Courses
In The Studio
Instructor(s)
- Paul Lebel
- Nikki Rice
- Winnie Westergard
- Daniel Goody
- J. Gordon
- Meg McLynn
- Nicole Beerman
- Sophia Franzella
- BC Campbell
- Brad Taylor
- Charles Sheaffer
- Dan Shafer
- Diana Trotter
- Ellen Forney
- Emilia Kister
- Geof Alm
- Ian Bond
- Jessica Jobaris
- Leanna Keith
- Maja Sereda
- Matt Sircely
- Robynne Raye
- Sarah Lavin
- Tory Franklin
- Alia Swersky
- Barry Sebastian
- Brian Miller
- Brynne McGregor
- Chelsea Cook
- David Taft
- David Taylor Gomes
- Jeff Brice
- Jenna Spinei
- Jimmy Shields
- Kyungjin Kim (KJ)
- Lana Sundberg
- Lauren Boilini
- Lily Hotchkiss
- Lucie Baker
- Peter Vogt
- Ruthie Dornfeld
- Sage Casias-Abplanalp
- Samar Abulhassan
- Sarah Bixler
- Sarah Comer
- Soo Hong
- Zoe Crago
Creative Process
Contact Improvisation
Piano Lab
Washington Wildlife
![Headshot of J. Gordon](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/J_GORDON_2x.jpg?itok=LAvu4gXr)
J. Gordon
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.
Tintype and Ambrotype Photography
![Headshot of Winnie Westergard](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/W_WESTERGARD_2x.jpg?itok=E-eRemqd)
Winnie Westergard
Winifred Westergard is a Seattle based fine art and commercial photographer with degrees from the University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Creative Writing, Journalism and Art. Her art making foundation is rooted in the early processes of photography, fully embracing the slow processes of 19th century photography. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and storytelling. She has managed the photography studio at Cornish College of the Arts since 1999 and has taught Photography and Portfolio Development through Summer@Cornish since 2003.
Taiko Drumming
![Headshot of Leanna Keith](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/L_KEITH_2x.jpg?itok=0wie6j7a)
Leanna Keith
A freelance flutist, artist, improviser, and composer in the Seattle area, Leanna Keith delights in creating sound experiences that make audiences laugh, cry, and say: “I didn’t know the flute could do that!” She also teaches as the flute professor at Cornish College of the Arts. Her performance artworks have focused on cultural connection and the breaking of audience/performer boundaries. In 2021 she released her first solo album, TAROT Album, which she composed, performed, recorded, and mixed. The album release show premiered online, featuring collaborations between choreographers, digital media artists, stop motion artists, puppetry, and more.
Leanna is currently a co-director of the chamber music ensemble Kin of the Moon, with violist/improviser Heather Bentley and composer/vocalist Kaley Lane Eaton. Kin of the Moon is an improvisation-centric, technology-friendly chamber music series incubated in Seattle's rich musical scene. The series explores sonic rituals, promotes cross-pollination of genres, emphasizes the communicative power of specific performance locales, and celebrates the creativity that multiplies itself through the collaboration of performers and composers.
Live Sound Engineering
![Headshot of Daniel Goody](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/D_GOODY_2x.jpg?itok=p6QeSaOT)
Daniel Goody
Daniel Goody has been working in the performing arts field since 2001 starting in the UK as a sound engineer. Presently working as the Head of Audio at the Playhouse in Seattle for Cornish College of the Arts, his work has spanned many disciplines over the years including audio, light and video design. His primary collaboration since 2015 has been with the Danish immersive theatre group Sisters Hope.
Following a decade in Sweden as the Technical Director at the culture house Inkonst Malmö, Daniel formed artistic partnerships with a number of performance, dance and theatre groups based throughout the Nordic and European regions. These collaborations, with groups such as; Institutet, White On White, Jon & Juli and Lucie Tuma explored the family, critical whiteness and the relationship to the body on a wholly radical level.
Lamp Design & Build
Wooden Box Design & Build
Planters for Patios
Composition for Film, Games & TV
![Headshot of BC Campbell](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/BC_CAMPBELL_2x.jpg?itok=roAYaOL5)
BC Campbell
Stop Motion Puppet Fabrication
![Nikki Rice with a brown tank top shoulder brown hair against a white wall.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-10/NikkiBrown%20%281%29.jpg?itok=cAGxQSVM)
Nikki Rice
Born and raised in Seattle, Nikki moved to California to attend college, receiving a BFA in Film Production in 2002 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 working at Creature FX studios and 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 numbers stop motion television shows, commercials and films, helping create iconic stop motion characters for such shows/films as Happy Honda Days (Socal regional commercial campaign for the last 12 years), 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 of all of the above.
Writing for Screen
![Samar Abulhassan in a blue shirt with long brown hair.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-03/samar.jpeg?itok=YF1cWGpE)
Samar Abulhassan
Samar Abulhassan is a writer and teaching artist living in Seattle. She's a Hedgebrook alum, Jack Straw Writer and holds an MFA from Colorado State University. She's worked with Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools since 2008, and for Hugo House's Scribes program and the Skagit River Poetry Foundation since 2010. She was an instructor for Cornish's summer film program in 2019.
