Beth brings her experience in retail management, marketing and fundraising to oversee the general operations of the BAYarts campus, including the Playhouse renovation. She is also responsible for human resources. She has a BA in Communications from Cleveland State University, with a strong background in marketing and public relations. Beth serves on the board of The Bay Village Foundation and is active in community area events. Beth is a Certified National Geographic Educator and her interest in environmental education is a perfect fit for the BAYarts motto Artistic by Nature.

Moira Beale was born and educated in England. As a graduate from Farnham School of Art/Surrey Institute of Art she was a Ceramics Major and a Printing/Etching Minor. She has been Head of the Ceramics Department of BAYarts since 2000. Each year she curates the annual Ceramic Exhibit in the Sullivan Family Gallery. She has over 30 years of teaching experience in the USA, including at Orange Art Center and Hathaway Brown. Moira coordinates Youth, Family and Scout programs at Playhouse Square.

Tina Benavides enjoys many forms of art, but after retiring from American Greetings as a Vice president in the Creative Division, she decided to focus on Copperplate and Spencerian calligraphy for gifts, weddings and special events. She is a member of IAMPETH (International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers & Teachers of Handwriting). She has studied under Martha Erickson, Barbara Close, Bill Kemp, Sheila Waters, Suzanne Cunningham, and Master Penmen Harvest Crittendon and Jake Weidmann. She has recently been studying pictorial flourishing with Master Penman Connie Chen and Engrosser”s Script with David Grimes. A graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, she studied Fashion Illustration and Commercial Art and completed 9 years on the Board of Trustees of the college. In addition to calligraphy, she enjoys drawing, watercolor and beading. She lives in Avon Lake with her painter husband Chris Benavides.

Audra Costello began teaching at BAYarts in the summer of 2010. She especially enjoys teaching children hand sewing and how to make wonderful creations using a needle, thread and their imagination. Audra is a 1997 graduate of The College of Wooster where she majored in English. She lives in Rocky River with her husband and two daughters.

Prior to joining BAYarts as a teacher, Linda was the owner of the popular Local Girl Gallery in Lakewood – for art education, exhibition and selling the work of local artists – where she created a myriad of art-themed fundraising events for special causes such as Juvenile Diabetes, Adults With Disabilities, Domestic Violence and The Cleveland Clinic Starry Night, just to name a few for over 10 years. At BAYarts, she uses her artistic sensibility to develop and teach children’s programming while simultaneously managing BAYarts’ Gallery Shop which supports regional artists; Linda also creates the winter wonderland that is BAYarts popular Holiday Shop.

Chris is a representational painter who loves painting people and images that inspire and point to the beauty of creation. He works in oil in the direct method and can usually be found at BAYarts open studio, happily painting from a live model every Friday. Chris graduated from Cooper School of Art and enjoyed a forty year career as a designer and illustrator with American Greetings before retiring to pursue his own artistic goals. He is an associate member of the Oil Painters of America, and the Portrait Society of America. His paintings have been juried into numerous local and national exhibitions, does private commissions and has paintings included as part of American Greetings permanent corporate collection.

Amy teaches preschool pottery and “mommy and me” classes at BAYarts. She has worked with clay since childhood and taken classes at Orange Art Center, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University, and BAYarts. She earned her bachelor degree from CSU in Ceramics, as well as Environmental Planning. Outside of the studio, she is a mom to her sons, native plant enthusiast, and a very happy camper. Amy has had the joy of introducing children to clay since 2011.

