Core Faculty
Kyle Larson
Assistant Professor – Art
MFA, Boston University; MA, California State University Sacramento; BA, California State University Sacramento
Kyle Larson teaches courses in painting and drawing at SOU. His current work explores notions of temporality, cycles of decay and transformation through painting and drawing in which he constructs spaces where rhythmic, atmospheric phenomenon and transitory forces disrupt, push, and embed bodies and objects into layered narratives. Originally from Sacramento, California, he received an MFA in Painting from Boston University in 2012 where he studied under the artist John Walker. After graduating Larson continued to live and work as an artist in Boston while teaching art courses in New Hampshire.
He relocated to Oklahoma in 2015 upon accepting the position of Director of Visual Arts at Northwestern Oklahoma State University where he taught painting and drawing courses. He also served as Director of the NWOSU Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program. Larson returned to the west coast in the Fall of 2022 after accepting his current position at SOU.
Larson has exhibited his work in California, New York, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont, Santiago, Chile and Cali, Colombia, and has completed artist residencies at Mass MoCA and the Vermont Studio Center.
Office: Art Building 112
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: larsonk@sou.edu
Erika Leppmann
Professor of Art
BFA, University of Oregon; MA, MFA, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Professor Leppmann teaches courses in photography, video, and installation. Her photo-based work and installations address ideas of place, identity and the mutable discipline of photography. Leppmann’s work has been shown in numerous one-person and group exhibitions in the United States and Mexico. She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council, Indiana Arts Commission, and the N.E.A./Arts Midwest; and exhibition support from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Artist Residencies include The McDowell Colony, the Bemis Foundation, Albion College and The Ohio State University. Professor Leppmann worked in Iceland with support from a Senior Scholar Award from the Fulbright Program and the American-Scandinavian Foundation.
Office: Art Building 116
Phone: 541.552.6565
E-Mail: leppmane@sou.edu
Jennifer Longshore
Senior Instructor – Art History
MA, Art History, University of California, Davis; BA, Art History and Humanities, California State University, Fresno
Longshore’s courses explore and analyze art and creativity from a variety of perspectives including globalization, activism, sustainability, critical theory, race, gender, and ethnicity. She particularly enjoys mentoring students as they develop activist art projects in collaboration with local community agencies. She serves on the SOU Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Council and advises the City of Ashland Public Arts Commission when new proposals are being considered. She is a member of the Community Emergency Response Team in Ashland and enjoys singing in the Rogue World Ensemble, salsa dancing, and practicing archery.
Office: Art Building 119
Phone: 541.552.6566
E-Mail: longshoj@sou.edu
Michael Parker
Assistant Professor
MFA, University of Southern California; BA, Pamona College, EMT-1 University of California, Los Angeles
Michael Parker’s art practice shifts scale, material, and temporality while making things such as recumbent obelisks, juicey ceramic installations, steam eggs, patents, artist-run spaces, and public sculptures. Parker has taught Sculpture at California State University, Long Beach since 2011, and is a Keyholder at Human Resources Los Angeles since 2015. With solo and cooperative projects at Materials & Applications; Craft Contemporary Museum; LA County Arts Commission, Annex LA at M+B Gallery; Artists’ Loft Museum Los Angeles; Descanso Gardens; Palm Springs Art Museum; Current LA Biennial; LA Department of Cultural Affairs, The Getty; Southern Exposure; High Desert Test Sites; Pomona College Museum of Art; The Armory Center for the Arts; Machine Project; Human Resources; California State Parks at the Bowtie; Los Angeles Trade-Technical College; Cold Storage. He holds a BA from Pomona College, an EMT-1 from UCLA, an MFA from USC. Parker is a recipient of the California Community Foundation’s Emerging Artists Fellowship, Center for Cultural Innovation Artists’ Resource for Completion Grant, Public Art Residency at Heart of Los Angeles and Printed Matter Award for Artists.
Office: Art Building 113
Phone: 541.552.6388
E-Mail: parkerm4@sou.edu
Affiliated Faculty
David Bithell
Professor, Art Program Chair
PhD, University of California, Berkeley; BA, University of California, San Diego
Dr. Bithell teaches classes in digital audio, art & technology, interdisciplinary art and emerging media. Bithell is an interdisciplinary artist, composer, and performer exploring the connections between visual art, music, theatre, and performance. Utilizing new technologies and real-time interactive environments, his work brings the precision and structure of contemporary audio practices together with an understanding of performance, physical computing, narrative, and humor. His works have been presented at major venues in the United States, Europe, and Asia and been supported by grants and commissions from Meet the Composer Commissioning Music / USA, the American Composerʼs Forum, the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, and the President’s Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Fund at SOU.
