The CORA Foundation
The CORA Foundation (Community Outreach and Resources for the Arts) is formed for the following purposes:
- To support and encourage educational cultural activities and events in the greater Syracuse Community.
- To support and encourage artists within a wide range of disciplines.
- To work with Central New York arts organizations to enhance the availability and quality of cultural presentations for the diverse communities of greater Syracuse.
- To bring to diverse audiences exhibits of works from outside Central New York that otherwise might not be available to Syracuse area people.
Ruth Putter, Founding Donor
After her husband Norton died in 2001, Ruth was looking for a memorial to honor his many years of volunteer work fighting against social injustice and racism; and defending freedom of expression in all human activity including the arts. Dik Cool’s idea of a progressive gallery sounded perfect. Dik had purchased an old store front with good space and location that needed renovating. So here was her project – supply seed money and watch with pleasure while the transformation of Cinderella into a beautiful ballroom where exhibits, lectures, community outreach could all take place in ArtRage, The Norton Putter Gallery.
As a young photographer living in New York city, Ruth was influenced by the “Decisive Moment” work of Henri Cartier Bresson and photographers who worked and lectured at the Photo League, especially Margaret Bourke White. In Syracuse, she studied with Fred Demarest at SU and exhibited, still do, largely in the surrounding area including SU Lightwork, the Everson galleries and beyond. Ruth has had photographs published in national photography and feminist publications and calendars. As a board member and Vice President of the CORA Foundation, she look forward to working with our dynamic all around director Rose Viviano and others towards a successful and rewarding achievement, and an unique addition to the local art scene.
CORA FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Our dynamic Board of Directors is comprised of professional artists, long time social activists, educators and community planners of diverse experience, ages and ethnicities. All are committed individuals who share our desire to bring this unique gallery experience to Syracuse, joining the handful of progressive art galleries which currently exist nationwide.
Dik Cool, President
Dik is the founder and President of Syracuse Cultural Workers (SCW). He began the internationally acclaimed Peace Calendar in 1972 and published it under the auspices of the Syracuse Peace Council for 11 years. Since buying the 505 Hawley Avenue (ArtRage) building in 2005, Dik has had a vision of a political art gallery in mind. The not-for-profit gallery is a wonderful complement to SCW in that it can display images that would never sell as products in the market place. The gallery can provide a less diluted forum for both artistic and political expression.
Hanah Ehrenreich, Vice President
Hanah is the Project Coordinator for the New York State Department of Labor 13-N grant “Regional Transformation Strategies through the Energy & Environmental Systems Cluster: A J2J Initiative”, based at CNY Works. Ms.Ehrenreich holds an MSc in Violence, Conflict, and Development Studies with Merit from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London; and a BA in Government with Honors from Smith College. She specializes in sustainable development and local economies, and is committed to the progress of Upstate New York as a vibrant and growing region. She has lived and worked in London, Israel, Belfast, and Washington, DC.
Ms. Ehrenreich is an Executive Board member of Artrage: the Norton Putter Gallery and SyraJews: the upstate Young Jewish adult network. She is active in the 40 Below Public Arts Task Force and the Westcott Street Cultural Fair planning committee. In addition, she is a professional member of the Urban Land Institute, US Green Building Council, GreeningUSA, and the SOAS U8 Development Society.
Katherine Lowe, Treasurer
Katherine N. Lowe, CFRE is a graduate of Wells College where she studied Public Policy and Sociology. A Certified Fund Raising Executive since 2003, Katherine has 15 years of professional and volunteer fundraising experience in local and national, healthcare, social service and arts organizations. During her career she has held fundraising and public relations positions with Community Ministry of Montgomery County, Capital Hospice, Partnership for Caring and Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County. She is currently the Community Relations Director for Meals on Wheels and is working on an M.S. in Management.
