Our Story

CHAIR

Arts and Community Advocate and Volunteer, Former Director of Arizona Commission on the Arts, Phoenix

Shelley Cohn retired in October 2005 as the Executive Director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, having served in that capacity since 1984.  She was involved in seeing the appropriation of the Arts Commission grow from 14 cents per capita to 80 cents per capita and in developing special funding initiatives including the Arizona Arts Trust Fund and Arizona ArtShare, the Arizona arts endowment fund.  She oversaw the creation of programs that supported artists and arts organizations to connect with their communities in effective and meaningful ways.

After retirement she served one year as the interim CEO of the Scottsdale Cultural Council overseeing the work of the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Scottsdale Public Art.

She has provided consulting work for The Flinn Foundation, several state and local arts agencies and has taught classes in arts entrepreneurship and arts and public policy for ASU.

She has explored new adventures outside of state government, including desert landscaping school at the Desert Botanical Garden, the Melton Program for continuing Jewish education, teaching, consulting work, yoga and desert gardening. 

Ms. Cohn has served as chair and board member of the Arizona Community Foundation, council member of the LGBTQ Center for Philanthropy at the Arizona Community Foundation, chair and board member of Childsplay, chair and board member of the Desert Botanical Garden where she just rejoined the board.   She recently rejoined the advisory board of ASU Hillel.

She holds a masters degree in Humanities from Arizona State University and an undergraduate degree in English from Washington University.

VICE CHAIR

Arts and Community Advocate and Volunteer, Phoenix

Jane Jozoff has a strong background in arts advocacy, serving as Chair of the Arizona State Arts Commission and the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission for six years each. She served on the Heard Museum Board of Trustees for seven years then joined as Trustee of the Phoenix Art Museum for three terms, contributing to excellence of Arizona’s top museums.

Jane has been instrumental in installing art at the Banner Health Wound Care Center, Barrow Neurological Institute, and the Lowell Observatory.

One of her strong passions is the Desert Botanical Garden, which features rotating art exhibits of national significance.

A dedicated advocate for the arts, she has supported Arizona’s cultural landscape ever since moving here over 28 years ago.

Jane holds a BFA degree with honors from Ohio University.

SECRETARY

Vice President, S+C Communications, Tucson

Mary Okoye heads the Tucson office of Public Affairs Firm of Scutari and Cieslak. She is well versed in strategically positioning her corporate and government clients to succeed at the state, local, and federal level, by developing winning external relations , critical communications, and advocacy strategies. She has represented the interests of corporate clients such as AT&T, Hudson Group, Airbnb and Cigna. Ms. Okoye graduated from the University of Arizona College of Law and was subsequently admitted to the state bar of Arizona. She also attended the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C., her third year of lawschool, while interning with the office of Senator Dennis DeConcini. During her career as an attorney she has worked in private practice, served as a Tucson City Court Magistrate, and was Pima County Public Fiduciary prior to accepting her position with the City of Tucson as Director of Intergovernmental Relations. As the head lobbyist, she coalesced and led teams of public, private, and community leaders in the successful pursuit of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal and state funding opportunities for downtown efforts which included the Modern Street Car project. Ms. Okoye has facilitated Town Halls, Public Meeting, and numerous focus groups on behalf of the Tucson Unified School District. A life long volunteer, passionate about and committed to the Tucson , she recently served on numerous board including the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, Tucson Pima Library Foundation and the Urban Libraries Council.

She currently serves on the Tucson Festival of Books, the Blue Lotus Artist Collective and the University of Arizona Department of Fine Arts Advisory boards.

AT LARGE

CEO Sedona Arts Center, Sedona

Julie Richard is the CEO of the Sedona Arts Center. She most recently held the position of Executive Director of the Maine Arts Commission which is a government agency that supports and promotes the arts. Prior to her work in Maine, she held the position of President & CEO of the West Valley Arts Council which operates in the West Valley of Greater Phoenix, Arizona and Executive Director of the Metropolitan Arts Council in Greenville, South Carolina. Julie earned BS degrees in Psychology and Music and a MA in Business from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Previous positions include Managing Director of Tulsa Opera in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Managing Director of Syracuse Opera in Syracuse, New York; and Executive Director of theCayuga Community College Foundation in Auburn, New York. She has held positions on numerous boards and has presented at many national conferences on topics such as board governance, strategic and cultural planning, fundraising, arts education programming, marketing the arts and more.ulie Richard

TREASURER

Principle, Hill Art Valuation, LLC, an art appraisal business

Alexis is an Arizona native who grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is a fourth-generation Mexican American whose academic record includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History (class of 1999) and a Juris Doctor degree in Law (class of 2008) from Arizona State University.

As an entrepreneur and former academic publisher, she is the principle of Hill Art Valuation, LLC, an art appraisal business that specializes in insurance and IRS-qualified art appraisal reports. She received her Certificate of Appraisal Studies from the American Society of Appraisers at SUNY Purchase in 2013, and she has been appraising fine art for over thirteen years. Alexis is a candidate of the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), an accreditation organization, and she currently serves as President for ASA's Phoenix Metropolitan Chapter and has served in this role for the past three years. Alexis holds a minor degree in Spanish and can read, write, and speak this language fluently.

