Staff

The Drawing Studio recently shifted leadership structure. See a message regarding our previous Executive Director below:

Emiel Martin Brott
Financial & Business Consultant (they/them/elle)

Emiel is grateful to have the opportunity to work with such a wonderful organization as The Drawing Studio for the past 5 years. They describe co-leading TDS as a pinnacle experience of their life. They look forward to continuing their journey with the organization as a financial & business consultant, and also as a Teaching Artist – look out this fall for their first class of Fabric Art, “Soft Sculpture.”

 

Maggie Rush Miller 
Executive Director (she/her) 

The Drawing Studio announces the hire of Executive Director Maggie Rush Miller, daughter of founder Andrew Rush. Maggie (she/her) brings decades-long experience in nonprofits, particularly in the serving of marginalized youth.

Her background in performing arts and creative writing centered on the African American experience fortifies her dedication to the ever-expanding need for access to art for all.

“I could not be more grateful for this opportunity, as I believe that, in these complicated times, turning toward art is one of the many reliable and fulfilling tools, whether for fun, solace, deep meditation or as mere diversion. The consistent practice of art creates wondrous transformation i.e. good things! It is now my job to ensure that everyone that wants to participate, can.”

Maggie Rush-Miller is second-generation artist from Rancho Linda Vista, an art commune adjacent to Oracle, Arizona. She has been an actor (Juice), director, and K-12 art teacher and is the founder of RLV OracleArt, supporting artistic expression, education and preservation, particularly for BIPOC communities and underserved youth of the “Copper Corridor.” She is also a diversity, equity, inclusion and access consultant, grant writer, volunteer mediator, and Youth Justice Reform community member. She holds a degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona and writes African American historical fiction, including a one-woman show, Crossing the Atlantic on my Back, which integrates the life-size drawings of local master artist, Andrew Rush.

 

 

Anton Russell
Programs and Operations (he/him/his) 

“..no one ever said to Van Gogh: ‘hey, paint The Starry Night for us again, man.’ you know? He painted it, & that was it.” – Joni Mitchell, phenomenal earthling.

This truth resonates with me, maybe resonates with you. This truth is why The Drawing Studio & our people coexist. We are creating space for this truth to become manifest in our shared lives & come,unity (community) ery’day.

Anton is grateful for the opportunity to continue serving in all aspects of The Drawing Studio and is embracing ventures to grow! He has stepped back from a Co-Executive Director role, focusing his attention on cultivating our campus as a lighthouse for creative expression and intentional community.

I am here to work together with willing earthlings helping us to create more space for freedom. This beautiful space already exists at our midtown lighthouse – this drawing in space. Home of Free the Earth, a playground & garden. Where we establish the reality of our mission in the hearts of humans.

We can reveal that art practice, through solitude as well as through shared community, will liberate us. We will be inspired to deepen ourselves, too. I know this, because I began mediating the consistent threat of gang violence that surrounded me as a youth through art practice. Performing arts & poetry became my primary drawing instruments. Our mission is who I am; come,unity is among my most dear art practices of all.

If you come, & you want to feel my vibration more, ask for me. I want you to feel that I care about where you are coming from personally. I reject silent power dynamics, such as gossip. Where you come from may encourage gossip. I have learned to return to the source, which takes effort & confidence. Like me, The Drawing Studio is here to encourage critique as an essential tool in art practice. Therefore, one who wants to help another see themselves more nearly, must speak to the source. Canceling is not okay, but moving on is. Like Joni say: Paint your starry night on the canvas, then move on. So, call or come on by.

Pleasures include BIG laughs, Prince, reading, flirting wit foolishness & random acts of OMGness. Peace.

