Diane Brigham, Executive Director joined Ryman Arts in March 2002 after serving as Head of Education at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she worked for 14 years. She has over twenty-five years experience in art and museum education, beginning as a public school art teacher and holds a B.S. and M.Ed. in art education from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. Diane has served on the national board of directors of the National Art Education Association and recently participated in the Los Angeles County Arts Commission Arts Leadership Initiative, including completion of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program for Leaders in the Arts.
Tiffany Galindo, Administrative Coordinator, is delighted to be a part of Ryman Arts since 2009. Tiffany attended The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and earned her BFA in dance from The Boston Conservatory. She has danced professionally and taught in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Tiffany enjoys salsa dancing, reading and traveling in her free time.
Walter Marsh, Operations Manager, joined Ryman Arts in 2007. Walter earned his MFA in Classical Guitar Performance from UCLA in 1995 and has worked in nonprofit management since 1996. His experience includes nonproft accounting and financial mangement, operations management, event production, and music education.
Rebecca Tuynman, Education Manager, oversees all Ryman Arts classes and student activities. She earned her MFA from UC Santa Barbara in 2005, is an artist working in photography, and has taught studio art at all levels since 1997 in a variety of community organizations, schools, universities, and museums. She earned a BA in History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. She has been with Ryman Arts since 2005.
Teaching Artists
Sang Young Bang, MFA Claremont Graduate University (2007), BFA Art Center College of Design, is a painter whose work is exhibited widely on the west coast, and recently returned from teaching in Alaska. He currently teaches at LA Academy of Figurative Art along with Ryman Arts and joined our faculty in 2006.
Carolyn Castaño earned her MFA at UCLA and BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and also studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Carolyn has exhibited her mixed-media paintings, drawings, and video, both nationally and internationally, most recently in LACMA’s Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement, and in International Paper at the Hammer Museum, and Liquid Los Angeles: Contemporary Watercolor Painting in Los Angeles. She has taught painting and drawing throughout Los Angeles, most notably at UCLA, Long Beach City College, and Chapman University.
Manny Cosentino is a nationally exhibited realist painter who returns to Ryman Arts after taking a few years off to work on a portrait commission. Cosentino is committed to studying the art and painting techniques of the past, as in Flemish and early Renaissance painting, and to assimilating and applying these techniques to his own contemporary portraits and urban landscapes. He has also taught at UCLA Extension, Barnsdall Art Center, and the Los Angeles Community College District, as well as having taught privately for the last decade. He currently teaches advanced life drawing and painting at California State University, Long Beach.
Donivan Howard earned his MFA at California State University, Fullerton, and BFA at Art Center College of Design. He is represented by the Mason Muere Fine in Atlanta and his figurative work is included in Illustration Showcase 200: World’s Best Illustrators. He has taught at Riverside Community College, Otis College of Art and Design, and Art Center College of Design. He is also a freelance concept and character designer for film and television, with past projects at studios including Disney and BRC.
Chuck Huang, MFA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and BFA, University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He is a painter, and exhibits his work in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Orange County. He also teaches at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, Otis College of Art and Design, and Mt. San Jacinto College. Chuck joined Ryman Arts in 2006.
Robin Palanker, BFA, California Institute of the Arts. Robin exhibits nationally; most recently her pastel drawings were shown at Santa Monica’s Hunsaker/Schlesinger gallery and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Robin has taught at California State Summer School for the Arts, Art Center College of Design, University of La Verne, Art Institute of Southern California, and Vermont College. She joined Ryman Arts in Fall 2003.
David Schoffman, BFA, Rhode Island School of Design. David also teaches at Brentwood Art Center and the L.A. County Museum of Art. He has been an instructor at the California State Summer School for the Arts and was the Mattel Arts Teacher of the Year for Southern California in 2002. David joined Ryman Arts in Fall 2003. He was the Ryman Arts 2006 Sharon D. Lund Master Teaching Artist Award recipient and traveled to Rome and Venice to examine characteristics of Tuscan and Venetian Renaissance and Mannerist painting and drawing.
Cathy Stone lives and works in Los Angeles where she is the director of the gallery Another Year in LA. She was an artist in residence at Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, France and an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for The Arts in Sausalito, California. Internationally she has shown in Berlin, Germany at the Zweiter Berliner Kongress Fur Performance Und Visual art in Berlin. Ms. Stone has been a mentor for Transart Institute for the past two years, an MFA program in Austria, where she works with students individually here in Los Angeles. She joined Ryman Arts in 2007.
Jamie Sweetman, MFA, California State University at Long Beach, and BA from UCLA. She has exhibited her drawings widely since the ‘80s, and is currently teaching drawing at the USC as well as anatomy to artists at California State Long Beach. Jamie joined Ryman Arts in 2006.
Malaika Zweig, MFA Massachusetts College of Art, BFA California College of the Arts. She teaches painting and drawing at UCLA Extension and at Citrus College. She also teaches painting at California State Summer School for the Arts. Zweig has exhibited her art on both coasts as well as in Paris. Visit MalaikaZweig.com to see her work. She joined Ryman Arts in 2007.
Teaching Assistants
Ashley Healy is currently a full time student at California State University, Long Beach and is working towards her BFA in Art Education and Illustration. She does freelance work for local music artists and other businesses in the Long Beach area. Ashley graduated from Ryman Arts in 2006 and her future goals are to become a teacher and/or work artistically in the entertainment business.
Christina Saucedo received her BFA in Communication Arts at Otis College of Art & Design and graduated Ryman Arts in 2005. She is a Graphic Designer currently on the board for One Nation, freelancing for an online fashion magazine, and helps coordinate alumni events. Her future goals are to have her own business in the fashion industry.
Michelle Wiener received her MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in 2008 after receiving her BFA from the University of California at Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies and graduating from Ryman Arts in 2000. She is an alumni association member and helps to coordinate alumni exhibitions. Michelle graduated from Ryman Arts in 2000.
