Classes

Ryan Cooper is a lifelong artist and maker who is passionate about helping people combine the emotion of art with the power of technology. He has a BA in education and has years of experience in the classroom teaching students how to explore, imagine, and create with confidence. He believes art should be fun, personal, and hands-on. When he’s not teaching, you might find him enjoying the outdoors with his family or in his home workshop building robots. Ryan loves making cool stuff and looks forward to helping his students learn to make cool stuff too!

With a career spanning five decades, Sandy is one of Sumner County’s preeminent art educators and a revered instructor at Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center. She began teaching in her home state of Pennsylvania in the early 1970s before moving to Hendersonville to work at Hawkins Junior High School. In 1985, she moved to Hendersonville High School, where she remained until her retirement in 2022. From the outset, Sandy never limited her creative activities to her day job. In the mid-1970s, she joined the newly formed Hendersonville Arts Council. She remained with this organization when it moved to Monthaven Mansion in the 1990s, and she continues today working with the hundreds of students enrolled in classes at the Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center. Sandy has sparked the creative imaginations of several generations of students. In the process, she has made Sumner County a more art-minded place. For Sandy, it has always been a labor of love.

“I love teaching and love working in mixed media. I’m blessed with four grown children and a flock of grand and great grandchildren”

Brooke is a Nashville-based artist with a passion for painting and sculpting. She expresses herself through creating surrealist art inspired by nature and self-discovery. She is enthusiastic about teaching art and helping others experience creative learning. Brooke teaches Color and Clay, Expressive Arts Fusion, and Sculpted Expressions. These classes cover everything from acrylic and oil painting to sculpting with clay and recyclable materials. She also works with the MACC’s arts outreach department and its marketing team.

Sadie Collins is a director, actor, writer, stage manager, and graduate student of Randolph College studying Theatre Directing. While pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Theatre at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, she revitalized a student-led Shakespeare Company and was a co-creator of the Chattanooga Film Festival: The Roosties. Throughout her career in the performing arts, she has had the opportunity to work with many wonderful theatre companies including The Chattanooga Theatre Centre, The Robertson County Players, and Obvious Dad. 

A life-long theatre advocate, Collins is interested in directing performances that show the importance of the arts in our everyday lives. 

Megan is an artist and experienced educator with a BFA in Graphic Design from The Art Institute of Atlanta. She has been devoted to empowering kids and women through art for the past 10 years. Her mission is to inspire women to tap into their artistic potential, manage anxiety, and reduce stress by fostering intuition and self-expression. With a rich background in both art and teaching, she loves helping women discover their creativity. Megan teaches collage, mixed media and watercolor classes at Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center.

Robin McDowell graduated from Belmont University with a BA in Art Education.  She received teacher of the year in 2025 at the elementary school she currently teaches at. Robin is an artist that works in a variety of media and continually pursues learning new skills.  Her time as a stay at home mom allowed her to build an Etsy shop focusing on textiles and she currently uses her school breaks to pursue printmaking, painting, digital art and surface pattern design.  

With over a decade of teaching experience, Rebekah Howell is passionate about nurturing the next generation of singing artists.

In addition to operating her own independent voice studio, she has taught as an adjunct professor of voice at Belmont University and as an associate instructor of voice at Indiana University. As a sought after clinician, she has presented master classes at institutions such as UT Knoxville, MTSU, Bob Jones University, the Governor’s School of the Arts. She also regularly offers specialized master class series on topics such as Overcoming Performance Anxiety, From Page to Stage – Steps to Learning a Solo Song, and Storytelling through Song. Rebekah holds degrees in voice performance from Indiana University (MM) and Baylor University (BM). For more information about her private studio, visit www.rebekahhowellstudio.com

Rebekah also maintains an active performance career, spanning multiple genres of music - including opera, musical theatre, and bluegrass; recently, she has performed with the Bell Witch Fall Festival, Franklin Theatrical Fellowship, Hong Kong Disneyland, Opera Memphis, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville Opera, Nashville Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Studio Tenn, and many more. For more information about her performance career, visit www.rebekahhowell.com.

Janice Patrignani is a design professional, visual artist, and art educator who develops custom teaching programs in a variety of media including watercolor, acrylic, silk painting, fiber arts, mosaics, bookmaking, encaustic wax, and clay. Her wearable art features layered Shibori techniques on silk—transparent, translucent, and opaque—dyed and discharged with natural, fiber-reactive, and acid dyes. She often enhances these pieces with needle-felted wool to accentuate pattern and texture.

Her mixed media sculptures incorporate found and forgotten objects, juxtaposing materials and keepsakes to create metaphor-rich works that reflect personal and collective resilience. Creating is a cathartic process for Janice and a lifelong survival skill.

