Directors
The Board of Directors meet monthly and is the governing body responsible for CCAC policies and operations. Each Board Member is Chairperson for one or more of the Committees that carry out CCAC’s work.
2021 Board of Directors
President: Willow Shire
Willow is an artist and business person living on Cape Cod. She has been a member of the Cape Cod Art Center for 20 years, on the board for 8 years and she served as President in 2011 and 2012. She was also President of the Eastham Painters Guild from 2010 to 2020. As an executive consultant, she focused on corporate governance, leadership development and organizational change. She is active in several director education organizations and serves as an independent director for the TJX Companies, best known for their TJMaxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods stores, where she chairs the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee and sits on the Executive Compensation Committee. Prior to consulting, she spent 18 years with the Digital Equipment Corporation/Hewlett Packard. Willow is involved with the arts and humanities community and served on the board for the US Fund for UNICEF New England Region.
Secretary: Ann Canedy
Ann was born and lived in Baltimore, Maryland until moving to Cape Cod in 1991. She graduated from George Washington University and New England School of Law and began working as a social worker and a court advocate for adolescent foster children. Later, as an attorney, Ann practiced at a small firm in Harwich until becoming a legislative aide to Senator Henri Rauschenbach and then a town councilor in 2003. Ann is retired as an attorney and is a member of Hyannis Rotary, the Cape Cod Hospital Auxiliary Board, Episcopal Woman of St. Mary’s Church Board (past president) and various boards and committees in her capacity as town councilor. She enjoys swimming, boating, traveling, reading, writing and photography.
Treasurer: Mary Crowell
Mary has been in Banking her entire career, almost 35 years, and at Cape Cod Coop Bank since 2011. She’s held various positions but most of her career has been in Commercial Lending. Mary’s current position with the Bank is Relationship Manager and Vice President, Commercial Lending. She appreciates working for a community bank where personal service, common sense, and community still exist. Mary has served on the Board of Directors of the Chatham Visiting Nurses Association, the Harwich Chamber of Commerce, and as the Secretary for Chatham Merchants Association. She has lived on the Cape since 1977 and in Chatham since 1948. Mary’s husband retired from the Coast Guard and they have a 23 year old son (two old cats and a priceless 1.5 year old female basset hound pup). Mary’s creative outlet is knitting, drawn to all the beautiful yarn colors. She is also an avid power yoga practitioner, spin class participant and loves all things Cape Cod.
Executive Director: Roberta Miller
Roberta is a graduate of the University of MA, Amherst and has a Masters in Education and had a 23 year career in education as a media specialist, information technology expert and an Adjunct Professor at Framingham State College teaching technology courses for Educators in the MEd program. While Roberta spent part of her childhood on Cape Cod, she and her husband David moved here full time in 2004 and she quickly became active in the Cape Cod Art Center. She first joined the Board in 2005, served as our president and then volunteered as our full time, unpaid Executive Director. Roberta is an accomplished photographer and is very active in the Barnstable community. She is the Chair of the Barnstable Village Cultural District, a member of the Cape Creative Committee and a partner in the Hyannis Cultural District.
Directors
Katharine Berry– Katherine is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado where she majored in Graphic Design and Art Education. She designed audio visual teaching programs for a hospital and designed and illustrated work for faculty of Smith College. She took watercolor classes with Jane A. Heryerdahl and has studied with Mary Moquin and Ed Chesnovitch.
Barbara Braman
Barbara attended Bates College and was the first woman editor of the student newspaper. After graduation, she worked as a technical writer and editor, writing technical documentation and user training manuals for the IT department of an insurance company. She has lived on Cape Cod for 23 years. She was a founding member of the Asian Culture Society of Cape Cod, a non-profit that supports families with adopted children from Asia and transracial families. While a parent at the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, she helped start the school’s store, acting as buyer. She has also been on the governing body of the Unitarian Church of Cape Cod. Barbara has been a digital artist and has worked in the media for the last decade. She teaches workshops at the art association and regionally. She is a juried member of the CCAC.
Marcia Dalbey
Marsha is a retired English professor who moved to the Cape full time from Michigan in 2010. Long an admirer and collector of art, she began making art only after her retirement, beginning with classes in drawing, oils, watercolor, and, finally, pastels. She fell in love with pastels and has been working in that medium for the past several years. Marcia is a member of the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod (PPSCC) and the Cape Cod Art Association. She has been taking classes at the Cape Cd Art Association ever since she moved to the Cape. Her work has appeared in numerous shows, including at the Ann Arbor Art Association in Ann Arbor, MI; in the national “For Pastels Only” show sponsored by the PPSCC; in several All Cape Cod shows at the Chatham Creative Arts Center (where she won “Best in Show” for her pastel, “Tree Faces”) as well as in shows at the Cape Cod Art Association. She has also displayed work at First Parish Brewster and the Eastham Library, among other venues.
