Eliza Tudor
Executive Director
Eliza's experience as an arts leader spans three continents. From producing film and theatre in Australia, to opera, Ancient Greek theatre and ballet in the Sierra, Eliza then moved to the UK to complete her masters in Cultural Policy. Working as Senior Commissioner for the UK's National Health Service in one of London's most majority non-White high poverty areas, she then worked as Senior Development Executive—Arts & Humanities at the University of Oxford, while also serving on the Board of Trustees of Magdalen Road Studios and Rosetta Life – working nationally through the arts with people suffering life limiting illnesses. Eliza served the boards of California Arts Advocates and Californians for the Arts between 2017 and 2024. She currently serves the Advisory Cohort for a national research study to understand the role, impacts and ongoing evolution of arts service, intermediary, and regranting organizations in a post-pandemic world. She serves the Capitol Region Leadership Council for California Jobs First, and the Regional Tourism Advisory Committee for Gold Country under Visit California.
Sofia Vivanco Airaghi
Grants Manager
Sofia (she/her/ella) is a quadrilingual geographer, dancer, educator, and arts administrator from San Francisco. Sofia holds a B.A. in Geography from UC Berkeley with an emphasis in Latin American Studies, and throughout her time there worked on cross-cultural programming at UC Berkeley’s Multicultural Community Center. Sofia joined us as Grants Manager for Upstate California Creative Corps, serving 19 counties across rural Northern California. Prior to this, she was the Program Manager of Youth Art Exchange (YAX), a multidisciplinary arts education organization working with San Francisco public high school students using the arts and design as a tool for civic engagement and youth development. She has worked as a cartographer with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s (Dis)location initiative; as a dancer has performed at ODC Theater, Cuba Caribe Festival, San Francisco Carnaval, Berkeley Dance Project, and in Salvador, Brazil; and she has exhibited work at IDEO, Latinos in Architecture’s Perspectivas exhibit and Book and Wheel’sMoving Art House.
Kellie Cuttler
Truckee Cultural District Program Manager
Kellie Cutler is the current Program Manager for the Truckee Cultural District administered by Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with Truckee Arts Alliance, the Town of Truckee, Truckee Chamber, and Truckee Downtown Merchants Association; she is the first person to take on this new position. Cutler has lived in Truckee for 18 years and worked in the Reno/Tahoe region non-profit sector for 23 years. Non-profit administration is her passion with a focus in strategic planning, community collaboration and creative fundraising. Kellie has helped achieve benchmark goals for Nevada Arts Council, Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation, KidZone Museum, North Tahoe Arts and Contractors Association of Truckee Tahoe. She feels most professionally aligned when she is utilizing her Master of Arts in arts administration from Golden Gate University, San Francisco. She is committed to a high level of community leadership and engagement through her work serving on the board of the Truckee Chamber of Commerce and on committees for Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation and Tahoe Truckee Unified School District.
Heather Heckler
Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District program manager
Heather Heckler is Program Manager for the Grass Valley Nevada City Cultural District administered by Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with the Cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City, and Grass Valley and Nevada City Chambers. She is the first person to assume this brand new role. Heckler developed a love of the visual and performing arts while growing up in Nevada County. She was involved in local theater through Foothill Theatre Company’s apprenticeship program and worked as a stage manager for Foothill Theatre Company and Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra. Heather holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese history and a masters degree in public history. She received a California Humanities grant for her Documenting Disability History project, an oral history of the disability rights movement in Nevada County. Before coming to Nevada County Arts Council, she served as the communications manager for Connecting Point and recently worked on the communications team in the County Executive Office.
Michaelyn Logue
Social Media & Communications
Michaelyn Logue is a musician, visual artist and published poet. She graduated from SFSU Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing focusing on poetry, gender studies and world religions. Michaelyn has an Early Childhood Education credential as Site Supervisor and Master Teacher, receiving certificates in Peace and Anti-bias curriculum, Diverse Families, and Administration. She has taught at the Cabrillo Children’s Center and Lab School, and volunteered at the Children’s Peace Library with a focus on developing emergent curriculum in scientific exploration and creative expression. Her experience and passion now manifest through her position as Nevada County Arts Council’s much sought-after Social Media & Community Engagement Coordinator.