Gail Crum has been a professional artist for over 25 years. Even without formal training, Gail always had a creative side to her. It wasn’t until she took her first art class at 40 years old that she became inspired by the art forms of collage and assemblage. She started collecting unwanted and discarded objects from antique shops and flea markets with the idea of transforming and repurposing them into a new story. Gail has exhibited in over 80 art shows and juried exhibitions and has received awards for her art from shows at Valley Arts Center in Chagrin Falls, BAYarts, Stella’s Gallery, and the Westlake/Westshore Annual Juried Shows, winning first and second place awards in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Gail won Best in Show for her assemblage piece “Bingo Betty” at Stella’s Art Gallery Juried Show in 2018. In 2017 she was in a three woman exhibition at the Beck Center in Lakewood. In 2018 “Claiming Our Place and Space” was a three woman show at Article Gallery in the Waterloo District in Cleveland. In 2020 Gail was in a three woman show “Women in Conversation” at the Stocker Arts Center at Lorain County Community College. Gail was in the Wothington Yards exhibition “Art Made in the Shutdown” and had work in the “Wallflowers” Show at BAYarts and was accepted into the BAYarts Juried Show in March 2021. Gail was in a three woman exhibition at the Playhouse Gallery in the BAYarts Complex in April and May of 2021. She has also been featured at the “Skull & Skeleton Show” every other year at Lakeland Community College. She has exhibited work in the Good Goat Gallery in Lakewood, the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, FAVA Gallery in Oberlin, and Lakeland Community College. Gail has also done workshops for The Art Continuum- Westlake, The North Ridgeville Kiwanis, The Agape Gallery in Ohio City, The North Ridgeville Arts Council, The Split Winds Gallery in Port Clinton, North Ridgeville High School, the Porter Library in Westlake, and “Enshrined” at Small Studios in Westlake. Gail also exhibits every year in the Holiday Show at FAVA in Oberlin and has shown her work in art festivals during the summers. She has also judged exhibitions for the Cleveland Institute of Art, The Westlake/Westshore Arts Council, and Firelands Area Art League.

Nicole is a recent graduate from Baldwin Wallace University with a BA in Business Administration and Studio Art (focused in Ceramics). As our recent addition to the BAYarts pottery studio, Nicole comes to us with over 5 years of pottery experience and passion. She manages our adult pottery open studios, has become a Pug-master, and instructs/assists with kids workshops. You can see her current work by visiting her website below.

When he’s not busy thwarting alien invasions, local artist Jim “Rev” Giar is huddled over his drawing table pursuing his passion: drawing comics. Referring to himself as a pop culture brat, Jim was raised on healthy doses of westerns, film noir, grindhouse cinema, horror films and comics. These influences are sprinkled and peppered into his single illustration work. Jim attended CCAD, studying illustration and photography. There is where adopted advice from his illustration instructor as a lifelong mantra: “every illustration should tell a story.” Recently he has contributed to several anthologies, including the Harvey Award nominated Once Upon A Time Machine published by Locust Moon & Dark Horse Comics, as well as the New York Times best seller FUBAR: Empire of the Rising Dead. He shares his love of comics with kids, looking to motivate the young storytellers of the future to continue telling stories through the use of sequential images… A talent, Jim feels, exists in all children.

Susan Gray Bé has taught Oil & Acrylic Painting at BAYarts since 2010. She has a MA. in Painting from the State University of New York at Albany, a Certificate of Completion from the National Academy of Design, and has taken summer courses at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Vermont while in college. Susan received an BA. from Hamilton College in 1980, majoring in Art & a minoring in Psychology. Alongside teaching at BAYarts, she teaches drawing and painting to adults at the Cleveland Botanical Garden and the Cleveland Museum of Art (since 1997).

Jim started at Potter and Mellen Jewelers after graduating from High School in 1950, and continued on until 1995. He learned jewelry and silversmithing during his time there. He then started teaching at Mayfield Heights in 1989 and switched to Mayfield Village in 2012. Jim then came to BAYarts in 2001. He was in the May Show 4 times, won third prize once, as well as winning awards a number of times for Potter and Mellen.

Kelly Kocon has been at BAYarts since 2014. She teaches preschool art as well as art camps during the summer. She remembers always having loved teaching other’s, even when she was a child herself. She’d even put her babysitting income towards art supplies to bring to her next babysitting gigs. She went to LCCC for Early Childhood Education and has taught traditional preschool, been a nanny, and also managed an in-home daycare. “BAYarts has given me the chance to grow as a teacher and as a person. I love watching my preschooler’s tiny little hands creating their masterpieces to bring home. It is truly a rewarding job.” Currently living in Bay Village, she is a Mom to 3 children – ages nine, seven and three.

