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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, who worked as teaching-artist with the Touchstone Center from 1994 to 2000. As an artist, her work incorporates sculpture, drawing, photography and printmaking and has been exhibited nationally. At present, she is living Minneapolis, where she is the Publications Director of Origins. A graduate of Colorado College, she received her MFA from Pratt Institute in 1998.

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 –as well as a teaching-artist with the Touchstone Center. 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 projects with The Touchstone Center have been a steel sculpture of The Bird of Imagining, The Tree of Knowing and The Basho Chair, as well the collaborative mural The Play of Playing and mosaic, The Rivers of our Thoughts, with Noah Baen.

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, Each Sky Has Its Words, A Tree Lives, and I Catch My Moment.

Claudia Keel a teaching artist with the Touchstone Center from 1994 to 2006, is an artist who has worked extensively in developing creative arts and environmental projects with public schools, community gardens and community-based organizations.  She has designed and painted numerous community garden murals, as well as creating the outdoor murals for the Touchstone Center arts and education projects at PS 20 – and The Tree of Knowing Garden at the East Village Community School. In addition her own paintings have been exhibited in group and solo shows in New York City, Boston and Urbino, Italy.

Carol Grocki Lewis was the director of the Touchstone Center Archival Project from 1994 to 2007. She is presently on the art faculty of the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, where she teaches pottery to children – and Earthworks, where she teaches workshops for adults. Her work as a potter has been recognized most recently by being selected for an exhibit, History in the Making, in Rochester, NY.  She is the Center’s potter in residence – and has been both a consultant and teacher in many of the Center’s major projects. A graduate of the State University College at Buffalo, she earned her Masters Degree from New York University/Gallatin Division in Museum Studies and Art History.

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: Sea Tale, illustrated by Gigi Alvaré, Shaking the Grass for Dew: Poems by Richard Lewis; 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. Forthcoming is From the Sleep of Waters, illustrated by Susan Joy Share - and Taking Flight, Standing Still: Teaching Toward Imaginative and Poetic Understanding – a gathering of essays and reflections which have appeared in Encounter, Teaching Artist Journal and Paths of Learning. A complete listing of his books can be found at Books by Richard Lewis.

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 the Touchstone Center’s videos, Each Sky Has Its Words and A Tree Lives, 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. She is the designer of the Touchstone Center publications, A Tree Lives, I Catch My Moment and Sea Tale –in addition to being the Center’s consultant for web design and development. Her artwork can be seen through her website www.heidineilson.com – as well as through her design company, www.squarewater.com.

Clea Rivera is an actress and teacher who received her training from SUNY Purchase and the Acting Conservancy as well as studying with, among others, 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.

Susan Joy Share is an artist, bookbinder and performer whose work is in collections at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has taught at the Center for Book Arts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center the Penland School of Crafts.

Lindsey Wyckoff is a graduate of Gettysburg College and holds a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons College.  She did extensive archival work with the Portsmouth Athenaeum – and is at present, in addition to her work as Archivist for The Touchstone Center, Archivist/Special Collections Librarian at the Bank Street College of Education.

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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