Bronwyn Castillo
South Dakota; SecretaryBronwyn Castillo lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with her husband, dog, two cats, and a flock of small doves. She has been an artist all her life, and started hand-carving wood plaques with her mother, displaying at art shows and marketing through Country Sampler Magazine. She has worked in watercolor, pen-and-ink, graphite, and color pencil drawings. She is also a recently retired RN. After discovering her new love of paper cutting, she is excited to be a part of GAP!
David Reichard
New York; Treasurer (outgoing)David, our outgoing Treasurer, has served on the Board for four years, including time as Membership Co-Chair, working on the GAP website, and as Facebook group administrator. He has no website, only sells anything occasionally by accident, and considers papercutting an enjoyable, time-consuming pastime. But papercutting is in his genes from growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania and having 16th century ancestors from Switzerland, where he and his wife also lived for six years. It has been his personal crusade to bring awareness of papercutting to the blank canvas of Upstate New York by organizing papercut exhibits and entering pieces in exhibitions where he inevitably is the only papercutter.
Debra A. Collins
CaliforniaDebra is a paper cut artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. After 36 years of teaching a variety of public high school art courses, Debra is now a full-time artist. Her biggest accomplishment has been showing a paper cut in the De Young Museum in 2020. Surfing the internet to find other paper cutters, she stumbled upon the guild’s website, so full of useful information. Her interactions with guild members have been positive, jovial, and supportive. She knows she has found her tribe and wants to actively support the organization’s efforts. She is also a board member of the Diablo/Almeda branch of The National League of American Pen Women and the Sun Gallery of Hayward, CA.
Dena Levie
New JerseyDena Levie, of Teaneck, New Jersey, designs and creates beautiful personalized papercut artwork. Dena has always had a love for the arts. At Stern College (Yeshiva University) she received degrees in both Computer Science and Fine Art. She began to experiment with papercutting when her oldest daughter was born 26 years ago. Since then she has made this her full time passion creating almost 2000 paper cuts.
Jason Koons
Pennsylvania; Treasurer (incoming)I am a paper cutter, illustrator and art educator. It is hard for me to believe, but through these various artistic ventures, I have been involved with the art making process for close to 20 years. All of my imagery is original, and all of my papercuts are hand drawn and hand cut. I find inspiration in pretty much everything – however, I currently find myself producing work that centers on geometry, nature, or pattern study. When I am not moonlighting as a paper cutter, I am working full time as a high school art teacher in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. I currently teach drawing and painting at both an introductory and intermediate level, and in the past, I have instructed at the Advanced Placement level. I love teaching and I am lucky to have had the opportunity to help many of my students develop, further, and achieve their artistic goals.
Jerise Fogel
New York; WebsiteJerise is an artist and teacher who has lived in Washington Heights, NYC, on and off since 1988. Jerise works by hand, sketching, papercutting, lettering in ink, and painting. Colors! Jerise does a lot of Jewish artwork, creates with text often, and has an ongoing series of papercut portraits of (s)heroes, including BLM portraits. Jerise is largely self-taught, but studied drawing under Mr. “Clay” Klewiada in high school in South Jersey, Elliot Offner at Smith College, and Bone of Bone Studios in Lansing, MI; Jerise has also studied screenprinting and Japanese woodblock printing at SVA. Jerise is a proud volunteer with Word Up Community Bookshop. She is working on a series of bilingual graphic stories about the 2020 Census, and a project about the Federal Theatre Project and Hallie Flanagan. Jerise speaks German and some Spanish and other languages, and is an adjunct professor in Classics / Humanities at Montclair State University in NJ. Jerise has written plays, performed and directed, and founded a Yiddish chorus in West Virginia.
