Heritage Award and RVSP Coordinator - Varick Chittenden
Staff Folklorist/Program Director - Hannah Harvester
Communications Director - Carol Smith Pynchon
Annual Giving Director - Teresa Stone
Business Office Manager - Judy Bailey
Folkstore Manager - Katrina Brainard
Executive Director Jill Breit joined TAUNY in 1993, just before the organization opened its first public gallery in Canton. A graduate of St. Lawrence University, Jill earned her M.A. in Folk Studies at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In recent years, as Program Director, Jill has had primary responsibility for development and implementation of TAUNY’s many programs: exhibits, workshops, demonstrations by artists, concerts, lectures, and interpretive publications to support these programs. Exhibits curated by Jill include Hooked on the River: Picture Rugs by Prudence Matthews; Carvers, Turners and Burners: A Showcase of North Country Woodwork; and North Country Knits. As Executive Director, in addition to oversight of programming, Jill is in charge of long-range planning, cultivation of funding sources, and staff development.
Heritage Award and RVSP Coordinator Varick Chittenden, the founder of TAUNY, is a folklorist with particular research and programming interests in regional culture, folk art, traditional crafts, foodways, and oral storytelling traditions. Retired after 36 years of teaching, he is Professor Emeritus of English and folklore at SUNY Canton. He has an MA in American Folk Culture from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and a BA and MEd from St. Lawrence University. He has been curator of several exhibitions of folk art, including Found in the North Country: The Folk Art of a Region (1982) and Out of the Ordinary: Community Tastes and Values in Contemporary New York State Folk Art (1995). His publications include articles in scholarly journals and general interest magazines and The Danes of Yates County (1985) and Vietnam Remembered The Folk Art of Marine Combat Veteran Michael D. Cousino, Sr. (1995). In addition to leading TAUNY’s move to a new building and the Evergreen Campaign, Varick is responsible for the Register of Very Special Places project.
Hannah Harvester joined TAUNY in 2010 as their summer intern, and has stayed on as Staff Folklorist and Program Director in charge of programming. Hannah received her MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010, and a BA in Theater and Comparative Religion from Swarthmore College. In between, she has taught visual arts and theater to high school students, worked for Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala, and studied alternative theater and traditional performance arts in Poland as a Fulbright scholar. Hannah has a background working with children, and is very excited to be expanding children’s programming at TAUNY this year.
Communications Director Carol Smith Pynchon joined TAUNY in 2004. In her current position she supports the organization's and the staff's communications and marketing needs, including website management, media relations, social networking, and publication and exhibit production. She edits and produces TAUNY's quarterly membership newsletter Traditional Arts Now. Carol has lived in the North Country for more than 25 years – first in Vermont and now in Canton – with her husband Tom and their three children.
The newest member of the TAUNY team is Annual Giving Director Teresa Stone. Teresa is responsible for managing and increasing TAUNY’s membership – both individual and business. Raised on a small beef hobby farm outside of Richville, Teresa lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, following graduation from college. In 2004 she returned to the North Country to live and raise her family. She worked in the communications office at St. Lawrence University and most recently has operated a home-based baking business and taught fitness classes. She lives in Potsdam with her husband Chris and their five children.
Business Office Manager Judy Bailey came to TAUNY in early 2010 and oversees the finances and bookkeeping of the organization. A North Country native—who has lived in the “TAUNY region” for most of her life—Judy moved to Canton in 1996 with her husband John. With their four children they garden and enjoy vacationing in the Adirondacks.
Folkstore Manager Katrina Brainard began with TAUNY as a SUNY Potsdam student intern. Katrina brings a background in anthropology and museum studies and experience in retail. And she’s from Texas--with North Country roots--so we’re immersing her in North Country traditions!
Consultant
Martha Cooper has specialized in shooting urban vernacular art and architecture for more than 20 years. While serving as a staff photographer on the New York Post, Marty began to shoot graffiti and break dancing, subjects which led to her extensive coverage of early Hip Hop as it emerged from the Bronx. Her first book Subway Art, a collaboration with Henry Chalfant, is still in print after 20 years and is affectionately called the “bible” by graffiti artists worldwide. Marty's photos have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries and published in countless magazines from National Geographic to Vibe. She has been the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture, since 1987. At TAUNY Cooper advises and direct photography projects and archival collections, and is the principal photographer for TAUNY's North Country Heritage Awards.
Note: All images, text and other material found in this website © 2012 TAUNY. All rights reserved.
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