El Puente | Staff & Artists

ARTS:
Staff & Artists

Frances Lucerna, Executive Director for Programs
Piper Anderson, Arts Coordinator
Sasha Dobos-Czarnocha, Integrated Arts Project (IAP) Coordinator
Dominique Boyd, Dance Facilitator
Alfred Cervantes, Illustration Facilitator
"Crystal Clarity" Bruno, Public Arts Facilitator
Dominic Colon, Theater Director, Teatro El Puente
Edwin Gonzalez-Ojeda, Visual Arts Facilitator
Arkadiusz "Erock" Lesniak, Hip Hop Facilitator

Joe Matunis, Public Art Teaching Artist
Peter Miranda, Education Coordinator, Teatro El Puente
Rozz Nash, Dance Facilitator
Johnny Rivera, Drama Facilitator
Mike Rivera, DJ/Scratching Facilitator
Clara Waloff, Public Arts Facilitator
Gloria Zelaya, Teatro El Puente Director

Joe Matunis, Visual Arts Teaching Artist
In 1991, Joe Matunis established the El Puente Muralistas, a group of young artists collaborating and working under his direction and leadership in designing and painting community murals. His recent project with the Muralistas includes two murals at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. Joe Matunis is also a Department of Education certified Arts Facilitator and UFT Union Representative at El Puente Academy for Peace & Justice, a school he co-developed in 1993. He heads the Academy's Integrated Arts Project, an innovative arts education model that integrates arts across the curricula. He is also a faculty professor in the Department of Arts Education at Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, NY. As an artist, he has directed and led a number of national and international mural projects. In 1997, he worked with Chicago high school students to create the I've Got a Feeling About the Whirl'd mural funded by the Chicago Transit Authority. In 1996, he collaborated with adults coping with mental illnesses in Manchester, England and created the Safe Harbor mural for their center, MAPS. He received a 1991 City Arts Grant to work with formerly homeless youth in Bronx, NY. The mural, created in collaboration with the Bronx youth, was the inspiration for a bilingual children's book that he co-authored, entitled Esta Casa Que Hemos Hecho/This Home We Have Made (Ramdon House, 1992). Joe Matunis is a graduate of Penn State University (BA, 1983) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA, 1989). He was awarded the School of the Art Institute Edward Ryerson Traveling Fellowship to study fresco painting at the Maharajah Sayajiroa University in Baroda, India, 1989-90. Joe Matunis has lived and worked in the Williamsburg Southside in Brooklyn since 1990.