Office: Art Building 109
Phone: 541.552.7033
E-Mail: bithelld@sou.edu
Alyse Emdur
Assistant Instructor – Art and Art History
MFA, University of Southern California; Cooper Union
Alyse Emdur is an interdisciplinary artist. Her drawings, paintings, videos, and photography based projects use earnest humor to face loneliness, existential crisis, social struggle and the desire to escape. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Artforum, Art in America, Modern Painters, Cabinet Magazine, Huffington Post, the Atlantic, BBC News, Wired Magazine, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Art Papers Magazine, and Foam Magazine.
Office: Art Building 120
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: emdura@sou.edu
Élan Gombart
Assistant Instructor – Art
MFA, Pacific NW College of Art
Élan Chardin (b. 1969) is a visual artist and writer living in Southern Oregon. Her artworks range in scale from large and sculptural paintings to more intimate forms. She interweaves the languages of painting and drawing as well as the written word. She employs immediacy and intuitive approaches to material and mark making to imagine physical forms that reflect our inner worlds and notions of embodiment and perception. Her writing is autobiographical and explores the interplay between the conscious and unconscious, the rational and emotional, challenging the hierarchical prioritizations and value of certain kinds of knowledge over others. She teaches at Southern Oregon University and is owner at Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland, OR. Élan was the recipient of the Ohio Arts Foundation Individual Artist Grant as well as grants from the Haines and Friends Foundation.
Office: Art Building 120
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: gombarte1@sou.edu
Ted Helard
Assistant Instructor – Art
MA Sequential Art, Savannah College of Art and Design; BA Sequential Art, Savannah College of Art and Design; Associates degree, College of the Siskiyous
Ted Helard is a life-long illustrator, visual storyteller and fine artist with a passion for the creative process and the immediacy of mark making. In 2011,Ted and his wife Heather relocated to Southern Oregon where he began his career as an art instructor. Ted has offered instruction in a variety of studio art subjects that have included visual storytelling, illustration, drawing, artistic anatomy and figurative drawing at College of the Siskiyous, Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University.
In addition to teaching, Ted also spends time working with young creatives here in the Rogue Valley through a mentoring group of his own creation. This group offers challenges, critique and feedback for aspiring professional creatives in the fields of comics, animation, storyboarding and conceptual design. Ted also has a varied and active freelance illustration business creating original illustrations, designs, comics and sequential art.
Office: Art Building 120
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: helardt@sou.edu
Miles Inada
Professor of Art
MFA, University of Cincinnati; BFA, University of Oregon; BA, Yale University
Professor Inada teaches courses in 2D and 3D animation, comics and picture books, and digital design at Southern Oregon University. His animated work has won awards at the Atlanta Film Festival, Riverrun International Film Festival, Berkeley Video Festival, Rochester International Film Festival, and Film Fest New Haven, and has been seen at the Tribeca Film Festival, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and Ausstellungsraum Klingetal in Basel Switzerland, among other venues.
Office: Art Building 107
Phone: 541.552.6058
E-Mail: minada@sou.edu
Anna Kruse
Assistant Instructor & VAST – Art
MFA, State University of New York at New Paltz; Post-Bac, Oregon College of the Art and Craft; BA Psychology and Studio Art, College of Wooster
Anna worked at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. In 2021 she was nominated and awarded the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture. She was invited to be a resident artist at Township 10 during the summer of 2020 and recently completed a residency at Peninsula College. Anna has shown her work throughout the contiguous United States.
Office: Art Building 114
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: krusea@sou.edu
Ellie Leonhardt
Assistant Instructor – Art and Art History
MFA, Mills College; BA, Oberlin College
Ellie Leonhardt has taught at RCC and SOU online and in person for the past 11 years in various areas across the OCA and Humanities. Her interests lie in the creative process, collaboration, research and writing, contemporary practices, health and internal systems, movement expression, and the history of the arts as studied from an ethnographic point of view.
