ABOUT US

OUR MISSION

The Ashland Gallery Association, a champion of the visual arts community in Ashland, Oregon, exists as a membership of art galleries, studios, individual artists, and associates. Collectively, we promote Ashland as an attractive art destination through group activities including art exhibitions, special events, and educational opportunities. Through an array of media, we seek to effectively communicate the promotion and sale of art in the belief that art is essential to the welfare and character of our community.

Meet the Board

About Our Board Members

Ann DiSalvo

president

Lifelong artist, fluent in human figures, animals, plants. Born and educated in Wisconsin, with a degree in art from UW Stevens Point. Lived in Kentucky 12 years from 1980, illustrating, gardening, farming. Settled in Ashland, OR in 1993, established Studio A.B with Bruce Bayard in 1998. Involved in many art organizations. Board President of Ashland Gallery Association. Editor of Ashland Gallery Association. Happy when I am able to get out to wild country in Oregon.

Karina Mendoza-Wittke

Vice President

Karina was born in Mexico, and raised Germany. She traveled and moved extensively and made her home in the Rogue Valley in 1994. Primarily self-taught, Jewelry making has been an integral part of Karina’s life since she began, at the age of 9, in Europe. For over 40 years, she has explored different mediums, techniques, and styles, allowing her creative spirit to grow and ruminate. As she strives to bring out the beauty of nature and serve as a vessel to connect it to people. She does not underestimate what natural stones can give us, and how instrumental art can be in bringing about change. 

With a history in business, linguistics, arts, sales, design, and marketing, she has been a long-time business owner. She has been part of the Lithia Artisans Market for 30 years, serving as a Membership Chairperson, and on the Jury committee for over 20 years.

She also is an Oregon Certified Court Interpreter since 2002, and uses her multi-lingual skills to bring linguistic inclusion and equity to our judicial system, medical and educational settings, and the community at large.

Since June of 2024, she is the Owner/Director of ART-on-FIRST in Ashland, fulfilling a lifelong dream of opening a Gallery, supporting fellow artists, and giving a permanent home to her jewelry studio.

Julie Furrer

secretary

Julie Furrer is a ceramic artist, entrepreneur, and arts advocate based in Southern Oregon. Since moving to the area in 2005, she has woven herself into the local arts community through her entrepreneurial ventures and her dedication to supporting the arts. As a mother raising three daughters at a Waldorf School, Julie played an active role in the gardening and beautification programs, as well as organizing festivals and events. She also managed fundraising efforts and launched a successful sponsorship program for the school. Over the years, she co-owned a marketing business with her husband and briefly worked in marketing for Rogue Creamery.

Julie's entrepreneurial spirit has led her on a diverse creative journey, from selling bread at local farmers markets to creating a children’s costume line. But, it was ceramics that truly captured her heart. Since 2020, she’s been a full-time ceramic artist and in 2024 opened Rogue Valley Pottery Supply in Ashland, offering resources and supplies to fellow artists in the community. As the Promotions Chair for Clayfolk, Julie continues to play an active role in promoting the vibrant ceramics community in Southern Oregon. She is also serving on the Central Point Arts Commission in her hometown.

Julie specializes in sgraffito, a technique where intricate designs are carved into clay, often inspired by her love of botanicals. She also enjoys exploring the art of raku firing, which adds a distinctive finish to her pieces. Julie’s work can be found at Art and Soul Gallery in Ashland and at her own pottery supply store off Hersey Street. 

Kate Womack

Artist Liaison

Kate Womack is an interdisciplinary artist, beekeeper, and arts advocate based in Southern Oregon. She holds a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies (Art and Psychology) from Southern Oregon University and studied film and photography at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is passionate about the places where creativity and community meet. Kate currently serves on Ashland’s Public Art Advisory Committee, supports creative projects through DomeGuys International, and is excited to bring her interdisciplinary experience to her role as Artist Liaison for the Ashland Gallery Association.

Kaz Chandler

Board Member at Large

Kaz Chandler is a full time professional artist and storyteller known for her dynamic and vibrant works in theatre and visual arts. Born and raised in Southern California's South Bay, Kaz moved to the Sierra Nevadas as a young adult where she earned her BA in Fine Art from the University of Nevada, Reno, and taught Fine Art and Theatre in Carson City. During that time she also earned a graduate degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago. She and her husband John then spent over a decade in Costa Rica where she was involved in local plein air events and membership in artist groups, galleries, and shows. No stranger to Jackson County’s commitment towards supporting the arts through years of bringing students to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as studying with them, Kaz chose Talent as their new home base to enjoy the rich diversity of culture and outdoor life. 

With over three and a half decades of full time work experience as a performing artist, theatre educator, designer, and director, Kaz blends her theatrical background with her visual art. This unique combination brings a sense of drama and immediacy to her paintings, reminiscent of the spontaneity required in plein air quickdraws. She credits having to finish huge set pieces for theatre on strict deadlines for the ability to paint fast, and in plein air that allows for the rewarding capture of light and shadow.  Having spent years in dark theaters, working outside hopefully achieves her goal to create art that offers her viewers a momentary escape from their daily lives, a breath of fresh air, and a connection to the places and emotions she depicts.