She is a Syracuse area native who returned to the area in 2005 after building her professional fundraising career in Washington, DC. Her skills include budgeting, direct marketing, strategic and development planning, prospect research, public relations, board development, major gifts cultivation, stewardship, special events, grants, corporate giving, workplace giving campaigns, collateral design, fundraising software selection and implementation, and fundraising and marketing training for non-profits.
Committed to professional and community service, Katherine serves on the board of directors of the Central New York Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professional. She is a member of the National Council of Negro Women, Community Foundation of Central New York’s Future Fund and the Rotary Club. In her spare time, she provides low- and no-cost fundraising training for non-profits, writes short stories and takes wheel throwing classes.
Katherine joins the CORA Foundation board because she loves the idea that the arts can help play a practical role in everyday life, encourage activism and help to improve a neighborhood.
Anita Welych, Secretary
Welych is a Syracuse-born artist of Colombian heritage who teaches art at Cazenovia College, where she serves as Foundations Director. She studied painting at Cornell University, Syracuse University and the Universidad Nacional in Bogota, Colombia. She has received two Fulbright grants to study and teach in Colombia.
Welych was co-director of the Syracuse alternative gallery Altered Space from 1990-1996. Most of the exhibits focused on social or political themes, such as women and health, consumerism, mental health issues and hate crimes. Altered Space made a commitment to empowering the artist in everyone. Gallery members initiated the outrageous Cheap Art Auctions to showcase such work and make art available to everyone at affordable prices.
Welych’s own creative work explores social issues, particularly those affecting women. She combines painting, drawing and nontraditional materials (like hair, makeup, fingernails and vintage linens) in artist’s books, collages and installations.
She has served on the boards of Open Figure Drawing and the Joanna Spitzner Foundation, and has supported the activities of the Syracuse Peace Council, particularly working on newsletter cover art and illustrations.
Welych, the daughter of immigrants, grew up in poverty on the near West Side of Syracuse, where she witnessed occasional discrimination against her parents. Her mother picketed to unionize Syracuse University’s library employees. Thus sensitized to social issues at an early age, she was active in social justice groups in high school and environmental causes in college. In Colombia, Welych witnessed abject poverty and despair. She learned the role developed nations play in perpetuating such poverty. Welych illustrated training workbooks for people working with street children in Colombia and taught or lectured at several universities while on her second Fulbright grant.
Welych’s lifelong sensitivity to pressing social issues drives her to become a board member of the Cora Foundation and artRage Gallery.
Douglas Biklen is Dean of the School of Education, Syracuse University. He is also Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education and Teaching and Leadership, Faculty in Disability Studies and Director of the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University. He is a founding faculty member of the Center on Human Policy, Law and Disability Studies. His work involves teaching and research on the sociology of disability, inclusive education, and communication.
He has received numerous awards, including the Marc Gold Leadership Award of The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, Syracuse University Chancellor’s Citation for Exceptional Academic Achievement and an Honorary Doctorate of Pedagogy from the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. Autism is a World received an Academy Award nomination in 2004.
Annemarie Deegan has been interested in creating art since childhood and believes every being has some degree of creativity. She has an affinity for social justice art and is excited to have a socially minded gallery on the Northside, where she has resided for the past 10 years. After graduating from Daemen College, she worked for several years as a graphic designer. Her work included freehand drawing, page layout, and computer assisted drawing and design. Currently, her passion comes with her experiences, which she draws upon to create art through various media such as ceramics, weaving, fabrics and paper folding. She is involved in various activities and volunteers when she can. Annemarie enjoys cycling and has done several fundraising rides; including the Empire State AIDS Ride, a seven day ride from Niagara Falls to New York City. She currently works for the City of Syracuse Department of Parks, Recreation and Youth Programs.
