Mentors

Mac­Duff Everton

MACDUFF EVERTON is a con­tribut­ing edi­tor at National Geo­graphic Trav­eler and Islands Mag­a­zine. His work is seen in many fine mag­a­zines where he cap­tures a sense of place. His pho­tographs include adver­tis­ing, cor­po­rate, edi­to­r­ial and fine art and are exhib­ited world­wide in pres­ti­gious muse­ums and gal­leries. He has pub­lished a doc­u­men­ta­tion of Yucatan peo­ple in The Mod­ern Maya — A Cul­ture in Tran­si­tion and is work­ing on an update that will chron­i­cle 40 years. He col­lab­o­rated with his wife, artist Mary Heeb­ner, on his newest pub­li­ca­tion The Book of Santa Bar­bara. the stun­ning pic­tures make a great Xmas present! Elite is lucky to have him as a men­tor. www.macduffeverton.com sam­ple The Book of Santa Bar­bara.

Mac­Duff has com­pleted a men­tor­ship with Elite Henen­son in photography. 

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James Kahn

JAMES KAHN is the author of Return of the Jedi, Indi­ana Jones and the Tem­ple of Doom, Goonies, and numer­ous other nov­els and nov­el­iza­tions, as well as writer-producer on tele­vi­sion shows such as Mel­rose Place and Star Trek: Voy­ager. His more per­sonal works, begin­ning with song­writ­ing, can be sam­pled on his web­site, www.jameskahnwordsandmusic.com.

“I remem­ber what it was like being that young boy just start­ing out. Being able to show him some of the tools of the trade felt like a gift to both of us.”

James Kahn men­tored Nolan Cope in writ­ing a novel. 
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Julie McLeod

JULIE MCLEOD, our direc­tor and founder, has spent many years teach­ing and men­tor­ing aspir­ing artists. At Dance Ware­house, her stu­dio from 1979 — 1989, she nur­tured many dance teach­ers and stu­dents to become excel­lent com­mu­nity resources. Steven Lovelace learned dance stu­dio admin­is­tra­tion under her tute­lage. Dur­ing her 30 year tenure with Santa Bar­bara Dance Alliance, she coached many young dancers through On The Verge: Team Chore­o­g­ra­phers Show­case to develop their skills and con­fi­dence. Many of these young­sters have gone on to dance in pro­fes­sional com­pa­nies, teach in dance stu­dios and found their own com­pa­nies. She spent the last 6 years nur­tur­ing 14 year old Jackie Rotman’s dreams with Every­body Dance Now! that now has 12 young lead­ers in train­ing, 7 young teach­ers, over one hun­dred 9–12 year old stu­dents tak­ing free classes, 9 chap­ters in the United States and Canada. She has become nation­ally known as a mover and shaker work­ing with young peo­ple. Nur­tur­ing pas­sion­ate tal­ent lights her fires!

She is cur­rently men­tor­ing Liam Burke/ Dance Crit­i­cism, Jackie Rotman/ Every­body Dance Now!, Cybil Gilbertson/ NECTER, Bree Lewis/ Admin­is­tra­tion and Chris­tine Zuniga/ Admin­is­tra­tion and Development.

Photo by David M. Char­trand
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Rod Rolle

ROD ROLLE is a Santa Bar­bara based pho­tog­ra­pher with  expe­ri­ence in edi­to­r­ial, cor­po­rate and doc­u­men­tary photography.

…Images With A Global View In Mind.

Since grad­u­a­tion from Brooks Insti­tute of Pho­tog­ra­phy with a degree in Industrial/Scientific Photo Tech­nol­ogy, Rod has sup­plied images to Gamma-Liaison, Getty Images, Reuters, and Sipa Press. His edi­to­r­ial work has appeared in over 220 pub­li­ca­tions in 36 coun­tries: Time Mag­a­zine, USA Today, Busi­ness Week, US Mag­a­zine, Parade Mag­a­zine (USA); Manchete (Brazil); The Mail on Sun­day (United King­dom); Hant Extra (Swe­den); Stern (Ger­many); Aktuel Mag­a­zine (Turkey); AL-AHRAM (Egypt); The Hindu (India); Weekly Hoseki (Japan), Short­land Pub­li­ca­tions Ltd (New Zealand), and National Mag­a­zine (South Africa). rodrolle.photoshelter.com

Rod is men­tor­ing Shan­non Jor­dan in photography.

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Russ Spencer

RUSS SPENCER, pan­elist, grad­u­ated with a jour­nal­ism degree from Cal Poly and worked for five years as a writer for The Inde­pen­dent, the News-Press, and later, the UCSB Pub­lic Affairs Depart­ment. He then became a free­lance writer pub­lished in mag­a­zines inter­na­tion­ally, includ­ing the New York Times Mag­a­zine, Out­side, Details, GQ, Salon.com, Los Ange­les Times, Utne Reader, and many oth­ers. In 2001, he became a film­maker and has since made five full-length doc­u­men­taries, which have been seen in fes­ti­vals and dis­trib­uted worldwide.

Russ has men­tored Coby Kaufer, 13 years old, through the process of mak­ing a 3 minute film. www.bisonv.com
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Nathan Vonk

NATHAN VONK is the Cura­tor of Sculp­ture at Sul­li­van Goss. He writes the Santa Bar­bara Arts Blog focus­ing on high­light­ing and pro­mot­ing young and emerg­ing local artists, is on the Board of the Santa Bar­bara Arts Col­lab­o­ra­tive, and men­tors a vari­ety of local artists. He grew up in a small farm town in Iowa, received a BA from Reed Col­lege in Port­land, Ore­gon and a mas­ters in Crit­i­cal The­ory in Lit­er­a­ture in Brighton, Eng­land. On week­end train trips to Lon­don he taught him­self art in the muse­ums. Return­ing to the US he taught Eng­lish at Ven­tura Col­lege before join­ing Sul­li­van Goss three years ago.

“Men­tor­ing is a great way to share the learn­ing expe­ri­ence with others.”

Nathan is men­tor­ing Sol Hill in mar­ket­ing his work.
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JEFF HUDGINS is men­tor­ing Paul Gan­n­away in mar­ket­ing his work.