Kicking off the new year with fantastic news, Think 360 Arts proudly welcomes three outstanding new members to our Board of Directors! Each brings a unique blend of experience and passion that aligns with our mission to nurture and inspire the next generation of creative minds.
Laurie T. Schell, a passionate advocate for arts and cultural education at the national level, and founding principal of ElevateArtsEd, brings her deep understanding of arts education policies and a commitment to community artistic development.
Rebecca Peebles, a Denver-based artist widely known for her artistic versatility and dedication to using art for healing and community strengthening, joins us with a vision to further enrich our artistic and personal growth initiatives.
Completing the trio, Dona Laurita from Louisville, Colorado, a seasoned photographer and veteran Think 360 Arts teaching artist, adds her expertise in documentary and fine art photography, along with her extensive teaching experience.
The collective expertise of Laurie, Rebecca, and Dona marks a milestone for Think 360 Arts. Their diverse skills and shared passion for arts education are set to elevate our organization to greater heights. Read more about each of them below, and please join us in warmly welcoming them to our team!
Laurie Schell is founding principal of Laurie Schell Associates | ElevateArtsEd, providing issue expertise and strategic planning in arts and cultural education. With more than 40 years as a senior executive in the nonprofit and education sectors, she has worked to foster arts and music education through strategic alliances and partnerships, policy and advocacy campaigns, innovative programs, directed research, and mobilizing constituencies for action.
Ms. Schell co-published a resource center in 2022 in collaboration with Creative Generation, Case-Making & Systems Change in Arts and Cultural Education, to better understand how practitioners – such as artists, educators, community leaders, and more – can make the case for and advocate to drive systemic change and address the complex challenges faced by communities.
Ms. Schell served as the the inaugural director of Music Makes Us (2012-2017), the public/private music education initiative in Metro Nashville Public Schools, jointly supported by the mayor’s office, music industry, and the school district. Previously, Ms. Schell was the executive director of the California Alliance for Arts Education (2001 – 2011) (now CreateCA). Ms. Schell holds a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. in Liberal Studies/Dance from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and pursued further studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is a founding member of ArtsEd Tennessee, a statewide advocacy coalition, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Think360 Arts for Learning and the Policy Committee of Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.
Rebecca Peebles works in various art media and contexts to develop relational tactics for growth, understanding, creative solutions, and psychological wellness. Her professional work, with self-comissioned projects through Hol-sum.com and Home Safe Projects combined with driven psychological study and spiritual work position Rebecca as ready and willing to serve the Colorado community. Originally from Richmond, VA, Rebecca lives and works in NE Denver with her two dogs. If she’s not making or facilitating art in life, she is usually in her kitchen, in her garden or out on Colorado’s mountainsides.
Dona Laurita, a University of Colorado, Boulder graduate in photography and creative writing, has been a professional photographer for thirty years, specializing in documentary and fine art photography. She is the creator of Cassa di Vita – “Box of Life”, an ongoing project that captures individual life stories through books, audio, film recordings, photographs, and paintings, and “The Silhouette Project”, which shares stories of under-served populations.
Dona’s extensive portfolio includes having been the exclusive photographer for the Dalai Lama in 1997 and collaborating with Boulder Sister Cities on projects involving Lhasa, Tibet, and Jalapa, Nicaragua. She extends her impact through fine-art documentary work, serving as an artist-in-residence in schools, Children’s Hospital, the District Attorney’s Office Restitution Program, and more. Dona’s workshops blend photography, visual art, creative writing, and storytelling, fostering experiential learning and encouraging students to express their impressions, intuition, and imagination through various media.