Matt McKinley, INTERIM chair
Matt was Chief Curator at ARTworkSF Gallery prior to creating his own consulting business, McKinley Art Solutions. He has been an invited speaker for the Small Business Association of San Francisco, consultant for the exhibit, "Reversing Vandalism" sponsored by The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, juror for 7th and 8th Altered Barbie exhibits and the Fairfield Visual Arts Association's 45th Juried Exhibit (in 2008), panelist on contemporary abstraction by artists of color at 40 Acres Art Gallery in Sacramento. Currently, Matt is a working member of the Bay Area Model's Guild and Curatorial Associate with BorderZone Arts, an international non-profit art and program organization, and a member of the board at ArtSpan since 2011. Matt has also concepted, curated, juried, and designed exhibits for the Queer Cultural Center, SOMArts Cultural Center, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Asian American Women Artists Association, San Francisco Sex Information and Lambda Legal, The San Francisco Artists' Resource Center, Project Open Hand, and San Francisco Women Artists Gallery. He joined ArtSpan's Board in 2011.
ROBO GERSON, Secretary
Robo, a local architect and San Francisco native, joined the ArtSpan Board in 2016. Educated at City College of San Francisco, he's built a career based on multi-disciplinary pursuits. Experience as an amateur mechanic, photographer, gardener, builder, and disc jockey, his hobbies inform his work in architecture in some tangible way. Having grown up in San Francisco, he's seen the City grow through many eras: the death of disco, the 80's, and two dot-com booms. He joins the ArtSpan Board to help ensure the vibrancy and the future of the artistic lifeblood of the City he loves.
Brian Cullen
Brian joined the Board in 2017 after many years of supporting ArtSpan’s efforts. He has attended Open Studios since the early 1990s and has become an avid collector of local art. He has hosted ArtSpan Collector tours and was an active member of our Auction Committee in 2017. Brian received a BA in History from Grinnell College and a law degree from the University of San Francisco and has specialized in consumer class-action antitrust and securities litigation. He currently works as a discovery consultant.
MICHELLE COOKE
Trained as an economist, Michelle has spent the last 30+ years working in the world of utility regulation. Until 2020, she dabbled in collecting, with most of her small collection coming from work by friends, family, and travels, and primarily displayed in her office at work. When Covid hit in 2020, she was suddenly at home surrounded by many bare walls. She began following local artists, haunting fundraising auctions for Bay Area organizations, and, as the world opened up, attending open studios and galleries. The first piece she bought at auction was through ArtSpan and she’s been off to the races ever since. She loves meeting artists in person and hearing about their process. Connecting with San Francisco’s art community has given her a fresh appreciation for the city and all it has to offer, bringing her to places in San Francisco and the Bay Area she’d never visited in all the years she’s lived here. Encouraging, supporting, cultivating, and promoting vibrant, diverse, creative artists has become a passion that fits perfectly with the ArtSpan mission.
Cynthia Farner, MD
Cynthia Farner, MD has been a practicing Obstetrician and Gynecologist in San Francisco since 1990, after training in New York City and trying academic medicine in Burlington, Vermont. Since moving here she has spent many hours attending Open Studios and local galleries, adding to her art collection and enjoying the chance to get to know local artists
Christopher J. Gilbert, Ph.d.
Chris joined the Board in 2015. He comes to ArtSpan with nearly 15 years of experience in the medical device industry where he has served in a variety of executive roles and on several corporate boards. Chris was also an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company in New York, Boston, and San Francisco, where he served clients on organizational, operational, and commercial issues often associated with corporate mergers or acquisitions. Chris first came to the Bay Area to pursue a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a BS in Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Now residing in San Francisco, Chris has been collecting art for 20+ years.
Sejal Hall, Ph.D.
Sejal joined the ArtSpan Board in 2017. Although she is a native Texan and will quickly remind anyone of that fact, Sejal is happy to call San Francisco home and became an active supporter of the local art scene when she moved here in 2010. She currently leads multiple projects developing therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases at Denali Therapeutics and has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering with degrees from MIT and UC Santa Barbara.
JOEN MADONNA
Joen has served on the Board since 2013 and now acts as the Executive Director of ArtSpan. In addition to regularly attending SF Open Studios as a patron since 1994, Joen has been affiliated with ArtSpan as an artist participant herself in 2003, and as a host of her husband, Paul Madonna's SF Open Studio event since 2004. With over 10 years experience as a Business Manager and Creative Agent, Joen is adept at project management, targeting and closing sales, public relations, and relationship management. She advises professional artists and other creatives on increasing audience exposure, creating business systems, applying for grants, and event coordination. She brokers licensing agreements and contract negotiations with corporations, organizations, and government institutions. Joen graduated from UC Berkeley with an honors degree in Cultural Geography, where she learned to blend her love for urban evolution and human culture with travel, and the exploration of emerging art. Beyond regularly participating in San Francisco's lively art scene, Joen visits museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces globally to help inform her best art business practices locally.
Greta Schnetzler, Treasurer
Greta joined the ArtSpan Board in 2018. She currently serves as Chief Campus Counsel for UCSF and Associate General Counsel for the University of California. She joined the University’s in-house legal staff in 2005 after many years in private legal practice in San Francisco, primarily representing colleges and universities. She is also a long-time ArtSpan artist member and supporter, attending her first ArtSpan event in 1989. She and her husband Manu have worked collaboratively on their photography since 1994 and have shown their work as part of ArtSpan Open Studios since 1999. They have contributed to the ArtSpan Auction and volunteered their time to ArtSpan efforts for many years. Most recently, Greta has served on the Open Studios Committee for the last three years.
Advisory Council
Deborah Conrad
Deborah joined the Board in 2014 and has been a longtime supporter of ArtSpan. She is a technology industry leader, with 30+ years experience in marketing and brand management, global sales, consumer and B2B business development, and partnerships. Deborah was most recently chief marketing officer at Intel Corp., a role she held for 6+ years. After 27 years at Intel, she left earlier this year to pursue her dream of working with young, disruptive companies, who have set out to change the world using technology as a force for the greater good. She and her husband, John Galvin, are devoted art supporters, with a wide and eclectic collection of paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and photography from the Bay Area and the Northwest.