Travis Laughlin (Board President / Executive Committee / Governance Committee Chair)

Former Elsewhere Interim Executive Director Travis Laughlin has worked within the intersection of arts and education for over 25 years. As the former Senior Director of Programs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Travis was responsible for the oversight of the Foundation’s various artist support programs and a member of the Foundation’s senior management team. In his previous role as the Art Education Director for the Joan Mitchell Foundation, he served as the visionary and implementer of all Foundation art education initiatives. Prior to his role as Art Education Director, he worked with the Foundation as the Professional Development Program Coordinator creating and implementing comprehensive and equity-focused professional development for the Foundation’s Artist-Teachers. Travis began his career in education as a teacher at an alternative high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Upon moving to New York City, he worked with the Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement House as a Program Coordinator for their after-school pregnancy prevention program. A North Carolina native, Travis earned his BA in Secondary Social Studies Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his MS in Education from Bank Street College.

Cheryl Cullom Stewart (Board Director / Development Committee Chair) has worked in public art administration since 1984. She has placed and promoted public art in central NC as the Public Art Consultant with the Raleigh-Durham International Airport for the renovation of Terminals 1 and 2, the Cemala Foundation, Action Greensboro and currently the Piedmont Triad International Airport and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro‘s Public Art Endowment. She has managed many public art projects in her career working at Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Art for Transit in New York as the manager of the Permanent Art Program for the NYTA, LIRR and Metro-North Railroad, Program Coordinator for the City of Tampa’s Public Art Program and as a Project Coordinator for Miami-Dade County’s Art in Public Places. She received her Master’s Degree in Art History from Florida State University. She is past-president of the Board of Green Hill Center for NC Art and the Weatherspoon Art Museum Association.

Marjorie Loflin (Board Treasurer / Executive Committee / Finance Committee Chair) is a Senior Accountant at Bernard Robinson & Company.

Kerri Mubaarak (Board Director / Executive Committee / Board Secretary)

If you encounter Kerri Mubaarak, it won’t take you long to figure out that her perspective is different. The way she approaches a subject—any subject— whether it’s an artist’s proposed work that she evaluates or a socio-political paradigm addressed in her performances is different. In fact, it’s difference that underlies all her works of theatrical art.

Kerri chose theater as a medium to express what she sees and senses interacting with “people in the periphery” a term she uses to describe those who are often marginalized by race, gender, religion or cultural norms. “The gift of this medium,” she says “is that the raw emotion of human experience can be shared openly and in the safety of an audience.” She considers the craft a practice of both art and healing that pre dates modern theater.

Kerri has a balance of skills earned during her tenure as Director of Caldcleugh Arts Center and as the Operations Manager for Elsewhere—a living museum and residency for visual artists. In 2015, she established Scrapmettle Entertainment Group—a theater development company—from an idea born from the desires of a community whose lives were positively influenced by the subtle healing effects of participating in live theater. Her team of emerging artists, directors and writers now use this platform to create new work, hone their craft or learn another aspects of the industry.

Kerri has written and produced a number of devised performances with her theater community in Greensboro, NC. She is an advocate for the arts, artists and the advancement of expressive art therapies.

Laura Richie (Board Vice President / Executive Committee / Program Committee Co-Chair) is co-founder of The Carrack, a zero-commission community art space in Durham, NC. Ritchie served as Director of The Carrack from 2011-2018. A native of Salisbury, North Carolina, Ritchie studied at UNC-Chapel Hill (BFA), SACI Florence, and at the Institute for Curatorial Practice at Hampshire College. She is pursuing a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Duke University. Through community-engaged projects, Ritchie strives to be a catalyst for collaborative, interdisciplinary work across the arts in the Triangle region of North Carolina.

Kerri Mubaarak (Board Director / Executive Committee / Board Secretary)

If you encounter Kerri Mubaarak, it won’t take you long to figure out that her perspective is different. The way she approaches a subject—any subject— whether it’s an artist’s proposed work that she evaluates or a socio-political paradigm addressed in her performances is different. In fact, it’s difference that underlies all her works of theatrical art.

Kerri chose theater as a medium to express what she sees and senses interacting with “people in the periphery” a term she uses to describe those who are often marginalized by race, gender, religion or cultural norms. “The gift of this medium,” she says “is that the raw emotion of human experience can be shared openly and in the safety of an audience.” She considers the craft a practice of both art and healing that pre-dates modern theater.

Sam Cone is a financial consultant with Pinsker Wealth Management. He earned his JD cum laude from the New York University School of Law in 2008 and his BA in mathematics and philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. Following law school, he was a law clerk to Justice Mark Martin of the NC Supreme Court, after which he practiced in the litigation group of Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, CA. Sam is active in the community and is presently involved with several non-profits devoted to youth health, gender equality, charitable giving within the Jewish community, and other causes. Sam is a certified professional stunt performer, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student, and roller derby

Antoine Williams creates mixed media assemblage installations, paintings and collages, which are an investigation of identity, semiotics and social structures. Heavily influenced by speculative science fiction (specifically social science fiction and cosmic horror), hip hop, plus his rural working class upbringing in Red Springs, North Carolina, Antoine has created his own mythology of hybrid creatures that exist between the boundaries of class and race. Antoine is an Assistant Professor of Art at Guilford College.

During his residency at Elsewhere, Williams created Because They Believe in Unicorns.