STAFF

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Dan McCleary 
​ Founder / Artistic Director 

Catherine Hess 
​ Executive Director 

Cindy Ojeda 
​ Director of Finance

Vanessa Melesio 
 Program Coordinator

Luis Serrano 
Director of Painting and Drawing

Joe Petricca
​Director of Media Arts

Javier Carrillo 
Director of Operations

Guillermo Perez 
Graphic Designer

FACULTY

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Matías Anaya
​Music Instructor 
Matías is a local musician, songwriter and producer. They have years of experience playing piano, drums, guitar, and bass in a wide variety of styles - from classical to cumbia, rock and jazz. Teaching is one of the few things that bring Matías as much joy as playing music. Matías welcomes you to come explore your musicality with them during their Tuesday night workshop at Art Division!

Javier Carrillo 
​Printmaking Instructor  
Javier Carrillo has been making prints for many years, and has worked alongside different master printers such as Claudio Stickar, Roger Herman, Xavier Fumat, and Fernando Sandoval. His work is influenced by Mexican and Japanese Prints, and artists including Guadalupe Posada, David Hockney, Wayne Thiebaud, Daniel McCleary, and Rembrandt among others. His classes focus on both the fundamentals of printmaking and advanced printmaking. Students learn different techniques beginning with rubber blocks, linoleum blocks, and finally with woodcuts. Students also have the opportunity to make etching prints using plexiglass, zinc, and copper plates.  They are encouraged to try both types of printmaking and are expected to complete two or more editions per semester. ​

Fabian Cereijido 
Art History Instructor  
Fabián Cereijido is an artist, professor and author. He has lived in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, New York City and, since 2004 in California, where in 2011 he obtained a PhD in art history. He currently teaches Art History in colleges and other educational institutions.
 
Among other subjects, he’s written about current modes of art censorship, the similarities between Goya’s Disasters of War and Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and the art produced in Latin America during the recent continental anti-neo-liberal revolt. His video-installations, drawings and sculptures conjur up fictitious travels in milk and everyday rituals.

Joel Freeman
​Bookbinding Instructor
Joel Freeman began learning how to bind books at the age of thirteen and hasn't stopped since. He worked for two years at a commercial printer and bindery, binds books in collaboration with artists, and has taught a variety of workshops. His own book projects explore material, image, text, printmaking, and the relationship between the book and its reader.

Ellie Herman 
​College and Career Counselor
Ellie Herman is a writer, teacher and coach. She has worked extensively with first-generation students in low-income communities, both as a high school teacher and as a college and career coach at Art Division. For the last three years, she has worked as a college readiness teacher at Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood, where she coached students on their college applications and helped them plan their future careers. She is certified as a coach with the International Coaching Federation. Before becoming a teacher, Ellie was a TV writer and producer for 20 years, working on television shows that included Desperate Housewives, Jericho, Chicago Hope and many others. She has published short fiction, creative non-fiction, editorials and articles about public education. 

Rebecca Levinson
​Painting Instructor  
Rebecca Levinson is an artist born and raised in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in History from Brown University and studied painting in the certificate program at the New York Studio School. Trained in an atelier-style environment that prioritized working from life, Rebecca carries over a similar approach to her teaching, helping students discover a personal language through developing strong perceptual drawing and painting skills. Painting Fundamentals will focus on a different formal aspect of painting each session, completing weekly assignments that explore drawing, composition, tone, color, materials, and subject matter. As the topics build on each other, students will complete the course with not only an in-depth understanding of each concept, but also an ability to integrate these concepts in the creation of personal work. 

Joe Petricca
​ Intro to Film Arts Instructor  
Joe Petricca is an award-winning screenwriter, storyteller and educator. He teaches screenwriting, film production, film history, and serves on the jury of film festivals globally. He
is the Chief Academic Officer for the IAFM in Bangladesh. Recently, Petricca curated an upcoming film series at the Norton Simon Museum. For more than fifteen years, he served as the Executive Vice Dean of the American Film Institute Conservatory. In 2007, Petricca received a Chevalier of the Order of Academic Palms for contributions to French Cinema in Los Angeles. He wrote for the late great host Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies. He received his BFA in Film Production from NYU and his MFA in Screenwriting from AFI.

Frank Ryan
​Landscape Painting Instructor  
Frank Ryan is a contemporary realist painter based in Los Angeles. He embraces the conventions of naturalist representation to reflect on the daily realities of American life. In 1999 he was awarded a scholarship to study in Florence, Italy where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti. Ryan received his MFA in Painting and Drawing from UCLA in 2006.Frank Ryan’s work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago. Ryan’s paintings are a part of numerous private collections across the United States and in public collections, such as the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) Collection, The Art Collection at Levi’s Stadium, and the Orange County Museum of Art.

Luis Serrano
​Director of Painting and Drawing
Luis Serrano runs the figure drawing workshop at Art Division. He also led Art Division's first vocational training workshop in frame building in 2018 - which resulted in 80 custom frames built for the Dos Colectivos exhibition at USC Fisher Museum of Art.

​Serrano holds a MFA from Otis Art Institute and has painted and drawn for the past 40 years. Along with the fine art practice, Luis has taught general art classes such as Design, Watercolor painting, and two and three-dimensional design at LAUSD, LA Community Colleges, and Ryman Arts. Currently he is an adjunct instructor and mentor in the MFA program for Laguna College of Art and Design.