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Gigi Alvaré is a visual artist, performer and writer. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Abrons Art Center, Deep Listening Space, Tivoli Artist’s Co-op and the Arnof Art Museum.  She has done extensive work with The Touchstone Center – and is at present Senior Museum Educator at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York.

Having taught for over twenty years in a variety of school and community settings from preschool to university, he has been, since 1990, the Leader of the Family Art Project at Wave Hill, a public garden in the Bronx. His artwork, which is included, among others, in the Smith College Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, can also be seen in the 59th Street subway concourse. In addition his mixed media work, Suspended Orchard, was part of the Bessie award winning installation, Inhabited '98: Afterlives at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Awarded the Mayor's Very Special Arts Award and the Hero Award for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, he has been on the staff of The Touchstone Center since 1993.

Margie Barab is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and L'ecole Normale de la Musique in Paris. An accomplished singer, she currently teaches the Orff approach to music and movement at the Trevor Day School in Manhattan.

Elizabeth Crawford is an artist and educator, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota and now living and working in New York City. Prior to coming to New York she was the Educational Program Director for The Origins Program, developing and leading programs investigating community building and academic learning through the arts. She continues to work on special projects with Origins as well as contributing essays to its publications.

While in Minnesota she also authored an interdisciplinary curricula published by the Anti-Defamation League, and served for five years as Board Chair, and now an Advisory Board member, of the emerging artist organization, No Name Exhibitions. At present, she teaches art at the Townsend Harris High School in Queens, New York and leads workshops throughout the New York area.

As an artist, her work incorporates sculpture, drawing, photography and printmaking and has been exhibited nationally. Most recently her work was exhibited as part of the Mapping Space exhibition at the New York Mercantile Building. A graduate of Colorado College, she received her MFA from Pratt Institute in 1998. She has been a member of The Touchstone Center staff since 1994.

Kathy Creutzburg is a sculptor and a teacher who has taught at Innovative Community Enterprises, City Arts, Inc., Henry Street Settlement - and at present, is an artist in residence, with Studio In A School.  Her own work has been exhibited at the Cork Gallery in Lincoln Center, Times Square Lobby Gallery, Bus Stop Gallery, and Abrons Arts Center. Her most recent project with The Touchstone Center was the creation of the steel sculpture, The Bird of Imagining – which was exhibited for over a year in Sauer Park – and is now permanently installed in the courtyard of the Children’s Workshop School.

Kim Fisher is the web programmer and editor for The Touchstone Center.  A graduate of Reed College he is the co-founder, with Heidi Neilson, of Square Water, a company specializing in graphic and web design, and has been a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute where he developed the course “Technology for Writers” as well as a particular interest in the creative and user-interface aspects of the web.

Geoffrey Jones is a multimedia director, video artist and composer/musician. He directs a continuing series of educational videos about art for the Abrons Arts Center Gallery Education program and also directs their cable TV show, Henry Street Presents. His videos for Touchstone Center Publications include, In The Spirit of Play, Cave: An Evocation of the Beginnings of  Art; The Thread at Play;  The Bird of Imagining and Each Sky Has Its Words.

Claudia Keel is an artist who has worked extensively in developing creative arts and environmental projects with public schools, community gardens and community based organizations. In 1995 she founded The Art and Nature Project which offers project development and workshops relating the arts and environment to many disciplines. In this regard she has been a consultant for a number of organizations including Green Guerillas, Outstanding Renewal Enterprises, Earth Celebrations, Children's Environments Research Group, and village schools of San Nicholas, Nicaragua.

She has designed and painted numerous community garden murals, among them: The Children's Community Garden in the East Village of Manhattan, the Georgia Ave. Community Garden in Brooklyn, The 30 Community Garden in the South Bronx, as well as the being the muralist and designer of the PS 20 School Garden in Manhattan. In addition her own paintings have been exhibited in group and solo shows in New York City, Boston and Urbino, Italy. She has been on the staff of The Touchstone Center since 1994.

