J.D. Beltran is a conceptual artist, filmmaker, and writer whose artwork explores the contexts, language, and scope of portraiture. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen in New York, the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Singapore Digital Mediafest, Cité des Ondes Vidéo et Art Électronique in Montreal, Canada, the Biennale for Electronic Arts in Perth, Australia, and both the 2006 and 2008 ZeroOne San Jose New Media Biennials. She was awarded a San Jose Cultural Commission Grant for a public art project exhibiting in the streets of San Jose from October 2007 through Spring 2009, and an Individual Artist Commission from the city of San Francisco for a public art project exhibited in March 2009. Her San Jose public art project garnered an award as one of the most outstanding public art projects in the country by the Public Art Network. She also was awarded a Lucas Fellowship and Montalvo Arts Center Residency in 2009, an Artadia grant in 1999, and residencies at both the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Globe, as well as in Art in America, ArtNews, the New Art Examiner, and Art Papers. She writes a blog column on art and culture for SFGate.com, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, and is faculty in the New Genres, Film, Interdisciplinary Studies, Critical Studies, and Urban Studies Programs at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Bio to come.

John Calloway is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who has performed with Pete Escovedo, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Max Roach, Omar Sosa and SFJAZZ. His recording credits include his two CDs, Diaspora and The Code, and the Grammy-nominated recordings SF Bay, Ritmo y Candela and Ritmo y Candela II.

John has taught at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the JazzSchool in Berkeley, and was a program facilitator at the National School of the Arts in Havana, Cuba. He is currently on faculty at San Francisco State University and has taught in the San Francisco Unified School District for over 20 years. John is also the musical director of the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco, a grassroots group that offers free instruction in Latin American music to students of various socioeconomic backgrounds.

John earned a B.A. in music from City University of New York, an M.A. in Music Education from San Francisco State University, and received a Doctorate of Education from the University of San Francisco. He is currently a consultant on issues related to music, the arts, and multicultural and urban education for the Music National Service Initiative, SFJAZZ, the Stanford Jazz Workshop and JazzCampWest. John also serves the advisory committee for the SFUSD Arts Education Master Plan and the San Jose Jazz Society.

In the world of marketing and advertising, Commissioner Greg Chew’s track record spans over thirty years of innovation and success. With his start in mainstream advertising agencies, he is the founding creative director of the award-winning San Francisco based Dae Advertisng. Chew specializes in reaching out to the burgeoning, extensive and diverse Asian and Asian American consumer markets.

Dae Advertising and Dae Interactive was established in 1990, and in 2001, it was acquired by CDC Corp. Hong Kong, a publicly traded company (CHINA) on Nasdaq.

In addition to working with Fortune 500 companies, Chew is an active contributor and is deeply rooted to the Asian American community, serving on boards such as the Asian Business League, the Chinese Culture Foundation and Asian CineVision, New York. He is co founder of The Asian American Advertising Association.

Chew’s expertise has been tapped by the Academy of Art University, UC Berkeley Extension and San Jose State University, where he teaches numerous courses on design, marketing and advertising.

As principal in the first Asian marketing firm to win the American Marketing Association’s Gold EFFIE, Chew now serves as a selection panel judge.

This mixture of business success and civic awareness endows Chew with a unique perspective, appointed in 2004 as San Francisco Film Commissioner, and in 2008 to the Immigrant Rights Commission, chairing the Commission’s Outreach Committee. He is a member of numerous San Francisco Sister City Committees.

On September 1, 2009, Chew was appointed to the San Francisco Arts Commission for a four-year term.

He is the guest host of the Annual Asian Comedy Showcase at the legendary Purple Onion and is a partner in the wildly successful Betelnut Restaurant, which serves distinctive Asian street food in Cow Hollow, as well other restaurants and ventures in Shanghai, China.

Bio to come.

