Meet Our Board Members
Phyllis (Phyllee) Binder is an East Coast transplant since 1972 when she was uprooted from her suburban Baltimore neighborhood with her family to SoCal. She relocated as a freshman to UCSanta Cruz. While accruing a BA degree in Community Studies she experienced working on the UCSC Farm, extensive travel in Mexico, tree planting in Oregon, fire fighting and working in Idaho for YACC. After meeting her future husband at UCSC, relocated to Ukiah, CA, where they gardened and raised a family on Pinoleville Pomo Reservation, where he had spent most of his life. Phyllee became a bi-lingual public elementary school teacher through Sonoma StateU, and nurtured art, multiculturalism, inclusivity and social justice in her students. Now retired, Phyllee is a collage artist, a mother, mother-in-law and grandmother living and gardening in Fort Bragg,Ca.
Phyllis Binder
A. Laurie Palmer writes, makes art, and teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research-based work focuses on crafting ways to re-conceive human relationships with the material world (living and non-living) that contribute to changing how we relate with it and with each other. Her most recent book, The Lichen Museum, explores lichens’ role as an anti-capitalist companion and climate change survivor. Palmer also works in collaboration with activist groups in solidarity across socioeconomic and racial difference to create more just, livable, and joyful social and environmental relations. After being based in Chicago for 30 years, Palmer moved to Santa Cruz in 2016 where she helped start the new Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program at UCSC, an innovative, student-centered, graduate program focusing on environmental and social justice.
Laurie Palmer
Marybeth Coyle is an artist, educator, and entrepreneur with a diverse professional background. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Education from Mankato State University. Early in her career, Marybeth worked as an art educator, where she fostered an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, integrating the arts into broader learning experiences. She later spent over a decade as General Manager for the Minneapolis Brooks Brothers at the Mall of America, where she honed her skills in management and marketing.
In 2018, she moved to Mendocino, California, where she now focuses on her art, including her handcrafted jewelry, painting, and a greeting card business. In 2023, she purchased the building in Fort Bragg that houses TC Space, a gallery owned and managed by her daughter, Meredith Frederick. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, practicing yoga, walking the Mendocino headlands, cooking, and tending to her extensive garden.
Marybeth Coyle
Daris Jasper is an art director with a passion for storytelling, branding, and market research. He has worked with arts organizations and cultural institutions to shape their communication strategies. Daris is committed to supporting youth and has been involved with organizations such as the Common Ground Foundation and the Chicago Park District. He is an alum of the Crossroads Fund’s Giving Project and the Latino Policy Forum’s Multicultural Leadership Academy. Daris holds a master’s from DePaul University, focusing on enhancing financial sustainability for arts organizations through sponsorship and partnerships.
Daris Jasper
Ant(onia) Lore(nzo) is an artist and organizer from Los Angeles, California (unceded Tongva Land), currently based in Oakland, California (Ohlone Land). Their life praxis takes seed amongst grassroots movements and internationalist struggles which meet in the inexorably interconnected globalized contemporary. Through participation in spaces for art-based experimentation, political advocacy, and wonder-based research methodologies they collectivize dissent against the violence normalized by dominant power structures and imaginings to move beyond them. She holds a BEng in Bioinformatics from UCSD, is a graduate of the Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA at UCSC, and the current Chair of global-advocacy organization, Liyang Network.
Antonia Lorenzo
Tristan Crane (they/them, he/him) is a multidisciplinary artist and maker whose work focuses on collaborative imagemaking through photography and film, storytelling primarily via graphic novels and writing, and more recently, wood fired ceramics practices. As someone who identifies as queer and non-binary, Tristan has often worked to uplift the voices of other community members and believes that representation and education are essential to building bridges across communities. They are honored to join the board at the Mendocino Art Center after spending several years attending workshops, and wood firings; holding immense respect for the passion and hard work of all the previous stewards of the land. Tristan's work has been exhibited and shown in galleries, online, and their publications include several graphic novels. Tristan's work and projects can be viewed at tristancrane.com and hereportraits.com.
Tristan Crane