Maureen Reenie Dwyer
Maureen is a recently retired elementary educator, she has taught grades kindergarten up to the ninth grade over the past twenty-six years. The teaching profession required earning two degrees: a Bachelor in Science in Psychology and Education as well as a Master in Arts in Critical and Creative Thinking – both earned at UMass Boston. She was hired as the Gifted and Talented teacher for young students in Falmouth. She is a photographer, and even tried her hand at painting from those photos – both interests were honed with classes at CCAC many years ago. She served on the board of the Barnstable Historical Society and I was elected President of the Falmouth Educators’ Association where she served for four years in the capacity of representing approximately five hundred teachers in contractual matters.
Melissa Fox
A Cape Codder from the age of 14, Melissa has supported the arts, beginning with acting at the famed Harwich Junior Theater in the early 70s. After being a stay-at-home mom for years to her two daughters, she went back to work in her chosen field, children’s literacy, to be a children’s bookseller. She then founded a children’s literacy nonprofit in Washington, to get books into under resourced classrooms. She is married, lives in Cummaquid, has 2 married daughters, and 2 absolutely perfect grandchildren.
Debra Kennedy
Deb Kennedy has been a member of the Cape Cod Art Association for many years and a juried artist for most. As an artist, she works in oils, and has taught beginning oils classes for the Sandwich Arts Alliance. In addition to her life as an artist, she is currently semi-retired but still works as an executive coach and leadership development specialist with Keystone Partners in Boston and in private practice. Over the course of a long career, she was a seasoned business leader with proven results and a broad background in leading organizations, launching
new business units and looking for innovative solutions. Deb spent more than 25 years in corporate leadership in the energy industry and higher education. As a General Manager in the energy industry, she led finance and marketing business divisions, redesigning processes within established operating units to enhance performance and profitability. Most recently, as
the founding Director of Executive Education at Bentley University, she launched the business unit and excelled in designing and facilitating innovative leadership programs for corporations as well as teaching Global Strategy. Credentials include: MBA, Babson College, Wesley Ma, BSBA, Finance, University of Toledo, IPEC Professional Coaching Certification.
Rebecca Lawrence – Before retiring to Cape Cod, in 2009, Rebecca Lawrence, a graduate of Smith College in art history, was the Director of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. As NHSCA Director and previously as Assistant Director she managed or oversaw multiple grant programs and initiatives, and was responsible for developing the state’s strategic arts plan. Prior to New Hampshire, she held positions at Hawaii’s state arts agency, local museums, and a community college where she taught art history. Before Hawaii, she worked for the Museum of Arts, Boston, producing interpretive media programs within the galleries and for WGBH-TV and earlier, she was an Instructor for the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio). Her recent volunteer service on the Cape includes being Chair of the Mid-Cape Cultural Council and a Trustee for the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. She is an enthusiastic traveler, most recently to Cuba and Trinidad, but her most frequent destinations are Istanbul and San Francisco where her daughters live. She credits her improved travel and family photographs to John Tunney’s photography classes at the Cape Cod Art Association.
Jane Reed
She is the daughter of a noted medical illustrator who also painted landscapes and western art his entire life. As a child living in MD, her favorite field trip was visiting the National Gallery of Art. No school field trip could ever compare! She moved to MI in 1960 and in junior high read a book called Paintbox Summer that introduced me to Peter Hunt and the apprentices at his studio in Provincetown. She insisted my parents take her there. They did, only to find he had moved his studio to Orleans! Back in MI, she later studied elementary education at tiny Adrian College, raised her family and taught elementary school for 39 years. In 2012, she met Alan (who is an amazing artisan), moved to Nantucket in 2013 and was fortunate to spend 3 1/2 years there soaking up art events and collecting Nantucket artists’ art. We moved to Cummaquid in 2017.
Mary A. Smith- Mary Smith graduated from Boston University, College Liberal Arts in 1966 with further study in art at BU School of Fine and Applied Art. She attended the Radcliffe College Program in Landscape Design in 1978 and later received a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1982.She was the owner and principal of Mary Smith Associates, Landscape Architects for 25 years. Her company designed a wide variety of landscape projects for private estates, condominiums, police stations, senior centers, office buildings, private schools, parks and public works. Mary is a Gallery Artist at South Shore Art Center, a juried artist at the Cape Cod Art Center and a member of the Copley Society since 1975.
James Walczak
Upon graduating from Colgate University where Jim earned a BA in Political Science, International Relations and Russian Studies, he joined the US Peace Corps and served in the Dominican Republic. Next came family and a 38 year career in international business, traveling the world, including an assignment in Australia. Jim moved to the Cape in 2013 and now he spends his time devoted to his photography. Jim is a member of the Cape Cod Art Center Camera Club, where he assists the Competition chair with the selection and recruitment of the judges. Jim is the Vice President of the Cape Cod Viewfinders Club and is directly responsible for the education program among other duties. Jim has achieved the Master level in both clubs. He is also Juried through Cape Cod Art Center. Jim’s photography has been recognized receiving over 80 awards including local, NECCC and National.