Carol Grocki Lewis, has been the Director of The Touchstone Center's Archival Project since 1994. She previously worked as a collections manager and registrar for private art collections in New York City, and was responsible for cataloguing, preserving and exhibiting art from cultures throughout the world. She is presently on the art faculty of the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, where she teaches pottery and printmaking to children. Aside from actively pursuing her interest as a potter, she recently exhibited the People At Work prints she developed with first grade children from PS 290 in Manhattan at the Gallery 1199. A graduate of the State University College at Buffalo, she earned her Masters Degree from New York University/Gallatin Division.

Richard Lewis founded The Touchstone Center in 1969. He has been the director of the Center since then, initiating and implementing its various programs. He has edited and written a number of books highlighting the poetic and mythic traditions from diverse cultures, among them Miracles: Poems by Children of the English-speaking World; All of You Was Singing: A Retelling of An Aztec Myth, and The Way of Silence: Prose and Poetry of Basho.

His essays on the imaginative and poetic life of childhood have appeared in journals such as Young Children, Elementary English, Childhood Education, Parabola and Orion, and were collected in his book Living By Wonder: The Imaginative Life of Childhood. His recent books include, Each Sky Has Its Words, illustrated by Gigi Alvaré, The Bird of Imagining, illustrated by children from New York City public schools, CAVE: An Evocation of the Beginnings of Art, illustrated by Elizabeth Crawford, A Tree Lives, illustrated by Noah Baen - and In the Space of the Sky, illustrated by Debra Frasier. A complete listing of his books can be found at Books by Richard Lewis.

He has given workshops throughout the United States and Canada, and has taught at the New School for Social Research, Fordham University, Bank Street College of Education, Rutgers University, Western Washington University, Queens College and the Lesley College Graduate School.

Jennifer Liseo is the Archival and Research Associate for The Touchstone Center. A graduate of Hofstra University, she was the Programs Administrative Assistant at the Lower East Side Printshop in New York as well as being an Assistant Teaching Fellow in the Education Department in the Learning Through Art Program at the Guggenheim Museum.

Harry Mann is a musician, actor, dancer and performance artist who has collaborated with Cecil Taylor, Ray Charles, Joseph Chaiken, Ann Bogart, Ralph Lee and Anne Hammel. He has composed music for many modern dance and off-Broadway productions and has been a recipient of grants from Meet the Composer and Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. He recently composed the music for Each Sky Has Its Words, a video by Geoffrey Jones produced by Touchstone Center Publications – and has a been a long time member of The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble.

Heidi Neilson is an artist and graphic designer based in New York City. Information about her work can be found at www.heidineilson.com or the website of Square Water, the design company she operates together with Kim Fisher.

Clea Rivera is an actress and teacher who received her training from SUNY Purchase and the Acting Conservancy as well as studying with, among other, Barbara Knowles, David Wells and Eulalie Noble. She has performed extensively with the Mettawee Theatre under the direction of Ralph Lee, in addition to performing with the One Dream Theatre, La Mama E.T.C. Judith Anderson Theatre, Rattlestick Productions, Missouri Repertory Theatre and the Denver Center Theatre. She has been a member of The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble since 2004.

The Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble was founded as part of the programming of The Touchstone Center and is dedicated to exploring, for children and their families, themes of the natural world and the life of the imagination – particularly through the integration of myth, stories and poetry. The Ensemble has performed at the Brooklyn Museum, Wave Hill, Staten Island Children’s Museum, Manhattan Children’s Museum, Poets House, Hudson River Museum, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, New York Botanical Garden, La Mama, World Financial Center, American Museum of Natural History and the Central Park Dairy.

The Ensemble is directed and hosted by Richard Lewis and is made up of actress, Clea Rivera and musician, Harry Mann. Their present repertory consists of short theatre pieces based on poems by Richard Lewis, In The Space of the Sky, A Tree Lives, Each Sky Has Its Words and Plant the Sun In Your Hand. In the fall of 2007 they will present their new piece, Play, Said the Earth to Air.

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