Current ArtsChange Staff
Executive Director, Tomas Riley
Tomás Riley is the former Deputy Director of Streetside Stories and Director of Residencies and In-School Programs at Youth Speaks in San Francisco. A Chicano spoken word artist and educator born in Oakland, CA and raised in the Southeast San Diego neighborhood of Emerald Hills, Tomás returned to the Bay Area in 2002 to further his progressive work in arts education, alternative literacy and youth development. A first generation college student, he earned a B.A. in English in 1996 and received his M.A. in American Literature three years later at San Diego State University. As a college lecturer he taught courses in Literature, Chicana/Chicano Studies and Education as adjunct faculty in San Diego and at San Francisco State University. Tomás has also taught elementary school in Spanish bilingual classrooms for 5 years in both Southern California and San Francisco’s Mission District. Throughout his teaching and administrative career Tomás has simultaneously successfully sustained his own creative work writing as both a soloist and member of the influential guerrilla performance collective The Taco Shop Poets. Over the course of his fifteen-year performance history Tomás has performed at more than 200 venues across the country from NYU to Tacos El Gordo (Tijuana, BC) and countless cultural centers, galleries, high schools, public trains and street corners in-between. He has appeared in the HBO documentary Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, Gregory Nava’s PBS dramatic series American Family, and is profiled in the NALAC documentary series on Latina/o arts Visiones. A finalist for the California Voices Award from Poets & Writers Magazine, his written work has been featured in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Primera Palabra, Chorizo Tonguefire: The Taco Shop Poets Anthology and various journals and literary publications. His first book Mahcic debuted on Calaca Press in December 2005.
Program Coordinator, Rae Thomas
Prior to ArtsChange, Rae served as the Director of Oasis Youth Center for three years, a GLBTQ youth program of the Pierce County AIDS Foundation in Tacoma, WA. He has also worked as a counselor in youth detention facilities and youth employment programs in Seattle. Rae brings an interest and passion for social justice and ten years of experience leading GLBTQ competency trainings, anti-oppression trainings, and writing workshops. He moved to the Bay Area two years ago from Olympia, Washington to attend grad school and recently graduated from California College of the Arts with an MFA in writing.
Program Associate, RYAT Squad Coordinator, Alejandra Perez
Alejandra is a Student at the Art Institute-San Francisco, majoring in Graphic design. Currently resides in the Bay area, graduated from Richmond High School in 2007. Has collaborated with Artists such as Trust Your Struggle Crew in many art projects and has taught art workshops in the Richmond & Pittsburg Health Center. Also teaches at RYSE and leads the RYAT Squad (Richmond Youth Art-Activist in Training Squad) ArtsChange Leadership team. She has been with ArtsChange for the past year and is one of the original Leadership Members of RYSE.
Current Teaching Artists
Amaryllis deJesus-Moleski
Artist, Activist, and Alchemist (by way of creative transformation and the alchemic process of using art as a means to transform poison into medicine) Amaryllis aims to practice the integration of multiple art forms as a way to expose truth through beauty. She is an experienced muralist, performance poet, playwright, youth organizer, and visual artist. She has toured her poetry and solo show Sangria Cipher nationally, performing in various venues ranging from prisons, shelters, high school auditoriums, SisterSong Conference for Reproductive Justice, Children’s Law Institute, and the WGI Manhattan stage. Her poetry was featured in the Wise Fool New Mexico’s production of BAGGAGE, a social justice theater initiative that addresses issues of domestic violence and women of color within the state of New Mexico. Amaryllis is the co-founder (along with Cynthia Ruffin and Jessie Workman) of the B.R.E.A.T.H (Building a Revolution of Expression Through Heartwork) program in Albuquerque, NM that teaches poetry and performance to incarcerated youth as a means to heal, resolve conflict, and uplift. She is a graduate of the We Got Issues intensive leadership program (www.wegotissues.org) and is currently pursuing a degree in community arts at California College of the Arts. Through innovation, integrity, intuition, and intention, Amaryllis has dedicated her life’s work to stand with countless others in the movement that intersects the arts with activism, using creativity and expression as the tools necessary for community liberation, and the means by which we may all realize our sparkling dreams.
Eduardo Valadez
Eduardo is our current Community Student Fellow from California College of the Arts.
Joseph Mintz
Originally hailing from Syracuse, NY, Joseph Mintz is an artist, musician, and photographer living in the Bay Area for the last 5 years. His work concentrates on the human condition in all its complexity; Focusing on people and the various things that they create: relationships, art, music, cities, cultures, and change. Recently Joe teamed up with ArtsChange to teach photography at the RYSE Center, and is developing a body of work that documents his student’s initial contact with photography, as well as his unfolding experience as a teacher.