 

Anthony D. Avila
Development Director (he/him) 

Anthony Avila is a friendly face you will see in the studio and behind our social media presence. Anthony has worked as a journalist, teacher, youth coordinator, Trader Joe’s crew member and life coach. He volunteers with many nonprofits, including hosting blood drives for the Red Cross, mentoring and fundraising with Boys to Men Tucson, and facilitating men’s groups. From 2004-2015 he was the music director of summer youth camps that were held in the beautiful Chiricahua Mountains. He plays guitar, sings, dances salsa and bachata, and is a proud uncle to his niece and two nephews. Above all he is an extrovert who loves connecting with every kind of person, hearing their stories and supporting our community in all the ways we express our creativity. 

 

 

Sarah Wilson Myers
Finance 

Sarah has a lifetime of experience with numbers and people: family, her high school, a church, a parent/teacher association, a nursery school, several refugee resettlement offices, a real estate office, a hardware store, a gutter cleaning business, and since 2018 here at The Drawing Studio.  She continues to find joy in knowing that managing the details is an important part of accomplishing the mission and honoring the participants.  She is happy to be living here in the sunny Sonoran Desert, working and playing among artists and visionaries.

 

 

 

 

Melissa Ivich Zuniga
Gallery & Programs (she/them)

Melissa began her involvement with The Drawing Studio as an administrative intern in the summer of 2021. She transitioned into the role of Event Specialist, focusing on community events. Then, Melissa served as Studio & Community Manager, leading in office reception and volunteer management. 

In her current role, Gallery & Programs, Melissa coordinates monthly exhibition in our central gallery space between Studio 1 & Studio 2. Additionally, she works with Teaching Artists to create the studio schedule. 

 

 

Yolie Contreras 
Development & Memberships (she/her)

Yolie is the proud daughter of a migrant father from El Salvador and a Queer, Mexican-American mother. She identifies as a Salvi-Chicanx Woman of Color, and was born and raised in southern California but now calls the Arizona desert her home. She has made it her mission to use her privilege, education and lived experience to always center those who are the most marginalized in our society.

Yolie is a writer at heart and began by writing zines in the late 90s, which led to her co-authoring a zine lib guide for Arizona State University (the first of its kind). She has since gone on to continue publishing more zines and writes about them academically and professionally. She has served Southern Arizona through her position as co-chair for the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ IDEA Committee (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Access) and is currently serving as a Community Advisory Board member for KXCI.

Yolie lives with her husband and two rescue cats named Ricky and Fred. She dabbles in embroidery, knitting, painting, sewing, miniatures, and stamp carving to name a few. Her work has been shown at the &Gallery, Phoenix Art Museum, Mesa Arts Center, Galeria Mitotera, Wasted Ink Zine Distro and more. If you would like to read her thoughts on nonprofits and fundraising in general, please visit this link.

 

Introducing Lin Lucas

A year ago, Lin began teaching Comics, Mangas and Collage for all ages here at The Drawing Studio. He was an integral component to the success of our art of summer program; this year’s kids camp. We are thrilled that he is transitioning into a consultant role in community outreach, with expertise in k- 12 education. We are thrilled to have his enthusiastic energy in-studio more often, so don’t forget to say hi when you see him around!

 

 

Board of Directors 2022-23

 

Joanna Marroquin (she/her/ella)

Governing Board Chair

Joanna Marroquin (she/her/ella) has served on our board since 2022, stepping into the position of board chair on July 1, 2024. She is a bilingual, bicultural Arizonan and community advocate with over 18 years in non-profit leadership, grassroots organizing, facilitating, mediating, philanthropy, and teaching. She focuses on social justice and economic equity in Arizona’s urban and rural communities. She holds a master’s degree in Social Work from ASU.

She also serves on the board of the Greater Phoenix Equality Chamber of Commerce, and previously served for the Tucson LGBT Chamber of Commerce. She runs her own business, Express Yourselfie AZ. She enjoys travel with friends, podcasts, and quality time with family and her sweet little mini schnauzer, Frida.

 

Frank Velásquez Jr.
Board President (he/him) 

A racial equity and social justice advocate, Frank Velásquez Jr. leads and collaborates with passion, authenticity and an open mind. He connects to the stories that make each of us who we are and the stories that connect us to one another. He brings local and national attention to the inequities that people of color face through his race and gender equity work in Southern Arizona. Frank’s current projects are serving as the Director of Operations Support at Boys to Men Tucson and launching YWCA Southern Arizona’s first multi-service self-sufficiency center in the fall of 2021.