Our Artists in Schools
Back left to right: Shannon Martinez, Lani Hermosillo, Nancy Schaefer, Jill Poole; and front left to right: Cheri Guerette, Kimberly (Kim) Ewing, and Rachel Johnson.
Kim is our Artists in Schools Program Lead. She earned her Multiple Subject Credential through Chapman University and University of San Diego, subsequently teaching elementary and middle school students at Nevada City School District until 2021. She has been recognized by Stanford University’s Instructional Leadership Corp via her work leading the Instructional Coaching Team at Nevada County Superintendent of Schools. From 2018-2022 Kim was the County’s Arts Education Coordinator. Kim is also a theatre and film actor, she dances with Samba Lua, an Afro-Brazilian dance troupe, she hosts a talk show and podcast on KVMR 89.5 FM radio station, and she performs with an award-winning, all-female Comedy Improv Troupe called Meno Posse.
Shelly Covert
Nisenan Tribe Liaison
Shelly Covert is Executive Director of Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP), whose mission is to preserve, protect and perpetuate Nisenan Culture. Nisenan Tribal homelands lay within the Bear and Yuba River watersheds. The Nisenan are the indigenous people who were here before the Gold Rush and they remain in their ancestral homelands today. Shelly is a singer / song writer, artist and tradition keeper within her Tribal group. She works with environmental and social justice causes and advocates for the Nisenan people and the restoration of their Federal recognition and Tribal sovereignty. Having Shelly among us is a reminder. She brings empathy, knowledge, wisdom and meaning to our role as State-Local Partner with the California Arts Council and, in turn, we try to shine a light on the extraordinary work of the Nisenan in restoring recognition for the wealth of truths and traditions that their culture and history offer our California Cultural Districts within Nevada County.
Kirsten Casey
Nevada County Poet Laureate
Kirsten has been an active member of California Poets in the Schools for sixteen years and is now its Northern California regional coordinator. She has annually trained our county judges for Poetry Out Loud in the schools, and was founding coordinator for Nevada County Art Council's international children’s poetry exchange, Dream a Difference, in 2017. Her first book of poetry, Ex Viv0: Out of the Living Body, was published by Hip Pocket Press in 2012. Her upcoming collection of poems explores historical and literary characters struggling with the use of social media in the modern world. In 2020, she co-edited Molly Fisk’s "Academy of American Poet's Laureate" project, California Fire and Water: a Climate Crisis Anthology.
Rooja Mohassessy
Poetry Out Loud
Rooja Mohassessy is an Iranian-born poet and educator living in Northern California. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, California Fire and Water: An Anthology of Poems, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Bare Life Review, Potomac Review, The Florida Review, New Letters, and elsewhere. Rooja is a 2021 recipient of the MacDowell Fellowship and a student at the MFA program of Pacific University, Oregon. She reads for the journal Prairie Schooner.
Daniela Fernández
Acting up
Daniela Fernández is a dynamic and skillful applied theatre practitioner. With a Bachelors’s degree in Acting & Directing and a Masters’s Degree in Drama Therapy, she uses theater as a tool not only for storytelling but also for exploration, examination, change, and healing. Her theatre work spans myriad populations, including play formation and performance with LGBTQ+ youth, seniors, and adults with disabilities; drama therapy with incarcerated women and their families; Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed with adults and youth of color. Daniela knows firsthand the transformative powers of theatre and finds joy in engaging folks who want to explore the magic.
Beth Ford
Webmaster, Design, and Marketing
Beth Ford lives and works in Nevada City. A graphic artist, book designer, essayist, poet, and award-winning florist, her work has been reviewed locally and nationally. With a passion for visual language, color theory and typography, her designs are known for their depth of atmosphere and layered collage. Recent projects include collaborations with Oregon’s Poet Laureate, graphics for a Bach Festival in Maine, and collateral for The Sierra Poetry Festival. A native San Franciscan, she is equally obsessed with birding, botany, books, fresh air…. Portfolios at: www.GlibCommunications.com
