Seattle fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld’s vibrant, expressive playing is voiced in a wide range of traditional fiddle styles, from Celtic, American Old-Time, and French Canadian, Scandinavian, and Eastern European. She has performed and taught widely throughout the US, Europe, and South America. During her 15 year sojourn in New England, Ruthie studied at Berklee College of Music, was a member of the twin fiddle stringband The Poodles, the bluegrass band Boston City Limits, the Hungarian band The Pulis, was a mainstay on the contra dance circuit, and toured Europe with tapdancer Ira Bernstein and with the Copenhagen-based American Cafe Orchestra. Since returning to the Pacific Northwest in 1996, she has been a member of the French cabaret group Rouge, performs with guitar master John Miller, with the quintet Tangoheart, and for local contra and English dancing.

Dan D. Shafer is a graphic designer, artist, and educator living and working in Seattle. He owns Dandy Co., a graphic design studio specializing in book design, installation, and environmental design (as well as event promotion and branding). The studio's clients include Kronos Quartet, American Cancer Society, Salish Lodge, Herman Miller, and Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Shafer is also the creative director at Chin Music Press. His self-initiated social practice installations explore the nebulous territory that exists between traditional definitions of "art" and "design," and investigate how people interact with objects in their everyday lives.

Bradley Taylor is a Seattle based artist, and printmaker. He is currently working at Cornish College of the Arts as the Printmaking Studio Technician. Proficient in all forms of printmaking Bradley specializes in woodblock prints. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the Seattle area. He has also work collaboratively with many notable Seattle Artists.

Meg McLynn is an actor, vocalist, and teaching artist who has been seen on stages and screens throughout North America. Meg loves to share her passion for performance with students of all ages, and it is her belief that the work we do in “the studio” is applicable to all aspects of our everyday lives. 

Having studied for 7 years under renowned voice teacher, Kristin Linklater, Meg now works with students to help them take ownership of their wonderfully unique voices. She teaches Voice and Speech at Cornish College of the Arts, and she serves as a vocal coach with Jack Straw Studios. She has assisted with voice training at Columbia Business School and World Leaders Forum in New York City. Meg also teaches Voice and Acting classes at Freehold Theatre Lab and Mighty Tripod Studios in Seattle. 

Meg is a member of the Seattle-based vocal trio, Blue Plate Special, and has been an Anthem Singer for the Seattle Seahawks. As a concert soloist, she performed the songbooks of Patsy Cline, Judy Garland, and Carly Simon with Purple Phoenix Productions. Local acting credits include roles with Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-It Rep, Seattle Symphony, ArtsWest, Seattle Opera, Seattle Public Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Theatre22, Harlequin Productions, and 14/48: TWQTF, as well as the feature films “Different Drummers”, “7 Minutes”, and “Colton”. You can see her in the series, “The Girl in the Woods” streaming on NBC/Peacock.

Bradley Taylor is a Seattle based artist, and printmaker. He is currently working at Cornish College of the Arts as the Printmaking Studio Technician. Proficient in all forms of printmaking Bradley specializes in woodblock prints. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the Seattle area. He has also work collaboratively with many notable Seattle Artists.

David Taft was a Theater Professor at Cornish College of the Arts for 24 years and developed clown study coursework taken from his own training and performance experience. He curated the annual Clown Show at the Cornish Playhouse and currently is a movement consultant for stage and screen. His website and resume can be found at: david-taft.com

Maja Sereda is an environmental artist, teacher and coach. Born in Poland, Maja has dedicated her life to transcribing and sharing her experiences in nature. Working with pen, graphite, color pencils, charcoal and mixed media, her highly detailed drawings explore the myriad connections between human beings and the natural world. Her drawings have been shown throughout the US, Europe, and South Africa. 

After studying graphic design at University of Pretoria and working as an art director in advertising agencies, both in South Africa and Ireland, Maja became an award-winning book illustrator. She has illustrated more than 20 books with many major publishers including Penguin Random House, Maskew Miller Longman, Oskar Editeur, Tafelberg & Lapa Publishers. Amongst others, she won the Crystal Kite award in 2011 and the Katrine Harries Award for best illustration for 2010. In 2012, she was also invited to illustrate a book with a French author, Yves Pinguilly titled La Grande Fleur (The Big Flower), followed by an invitation to Salon du Livre fair in Paris, France and La Reunion, where she showcased her books and led art workshops for children. 

Now based in Seattle, Maja is a teaching artist and coach. With the outbreak of COVID, she began teaching drawing classes online. By investing deeply in her students’ work through highly individualized feedback, research and demonstrations, she nurtures an online community of over 250 artists. 

With a deep passion for nature, drawing and community, Maja operates Guardians of the Jungle, a creative project which aims to save endangered wildlife and protect precarious ecosystems.

J. Gordon brings over two decades of experience as an artist, educator, and curator, to his classrooms.  Gordon earned his BFA and MFA in painting from the University of Kansas and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts respectively. While his current professional practice centers primarily around the medium of drawing, he incorporates aspects of traditional and contemporary painterly practices in both his teaching methods and mixed media art works.

Gordon is a recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, as well an artist fellowship from the state of Delaware.  He has taught drawing at many colleges, art centers, and museums including the Tacoma Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He is currently represented by Gallery Strega, where he also plays a supporting role in exhibition design and curation.

I am energized by the spirited exchange of expression and ideas. I am a metal worker, sculptor and installation artist. I have always worked with my hands; gardening, farming, fabricating. I took my first metal working class at Pratt Fine Art Center nearly 25 years ago and went on to get a certificate in Welding/Fabrication at South Seattle Community College specializing in non-ferrous metals and blacksmithing. 

