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About Our Honorees

Peter Artin

Born in 1961 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. His father was a jazz musician, photographer and English professor, and his mother is an artist of many disciplines. He grew up in the areas surrounding Philadelphia, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Rockland County, New York. He attended The Cooper Union and The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where he got his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with concentrations in Video, Sculpture, and Dance. He has been an art handler for the last 25 years, installing shows at RoCA as well as other Rockland and NYC institutions and private residences. He has worked with many artists, helping them realize their projects, including 10 years at the Residency Program at the Vytlacil Campus of the Art Students League of New York. Peter has 2 sons and a stepson, a daughter-in-law, and 2 granddaughters.

Samuel Harps

Playwright/Artistic Director Samuel interned at New York’s New Dramatist, studying with playwrights August Wilson and Charles Oyamo Gordon. He was later accepted as a member of the prestigious Negro Ensemble Company. Samuel’s first major production, Don’t Explain, was staged at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in New York. The explosive drama received rave reviews and seven AUDELCO Awards, including best play and playwright. Samuel also received the Arts Council of Rockland County Executive Award for Literary Artist.

Marlene Krumm-Sanders

Marlene has been a ceramic artist for over twenty years. She achieved her BFA from Parsons School of Design / The New School in NYC and studied in Paris, France. She worked as a commercial illustrator for several years before switching to clay in 2003. Predominantly a self-taught ceramic artist, Marlene set up her own ceramic studio in Piermont NY, where she lives and works. She developed her own language of abstract forms that play with space, light, and surface texture. Continual exploration and experimentation have been her focus as a sculptural ceramic artist, producing contemporary clay sculptures that have a home in many venues throughout the Hudson Valley. Marlene has exhibited in LA, NYC, Boston and has been featured at Intersect Chicago.