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2017 ENGAGE

ENGAGE TEAM

Penelope Moore, Creative Design

Penelope's paintings and photography are a reflection of her passion for food, wine and joie de vivre. They are contemporary in style with an emphasis on color, mood and light. A gourmet at heart, Penelope is immersed in an epicurean culture and influenced by her connectedness with the world of wine. Her culinary compositions offer intimate insight into a food and wine lifestyle.

Her inspiration begins in social scenes such as restaurants, wine bars, wineries, wine cellars and often simply in the kitchen and around dinner tables with wine, food and friends. Through the use of rich color, dynamic perspective, inviting atmosphere and gourmet subject matter, Penelope's work conveys the essence of a bon vivant lifestyle. Once her inspiration is transformed into colorful still life paintings and photographs her work expresses gratitude, optimism and joy of life.

Penelope earned her BFA in Painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. She resides in Napa Valley.

David Aten, Preview Party Event Planner

David Aten Events professional event planning is a natural extension from David’s vast accomplishments within the food industry. Imaginative and innovative event planning started in his formative years, as a child growing up in Europe. He dreamed of living in castles and throwing lavish parties.

David says, “All my life, I have celebrated my birthday with a big party. When I was 13, I hosted my own disco party, plastered the walls and ceiling with tin foil, reflecting everything. I have always gone for the WOW factor when guests enter a room.”

Today, David Aten Events produces many of the wine country’s luxury, lifestyle events. From intimate gatherings at private estates, to full scale productions, galas, and fundraisers at some of the most beautiful Napa Valley venues.

Massimo Falsini, Executive Chef, Solbar

Chef Falsini has a 27-year long history in the culinary world, in many esteemed establishments worldwide. He began his culinary career in Rome at the Michelin-starred Trattoria Felice a Testaccio, before serving at the Michelin-starred restaurant “Baby” at Aldrovandi Palace, in Villa Borghese, Rome and at the Grand Hotel Trieste & Victoria in Abano Terme Padova, Italy.

He earned his first Michelin Star for the world famous Harry's Bar.

Lindsey Rion, Pop-up Lounge Design

In her tenth year as a specialist in the event industry, Lindsey Rion has developed a creative and original eye for floral and event design. Lindsey opened the doors to Rion Designs in 2014, offering full-service event design to Napa Valley and the Bay Area.

The Lux Productions, Lighting Design

A design based event production company, The Lux Productions offers innovative products and stylish alternatives to event lighting, sound, video, logistics, design, and decor. A full service production company, The Lux Productions takes client ideas and transforms them into fully produced events from preproduction through take down. With lighting, audio, video, and decor capabilities, The Lux creates memories to last a lifetime.

Kirstina Young, Admin + Management Support

Originally from the East Coast, Kristina grew up splitting her time between the US and Canada, where her extended family still lives. She received her BFA in painting from Richmond College, in London. She went on to study art history at University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and illustration and design at California College of the Arts (San Francisco).

ENGAGE ARTISTS

John Bonick, painting

"Over the past several years, I have developed a vocabulary of imagery that centers around thin bands of color and light. Sometimes they are stacked on top of each other, sometimes they crisscross the picture plane in seemingly random directions, layer upon layer. For me, the channels are metaphoric of a kind of connectivity and connectedness."

Jonah Ward, 2D Mixed Media

"I use Madrone tree bark and wasp nests, adhering them onto wood canvas in my Textured Painting series. I burn abstract lines into wood panels using molten glass in my Glass Burned Panel series."

Mark Keller, painting

Steve Javiel, painting

"My work is focused around experimenting with recreating the aged, decayed, layered surfaces around me. I believe that these aged surfaces tell a story and that they are a raw reflection of their environment—the aging is not premeditated."

Sharon Bussert, photography

"I love to talk with visitors about my work and the places I've traveled and photographed. I use both digital and antique film cameras to create fine art photography. All images are chemically processed photographs."

Vincent Thomas Connors, painting

"My work represents themes of time and beauty through the combination of natural and industrial visual elements. "

Emilio Sotelo, Jewelry Design

"I hand make my jewelry using saw blades to cut the shapes from laminated silver sheets, and dapping tools to give the concave or convex shapes."

Jermaine Burse, painting

Phillip Hua, 3D Mixed Media

"In my work, I address environmental concerns through the use of everyday materials like newspapers, tape, construction paper, light, and time. Using these elements, I create performative works on paper that change, creating a gradual cinematic experience for the viewer."

Elena Melissa Hill, painting

"I move through urban and rural spaces. I collect textures, forms, and silhouettes to use in my paintings, feeling as if I am navigating languages written by others, taking notes in order to create my own."

Dona Bonick, photographer

Ken Berman, painting

"I begin each painting with black gesso, add my construction lines in white colored pencil and then apply several layers of oil paint with brush, palette knife and roller to create my finished work."

NBC Pottery, ceramics

Husband and wife team Will and Nikki Callnan specialize in custom made wares with an organic edge and rustic flare.

Barbara Keller, painting

"My art reflects the human interaction while enjoying, caressing and embracing the power of water."

Sonia Lub, jewelry design

"I carefully hand select all of my ingredients, and incorporate salvaged & recycled material in many of my pieces. My inspiration stems from my travels and my beloved community around the world."

Daniela Cunha Lay, painting

“While Warhol’s body of work repulses me in that it is rooted in the superficial glorification of fame and fortune, he does inspire me aesthetically….though what he very lucidly depicts as coveted and appealing Hollywood glamour, I see as less-enticing, conflicting emotional terror.”

Shelly Hanan, photography

"Over the past 20 years of my career, I have seen my work transform from "traditional" landscapes to more abstract and surreal work."

Anna Nelson, painting

"My Italian heritage is a constant in my heart and soul and the beauty of Italy is an endless inspiration in both my Plein Air work and studio paintings."

Lisa Kaplan

"I am deeply concerned with environmental and socio-political issues, specifically those pertaining to responsible decision making with regards to natural resources and sustainability of our planet for generations to come."

Karen Lynn Ingalls, painting

"My colorist landscape paintings of rural California often employ yellows and oranges, and warm blues and greens that glow with a warmth redolent of a kind of eternal summer, a kind of archetypal last, golden hour of the day. "

Matt Sarconi, 3D Mixed Media

"My artwork starts as a single, original photograph. I then cut it into layers and put it back together, with spacing in between the layers, giving it a 3D effect."

Sean Ramm, painting

"Focusing on artists who have suffered from addiction, I feel that immortalizing them in glitter is a beautiful juxtaposition of the glitzy, glamour and fame they were forced to endure that inevitably led them toward a darker path."

Scout Mandolin, diamond jewelry design

Scout Mandolin is intentionally evocative of past, present and future. ‘Scout’ is the soft, precise search for love manifest in design – the search for who he or she is and what makes him or her unique; ‘Mandolin’ is the allegorical essence of the sweet country melodies that captured Julie’s imagination as a girl growing up in the south.