Alexis's vast museum experience includes her past role as Museum Services Coordinator for the Heard Museum Guild (2020-2022), a volunteer organization in support of the Heard Museum, a non-profit 501(c)(3) American Indian art museum located in Phoenix, Arizona. She also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Mesa Arts Center Foundation, a modern art museum located in Mesa, Arizona, that included Arts at the Center, a committee that annually provided six grants to unrecognized performing artists in the local community. Alexis has served as a judge in the Heard Museum's Best of Show 2022, and in 2025, she served as a judge at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum's Cowgirl Up!, the annual art contest for America's leading female Western artists.

Additional former affiliations include serving on the Board of Directors of the Contemporary Forum from 2017 to 2018, a support organization at the Phoenix Art Museum; as a docent for the Heard Museum from 2013 to 2014; and as Secretary/Treasurer for the Volunteer Legal Assistance for Artists Pro Bono Program at the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law at Arizona State University in 2006 to 2008. Currently, Alexis is a member of the Heard Museum Guild, where she volunteers in the retail shop, gaining her recognition as an American Indian art specialist who appraises prehistoric, historic, and contemporary indigenous art. Alexis is also currently a Circles Member of the Phoenix Art Museum, Desert Botanical Garden, and acts as the in-kind art appraiser for the Arizona State University Art Museum for the calendar years of 2025 to 2027.

As an IRS-qualified art appraiser, Alexis assists her clients in a multitude of estate matters, primarily those that facilitate the inventory and management of art collections that serve as an alternative asset for their owners. Her primary area of expertise is American Indian art, but she also appraises all fine art, including Western, Latin American, and contemporary art.

Clients include private and public corporations, private collectors, museums, insurance companies, estate planners, and art lovers seeking guidance on managing their collections.

BOARD MEMBER

Co-Director/co-Programmer of Cinema Tucsón

Victoria Westover was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and has lived in Tucson, Arizona, since 2003. She is a film programmer, producer/director of films and film events, and an exhibiting photographer. Vicky is the co-director/co-programmer of Cinema Tucsón, a film series that showcases Mexican cinema at the Fox Tucson Theatre. She has 38 years of experience in non-profit arts management. Vicky worked at The Library of Congress as an Assistant to the Curator of Exhibitions and in the Prints and Photographs Division. She served as the Director of the Baltimore Film Forum and the Hanson FilmTV Institute at The University of Arizona where she produced educational programs, public events, and creative projects. Vicky served as an adjunct faculty member at The University of Arizona School of Theater, Film & Television, where she taught Professional Practices and created and taught Film Programming and Exhibition.

Vicky’s recent film credits include the documentary Final Vows  (Producer/Director) which is distributed by First Run Features; the documentary Firelighters: Fire is Medicine (Producer) which premiered at the National Museum of the American Indian and was broadcast on public television nationally; the documentary Almost an Island (Executive Producer) which was broadcast on public television nationally; the documentary Mambo Legends: The Music Never Ends, which was broadcast on public television nationally and received a New York Emmy. Vicky is currently producing and co-directing the documentary Whose Land? O’odham Land! for public television. 

Vicky has served on non-profit boards, committees, and panels, including for arts councils in Maryland and Arizona; the AFI in Washington, D.C.; NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) in Los Angeles; and Cinema Tropical in New York. Vicky is a member of the national advocacy organization Documentary Producers Alliance. She is a Founding Member/Leadership Group Member of BorderLens, a collective of women photographers based in Tucson, Arizona. An exhibition of her photography is scheduled for October 2026 at the Mexican Consulate in Tucson. Vicky received a BFA in Photography (1981) from the Maryland Institute College of Arts. 

BOARD MEMBER

Exhibits internationally and is represented by Robert Fontaine Gallery and Sullivan Goss Gallery.

Nancy Gifford began her art career in Los Angles, California.  She exhibited widely throughout the 80’s in museums and gallery exhibitions championed by the late Henry T. Hopkins and was mentored by the last living Dadaist, Beatrice Wood.

In the early 90’s Nancy moved to London and spent the next ten years between England, France and Florida.  She sat on the Patron Board of MOCA Miami working with Bonnie Clearwater.  She was a founding member of the Wynwood Art District in Miami.  

In 2008 Nancy moved to Montecito, California and sat on the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art SB.

She was also Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the Arts Fund SB where she chaired their Community Gallery Program and initiated the Funk Zone Art Walk.  

She was a member of the President’s Associates of Westmont College; Westmont Museum Art’s council and founding member of The Museum Contemporaries of S B Museum of Art and the Lutah Maria Riggs Society.  

Nancy was chief curator for the biannual art exhibitions at Lotusland, beginning with GONE in 2011,  SWARM  in 2013 and 2015 FLOCK.

In 2011 she started the Santa Barbara Poetry Initiative with Kurt Brown.  She has co-edited two Poetry Anthologies of Santa Barbara Poets: BUZZ and RARE FEATHERS.

She helped inaugurate SBCAST (SB Center for Art, Science & Technology) with her G-Space to showcase experimental art forms.

Nancy moved to Scottsdale in 2020.  She joined the Creative Impact Board for ASU Art Museum till 2026.  Nancy still exhibits internationally and is represented by Robert Fontaine Gallery and Sullivan Goss Gallery.