AVA STAFF

Shari Boraz

Shari Boraz

Executive Director

Email: shari@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X108

Executive Director Shari Boraz is a seasoned nonprofit manager with fundraising experience. In addition to serving in management jobs at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth College since 2005, Boraz is an accomplished artist. Her work in fabric has been exhibited widely in the Upper Valley and beyond, including at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

Nick Gaffney

Nick Gaffney

Education Manager

Email: nick@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X102

Nick Gaffney received his M.F.A. in Fine Arts/Photography from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, in 2002. Since then he has taught Photography, Studio Art, and Digital Media at a variety of places. He has exhibited his photography throughout the country, including solo shows at AVA and the Vermont Center for Photography, in Brattleboro, VT. He is currently on the board for the Vermont Center for Photography and is also a member of the Lebanon Arts and Culture Commission. He lives in Lebanon with his wife, two daughters, and dog Ruby. ngaffney.net

Samantha Eckert

Samantha Eckert

Exhibition Manager

Email: sam@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X109

Samantha Eckert is a Vermont-based emerging artist. She earned her MFA in Visual Art in 2015 from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, VT. Additionally, she holds a Certification in Museum Studies from The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. She received a grant to attend Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, CO, attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson, VT, was a two-time artist in residence at The Studios at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, and recently spent six weeks as artist in residence at La Macina di San Cresci in her ancestral homeland, Italy. In her employment, she has held positions in visual art higher education in varied roles as an adjunct, administrative programming, and exhibition coordination.

Dave Eastman

Dave Eastman

Development Specialist

Email: dave@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X107

Dave comes to AVA with over 8-years of fundraising experience. His experience prior to his career in development included marketing and sales positions in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Dave has also served on the boards of several non-profits for many years. Dave received a B.S. in economics from Babson College and an M.B.A. in Marketing and Management from the University of Connecticut. Dave enjoys spending time fly fishing and downhill skiing with his two children when they are home from college. He lives with his wife in Hartland, VT.

Contact Dave for more information about:

  • AVA’s Annual Fund
  • AVA’s 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign: From Seed to Bloom!
  • AVA’s Financial Assistance Fund
  • Planned Giving Gifts to AVA’s Bank Street Society
  • Stock and Matured 401K Transfers to Support AVA
  • Donating Items to our: Wish List
Sheryl Trainor

Sheryl Trainor

Office Manager

Email: sheryl@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X101

Sheryl Trainor has a B. A. in English and served as AVA’s Board of Directors’ Secretary from 2009 to 2015. She studied painting at Massachusetts College of Art and was introduced to printmaking after moving to Vermont in 1995. She is an artist member of Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction, Vermont, and the Monotype Guild of New England. Her work is in private collections internationally as well as the collections of the Boston Public Library, Plymouth State College, the Hood Museum of Art, and Smith College as part of Two Rivers Printmaking Studio’s Portfolio 2008 and 2011.

Travis Paige

Travis Paige

Communications Coordinator

Email: travis@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X105

Travis Paige is a landscape, nature, wildlife, and the occasional portrait and wedding photographer in the Upper Valley. A lover of exploring nature, he one day discovered that combining his passion for the outdoors and photography was the perfect mix.
Before AVA, he began his career in retail, working as a sales manager for over fifteen years. He then moved on to the world of renewable energy for a small company importing European wood-fueled boiler systems. He enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and doing anything to do with the outdoors. You can check out his work at travispaigephotography.com.

Maggie Kundtz Joseph

Maggie Kundtz Joseph

Senior Art Program Coordinator

Email: mayfly@avagallery.org

Maggie mayfly Kundtz Joseph is a visual artist who has been an AVA studio tenant since 2013. As an AVA instructor since 2017, she values open-studio classes as an opportunity for people to experience joyful learning and creative self-expression. “As a teacher, being present and listening holds space for students to courageously reach-in and express what’s needed for their journey”. Creativity has the means of authentic discovery and transformation. By tapping into our inner-artist, we can heal and grow.
Maggie earned a BFA from the University of Michigan in painting & photography and her Master’s in photography from Maine Media College. She created the artist persona, mayfly, to better embody the ideas of ephemerality and transformation in her art. Read more about Maggie mayfly Kundtz Joseph’s life and work here (Artist profile by Tom Haushatler), and visit my artist members page.

Karl Neubauer

Karl Neubauer

Youth Education Coordinator

Email: karl@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117

Karl Neubauer has been a studio artist and artisan for thirty years. Karl’s work is in shops and galleries throughout the US and locally at The Artisan’s Hand in Montpelier, The North East Kingdom Artisan’s Guild in St Johnsbury, Catamount Arts Gallery in St Johnsbury, and AVA Gallery. He has been teaching art to young people in and out of public schools for over seven years. www.karl-art.com.

Roff Haroff

Roff Haroff

Sculptural Education Program Manager

Email: roff@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117

Roff grew up in southern New Hampshire, where she taught metalsmithing in high school. While at college in Philadelphia, Roff danced between the metal, wood, ceramic, fiber, sculpture, and print departments and found romance in the film department. Roff and her animator husband moved back to New Hampshire, where she taught in the arts and humanities and became a League member while consulting across the continent in C/SCSC. Roff was lured to Nashville in the 90s, where she spent time teaching art and Spacial Dynamics, became a TACA member, as well as working as an 18th-century first-person historical interpreter and federal, state, and private arts grants, where she picked up blacksmithing via several ABANA groups and JC Camphill. After moving back to northern New Hampshire, she worked in the Human Resource field as a Transition Specialist untill friends told her to check out a job at AVA. Roff’s approach to the world is the glass is refillable.

Peter Tlumacki

Peter Tlumacki

Facilities

Email: peter@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117

Tyler Morrison

Tyler Morrison

Ceramics Studio Assistant

Abbe Murphy

Bookkeeper

Email: abbe@avagallery.org
Phone: 603-448-3117 X103

Mike Howat

Artreach Coordinator

Email: mike@avagallery.org