Office: Art Building 120
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: leonharde@sou.edu
Scott Malbaurn
Assistant Instructor – Art and Art History
Director of the Schneider Museum of Art
MFA, Pratt Institute; BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
Scott Malbaurn is the Executive Director of the Schneider Museum of Art, part of the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University. Serving both an academic and community audience, the Schneider Museum of Art builds a challenging environment that engages with the visual arts through exhibitions and programs supporting interdisciplinary study, research, and discourse. Scott is responsible for overall curatorial, administration, planning, policy, and budget development and management of the Museum.
Scott Malbaurn is also an artist, arts educator and curator. As an artist, Malbaurn has exhibited his work internationally with most exhibitions in New York, NY. Malbaurn has held positions at Pratt Institute serving as the Assistant Chairperson of Fine Arts as well as faculty for Drawing and Painting. Malbaurn has also held positions at the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in the Curatorial and Collections Department and Design Department.
Office: SMA 108
Phone: 541.552.8484
E-Mail: malbaurns@sou.edu
Georgina Ruff
Assistant Instructor – Art and Art History
Ph.D, University of Illinois, Chicago
Georgina Ruff is an art historian of modern and contemporary art and technology. Her interests in the conservation of obsolescing media and immersive installations have led her on explorations of 60’s era light shows, Bauhaus illuminations, histories of fluorescent light bulbs, and contemporary spatial politics of object-less art works. Her Ph.D. studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago included a DAAD Fellowship and extensive travel to experience luminary works. She has taught at several institutions, including the Illinois State University and the San Francisco Art Institute. She balances her art historical interests with surfing, nordic skiing, camping, and generally appreciating the world which we share.
Office: Art Building 120
Phone: TBD
E-Mail: ruffg@sou.edu
Staff
Andrew Kenneth Gay
Director of the School of Arts & Communication and the Oregon Center for the Arts and Professor of Digital Cinema
MFA, Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema, University of Central Florida, 2010; BFA, Film Production, University of Central Florida, 2006; BA, English & Philosophy/Religion, Flagler College, 2003
Andrew Kenneth Gay (he/him) leads the School of Arts & Communication and the Oregon Center for the Arts as director and is a tenured professor of Digital Cinema, where he teaches storytelling, career development, and film production management. He received SOU’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021 and the University Film & Video Association’s National Award for Teaching Excellence in 2022. Before becoming a full-time educator, Andrew worked as a freelance production coordinator, production manager, and assistant director in commercials, reality television, and independent film, and for such companies as Red Bull, Discovery, and Disney. He has written, directed, and produced for both fiction and documentary media and has served as board president of Film Southern Oregon, on the board of the Oregon Media Production Association, as a programmer for the Ashland Independent Film Festival, and serves on the Teaching Committee for EDIT Media (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teaching Media) and on the board of the University Film & Video Association.
Office: Britt 140
Phone: 541.552.6669
E-Mail: Andrew.Gay@sou.edu
Karen Bolda
Student Success Coordinator
MA, Psychology, San Diego State University; BS, Psychology, University of Illinois
As the Student Success Coordinator for the Oregon Center for the Arts, Karen assists students with their transition to the university, advises on the general education courses needed, aligns student’s career goals with their academic majors, and helps create academic plans to plan for graduation. She can help navigate the general education requirements for SOU, answer general questions about the major, and guide students to resources to help them to be successful. Karen has lived in Ashland for over 20 years. She spends much of her free time with the Curtain Climbers, a local Aerial Dance Company.
Office (M,T,R, F): Art Building, 118
Office (W): Theater Building, 155 (Walk-in Wednesdays!)
Phone: 541.552.6735
E-Mail: boldak@sou.edu
Sage TeBeest
Creative Arts Program Assistant
BA, IT & Web Development & Graphic Design, DeVry University
Sage has a BA in Information Technology with an emphasis in web development and graphic design. She worked for CivicPlus developing state, county, and local government websites across the United States, Canada and Australia. Her previous position was in the Department of Agriculture at Kansas State University as the web and communications manager.
Office: Art Building, 117
Phone: 541.552.6387
E-Mail: tebeests@sou.edu
Emeritus Faculty
Marlene Alt
Cody Bustamante
Don Kay
Betty LaDuke
Greer Markle
Lyle Matoush
Margaret Sjogren
Contact the Art Program
SOU Art Program
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6386
– Questions About Art? –