With the freedom of retirement, Kaz dedicates her time to her passion for painting as well as practicing piano, voice, and dance. She hopes to be able to lend her skills acquired from her many years of drafting grants for theaters, education, and arts organizations to the AGA toward the mutual benefit of community and the arts. 

Dave Leibowitz

board member at large

Dave Leibowitz has been making art since the seventies, bringing over fifty years of fascination with photography, collage, video art, and experimental filmmaking to his current practice. He completed his formal education in 1976 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema and Photography from the University of Bridgeport. During a forty year career in the Motion Picture Industry, he simultaneously developed his own independent vision as a fine artist, using photography and video to marry the actuality of mechanical image capture with the subjectivity of impressionism and abstraction.

In the eighties, Dave served as an official Polaroid SX-70 Artist, exhibiting this medium in an Annual Soho New York City Exhibition for sixteen years. His polaroid work is represented in the corporate collections of Philip Morris, Polaroid, IBM, Canon, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1991, he transitioned to digital art with Photoshop 1.0 and then Painter 1.0, continuing his exploration of the altered photographic image. In the early nineties, Dave received multiple creative grants to create experimental art on a graphic supercomputer near Detroit, earning him a place as a pioneer in computer art.

In 2008, Dave began making art on a new computing platform, Apple's iPhone and then the iPad, using dozens of apps. Since he began creating art in this new medium, Dave has participated in exhibitions of Mobile Digital Art in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Las Vegas, Austin, Maine, Connecticut, the United Kingdom, Italy, Herzegovina, and New Zealand. In 2013, he published a book, Mobile Digital Art-Using the iPad and iPhone as Creative Tools by Focal Press, which features his work and the work of seventy international painters and photographers.

Living in Talent, he’s a member of Ashland Art Works, Crooked Mile Gallery, Rogue Gallery and Art Center, and a founding member of The Talent Gallery. 

Scott Malbaurn

BOARD MEMBER AT LARGE

Scott Malbaurn is the Executive Director of the Schneider Museum of Art, part of the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University. Serving both an academic and community audience, the Schneider Museum of Art builds a challenging environment that engages with the visual arts through exhibitions and programs supporting interdisciplinary study, research, and discourse. Malbaurn is responsible for overall curatorial, administration, planning, policy, and budget development and management of the Museum.

As an artist, Malbaurn has exhibited his work internationally with most exhibitions in New York, NY. Malbaurn has held positions at Pratt Institute serving as the Assistant Chairperson of Fine Arts and Professor of Drawing and Painting. Malbaurn has also held positions at the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in the Curatorial and Collections Department and Design Department.He has lectured and been a visiting artist at Yale University, New Haven, CT; the School of the Visual Arts (SVA), New York, NY; School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Chicago, IL, and Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. He has received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a MFA from Pratt Institute.Malbaurn is a descendent of the Narragansett Indian Tribe and the Nipmuc Tribe.

Paige Gerhard

Administrator / Marketing

Paige Gerhard is a creative arts leader with years of experience who received her MBA in Marketing and Arts Administration, BFA in Painting with a Minor in Art History, and BS in Elementary Education from Southern Oregon University. When Paige isn't devoting her time to the Ashland Gallery Association, she is involved with other arts organizations. Paige is currently the Executive Director of Ashland High Arts Advocates, the Program Director for The Haines & Friends Visual Arts Grant Program, and the Visual Arts Editor for the Ashland Sneak Preview. She also works with Rogue Theater Company and Southern Oregon Repertory Singers. Ultimately, Paige finds a lot of passion and joy in being able to collaborate with artists to provide enriching and engaging experiences for her community. 

JOIN OUR THRIVING ARTS COMMUNITY!

BECOME A MEMBERBECOME A FRIEND OF THE AGA

The Ashland Gallery Association is located within the ancestral homelands of the Shasta, Takelma, and Latgawa peoples who lived here since time immemorial. In the 1850s, these tribes were displaced when colonization and the Gold Rush brought thousands of Euro-Americans to their lands, leading to warfare, epidemics, starvation, and villages being burned. Beginning in 1853, treaties were signed, confederating these tribes and others together, who would be referred to as the Rogue River Tribe. These treaties ceded most of their homelands to the United States, and in return, they were guaranteed a permanent homeland reserved for them. At the end of the Rogue River Wars in 1856, these Tribes and many other Tribes from Western Oregon were removed to the Siletz Reservation and the Grand Ronde Reservation. Today, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians are living descendants of the Takelma, Shasta, and Latgawa peoples of this area.

The Ashland Gallery Association is committed to providing opportunities to artists whose voices are all too underrepresented in the visual arts industry. A lens focusing on equity, diversity, and inclusion will continue to remain integral to our ongoing strategic planning.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to participate in opportunities and events presented by the Ashland Gallery Association. If you are an individual with a disability who requires accommodation(s) in order to participate, then please contact us.