Amy Chuang was one of five women who founded the Chinese Consolidated Women’s Association (“CCWA”) in 1999, and she currently serves as Honorable Chair. CCWA celebrates the many accomplishments of women and their contributions to society, as well as a mother’s love for her family and children; Ms. Chuang is a dedicated mother of three. With a strong basis in Confucianism, CCWA offers scholarships to students who earn good grades, as an incentive for Chinese American children to strive for educational success. Scholarship recipients are celebrated at the annual scholarship banquet by friends and family.

Ms. Chuang has served on the Board of Directors for the Chinese Newcomers Service Center (“CNSC”) and in 1998 she received the Diamond Charity Empress for raising $45,000 for the center. Ms. Chuang champions organizations which provide much-needed services to immigrants and newcomers such as acculturation, job training and placement assistance, citizenship classes, ESL classes, computer classed and tutoring for youth, encouraging self-sufficiency for participants. Ms. Chuang also volunteers at On Lok and Self Help for the Elderly, performing song and dance. She has served as president of the Buddha’s Light International Association, San Francisco Regional Chapter.

In recognition of her contributions and dedication to the Asian Pacific Islander community, Mayor Willie Brown proclaimed August 24, 2001 Amy Chuang Day in San Francisco. Her contributions have also been lauded by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Governor Gray Davis. Since 2004, Ms. Chuang has served as vice president of the Mayor’s Office of Chinatown Economic Development Group. Since 2007, she has been the president of the American Chinese Cultural and Arts Association, which encourages children and youth to participate in cultural activities.

Bio to come.

Simon J. Frankel, a San Francisco native, is a lawyer and teacher. He is a partner in the San Francisco office of Covington & Burling LLP, where his practice focuses on copyright and trademark litigation, technology and privacy disputes, and legal issues related to visual art. He has handled a wide range of disputes concerning art, including cultural property claims, title disputes, moral rights claims, and resale royalties. In addition, he has advised museums, auction houses, dealers, and artists on intellectual property, ownership, and other legal issues. Mr. Frankel is a frequent speaker on copyright and art law issues and has taught classes on art and the law at numerous law schools since 1995; he is currently a lecturer-in-law at Stanford Law School. Mr. Frankel is also an experienced mediator and a member of the Northern District of California’s Alternative Dispute Resolution panel. He and his wife, Courtney Weaver, and their three children live in the Richmond District of San Francisco. Mr. Frankel was appointed to the San Francisco Arts Commission on March 22, 2013.

Dorka is the Chief Muse of KEEHN ON ART. She is completing ECO AMAZONS, the first illustrated book on American women environmentalists with photographs by Colin Finlay to be published in 2011 by powerHouse Books. In 2008, she realized with Brian Goggin The Language of the Birds, a solar-powered site-specific permanent sculpture commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, voted one of the best public artworks in the U.S. by Americans for the Arts. From 2006 to 2008, Dorka hosted and produced the arts and culture radio (on Green 960) and internet program, KEEHN ON ART. She has also produced several films for television including the two-time Emmy award-winning documentary, OF CIVIL WRONGS AND RIGHTS: The Fred Korematsu Story, and line produced the feature film The Brave, starring and directed by Johnny Depp.

Dorka is the Co-Founder and Co-chair of Emerge America, a Founding Board Member of Ignite, on the Board of Motion Theater Institute, and on the Advisory Boards of the Crucible and the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

Bio to come.

