Instructor Bios

Beverly Bledsoe

Beverly Bledsoe is a Southern California artist who earned an MFA in Printmaking from Cranbrook Academy Art,1981, and a BFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from Cleveland Institute of Art,1979. She has taught Life Drawing and Drawing at Otis College of Art and Design since 1999. Ms. Bledsoe has taught Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at numerous colleges and Universities in Southern California and Texas. She has won various awards in Printmaking and received a cultural grant from the America Center in Helsinki, Finland. Ms. Bledsoe has had one person exhibitions in Los Angeles, Houston, Texas and Helsinki, Finland. She has been included in numerous national exhibitions.

Eduardo Lucero

Since 1993, Eduardo Lucero has been producing fashion shows/events that feature his clothing line's vision. His shows are known for their strong visionary flair and ability to remain ahead of the status quo, incorporating a huge range of inspiration. As an innovator, he has been instrumental in building a fashion week in Los Angeles from when there was none. He was the one recruited by SMASHBOX Studios to help them in their first foray as a fashion show venue. And the same with IMG, and most recently Boxeight Productions and DTLAFW. 

Besides showing consistently during fashion week LA for almost twenty-five years, he has also exhibited in New York, Chicago, Miami, Washington D.C. and internationally in Hong Kong, Peru, and Mexico, where he has a mentorship program with young student designers and a commitment to help grow that nation's fashion profile.

Elizabeth  Abaravich 

Bio coming soon.

Emily Leon

Bio coming soon.

Ida Lasic

Bio coming soon.

Tristan Kilmer

Tristan Kilmer is a Los Angeles based artist with a BFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, specializing in both CG and stop-motion animation. His early stop-motion work quickly gained attention from major publications, including MTV, USA Today, Forbes, Vanity Fair, and Entertainment Weekly. 

With extensive experience in film and animation, Tristan has supervised and led visualization teams on high-profile films and episodics such as Marvels Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and HBO's The Last of Us. Throughout his career he has worked at studios such as Digital Domain, Halon, MPC, Warner Bros Interactive, and ReelFx Animation. 

Tristan's artistic approach focuses on visual storytelling that emphasizes ""showing, not telling,"" aiming to elevate a film's narrative through its cinematography and lens, often without dialogue. As a versatile generalist, his skills span cinematography, directing, and editing, as well as proficiency in industry-standard software such as Maya, Unreal Engine, Nuke, and the Adobe Suite. 

He is an active member of the Previs Union within the Art Directors Guild and the VFX Peer Group of the Television Academy. Recently, his short film work received funding and was screened by the City of West Hollywood. He is also a recipient of the United Plankton Grant. 

When he's not working on creative projects, Tristan enjoys surfing at the beach and crafting detailed Lego miniatures in his free time.

Dylan Ricards

I am an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in the fields of sculpture, sound, interactive media, and worldbuilding. My work explores the materiality of our post-natural world, delving into the spaces between moral ecological binaries where contamination and hybridity reveal the possibilities of magic in art. My practice integrates a diverse range of making strategies, from highly fabricated 3D-printed forms to hand-built ceramics, found objects collected from the shore, and digital works created using game engines and interactive platforms. Worldbuilding and speculative storytelling are central to my inquiries, allowing me to imagine alternative realities and challenge existing narratives. As an educator, I encourage this multifaceted approach in my pedagogy, fostering an environment where students can experiment, take risks, and refine their conceptual and technical skills. I am passionate about guiding students to think critically, push the boundaries of their creative practices, and develop thoughtful, material-driven work in both physical and digital realms.

JT Steiny

BFA, Otis College of Art and Design. Freelance Illustrator, painter, comic artist, cartoonist and book illustrator. Clients include Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Smart Money, Forbes, American Airlines, Rolling Stone, Hollywood Reporter, LA Weekly, Sony Records, Virgin Records, Rhino Records, Warner Bros Records, Capitol Records, UCLA, St. Martin's Press, Rock the Vote, Jim Henson Prods, Saban Entertainment, Klasky Csupo. Assistant Professor; Illustration, Otis College of Art and Design.

Ken Jones

Bio coming soon.

Laura London

Laura London is an exhibiting fine artist based in Southern California working in the medium of photography and digital video. Her artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally. The work is also included in many collections both private and corporate. She is the recipient of two Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Grants, for which she created both a permanent and a temporary art installation. Press coverage of her work includes reviews and features in the LA Times, LA Weekly, Huffington Post, Time Out New York and Artillery Magazine as well as other publications. She currently teaches photography at Otis College of Art and Design. She has also taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and many other visiting artist and guest lecture appointments. She received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts and her BFA from the University of Arizona. Her artwork has recently been shown at LSH Colab Gallery Annex and Chimento Contemporary Galleries in Los Angeles, California.

Markus Maciel

Markus Maciel, BFA in Toy Design, Otis College of Art and Design. Currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Toy Design program at Otis College. Previously worked as the Director of New Brands Design at Razor. Mr. Maciel also worked at International Toy as Director of Product Development and Senior Engineer and Manager of the Digital Training Center at Mattel.

Martin Kline

Martin A. Kline has done many things in the entertainment industry including Senior Visual Effects Art Director for Sony Pictures Imageworks as well as spending many years as a feature film production illustrator for special effects units and principal production, and as a first unit art director on Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump. Born in Brooklyn, NY, he studied at Otis Art Institute, in Los Angeles, where he was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship for the study of Fine Art Lithography at Tamarind Institute, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At Walt Disney's theme park design group, WED Enterprises, he eventually rose to show designer, participating in EPCOT design and Fantasyland redevelopment. His interest in science fiction led him to work in motion picture special effects and he joined Apogee to work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Dune and Firefox, among others. Marty is a member of the Art Directors Guild and a charter member of the Visual Effects Society. Most recently, he was given the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illustrators branch of the Art Directors Guild.

