Say hello to our art education team! These wonderful artists are passionate and experienced in their respective fields. Click on each headshot to learn more about each team member’s background and artistic expertise!
Meet Our Instructors
Christine Cabral is an artist and a teacher of art. She holds a BFA degree from Valdosta State University and an MFA from Florida State University, with an emphasis on mixed media and installation. Although her earlier works were largely three dimensional, her current focus is acrylic paint on canvas. She occasionally incorporates mixed media fabrics and vinyls into her paintings as well. Christine’s studio is in Valdosta, Georgia where she lives with her husband and two young children.
Image: CAVERN by Christine Cabral
Dr. Cheryl Carvajal, facilitator of the Writers League and coordinator of the Art of Writing Contest, is the Assistant Dean of the Arts and Sciences Department of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, where she teaches English, speech, and humanities. When she's not writing, she's making music, singing, painting, drawing, and sewing, though she wishes she had a time-turner so that she had more time for all of it.
Author of several books, including a researched book of ghosts and the first book in a young adult fantasy novel series, she also writes short stories, plays, screenplays, and exceptionally bad poetry. Married with two kids, a dog, and a cat, she tries each day to balance family, teaching, and creating.
For Annette Crosby, all roads lead to Valdosta, Georgia. Her enthusiasm for her life there is evident in her energetic personality, immersing herself fully in home, family, community, and art. She grew up in Valdosta, went through all levels of school there, including college at Valdosta State University, and lives there now in the same home where she and her husband raised their three children. From childhood to now, she has consistently been an artist, her forms and techniques shifting and maturing to shape the established artist she is today.
She earned two degrees, a BFA in art education and a MEd in Elementary Education. She has garnered awards in regional and national juried competitions, exhibits in invitational solo and group shows, and her work is held in numerous public and private collections. She has been published in The Palette and Southern Living magazines and other publications around the South Georgia area. See her work on her website (annettecrosbyart.com), Facebook, Instagram and her gallery Artists on Ashley in Valdosta. But she will also effusively add, “and you can come to my studio!” at the Turner Center for the Arts, where she is artist-in-residence and teaches classes.
Like her personality, her abstract work is vibrant and lively, full of energy and sensation.
Why do I paint? It is my passion, something I do for my own pleasure. There is nothing so rewarding as “making something from nothing.” Some people say, “Oh, but I don’t have any talent. I can’t even draw a straight line.” My answer is that if you have the desire and commitment, you can learn the skills. I did.
After a career in social work (adoption and foster care), I retired in 2005. Wanting to learn something new, but having never held a brush, I decided to learn how to paint. I took numerous workshops with well-known artists. Although I was usually the “new kid on the block” in the classes with the most to learn, I never gave up. After miles and miles of painted canvases and tubes and tubes of paint, I am still learning. BUT, nothing gives me more pleasure than to share what I have learned through instruction and practice with anyone who, like me, has the desire. Thus, the Turner Center for the Arts has given me the opportunity to share my passion with others. I hope my enthusiasm for art and painting might give others the incentive to pursue their own creativity.
Most recently, I have enjoyed painting notecards using gouache (opaque watercolor) and gift bags and tags with acrylic.
Anita said,
"I’m a mom and rug hooking artist. I have a background in retail and graphic art, and am both a certified McGown teacher and president of the Wiregrass Rug Hookers (meets in Thomasville, Ga.). I focus on learning everything I can about rug hooking so I can help you on your journey. I dye, color plan, customize patterns, and provide video tutorials and personal lessons in my home or through the web camera. I also sell kits, wool, and more."
Lyberty Huerta is currently a senior at VSU pursuing her bachelors in Art Education. She is a firm believer that everyone is an artist and wants every child to find their creativity and love for art. She hopes one day to share her love and passion for art in the classroom and create a nurturing environment. Lyberty has experience with multiple mediums but her favorites are ceramics and sculpture.
Debra developed her love for Art visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts on Sunday afternoons with her father when she was a child. After taking a summer semester at Parsons School of Design at NYU, she attended College for Creative Studies at in Detroit a block from the Art museum she lived as a child. After a career in advertising design she “retired” to raise her two sons.