Laurie Gilmore Selleck, a native of the Buffalo area, and longtime resident of Central New York, is a professor at Cazenovia College where she directs the Visual Communications Program. She studied Painting at the Art Institute of Boston, and received an MFA in Illustration at Syracuse University. Laurie is a painter, illustrator, muralist, and graphic designer who actively works in each of these media. After serving as the Art Director at Stickley, Audi & Co. in Manlius, NY, Laurie joined the faculty at Cazenovia College in 2000 in order to pursue her interest in social activism through design and to instill a design conscience in her students. Her primary research interest is design activism, which she has pursued through a variety of topics including the Chicano mural movement, cause-related marketing, mothers and war, and political propaganda. As a result of her work in these areas, she has been the recipient of research grants at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University, and the Modern Graphic History Library at Washington University in St. Louis. Her teaching interests include art and revolution and she has written and taught such courses as “Protest and Propaganda,” “Revolution: Inciting Art for the Masses” and “Power to the People” in which her students learn to become more socially active through greater global awareness and personal creativity.
Recently, her work has been displayed at the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, and the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. She has produced graphic design work for numerous non-profit organizations and social causes such as the Pancreatic Cancer Network, Native Planet and Hope for Ariang. She currently serves on the board of the Hope for Ariang Foundation, a grassroots organization whose project “Bricks of Hope” is dedicated to building a school in Sudan for children recovering from poverty and war.
ArtRage for her is a melding of personal beliefs and professional interests as it provides a local opportunity to combine art and community in the celebration of diversity and pursuit of social justice.
Tom Huff is a stone sculptor working in a variety of stones, styles, and themes, traditional and contemporary. He also creates mixed media / found object sculpture. In much of his work, Huff addresses the current situation of Native Americans mixing cultural, stereotypical, political and autobiographical elements. He began carving stone, wood, and antler at home, inspired by the artists at the Cattaraugus Seneca Nation. He later attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (AFA, 1979) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, 1984) in Providence, Rhode Island.
Currently Huff is an adjunct professor at the Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York, teaching an annual summer stone carving / Iroquois Art course with other native artists.
Huff curates the following shows: The Nuclear Indian Series, a solo installation; Tonto Revisited: Indian Stereotypes, an exhibit of found objects and images; and group exhibitions of contemporary Iroquois artists from the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.
Huff is also a writer whose prose and poetry have been published, and he is the editor of Stonedust, an Iroquois arts newsletter.
A former Trustee of the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, New York, Huff has served on various boards and committees including the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York; Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York; and Atlatl, a national Native arts organization in Phoenix, Arizona.
Huff maintains a carving studio at his residence on the Onondaga Nation near Syracuse, New York, with his wife, sculptor Trudi Shenandoah, his son Charlie, and his daughter Kali.
Glen Lewis was born under American apartheid in the State of South Carolina. His professional experience includes his work in community planning and landscape architecture at the Department of Park, energy conservation research and development at Synertech Systems, and neighborhood revitalization at the Department of Community Development. In addition, Glen has spent time working with young people with developmental disabilities, learning the finer point of American barbeque and searching for artists working outside of the mainstream.
Yvonne C. Murphy is a widely published poet and presents scholarship in the areas of creative writing, interdisciplinary studies, visual arts and visual culture, popular culture and creativity studies. Her first book of poetry, Aviaries, was published in March 2011, by Carolina Wren Press. An Associate Professor of The Arts at SUNY Empire State College in East Syracuse, NY, she has worked as an editor, publications writer, journalist, library clerk, storyteller, researcher and artist-in residence in public schools, community organizations, hospitals and museums. In June 2011, she won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for “Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities.” Born in Canandaigua, NY, she has redcently returned to the area to raise her young daughter and give back to the communities that supported her artistic growth.
Ron Van Norstrand is a sole-practitioner attorney in Syracuse. During his twenty-nine year legal career, he has focused on civil rights, consisted primarily of housing discrimination, employment discrimination and discrimination against individuals with disabilities, with an emphasis in special education. He developed and incorporated the Fair Housing Council of Central New York, Inc. and represents the Council and individual victims of housing discrimination. He also represents parents of children with special needs. He was drawn to service on the Cora Foundation board because it offers an extremely important venue for peace and social justice.