I’m a bilingual writer, poet and artist. I write to understand and paint when language fails me.I sought asylum in the United States in late 2018 after facing prosecution in my home country Kuwait due to my political opinions and social activism. As a law professor, a lawyer, and a feminist, I strongly believe in democracy, freedom of speech, and gender equality, but I couldn’t live by my beliefs in Kuwait. When I advocated for the human rights of The Stateless; more than 50,000 longtime inhabitants in Kuwait deprived of citizenship, health, education and work, and held the Sheikh responsible for their tragedy, I was prosecuted. I condemned the growing problem of femicide (honor killings), I spoke up about the poor treatment of women in Islam, I was vocal about LGBTQ rights in a country where homosexuality is still illegal, and I organized protests against the Kuwaiti government’s ban of over 5000 books. When my imprisonment became imminent, I fled, knowing that my daughter Jori and I would never be safe in Kuwait. I now live in the Cleveland area with Jori and our cat Ty.

Tara teachers Mini Mosaics: Art & Music. She is a Music Therapist and the Music Class Coordinator at Music Therapy Enrichment Center (MTEC) in Westlake. Tara received her Bachelor of Music Therapy degree from Western Michigan University, with voice as her primary instrument. She then completed an internship at The Pioneer Center in Chillicothe, Ohio, where she worked with children and adults ages 0-21 with developmental disabilities. Tara grew up in Canton, Ohio and in her spare time she enjoys  spending time with family and friends, going to baseball games, watching movies, and cooking. Music as has always been part of her life and she’s eager to continue using what she loves to help others.

Sharon Pomales Tousey is a realist contemporary artist, born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since moving to Bay Village, Ohio in 2012 her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States and Europe. Her work can be found in private and public collections across the United States and Puerto Rico and it has been featured in countless publications, including Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Pastel Journal Magazine, the book Strokes of Genius 8, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Hyperrealism Magazine, and many more. Sharon is a member of the International Guild of Realism, Allied Artists of America, and has earned the honor of Signature Member status at American Women Artists, the Pastel Society of America, and the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society. Sharon’s work is represented by Lovetts Fine Art Gallery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Abend Gallery in Denver, Colorado.

Angela Oster grew up in northeast Ohio and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in digital media from the Cleveland Institute of Art. After a life-changing Creative Workforce Fellowship from Cuyahoga County Arts & Culture in 2009, she found the confidence to do what she truly loved – draw cartoons. Angela’s work explores the tearful yearnings and joys of childhood, and she also enjoys drawing odd and spooky characters. She lives in Rocky River with her husband Tom Stevick, also an artist, and her daughter Sylvie. Angela’s grandmother and father were both teachers, so she is thrilled to carry on the family tradition as a teacher at BAYarts.

Eva Sherman began beading as a way to spend time with her daughters but soon became hopelessly addicted. In 2005 she traded in her architectural career for the opportunity to spend all her time among beads, and opened Grand River Bead Studio in Cleveland, Ohio. Eva now happily spends most days in the studio creating, writing. She has discovered an affinity for working with wire and metals, and prefers to design in an organic and unstructured style. Eva has authored two books on jewelry design: “Organic Wire & Metal Jewelry” and “Cool Copper Cuffs” and has been teaching metal jewelry classes at Bay Arts since 2013.

Judy Takács has been teaching her Paint a Celebrity Artist Portrait Class at BAYarts since 2012. With a 1986 BFA in Illustration and Portrait Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art, she has curated and exhibited in solo, group and juried shows at museums, art centers and colleges in Northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania… Her paintings have won awards throughout Northeast Ohio and from the Portrait Society of America and the Art Renewal Center. She has signature status at the Akron Society of Artists, and is archived with legendary Cleveland artists at the Artist Archives of the Western Reserve. She chairs the New Media Relations Committee on the Cecilia Beaux Forum of the Portrait Society of America. In 2013, Judy won an OAC Grant for her ongoing traveling painting project, Chicks with Balls: Judy Takács paints unsung female heroes. Chicks debut in 2013 at BAYarts. You can find her online at judytakacspaintspeople.com & chickswithballsjudytakacs.blogspot.com

Janet Wade has taught art classes and workshops for over 30 years. She started her art career in Bay Village teaching at Baycrafters from 1980-1997. Janet rejoins BAYarts faculty after moving back into the Cleveland area from St Louis, Missouri. She continues to exhibit her work both nationally and regionally, has been the recipient of Juror Awards in Excellence and her work has been published. She is an active member of several national and regional art organizations such as Women’s Caucus for Art; where she served on the St. Louis Chapter Executive Board. Janet looks forward to teaching a variety of fiber based classes at BAYarts.