Debra re-entered the workforce as a Realtor when her children were grown; but returned to her artistic beginnings in actual retirement. When she’s not playing with paper, paint and pastels in her home studio, she enjoys sharing her love of art by teaching painting and crafts to local area adults and children.
Debra is the Turner Center's 2024 Art Educator of the Year (this is an annual award given to someone on the Turner Center's instructor team for exemplary work).
As a ceramicist and encaustic oil painter, Taylor Nalley finds that the solitary company firing her raku vessels or marking canvas allows space for reflection and vulnerability, which she then uses to address her opportunities for growth as a person. She uses particular motifs to personify the act of grieving. The unpredictability of raku informs her to relinquish control to the flames of firing.
Nalley has embraced and celebrated the raku philosophy of wabi-sabi with others through raku workshops, as embracing the chance of imperfection informs the transient moments of life. She resides in south Georgia where she maintains a studio practice at the Hudson Pottery Studio, teaching Kids and Adult Pottery Workshops, as well Raku Firing Workshops.
Melissa Pihos, Associate Professor of Dance at Valdosta State University (VSU), began dancing at a very young age and has performed professionally across the United States for over 25 years. She is certified as an instructor in the IMPROVment® method.
Melissa is an award-winning filmmaker, and her film work has screened in several film festivals across the country. Her choreography has been performed internationally. She has danced for Flatlands Dance Theatre, Larry Keigwin, Van Dyke Dance Group, John Gamble Dance Theatre and Sidelong Dance Company. She has also performed in works by Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp. Melissa recently worked with Texas Tech University professors, Dr. Ali Duffy and Dr. Peter Fischer, on a multidisciplinary performance titled "Evolution of Gaia."
She is currently touring her work, "PIHOS A Moving Biography," at Alzheimer’s disease awareness events. "PIHOS A Moving Biography" is a documentary dance/film performance that explores the life of her father, NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Pete Pihos, and his battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The work has toured to Charlotte, NC., Winston-Salem, NC., Lubbock, TX., Philadelphia, PA., New York City, NY., Valdosta, GA., and Santa Fe, NM. In 2022, Melissa was featured in an NFL Films Presents feature titled "Remembering Forgotten Heroes.”
Melissa has written, directed, and choreographed two children’s performances for the VSU Theatre and Dance department's Theatre for Youth Audiences Tour, titled "Planets View from the Hubble Space Telescope" and "The Butterfly and the Bee". Both performances incorporated science education. She has recently co-written and published an interactive digital dance textbook, "Dance and Culture" with Associate Professor at Florida Southern College, Erin LaSala Phillips. She has also written an essay for a new book by Dr. Ali Duffy, Professor of Dance at Texas Tech University, titled "Dancing Motherhood."
Melissa holds an MFA in Choreography/Dance from UNC-Greensboro and a BA in Biology. Her previous dance faculty appointments include UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte, High Point University and Salem College. She has been a national dance judge for Dance Machine and Boogie Fever since 2015.
South Georgia based artist, Ramiro Santillan, is a ceramicist and oil painter who experiments with his mediums to tilt the ordinary on its head. Drawing references from modernism and pop culture, Santillan’s inspiration comes from asking questions about the everyday things we say, do, or see. With asking questions comes learning. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Valdosta State University where he studied and worked as a ceramic studio technician. Santillan is passionate about education and its ability to foster positive communities. Santillan is currently the pottery studio manager and instructor at the Hudson Pottery Studio at the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts.
Santillan was awarded the Turner Center's seventh annual Art Educator of the Year award in June 2025.
Daisy Taylor is a mixed media artist living in Hahira, Georgia. She teaches all subjects of art at Lowndes High School where she has worked for eight years. She earned her BFA in Art and BFA in Art Education from Valdosta State University, as well as her MA in Art and Design from Kennesaw State University. Daisy enjoys drawing and painting, focusing on expressive color and mark-making throughout her work. For her, art is healing and she believes in play over perfection, with a personal goal to work in her sketchbook daily. When she isn't teaching or making art, she loves to spend time cooking or playing outside with her two favorite dudes (her husband and her son).