Voice for Musical Theater
![David Taylor Gomes in a blue tshirt with glasses](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-02/David%20Taylor%20Gomes_headshot_2023%202.jpg?itok=FLlvjieU)
David Taylor Gomes
David Taylor Gomes (he/they) is a composer, music director, and actor, best known for writing Boxed Up: The Musical and Ranked, featured in the HBO Documentary “My So-Called High School Rank”. David was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2023 Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference for his new musical in development The Way. David also co-founded UproarTheatrics.com, a theatrical licensing company. In Seattle David has worked with Village Theatre, The 5th Avenue Theatre, Taproot Theatre, Showtunes, Artswest, and Seattle Children's Theatre. He has also performed at Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, and the iconic Birdland Jazz Club in NYC. In addition to performing, David coaches singers, songwriters, and pianists at his music studio in Seattle. His students have performed on Broadway, national tours, The Disney Channel, and many regional theatres across the US.
Producing Music
![Headshot of BC Campbell](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/BC_CAMPBELL_2x.jpg?itok=roAYaOL5)
BC Campbell
Stage & Screen Combat
![Headshot of Geof Alm](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/G_ALM_2x.jpg?itok=xIe26gUm)
Geof Alm
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.
Art & Design Foundations
![Headshot of Lily Hotchkiss](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/L_HOTCHKISS_2x.jpg?itok=Ol-8M-VJ)
Lily Hotchkiss
I have been making art my whole life in one form or another. I fell endlessly in love, over and over, with the process of making. This led to my role as a teacher, first with young children and later with teens. More facilitator and guide than anything else, being able to participate and witness someone’s creative journey and awakening is an awesome gift. It demands that I remain nimble and bring all my best to working with youth and helping them discover and share their voices. I am both an arts educator and a working artist. As a member of Side Rail Collective, I co-curate shows throughout the year and participate in exhibits. My work as an artist is based in storytelling. I work in a variety of mediums, including clay, found materials, wood, fiber, as well as 2D mediums. The story informs the material.
![Sarah Bixler standing in a room with paintings on the wall.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-01/Screenshot%202024-01-16%20at%2012.10.25%E2%80%AFPM.png?itok=NAVULFUT)
Sarah Bixler
Sarah Bixler is a painter and educator living and working in Seattle Washington. She began her artistic studies focusing on the figure and observation, at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle Washington. There she was able to deepen her understanding of the human body through intensive focus on long-form sculpture, anatomy and drawing from direct observation. In 2011, Sarah received a BFA from the University of Washington where she studied contemporary drawing and painting, with a focus on paint language, form and color.
![Headshot of Lauren Boilini](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/L_BOILINI_2x.jpg?itok=GZfte7dr)
Lauren Boilini
Lauren Boilini has served as an artist-in-residence at several institutions across the U.S. and in Italy, Ireland, and Spain. She has served as faculty at a number of schools in the Baltimore/DC area as well as Evergreen State College, Pacific Lutheran University, and Cornish. She has completed several public art projects along with many temporary public installations and solo exhibitions across the country. In 2016 she was awarded an Artist Trust grant to publish a book of drawings and spent this past summer as an artist-in-residence at MASS MoCA working on the sequel. Lauren is also a long-distance open water swimmer and loves to call Seattle home.
![Headshot of Winnie Westergard](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/W_WESTERGARD_2x.jpg?itok=E-eRemqd)
Winnie Westergard
Winifred Westergard is a Seattle based fine art and commercial photographer with degrees from the University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Creative Writing, Journalism and Art. Her art making foundation is rooted in the early processes of photography, fully embracing the slow processes of 19th century photography. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and storytelling. She has managed the photography studio at Cornish College of the Arts since 1999 and has taught Photography and Portfolio Development through Summer@Cornish since 2003.
Recording Ensemble
![Barry Sebastian Head shot](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-02/Screenshot%202024-02-06%20at%206.27.01%E2%80%AFPM.png?itok=HX63RR4s)
Barry Sebastian
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.
Illustration to Animation
![Zoe Crago with a blue denim shirt on and brown glasses.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-05/dscf4134_0.jpg?itok=F8lsuj2r)
Zoe Crago
Zoe Crago is the co-founder of Duo Design + Media. A partnership of two creatives specializing in graphic design, social media, and video production for individuals and businesses/organizations looking to expand their visual presence. As the lead graphic designer and illustrator, Zoe's project list includes (but is not limited to) the 2023 Festival Design for NFFTY (National Film Festival for Talented Youth), illustrator for The Rise Book Project, event campaigns for TEDxSpokane, and social media marketing for Washington Filmworks and Seattle Creates! Her love for illustration and hand-lettering often finds its way into her regular projects creating a beautiful hybrid of traditional and digital art.
After 6 years in the design world, Zoe hopes that her work, collaborations, and community involvement will ultimately impact those who want to grow and succeed in the creative industry!
Comics Studio
![white woman wearing funny hat smiling into camera with pencil in hand and eraser nearby](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-07/ELLEN_FORNEY_TILE.jpg?itok=JgO3IygV)
Ellen Forney
Ellen Forney is the author of the bestselling graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me, and its companion book, Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life. Marbles has been translated into six foreign languages and was the selection for common book programs at the University of Washington Health Sciences schools and UC Davis. She curated an exhibition for the National Library of Medicine on Graphic Medicine, comics about health, and has given talks and lectures internationally at universities, conferences, and institutions, including a recent TED talk. As a visual artist, she created two large-scale murals for Seattle’s Capitol Hill light rail station. She has taught comics at Cornish College of the Arts since 2002 and is currently working on a middle-grade book on making autobiographical comics.