Mayuka Thais

Mayuka Thais, BFA, Otis College of Art and Design. A contemporary artist, Miss Mayuka is a bilingual multi-cultural artist, edutainer and art educator who specializes in teaching International School and multi-national students. She has led songwriting classes for at-risk youths involved in San Fernando Valley's NPO Youth Speak Collective Program. At the age of ten, she won her first Art Award from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. A published Art Educator, she is the recipient of Eco Arts Awards for her songs and music videos on animal conservation and ecology.

Michael Piwowarczyk

Bio coming soon.

Monica Rodriquez

Bio coming soon.

Norland Téllez

Norland Téllez was born in Managua, Nicaragu¨a in the early seventies, growing up in an artistic family that managed to survive the turmoil of a civil war that ended in 1979. As a consequence of the volatile situation that followed, his family was forced to migrate to the United States in search of a better life, free from the threat of war and economic hardship. Making good on his artistic promise after his arrival, Norland went on to attend CalArts on a full scholarship. Soon after, he joined the Walt Disney Studios in Florida during the production of Beauty and the Beast (1992) as one of the youngest animation trainees the studio had ever had. From then on, he has enjoyed a fruitful career in the animation industry, working in feature films as well as television, including a series of independent projects. While working as an animation professional, having graduated from CalArts, Norland continued to pursue his education further. Already flourishing as a teacher in the fields of animation and conceptual design, including story development, he became interested in philosophy and psychoanalysis around the study of world mythologies. In keeping with this pursuit, in the early 2000s, Norland embarked on a graduate study of mythology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. This intensive research and multidisciplinary approach allowed him to focus my dissertation on the Popol Vuh, the Sacred Book of the Quiche-Maya, which he is also currently translating and illustrating for a new up-coming edition, where he reintroduces the famed “Book of the Counsel” as the Wisdom of the Peoples. Norlandtellez.com

Robert Nichols

MFA, Painting, Laguna College of Art and Design; BA, Art History, Univ of California at Santa Cruz. Internationally exhibited painter: Faculty of Fine Arts Lisbon, B Minus Studios, Q Art Salon, Idyllwild Arts Gallery.

Sophia Li

Bio coming soon.

Susanne Manheimer

@smartdesign is the Santa Monica-based design office of Susanne Manheimer. For the previous vigorous and exuberant 20 years, Susanne has been recognized for her work by its elegance, sophisticated humor, style, and wit. Her knowledge, understanding and respect for innovative design, is incorporated in her invention of new design approachesSimplicity and directness of communication are the main elements of her style. Her work makes people smile, laugh, and…think. Today, she divides her time between running the studio, teaching, and lecturing to corporations and schools on the importance of The Democratization of Creativity™ as well as Conceptual Thinking and Problem Solving. Susanne graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute with a BFA in design. Susanne, a native New Yorker, worked in "The City" as a Creative Director for Tiffany and Co. where she was awarded a Certificate of Distinction for Typography, Creative Director for Bloomingdales by Mail, Revlon, and also The Museum of Modern Art, to name a few. Disney called, and she moved to California to work for Disney + Co. as Creative Director for the Disney catalogue. Susanne has a history of success mentoring young designers, both in academic roles and as an industry leader. She has been described as a “needle in a haystack,” a conceptual designer who is creative yet has strong business acumen.

Tyee Tilghman

Bio coming soon.

Walter Santucci

Walter Santucci (MFA, California State University, Long Beach) is an animator, puppeteer, and filmmaker who has created work for and with such luminaries as Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, Cedric the Entertainer, Ice Cube, Ice T, The B52’s, and Margaret Cho. He has made animation for Disney, Klasky-Csupo, Fox, MTV, Atlantic Records, Warner Brothers, Marvel, Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop (and many others). For over fifteen years, Walter has taught animation at various colleges and universities around the world. He is the author of The Guerrilla Guide to Animation (Bloomsbury Publishing) and his writings have appeared in an Animation Magazine, Child Art and Puppet Life.

Joaquín Stacey-Calle

Joaquín Stacey-Calle  (he/him/they, b.2000, Quito, Ecuador) is an interdisciplinary artist working with painting, performance, installation, microbes, photography, and food.  He graduated with a BFA from Florida International University in 2022 and received his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design (CA) in 2024. Stacey-Calle develops conversations around history, identity, memory, figurative and landscape painting, daily rituals, Western ontology, and the human condition. He is interested in the digestion and fermentation of his quotidian surroundings and the cultural productions he has consumed throughout his life. Like his understanding of his diasporic self, his work is rooted in memories of his home and life in Ecuador, Miami, and Los Angeles and then tethered to a new experience of unfixed imagery and materiality that remains ever-changing. His current work explores the tension between the sacred, profane, divine, and the mundane. He has exhibited throughout LA, San Diego, Miami, and Mexico in places like Charlie James Gallery, Make Room Gallery, Goodmother Gallery, Proyectos N.A.S.A.L., The Proxy Gallery,  California Center for the Arts, Escondido (San Diego), Homework Gallery, The Laundromat Art Space, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Pinecrest Gardens Gallery, Ateliê Alê (São Paulo), and the Ecuadoran Consulate in Miami. Stacey-Calle was part of the 2022 & 2023 Summer Open, a residency hosted by The Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami.