NISDA STAFF SOPHIE ELIZA CROSS North of Boston based artist Sophie Cross is a classically trained figurative artist and mental health counselor specializing in art therapy. She completed studies earning a BFA from the Art Institute of Boston and Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts. After graduating she spent time working at the Chelsea Foundry (Chelsea, Ma.) as a mold maker and completed a 200 hour iyengar yoga certification. With growing interest in weaving the art world with wellness, Sophie attended Lesley University earning a Masters Degree, becoming a LMHC ( licensed mental health counselor) and ATR ( therapy registered). As an LMHC and ATR Sophie runs her own individual private practice. Sophie has always made jobs out of her passions and her latest certification has been becoming a Zumba instructor, classes in the works. Sophie is most inspired by arts from the Renaissance. She has always loved the human figure and nature, she works in both 3D and 2d using materials such as clay, wax, pencil, charcoal, colored chalks on either paper or smooth wooden boards. Sophie loves tender beauty and finding it in our world as well as offering a new way of seeing, considering the beauty in the little things, the mundane and in the perfectly imperfect. A fun fact about Sophie is that she grew up as a little girl here at Nisda watching her mom Laura Herhold teach, hold art critiques and have art shows. She holds fond memories attending the kinder arts program and still has many of her works from it today like a doll she made of Kathy. Generations of artists in the family continue with Sophie’s son Paxton, a budding comic illustrator who loves a good superhero. It warms Sophie’s heart to share the magic of Nisda and see Paxton now take his turn attending the kinder arts program and enjoying everyone’s beloved island.

NISDA STAFF LINDA NATHAN Linda Nathan is a lifelong student, teacher and school leader (www.lindanathan.com). She continues to coach in public schools and teach emerging leaders. As a teenager, she apprenticed with a production potter inEngland and now makes wheel-thrown functional pots. TheBreezesPottery and at Cambridge’s Annual Open Studios and posts her work on instagram @thebreezespottery . Proceeds go to support democratic causes. Currently, she is making one hundred fifty different vases for her daughter’s upcoming wedding celebration. She sells her work on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/

NISDA STAFF IAN TORNEY Ian Torney is an artist, an arts educator and administrator, and an exhibition curator. Mr. Torney has been teaching in the Visual Arts at independent schools for over three decades. In 2012 he joined the faculty at his alma-mater Milton Academy and served for 10 years as the department Chair – he currently serves as the Nesto Gallery Director. Additionally, Mr. Torney served for five years as the Co-President of the Independent School Art Instructors Association, and remains on the leadership council of the Art Association of New England Preparatory Schools. Most recently Mr. Torney was honored as the Massachusetts Arts Education Association/MAEA Independent School Arts Educator of the Year in 2025. Mr. Torney has mentored countless arts students, adults and peers – his students have garnered numerous regional Art All-Scholastic honors every year, and have won one Silver and five Gold national medals. Mr. Torney is also a practicing, professional landscape painter who exhibits his work annually – he is a member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston, and is represented by the Hurricane Mountain Design Gallery of North Conway, NH. See more at www.iantorneyart.com .

NISDA STAFF MICHAEL FRASSINELLI Michael Frassinelli studied art at the University of Connecticut, with a focus on design and sculpture, receiving his BFA in 1986. He has been a prop maker, set designer, mask-maker, free-lance artist and ship’s carpenter, and has worked with a variety of people, from Berkeley California's Shotgun Players and The San Francisco Ballet and to Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theatre, a German theater production company, and a Balinese mask-carver. Although he has worked in a variety of art mediums over the last 40 years his recent work from the Legend of the Pianistas series which includes sculpture made entirely out of piano parts and photorealistic cabinets of curiosity. Since 2002, Frassinelli has taught at the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where he is Chair of the Visual Arts Dept. and Director of the Dana Hall Art Gallery.

NISDA STAFF MANIOUCHA KRISHAMURTI Manioucha Krishamurti is a Ceramic Artist. She is featured in The Artist’s Guild in Woodstock and Dean & DeLuca, NYC. Manioucha has taught ceramics for many years and lives half the year on the island of Nantucket.

NISDA STAFF BETSY SIBLEY Elizabeth (Betsy) Sibley is a practicing artist and teacher. In addition to receiving her MA, MFA in Fiber at UWM she has studied with many Fiber/Textile artists throughout the country. Her own recent work utilizes computer images, rescued materials in addition to stitchery to create personal imagery. Betsy is a familiar face at NISDA.

NISDA STAFF HELEN MILLS Coming from a large family of artists and nerds, I've settled quite happily in ceramics. Playing in the mud and creating is how I spent most of my childhood growing up in Indiana. I found a love for studying life and completed a bachelors of biology at Purdue University. Each semester I would enroll in a fine arts course for myself, and eventually I happened to reconnect with ceramics in 2020. I found that I had the patience and curiosity needed to fall in love with clay. Since then, I have been a bit obsessed with the process. It is an outlet, a self-study, a practice in discipline, and a form of expression. Creating offers us the opportunity to connect to source, connect to others, and connect to ourselves as we explore the process of bringing something to life.

NISDA STAFF KATHY KELM Kathy Kelm is NISDA’s Founding Director. Rhode Island School of Design, BFA/Fine Arts. RISD Assistant Professor; Textiles, Art-in-Environment, Art Ed; Cultural Expressions: Interdisciplinary Curriculum at Providence Campus and founded Nantucket RISD Summer Session 1973 – 1978 which birthed Nantucket Island School of Design & the Arts, founded in 1978 through affiliation with Mass Art Boston. In 1973, with Larry Cronin, began 1st Sand Castle Day, orchestrated NISDA’s program facility rentals: Islander homes for housing, Public High School classrooms, Academy Hill, Coffin School, Historic Association’s Lightship Nantucket, to purchase of 71 Washington Street Artist Residency cottages, Seaview Farm Dairy Barn, Long Shed and gifting of 55 Wauwinet property and house for Residency.

NISDA STAFF DENESE ALLEN Denese Allen has been an island resident since 1991. Her very first job on Nantucket was at NISDA and she has been involved in the school ever since, as an instructor, consultant and on the Board of Directors. Although art is her passion, she has used her creativity to better the island though many venues – including the world of printed media. Recently she has been instrumental working as a consultant for NISDA as Project Manager for all of NISDA’s Historic Restoration projects including re-building a silo, moving a Heifer Barn and re-locating & restoring the Artist Residency Cottages. Denese is a Certified Zentangle™ Teacher (CZT), and she incorporates her zen-drawing of patterns into her favorite form of art-making in her mixed media pieces. With the philosophy that there are no mistakes, only opportunities, she believes that everyone is an artist, and that what’s important is the creative process of art-making – with the finished product being just an added benefit.