I have been a metalworker in various industrial and artistic capacities ever since: I ran public art programs in SE Seattle high school and middle schools, as well as worked alongside established artists and builders. I have recently returned to Pratt teaching forging and welding for adults, families and and teens. I also teach at Burkehead Art Center and Coyote Central.  I maintain a shop/art practice on our family farm amongst the goats in Woodinville, Wa. 

I am energized by the spirited exchange of expression and ideas. I am a metal worker, sculptor and installation artist. I have always worked with my hands; gardening, farming, fabricating. I took my first metal working class at Pratt Fine Art Center nearly 25 years ago and went on to get a certificate in Welding/Fabrication at South Seattle Community College specializing in non-ferrous metals and blacksmithing. 

I have been a metalworker in various industrial and artistic capacities ever since: I ran public art programs in SE Seattle high school and middle schools, as well as worked alongside established artists and builders. I have recently returned to Pratt teaching forging and welding for adults, families and and teens. I also teach at Burkehead Art Center and Coyote Central.  I maintain a shop/art practice on our family farm amongst the goats in Woodinville, Wa. 

J. Gordon brings over two decades of experience as an artist, educator, and curator, to his classrooms.  Gordon earned his BFA and MFA in painting from the University of Kansas and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts respectively. While his current professional practice centers primarily around the medium of drawing, he incorporates aspects of traditional and contemporary painterly practices in both his teaching methods and mixed media art works.

Gordon is a recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, as well an artist fellowship from the state of Delaware.  He has taught drawing at many colleges, art centers, and museums including the Tacoma Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He is currently represented by Gallery Strega, where he also plays a supporting role in exhibition design and curation.

Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.

Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty. 

As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.

As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.

Born and raised in Seattle, after high school, Nikki moved to California to attend college, receiving a BFA in Film Production in2002 from Chapman University. For the next 6 years she worked various office jobs in the film industry while also earning a Masters Degree in Secondary Education. In 2006 Nikki decided to shift her career to special effects make-up from there segueing into the stop motion world, beginning in 2008 with Shadow Machine on the Adult Swim hit show, Robot Chicken: Season 3. Nikki has worked as a puppet fabricator, lead fabricator and department head on numerous stop motion television shows, commercials and films, helping create iconic stop motion characters for such shows/films as Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, Happy Honda Days (SoCal regional commercial campaign 12 years running), Ask the Story Bots, Buddy Thunderstruck, Anomolisa and Ted Lasso to name a few. In 2022, the next adventure brought Nikki back home to Seattle to be closer to family and to hang out her own shingle as Puppets Northwest, offering a one stop shop for puppets of all kinds, SFX, 3D modeling/printing and educational outreach.

Born and raised in Seattle, after high school, Nikki moved to California to attend college, receiving a BFA in Film Production in2002 from Chapman University. For the next 6 years she worked various office jobs in the film industry while also earning a Masters Degree in Secondary Education. In 2006 Nikki decided to shift her career to special effects make-up from there segueing into the stop motion world, beginning in 2008 with Shadow Machine on the Adult Swim hit show, Robot Chicken: Season 3. Nikki has worked as a puppet fabricator, lead fabricator and department head on numerous stop motion television shows, commercials and films, helping create iconic stop motion characters for such shows/films as Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, Happy Honda Days (SoCal regional commercial campaign 12 years running), Ask the Story Bots, Buddy Thunderstruck, Anomolisa and Ted Lasso to name a few. In 2022, the next adventure brought Nikki back home to Seattle to be closer to family and to hang out her own shingle as Puppets Northwest, offering a one stop shop for puppets of all kinds, SFX, 3D modeling/printing and educational outreach.

Geoffrey Alm has been teaching Stage Fighting at Cornish since 2008. A Certified Teacher with The Society of American Fight Directors since 1987, he is also a Certified Fight Director and Fight Master. Professionally he has been choreographing fights since 1988, locally and Nationally. He’s a proud member of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actors Equity, and SAG-AFTRA.

Sophia Franzella is a teaching artist and professional actor working in the Seattle area. After 11 years of classical ballet training, she decided to transition into the world of Theatre at the age of 14. After falling in love with Theatre in high school, Sophia earned her BFA in Theatre Arts from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas in 2013. She is also a 2014 graduate of A Working Group (a Meisner-technique acting program). Sophia has taught acting and dance throughout Seattle over the past 10 years (Lakeside Middle School, Village Theatre KIDSTAGE, Sing Out Seattle, STG, Mode Music, Coyote, 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle Rep, Taproot Theatre). Sophia also offers private lessons for audition preparation! When she is not teaching, Sophia works as a professional actor in Seattle. She is a co-founder and company member of the theatre lab Filament: A Collab Lab for which she often choreographs and directs. She is also a Pony World Theatre company member. Sophia also enjoys hiking with friends, reading, watching spooky movies, and learning new subjects!

Eli West is an American Roots musician from the Pacific Northwest. A multi-instrumental creator of sonic spaces, Eli’s former training as a designer informs a sound that is lush and organic – neither manicured nor overgrown. Evergreen timbres weave among pitches, rhythms and lyrics to become comfortable rooms into which listeners are invited.
Lauded by Tim O’brien as a musician “making music the World needs,” Eli’s reputation as a crafter of considered, toneful environments has fostered collaborations with Bill Frisell, Andrew Marlin, John Reishchman, Julie Fowlis, and many other pillars of the growing Americana movement.

“Making music the world needs.” – Tim O’Brien

Barry is a sound engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the music industry with expertise in mixing, podcasting and concert hall acoustic engineering.. He is also an arranger, podcaster and composer. Barry has a Bachelor's degree focused in Music Theory and Composition from Cornish College of the Arts.