Sheetal Prajapati

Sheetal Prajapati is an educator, artist and advisor. Through her agency Lohar Projects, Sheetal provides consulting services to cultural organizations in areas including public engagement, collaborative projects, artist-centered initiatives and organizational planning. She works with artists one-on-one for advising and mentorship through her agency and with places like Creative Capital and the Kresge Art in Detroit program. She also regularly advises and serves on review panels for grant, residency and fellowship programs at organizations like The Laundromat Project, Apex Art, The Joyce Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts amongst others. From 2021-2022, in tandem with her advising practice, Sheetal served as the Executive Director of Common Field and led its intentional sunsetting process to close in December 2022. 

Prior to opening Lohar Projects, Sheetal spent 16 years working in arts organizations including The Museum of Modern Art and Pioneer Works in New York as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Block Museum of Art (Illinois). From 2016-2021, she taught in MFA programs for the School of Visual Arts (New York), Montclair State University (New Jersey), and Moore College of Art and Design (Pennsylvania) and regularly speaks on topics including public engagement, creative practice and identity. Sheetal received an MA in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Northwestern University in History and Gender Studies. Portrait by Luvia Lazo (2021). 

Christopher Webster

Christopher Webster, III is an entrepreneur, gallerist, publisher, and producer. He is a principal of Webster Enterprises, an Associate Broker at Sotheby’s International Realty, and principal and Director of Webster Collection, a gallery specializing in primitive and contemporary art, as well as design and fashion. He is Editor-in-Chief of Leading Estates of the World and has been a principal and executive with numerous wine and spirits companies. He was a producer of the musical Xanadu on Broadway, which was nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Musical in 2008.

Joan Brooks Baker

Writer and Photographer Joan Brooks Baker was brought up in New York City where she attended and received academic honors from New York University. She has lived in Santa Fe since the early 1980s and has been, and is, involved with the Santa Fe community in entities such as The Farmers’ Market, New Mexico Women.org, KSFR Radio, The Girls School, Cornerstones. She also currently serves on the non-profit committees of Video Volunteers in Goa, India and the Arts Advisory for Miss Hall’s School in Massachusetts.   

Joan has exhibited her photographs and Photographic Monoprints in galleries, mainly in Santa Fe and New York City, and was honored to be part of a “70 women from 50 countries” exhibit at the United Nations, at which she showed her images of India’s female garbage workers.

Her Memoir The Magnolia Code, published in June 2020, is a story of the mystery of belonging, and the rules we adhere to or dismiss, with consequences to both. The book received the Distinguished Independent Press Award in the genre of Memoir and was a Finalist in the Arizona/New Mexico 2020 Memoir category. She is currently working on a collection of Short Stories, entitled The Swampyland.

Christopher Goett, MSW

Christopher Goett is a value-oriented leader with over 20 years of experience in community-based philanthropy and a proven ability to engage diverse groups of people in driving
collaborative change that advances racial and economic equity, improves community health, and combats housing insecurity. As President and CEO of the Santa Fe Community Foundation (SFCF), Goett drives the overall strategic direction, cohesion, and management of a multi-component community foundation, comprised of numerous charitable funds and initiatives. He works to amplify SFCF’s role as the largest nonprofit funder in the state of New Mexico through strategic partnerships and moves collaboratively within a broad spectrum of stakeholders to advance the Foundation as a convener on issues and challenges facing the northern New Mexico region. He has held this role, proudly serving northern New Mexico communities, since July 2021.

Prior to joining the Santa Fe Community Foundation, Chris served as the first Executive Director for the Wescom Foundation, where he developed the Foundation’s first three-year strategic plan and created rigorous financial and operational protocols amongst other initiatives, and as the Senior Program Officer at the California Community Foundation, a role that saw him managing a $3.5 million annual grant portfolio to address housing insecurity and promote job creation across Los Angeles County.

He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University and earned a Master of Social Work degree with an emphasis on community organizing, nonprofit management, and economic development from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Chris and his wife Julie live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they enjoy hiking, traveling, volunteering, and spending time with extended family and friends.

Nikesha Breeze

Originally from Portland, Oregon Nikesha Breeze lives and works in the high desert of Taos, New Mexico, on the unceded land of the Taos Pueblo People. Nikesha is an African American descendant of the Mende People of Sierra Leone, and Assyrian American Immigrants from Iran. Nikesha has shown work both nationally and internationally, within multiple museums, galleries, art fairs and in featured collections. In 2021 Nikesha’s, 5000 sq ft. solo exhibition Four Sites of Return; Ritual, Remembrance, Reparation, Reclamation gained national acclaim and was featured in American Art Collector, Hyperallergic, Metalsmith Magazine and the NY times. Nikesha was awarded international recognition at the 2018 International ARTPRIZE exhibition, winning the juried 3D Grand Prize Award as well as the Contemporary Black Arts Award, for their Sculptural installation: 108 Death Masks: A communal prayer for Peace and Justice.

In 2019 Nikesha was invited to Ghana to work as a visiting artist on the historical NymkimkymInstallation of African History, created by international award-winning artist Kwame Acoto Bamfo.In 2021 Nikesha, was a National Performance Network Creative Fund and Development FundGrant Recipient for their collaborative work, Stages of Tectonic Blackness.