Marcus Anthony Shelby is an accomplished teacher, composer, arranger, and bassist who currently lives in San Francisco, California. Over the past 20 years, he has built a diverse biography. From 1990-1996, Shelby was bandleader of Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! Recording Artists Black/Note and is currently the Artistic Director and leader of The Marcus Shelby Orchestra, The Marcus Shelby Hot 7, and the The Marcus Shelby Trio. Mr. Shelby was awarded a 2009 Black Metropolis Research Consortium Fellowship in Chicago for summer 2009 to conduct research for his commission to compose “Soul of the Movement.” He was also a 2006 Fellow in the Resident Dialogues Program of the Committee for Black Performing Arts at Stanford University to conduct research for his commission to compose “Harriet Tubman.” Mr. Shelby also has had the honor of arranging for and conducting the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Ledisi, performing and recording with Tom Waits, and receiving the City Flight Magazine 2005 award as one of the “Top Ten Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area.” As the 1991 winner of the Charles Mingus Scholarship, Mr. Shelby’s studies include work under the tutelage of composer James Newton and legendary bassist Charlie Haden. He is also very active in music education and currently teaches at Rooftop Alternative School in San Francisco, and at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University.

Bio to come.

Barbara Sklar has painted for the past 38 years, full time since 1989. She studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, 1961-1964, and later at UC Berkeley and the Art Students League, New York. In 1991-1995, she was the only American to attend the Royal Watercolor Society’s annual workshops for professionals. She has studied sculpture, photography, and ceramic privately in Italy. Her works, which have been shown in New York, San Francisco, Washington, Northern California, Rome and Florence, are in public, corporate and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. Ms. Sklar has served on review panels for the California Arts Council and various foundations and the San Francisco Arts Commission, the New York Foundation of the Arts Board, and the Arts in Embassies Millennium Committee. Ms. Sklar also worked for the Cultural Office of the former USIS in Washington and Sarajevo.

Ms. Sklar, who has a Masters in Planning and Administration from Case Western Cleveland, Ohio, is also a gerontologist and from 1974-1989 her professional experience included serving as the Director of Geriatric Services for the Hospital Consortium of San Mateo County, the Director of Center for Aging & Planning for Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. She served on the Board of Meals-on-Wheels, Family Services Agency, the Council of International Programs, the National Council on Aging and was the Founder and a Board Member of the National Institutes of Adult Day Care and Community-Based Long Term Care.

Cass Calder Smith established the San Francisco architectural firm that bears his name in 1990. Celebrating its 18th year in the Bay Area, CCS-Architecture is located in a converted warehouse in the South of Market district with a staff of 20. In 2005, CCS-Architecture opened an office in New York City to better meet the needs of its diverse range of residential, commercial and mixed use clients.

Born in 1961, Smith earned his Bachelor and Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. A native of New York City, he has lived in California since 1972 and now splits his time between San Francisco and Manhattan. As the son of an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and a California landscape painter and designer, his early years were influenced by both Greenwich Village intellectuals and rural California artisans.

Smith is recognized internationally for his architectural and interior design projects. In 1999 he was named “One of the 60 Most Powerful People in the Bay Area,” and in 2005, he was featured in 1000 Architects, a pictorial directory of the worlds leading architectural firms. Hospitality Design Magazine also named Cass Calder Smith as “one of 8 designers considered the ‘Wave of the Future 2004.’”

Firmly based in the modernist idiom, Smith draws inspiration from history’s great architects and cities as well as the epic filmmakers of the last century. Bold imagery and intricate detail are characteristic of his designs balanced with experience and common sense.

Kimberlee Stryker is a landscape architect and community activist who has lived in San Francisco for nearly 25 years. Ms. Stryker has researched and authored topics related to historic garden design, including “Listening to the Gardens of Hue, Vietnam,” presented as an oral history to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco through a Graham Foundation grant; “Historic Garden and Modern Sculpture at the Villa Celle, Italy” for the Public Art Review; and “The Modern Gardens of Pietro Porcinai” published in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes.

Ms. Stryker is an instructor at U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, teaching a course in Sustainable Cities and Landscapes. Committed to the ethic of community participation as a means to ecological and democratic sustainability, Ms. Stryker encourages community involvement through active engagement in political processes and through design that requires community dialog. She believes urban design can and should include ecologically balanced systems within cities to provide environments that enable everyone to enjoy safe and healthy neighborhoods.

Bio to come.