Our Mission: Joshua Tree Living Arts is dedicated to strengthening our community through the arts.

Our Vision: is to provide resources and programs that create an economically-viable, sustainable, vibrant, and interconnected living arts community for all generations.
 

WHO WE ARE

​Joshua Tree Living Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization. Our programs are funded by donations, sponsorships, contributions, grants, and most importantly -- our membership.


​At the core of JTLA is a group of artists, educators, and creative entrepreneurs from a range of artistic disciplines, who are committed to providing arts opportunities to all members of our community.
Our Team
​Our dedicated crew has pledged a commitment to creating stability and sustainability in everything we do. We are financially responsible, develop programs that are in alignment with our mission, and ensure that our programs are accessible to the community at large regardless of economics, race, color, sex, national or ethnic origin, age, religion or religious creed, disability or handicap.
Tayler Staziuso - Secretary
Tayler Straziuso is a ceramic artist who grew up in Long Beach, CA, where her love for ceramics began. After graduating from college, she moved to Downtown Los Angeles where she started a line of functional pottery. Tayler now lives in Twentynine Palms, where she is able to work with clay full time. She draws a lot of inspiration from the Mojave desert and its colors, critters, and sunsets. Tayler loves to make things she would use in her everyday life.
Heather Sprague - President
Heather Sprague is a native Californian, and longtime resident of the Morongo Basin, with ties going back four generations. She has Bachelor degrees in Art History and Art Studio from the University of California, Davis. She now works full time as a professional artist and photographer. When she isn’t focused on her own fine art exhibitions and projects, she volunteers her time as President of Joshua Tree Living Arts, and has taught in after school art programs throughout the Morongo Unified School District for the last two years. Heather works with children in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program as well as with children in need. Her art curriculum takes both an art historical approach as well as a technical approach, giving her students the broadest exposure to the visual arts as possible.
Edmund Shadman - Member
Edmund Shadman is an entrepreneur and small business owner, with expertise in real estate, solar energy, and off grid systems.  He has been a builder living in Yucca Valley since 2006.  Edmund has sat on various boards of community organizations and currently sits on the board of Joshua Tree Chamber of Commerce.  He has taken an active role in local politics as an organizer and candidate in Yucca Valley.  He has a passion for communication, real community needs, and feeding the people.  

Board of Directors​​​​​

Meg Shannon -  Vice President/Treasurer
Meg Shannon has been an educator for over 20 years. Having served as Principal of Riverside Garden School for 10 years, she has most recently been an advocate for dyslexia and an active member of Decoding Dyslexia California. She participated in the effort to pass AB 1369 which requires school districts to implement program guidelines for dyslexia. Meg serves on the boards of several local non-profits which benefit children in the Morongo Basin. In addition, Meg has worked extensively in volunteer positions helping children in all aspects of education. She is the co-facilitator of Kidsville at the Joshua Tree Music Festival where hundreds of children participate in art and music programs over a 3-day period twice a year.
Jennifer Henning - Member


Cassie Morrow -  Marketing Advisor
Cassie is a tertiary qualified marketing professional who has worked across a broad range of industries in the marketing field, both in California as well as her hometown of Melbourne, Australia.  She found her way to Joshua Tree in 2008 by way of the Joshua Tree Music Festival and has been involved with the festival and  the community in some way, shape or form ever since.  In October 2017, Cassie moved to Joshua Tree full-time to lead marketing efforts for the Joshua Tree Music Festival.  She strongly believes in the power of community and the transformative effect that art and music can have on lives, and is thrilled to be able to act as an advisor and provide marketing and communications support to JTLA.
Advisors

Barnett English - JTMF/JTLA Relations Director
​Barnett English, a Joshua Tree resident since 1993, is the founder and organizer of the renowned Joshua Tree Music Festival. JTMF is held twice a year over 4 days in May & October, with 25 festivals to date that bring together arts, music, yoga, and children, and is consistently rated one of the top family friendly festivals in the country. Past accomplishments include: BA in Business from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business; Booking Agent and Event Specialist for Wayne Foster Entertainment; Founder and CEO of JavaGogo Coffee Co, a mobile concession company that has serviced over 3000 events; Co-founder and Organizer of the Living School in Joshua Tree, a successful parent led educational cooperative that offered both academic school sessions and workshops to children of the community; Co-Founder and Organizer of Transmission Joshua Tree, a non-profit entity offering over 250 enrichment classes and playshops to the community of Joshua Tree. Barnett’s continuing activities in both the arts and philanthropy have served as a leading force in the development of Joshua tree culture.

History of JTLA:
 
The Joshua Tree Living Arts, formerly High Desert Living Arts Center, was founded in 1999 with the goal of finding sustainable solutions and educating our communities about the complex social and economic needs facing us all today. By fusing small business facilitation, classic fundraising, and traditional grant writing, HDLAC was able to turn a small resource into a long history of public benefit activities in our area. Beginning with the Living Arts Gallery, a cooperative gallery and educational space, which operated for 7 years, and the Chuckwalla Music Festival, a 3-day local music extravaganza, HDLAC’s focus on art and music as a primary vehicle became evident. Our ongoing classes, annual Summer Arts Camp, and Artists-in-Schools program closed the loop connecting the interests of our local artists and the musicians with the children of our community, helping ensure the growth of the arts in our area. 

During this first phase, 1999-2006, we watched our community grow from one art gallery, ours, to a dozen, and from one music venue to six. Multiple music festivals and emergent arts organizations confirmed, as well the success, and in some ways, the completion of our first phase. Even as need was relieved in one area, the next movement was already underway. Over the next 7 years HDLAC sponsored, facilitated, and co-organized a succession of public benefit projects brought to us by the community: Sawtooth Fire Education response, Higher Ground (Hurricane Katrina Relief), SoPae Alternative Energy Conference, Transmissions Educational Resource Center, and The Living School are among the highlights from this period. 

Over the last several years, JTLA has become the primary vehicle for continuing the development of socially conscious and educational activities in the community.
© 2017 Joshua Tree Living Arts

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