River Arts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community arts organization based in Morrisville, Vermont with a mission to enrich the community through the arts. Our core operating value is Arts for Everyone, committed to making art accessible no matter race, gender expression, age, ability, or financial means.
Meet the Team
Stephanie drews-sheldon | executive director
Stephanie has been teaching and volunteering within the arts for over 25 years. She received her MFA in Wood Design from East Carolina University and worked for 9 years developing and teaching primary school art curricula, woodshop programs for all ages, and after-school classes for the independent Lowell School in Washington, DC. Upon relocating to Vermont, she became the Education Director at The Current Art Center in Stowe, developing curricula for Adult and Youth art and creating connections within the art community. She is thrilled to be able to continue her commitment to progressive art education at River Arts by developing varied and unique art programming while growing collaborative art relationships with the community. In her spare time, Stephanie continues to create gallery furniture pieces and hone her skills in a variety of media.
Tiffany soucie-howren | Programs Manager
Tiffany's lifelong passion for dance has driven her to become a respected figure in both the Performing Arts industry and beyond. Starting her journey at a young age, she excelled as a certified Professional Ballroom Dance Instructor and Professional Competitor, earning numerous local, state, and national titles.
Seeking to make a lasting impact, Tiffany became a franchisee and operator within the renowned Fred Astaire Franchise. She established two successful dance studio community centers in Fort Worth and Colleyville, Texas, creating inclusive spaces for dancers of all backgrounds and ages.
Known for her ability to bring people together, Tiffany has become a respected leader and a catalyst for positive change. Her innovative mindset and unwavering passion for the arts drive her to empower individuals, communities, and the organizations that serve them. A true servant leader, Tiffany's mission is to inspire and enrich the lives of those around her, creating a sense of community and fostering personal growth.
Kyle Ellen Nuse | Director of development
Kyle (she/her) is a community activist who grew up around artists from all over the world at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont.
At Marlboro College Kyle studied International Studies and Performing Arts with a concentration in traditional Afro-Brazilian dance and modern racism in Salvador, Brazil. After graduating and traveling extensively to every corner, Kyle landed in NYC where she had a private Ayurvedic Nutrition and Postpartum Doula practice for over a decade.
In 2014, Kyle and her visual artist husband, bought the Studio Store and opened Minėmå Gallery (2020) in her hometown and have loved nothing more than connecting and building their community through the arts.
Kyle spends her free time “coaching” the kindergarten basketball team, demonstrating for racial and social justice, planting flowers/ hanging murals around town, and having living room dance parties with her two daughters, Olive and Pepper.
jen Keppel | Office manager
Jen (she/they) brings decades of experience in Sales, Hospitality, Administration and Project Management. She graduated with Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Literature and Education and minors in Theater and French from Castleton University. After college, she went on a year-long, solo trek around the world, confirming that indeed, Vermont was home. She honed her skills across multiple industries and is thrilled to be supporting an amazing team in the world of not-for-profit.
At work, Jen enjoys problem solving and finding win-win solutions. In her free time, she loves to dance, write poetry and be in Nature. She considers it an honor to help create the space and opportunity at River Arts for everyone in our community to experience the power of art, creativity, and self-expression.
CHIARA NO | clay studio tech
Chiara No (she/they) has been an exhibiting artist for over 10 years. She has shown with EXILE, Berlin, Germany; Bible and Field Project in New York City; Vox Populi in Philadephia, PA; H18 Gallery in Brussels, Belgium; The Institute for American Art, Portland, ME; Johalla Projects, Chicago, IL; TranzModern and Current Space, Baltimore, MD. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney’s Special Collection and The Chicago Institute of Art’s Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Library.
Keeling studied art and theory at the Glasgow School of Art, American University in Rome, Towson University, and the Schoold of the Art Institute of Chicago and received her MFA at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2015. She has been on faculty at SAIC and an instructor at University of Pennsylvania and has advised LowRes MFA students at Maine College of Art in Portland, ME. Keeling lives and has her studio in Johnson, VT.
Board of TRUSTEES
Our Story
Twenty five years ago, a small but dedicated group of community members believed that a significant investment in a community art center would contribute to the vitality, quality of life, and growth of Morrisville and the surrounding Lamoille Valley.
River Arts is a nonprofit community art center located in the historic Peoples Academy schoolhouse in downtown Morrisville, Vermont. River Arts formed in 1999 as the result of a community-planning forum that envisioned an intergenerational community arts center. Prior to the founding of River Arts, there were no arts programs available to most residents of Lamoille County.
River Arts began operating from a donated space in downtown Morrisville offering outreach arts programs. In 2005, with help from Preservation Trust of Vermont, River Arts purchased the original “Poor People’s Academy,” a high school founded in 1847 to educate the children of local farmers. In 2006, River Arts launched a capital campaign to raise funds to create the River Arts Center in the historic space. Renovation was completed in 2008, and in 2010, we met our capital campaign goal of raising $988,000 through community and private foundation support.
Today, River Arts’ original vision is alive and well. Over 5500 guests walk through our doors annually to visit the art galleries, participate in a class, make pottery in the clay studio, attend a concert, or send their kids to summer camp. We are proud to build on a rich heritage, and evolve to best serve the community for generations to come.
The River Arts, the organization and the board of trustees, is committed to anti-racism and to the work that this stance demands. We acknowledge that our core mission, Arts for Everyone, cannot hold true unless we take stock and evaluate the ways in which we have not provided equal access to everyone. We recognize that without conscious work on our part, we can potentially cause harm and promote the continued marginalization of the BIPOC members of our community. Anti-racism is not a switch that we can simply switch on, this is a long process that we are engaging in with open hearts.
As we begin 2022, we have planned a listening campaign to help us map out goals for the next twelve months to make our organization more equitable. These goals will be transparent and made public, not to receive any undeserved accolades for doing work we should have done a long time ago, but to hopefully act as a model for other organizations in our communities to enter into this work with us. Our mission is one that we will always stand by but we want it to hold more truth in the future than it has in the past: Arts for Everyone.
River Arts acknowledges that our organization is on Abenaki land. We recognize the indigenous culture and people that existed in N’dakinna (Homeland) long before Europeans arrived in North America. We commit to policies and practices of cultural equity to benefit current and future generations.
