she had her first Solo Exhibition hosted at
Avenue 50 Studio’s Satellite Gallery in Highland Park.
Harry Gamboa Jr. is an artist, writer, and educator.
He is a faculty member of the Photo/Media Program at California Institute of the Arts.
He is the founder and director of Virtual Vérité (2005-2017), the international performance troupe.
He is a co-founder of Asco (1972-1985), the Los Angeles-based performance group.
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His work has been exhibited nationally/internationally :
Autry Museum of the American West (2018), Marlborough Contemporary, New York (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016, 2015 and 1995 Biennial); Utah Museum of Fine Arts (2015); Princeton University Art Museum (2015); Centre d’Arts Plastiques Contemporain Bordeaux, France (2014); De Appel, Amsterdam (2014); Triangle France, Marseille, France (2014); Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2014); Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz, Austria (2013); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England (2013); Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (2013); Le Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille, France (2013, 2017).
Spencer Isitt
Nikkol Brothers
Owner of Visions photo Lab in Santa Fe, Nm
Developing visions for Santa Fe's professional photographers and hobbyists for the past 30 years.
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Programs Coordinator
Spencer Isitt is an artist and photographer from Spokane, Washington specializing in experimental photography. He received a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Western Washington University in 2014 with photography as his concentration of study.