Jessica Alpern Brown
PennsylvaniaJessica Alpern Brown is a multidisciplinary artist that creates fine art and design for homes, public realms, and the built environment. At the core of her practice is a desire to contribute art that will integrate naturally into daily life and a belief that fine art can inspire functional design. As a form of communication not limited by language or cultural barriers infusing meaningful aesthetics into ubiquitous objects offers a unique opportunity for shared experiences. With that in mind she creates works that focus on the separations and connections of our interwoven lives. Jessica comes from a diverse background centered in the arts and has been mastering fabrication techniques for nearly 20 years. While she is primarily a paper cutter, Jessica works with a variety of materials from acrylic, metal and wood to found objects, organic matter and non-toxic resin. She believes that the best art comes from moments when thoughtfulness and skillful making intersect so she pursues both in equal measure. She resides in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband, son and cats. She is represented by Boxheart Gallery and is a recipient of the Emerging Artist scholarship for the Three Rivers Arts Festival.
Lucrezia Bieler-Beerli
Florida; VP ExhibitsI’m a Swiss-born artist living in Florida. I studied for 6 years Art at the Hochschule der Künste in Zürich, Switzerland, and graduated with honors as Scientific Illustrator. I create cut-paper images using scissors. They pay tribute to the beauty of nature and its complexity. I work on two series for several years: women interacting with nature and endangered key species and their ecosystem. For the women-nature compositions, I use a style that reminds me of medieval millefleur tapestry or impressionist paintings. For the key species art pieces, I love to use the form of a mandala (Sanskrit: “circle”): an embodiment of the symbolic order of the universe. For each artwork, I use a single sheet of black paper and scissors to make complex cut images. The material and the production process reflect the delicacy and also fragility of nature. All things are interconnected and interwoven and have an impact on each other. My work discusses these interactions in nature: the internal flow of life. All beings have their place in complex ecosystems and are essential to keep nature healthy. I design my images so that they appear harmonious and balanced, like nature. My work is included in museum collections and shown nationally and internationally, and has received many awards. My work is represented by the Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA.
Melanie Kehoss
Virginia; VP Membership, ExhibitsMelanie approaches her artwork methodically: Research, design, execute. This methodology was already apparent during her studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, where she developed a pop-art style of digital portraiture. After graduating, Melanie began searching for a tactile alternative to the vivid but flat prints. She taught herself how to cut portraits out of construction paper, and has been cutting ever since. In 2008, Melanie began displaying her papercuts as lightboxes, which remain her signature. Inspired by history, anthropology, technology, and cultural flux, her pieces tell stories while reveling in craft and design.
Melanie’s work has appeared in over a hundred exhibits throughout the country, and she is a juried member of the Torpedo Factory Artist Association. She holds an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches drawing for adults at Arlington Arts Center and a range of media for youth at US Arts Center-Chantilly. She also manages the Arlington Visual Art Studio Tour. Her studio is in Arlington, VA, where she lives with her husband (and sometimes his parents).
Mindy Shapiro
Pennsylvania; Former PresidentI am an artist – A wife. A mother. A friend. A woman. And a fellow human being. My love language is my art. I strive to share that with others through my work, teaching, engagement and communication. As a self-taught artist I understand firsthand what it is like to explore a new medium. I use my experiences and all my senses to inspire my students to find their own personal expressions. I create personalized papercuts by commission and teach as well. I love introducing students to the world for art through introductory and advanced classes. Both art forms are quite accessible to those with no art background. In addition to being an artist, I have worked in Jewish education for 38 years. I am also a certified Zentangle teacher (CZT).
Randall Williams
Maryland; PresidentRandall Williams is a Maryland-based artist that focuses on creating layered, expressive images. He finds inspiration in nature, literature, and the arts. Randall has been crafting art out of cut paper for about six years. When asked, “Why cut paper?,” the usual response is, “Because I am a terrible painter.” Randall started as chair of the museum committee for GAP in 2020, before leading the Guild’s first strategic planning effort and becoming president in 2021. He creates art in the evenings and on weekends when allowed by his cats.
Sam Wróbel
Louisiana; VP Digital Communicationssam wróbel specializes in the Polish papercutting folk art of wycinanki. born and raised near chicago, illinois, sam learned to make wycinanki as a child from folk artist doris sikorsky. sam has Polish ancestry, and always enjoyed the vibrant colors, intricate designs, and connection to their culture that wycinanki offered. now living and working in rural sw louisiana, sam started sparrow papercraft in 2018 to share their wycinanki folk art with the world. their work is influenced by traditional polish motifs, social movements, their travels, and the colorful culture of south louisiana.