Simon Uchida is a self-taught manga artist, writer, and watercolor painter. His work focuses on telling stories of people who fall through the cracks of normalcy and typical representation due to the intersections of LGBT+ identity, disability, and multicultural background. Using technical expertise in perspective, line art, and watercolor, he creates fun and immersive scenes that bring characters and worlds to life straight from his imagination. He is heavily influenced by Japanese manga and its emotive stylization, dynamic use of scene perspective, and use of value contrast.
He is continuously working on his manga, Best Savored After Dark, which is updated every 3 months and can be read for free online on Comic Fury. Secondary to manga, he is studying to become a professional watercolor landscape painter through painting 100 landscapes in a year. He teaches drawing classes with the Turner Center for the Arts and tutors independent students with a focus on accessibility and simplification, hoping to give others the tools to bring their own ideas to life. In 2024 he started an art business, Rnbwtrout Studios, and has sold prints and paintings at over 30 conventions and art markets across Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, and has had his work published in Tapling Zines in 2026.
Elizabeth is a recent VSU graduate with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art. She works with many different mediums including ceramics, graphic design, and oil painting. Her current work is influenced by family experiences and memories. Being in school has opened her eyes to the possibilities of where art can take you. She uses this time to discover and experiment with the direction she wants to take her art, practice technical aspects of art and be introduced to new forms of making. In the future she aims to work in graphic design and have free time to continue working on all other forms of fine art and craft.
Workshop Instructors
Dana Arthur has been an artist at heart since childhood. She has been creating and designing Jewelry for over 30 years. She began her training in the arts at Harlem School of the Arts, and Aaron Davis Hall at City College of New York. She later studied jewelry design mastering a wide range of techniques. She is passionate about her craft. Her pieces have been worn by celebrities and featured in a national fashion magazine. Dana has taught several jewelry workshops, and loves sharing the knowledge she has gained over the years. Her goal is to teach her students the art of designing and creating beaded jewelry.
Dana is also the current Chair of the Regional Arts Community (RAC) at Turner Center, and she loves being involved in all things creative at Turner Center for the Arts.
A native South Carolinian, Fran Gardner lives and works in Heath Springs. She earned her BFA from Columbia College (1982) and later, her MFA from Vermont College of Norwich University (1993). She is Professor Emerita of art and art history at the University of South Carolina Lancaster where she taught studio courses and art history for 32 years. It is through these many years of teaching that she developed her methods for working with artists on their studio practice and creativity and gained the expertise for writing critical essays about art, leading retreats, teaching workshops, and judging and curating exhibitions. She has authored two books in her Artists Will Find a Way series.
Gardner works in mixed media collage. She paints and draws with traditional materials, but also with the sewing machine, layering her work with rich texture, color and mark-making. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally and published in Fiberarts and Needle Arts magazines and in the books Crafting Personal Shrines, by Carol Owen, The Art of Textiles, by Mary Schoeser and Scanning the Hypnoglyph: Sleep in Modernist and Postmodern Representation, by Nathaniel Wallace. She has been a guest on the podcast, The Art Biz, with Alyson Stanfield.
Gardner has won a variety of awards in competitive exhibits both statewide and nationally. In addition, she has exhibited at numerous art centers and museums across the US. She is a signature member of the National Association of Women Artists in New York and past President of the SC Chapter. A career highlight was the invitation to be a United States National Park Artist-In-Residence at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico.
Steven Heddon has been the owner and creative director of Fusion Creative Marketing for the last 17 years, offering photography and video production services. His videography projects include advertising, promotional, corporate, educational, tourism, and entertainment content. Through his commercial work, Steven expanded into film making. He has produced three documentaries - The Southside Project, about the Southside minority neighborhood in 2022, and two others in 2023 - Below The Line, on homelessness in the Valdosta area, and The Reformation Project, which explores the hardships experienced by those incarcerated and their families, as well as issues within the criminal justice system. He was Key Grip/Key Gaffer for "Three Times a Lady," a proof of concept film that was featured at the 168th film festival in 2023.
In the summer of 2022, Steven was an instructor for The Philanthro Films film camp as part of South Georgia Film Studios. He has mentored multiple Mass Media interns from Lowndes High School, Valdosta State University, and Wiregrass Georgia Technical College. Many of his interns have gone on to have successful careers in the film industry. Steven is also screening films for the 2024 South Georgia Film Festival.