Her current focus, the “Wide Blue Open Series,” explores texture, shadow, and memory using indigo-dyed Shibori and WWII parachute fabric, combined with encaustic wax. Janice has received multiple grants for her work in arts education, sculpture, and community art. She shares her passion for the healing power of art through workshops, public projects, and exhibitions throughout the tristate area.

In 2011, Breanna completed her Bachelors of Fine Arts at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film, where she was a recipient of the full-tuition Commissioner’s Scholarship. For over 15 years, Breanna has worked as a teacher, commissioned artist, graphic designer, professional musician and filmmaker in Nashville, TN. During her time working with adults, high school students and prison inmates, Breanna has designed portfolio development and songwriting courses which focus on the arts as vehicles to communicate the deepest stories of the human experience and to connect us with our hearts, healing, and hope. As a teacher and healing arts facilitator, Breanna’s greatest joy comes from empowering others with the tools of self-expression and facilitating a compassionate atmosphere where people can process and feel, explore and release, transform and grow. To her, making art is a practice in living and a means to open us up to a greater understanding of who we truly are and to the possibilities of what our lives can be.

Fiona was born in Istanbul and raised in New York City. She has a B.A. in Psychology from New York University and an MFA in Writing from The New School. She  is dedicated to helping people reclaim their voice through creativity, compassion, and story. She leads empowering writing and art workshops that nurture resilience and self-discovery. Her approach blends structure with imaginative play, encouraging participants to transform lived experience into meaningful expression. As a long-time teaching artist, she brings creative writing lessons to rehabilitation programs, elementary and middle schools, public libraries, summer programs, after-school spaces, and citywide arts initiatives. Across her work, she believes that creativity is both a refuge and a bridge — a way to connect with others, and rediscover inner capacity for growth, healing, and joy.

Val Adams is an artist and healing arts facilitator. Best known as a master metal sculptor, Val works with found metal objects transforming discarded materials into captivating works of art. For Adams, the act of repurposing old things into something new symbolizes the profound allegory of the resurrection of spirit in humanity. He firmly believes that all that is broken is not lost, and through his art, he channels this belief into each intricate creation. As a retired Air Force officer, Adams found solace and healing in metal sculpting, using it as an artform to surpass the harrowing experiences of warfare. Through his art, Adams aspires to inspire others to embrace their own life experiences, encouraging them to rise above their challenges and transform themselves into champions of their lives rather than victims.

Lisa Jennings’ art is deeply rooted in her love for nature. As a child, she spent many idyllic hours hiking outdoors, hunting for wood, stones and fossils that were later used in art projects. She continues this practice as a mature artist, creating sculptures and mixed-media works from natural materials found near woods and streams in Tennessee, Arkansas and sites out West. Her use of paper in the sculpture-making process has become a defining characteristic of her art. She often covers her sculptural figures in paper and then adds layers of color, giving her work a stone-like appearance. Added elements of wood, stone and twig-like branches embellish the final sculpture. Jennings describes her art as a “reflection of the peace that I maintain in my life from being outdoors. It provides a childlike contentment and a connection to the earth that is forever a calming factor.”

For over 30 years, Gwen has enjoyed sharing stories with groups of all ages at schools, libraries, churches, museums, bookstores, conferences, and festivals throughout the country. Often using music and audience participation, she enlivens stories from around the world as well as original and personal stories.  Much of her work is with students but she also enjoys sharing the joy of stories with adults.   Gwen has recorded a CD of personal stories called, “The Lime Green Truck and Other Stories of Remembrance.”   

 Gwen has taught in both public and private schools, adult literacy programs, and in her own piano studio. These experiences enable her to create and teach meaningful storytelling workshops to a variety of groups. 

Gwen founded the North Forty Storytellers’ Guild.  She is also a member of Tejas Storytelling Association and was honored to have been selected as a touring artist with the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Robin Willis is the MACC’s Healing Arts Coordinator. She also works as the Exhibition and Events Manager and Director of Outreach. Robin has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Clemson University with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a multi-discipline artist with emphasis in writing, mixed media abstract painting, alternative process photography, collage, and book arts and binding. In addition to her art practices, she holds several healing modalities certificates, such as extensive kundalini yoga teacher training and education, Reiki master, systemic family constellation facilitator, and depth psychology-based therapy trainings. As an avid learner, she explores and encourages others in their exploration in art, psyche, and our relationship to the micro and macro worlds within and around us. Influenced by John Muir’s quote, When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe, she fuses art, healing, and organization throughout her work and personal life as a creative-scientist minded person.