 

 

 

Robyn Austin (she/her)
Treasurer

 

Writing is my passion, and I am grateful that I get to use this skill to help small business owners who wish to self-publish a book. I am excited to join The Drawing Studio as the interim treasurer. My other volunteer activity is serving as a public member on the board of governors for the State Bar Association of Arizona. I also enjoy working as the Community Impact Manager for Tucson Federal Credit Union, where I support the credit union’s community partnerships.

 

John LaWall (he/him)

John LaWall is a neurologist and psychiatrist who retired as Associate Professor of Neurology at the UA College of Medicine in 2021. In the mid-90s, John discovered The Drawing Studio after realizing that drawing was a wonderful pastime while watching his kids on the beach. John and his wife Anita have had the best time delving into various aspects of art and design and have been members, volunteers, and supporters of TDS ever since. They loved from the start the unique approach that allowed them to sign up for any class, to explore any medium, with no grades, no tracks, and no goals other than mastering more skills and developing their own unique artistic vision. Art practice has enriched John’s life and even spilled over into the clinical work, in that he recommended exploring art making to patients. John has served on the Medical Executive Board and Executive Committee of Northwest Hospital, Tucson and is a member of the Tucson Literary Club. His hobbies are visual art (particularly graphite and ink), home repair, woodworking, and knife scales – i.e., artistry on hunting knife handles. 

 

 

Julie Ragland (she/her)

With a BA in Anthropology from the University of Arizona and more than 20 years of non-profit experience, Julie Ragland has been actively engaging with Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access (IDEA) education through leadership within the non-profit community and with local grassroots efforts since 2017. In 2019 Julie co-founded Ragland & Wilhite Consultants, an IDEA consulting firm based in Tucson, AZ. Julie is committed to helping people begin or deepen their own IDEA journey in a way that is responsive to their unique needs and specializes in culture and community building. Originally from the Chicago area, Julie has lived in Tucson for more than 25 years, and is also a capoeira martial-arts instructor and a visual artist, poet, and dancer.

 

 

Andrew Rush (he/him) 

Andrew (Andy) Rush is a uniquely American artist whose storied career has crossed two centuries, rendering him a master of a multitude of mediums, including printmaking, sculpting, painting, tile making, illustrating and montage. Andy graduated from the University of Illinois in 1953 where he studied under printmaker Lee Chesney. After a military tour of duty in Korea, Andy returned to study intaglio printmaking at the University of Iowa where he earned his MFA in 1958. Over the next fifty years, Andy’s prolific body of work has been celebrated in galleries, public projects and private collections throughout the United States. Andy expanded his commitment to art and community by creating The Drawing Studio with artist colleagues in 1992. Today, Andy organizes and teaches courses at TDS, taking immense pleasure in mentoring upcoming young artists who he inspires to carry forward his vision for integration of art and community.

 

 

Maud Koch

Maud was born and raised in Long Island, New York. Maud moved to Manhattan when she was 17 and attended The School of Visual Arts. In 1977, Maud moved to Tucson, AZ and worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 30 years. 

Maud has been a member of The Drawing Studio since it was located on south 6th Ave. She has attended classes for pastel, watercolor, colored pencil, and has taken Paul Mohr’s classes in figure and portraiture 4 times. She has also worked in the print lab many times and was a monitor for the Monday evening Open Studio for many years until COVID shut it down. She now monitors for the Saturday morning Open Studio. 

Maud has a collection of over 200 species of succulents and photographs their blossoms and then paints them. She has produced calendars of these paintings since 2019. She also converts her figure drawings to canvas and paints them. Maud is a member of the TDS Garden Committee and works Monday mornings on maintenance. She has experience on governing boards such as the President of her Homeowner’s Association since January 2000. 

Maud feels that The Drawing Studio is her second home and that the staff and artists are her family.