Meet the amazing judges for our National 9/11 Veterans Art Competition

Heidi Zuckerman

https://ocma.art

Heidi Zuckerman is the CEO and Director of OCMA/The Orange County Museum of Art and a globally recognized leader in contemporary art. She is host of the podcast Conversations About Art and author of the Conversation with Artists book series. Zuckerman is the former 14 year CEO and Director of the Aspen Art Museum. After re-imagining the museum as a world-class institution, she raised more than $130 Million and built a new, highly-acclaimed museum with Shigeru Ban, the 2014 Pritzker Prize winner for architecture. She has curated more than 200 exhibitions during her career and is the author of numerous books including a widely loved children’s book The Rainbow Hour with artist Amy Adler. From 1999-2005 she was Chair of the Curatorial Department at the UC Berkeley Art Museum. Previously she was a curator at The Jewish Museum in New York. Heidi also served as the Chair of the YPO Art Network. She earned a BA in European History from the University of Pennsylvania and a MA in Art History from Hunter College at CUNY and a Harvard Business School Executive Education Women on Boards certification in 2018.

Hugh Martin

https://www.hugh-martin.com/

Hugh Martin is a veteran of the Iraq War and the author of In Country (BOA Editions 2018) and The Stick Soldiers (BOA Editions 2013). He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. He is currently at work on a collection of essays interrogating how the military-industrial complex shapes discourses of masculinity, remembrance, and veteran identity.

Mimi Stricker 

Mimi Stricker is an artist and visual arts instructor of over 12 years. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Science majoring in human and organizational development and minoring in studio art. She holds her Master of Arts in art education from the University of Cincinnati. 

Having taught students from lower school through high school, she is a recipient of the Brodie Grant for Excellence in Teaching and is a member of the National Art Education Association, Tennessee Art Education Association, and CIVA: Christians In The Visual Arts. “My calling is to help these young men and women see the world through their unique eyes and to have the courage to step forth and create a new and better world; to help grow them into the best versions of themselves--that which God has called them to be.”

As an artist, she specializes in the media of acrylic paint and graphite & ink mark-making--specifically focusing on concepts from real life: people and their everyday objects--capturing the beauty in the raw and ordinary things of life.

Graham Barnhart

http://www.grahambarnhartpoetry.com

Graham Barnhart is a US Army Special Forces veteran and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow. His first poetry collection, The War Makes Everyone Lonely, was awarded the Blackwell Prize from the University of Western Georgia. In addition, more of his poetry received a Pushcart Prize and The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans from The Iowa Review. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

Ellie Scott

www.aspenwords.org

Ellie Scott is a Program Coordinator for Aspen Words, the literary and language arts program of the Aspen Institute. She organizes the annual Roaring Fork Valley Youth Poetry Project and Youth Poetry Slam, and serves as student coordinator for the Aspen Summer Words writers conference. She has taught poetry workshops during youth summer camps and extracurricular “Slam Club” meetups, as well as to adults at the Pitkin County Jail. She has read submissions for The Center for Fiction and served as a juror for the Gold Key Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Prior to joining Aspen Words in 2018, she worked as Events Coordinator for Explore Booksellers in Aspen, CO and from 2012-2013, she owned a small farm-to-table market in downtown Aspen. Ellie graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a double-major in Integrated Physiology and Humanities/Comparative Literature. She received an international certification to Teach English as a Foreign Language, worked as an au pair in Switzerland, and has volunteered on organic farms in Costa Rica, Norway and Switzerland. She works as a freelance editor, and was recently accepted to a divinity program in New York City. She is a passionate traveler, a lifelong reader, and a closeted writer. She enjoys skiing and singing arias into canyon walls.