Westport Arts Council

A project of the Westport Arts Council supported in part by the Helen E. Ellis Trust

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Jury for the Bench-Mark competition - Designing the Village

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	Jurors

	Julia Bernert
	Michael Everett
	Geraldine Millham
	Wendy Nicholas
	William Shattuck
	Rosanne Somerson
	Richard Tongue

Julia Bernert has been living in and practicing architecture around Westport since 1987. Her architectural firm, Clearwater Architects, established with architect John Montano, designs residential, municipal and preservation projects in the South Coast. She is an adjunct faculty member at the Roger Williams University School of Architecture Art and Historic Preservation, coordinates the foundation design studios at RWU, and has directed the Roger Williams Summer Academy in Architecture since 2000. She is currently an elected member of the Westport School Committee. Julia is an avid sailor and bicyclist, frequently enjoying our exceptional South Coast landscape from the unique vantage point of a sailboat or a bicycle seat.

Michael Everett is Professor Emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design. Prior to teaching at RISD, where he served as dean of architecture and design for the last five years of his tenure, he taught at Harvard and MIT. Everett has designed numerous town master plans, served on the Providence Historic District Commission, and founded the Road & Land Institute. Everett has balanced a professional practice in architecture and land-use issues with an ongoing pursuit of the fine arts — creating drawings, sculpture and stencil paintings. His work is now shown at the Virginia Lynch Gallery in Tiverton, RI, and the Happy White Gallery in Barrington, RI, and is included in numerous private and corporate collections.

Geraldine Millham is the Chair of the Westport Historical Commission, the Town board responsible for community-wide historic preservation.She owns and operates a graphic design studio in Westport, working primarily with education, environmental and housing non-profit organizations. Millham taught typography at the College of Visual and Performing Arts/Design Department, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth from 1997 to 2003 and was the senior designer for Communications and Design Mgt. in Providence, RI, until 2002. She designed and wove tapestries on a commission basis for over 25 years, participating in numerous one and two man shows in addition to many group, invitational, and juried shows. Her tapestry work presently hangs in banks, corporations, medical facilities, restaurants, law offices, as well as private residences. She earned her BFA in Design from the University of California at Berkeley.

Wendy Nicholas is the Director of the Northeast Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She is responsible for overseeing the National Trust's activities in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. During her tenure with the Trust, the Northeast Office has been a leader in saving historic places in the Northeast and strengthening preservation organizations by providing training, technical assistance, leadership development and mentoring; and identifying and addressing regional issues, such as the 'invasion' of Main Streets by national chain drug stores; renovating historic neighborhood schools; teardowns; and revitalizing older neighborhoods in the face of high levels of housing vacancy and abandonment. Ms. Nicholas joined the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1994 after serving as Executive Director of the Providence Preservation Society for 13 years. She also has a home in Westport.

William Shattuck is a painter and illustrator who lives in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. His work primarily focuses on the landscape of southeastern Massachusetts, and in particular, the marshland and flooded riverscapes where he lives. He also works in another vein of more narrative subjects, completely separate from his landscape work. Shattuck’s work is in corporate, institutional and private collections including the Boston Stock Exchange, Hale and Dorr in Boston, the Print and Drawing Collection of the Boston Public Library-- Wiggins Gallery, and the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Ma. Mr. Shattuck also taught at The College of Visual and Performing Arts at The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Campus until 1997. In 1993 he collaborated with writer Deborah Kovacs on the children's book, Moonlight On The River, a book about his two sons.

Rosanne Somerson is Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of Furniture Design at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is also an alumna, receiving her BFA from RISD in Industrial Design in 1976. Simultaneously she has run Somerson Furniture Studio since 1978, where she designs and makes furniture and is also a principle in DEZCO furniture design llc, where she and her colleagues design furniture for production. Somerson’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally in major museums such as the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Louvre in Paris and others. Her work is included in private, corporate and museum collections such as the National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.. She has served on many panels and juries, and also lives in Westport.

Richard Tongue is the representative of the Westport Board of Selectmen (BOS) for the Bench-Mark design competition. While serving on the BOS he has been a member of many committees, including the Recreation Committee, Cable Advisory Committee, Public Safety Complex Building Committee, School Building Committee, and the Bristol County Advisory Board. He is the Project Manager for the Public Safety Building Committee. Previously, he served a three-year term on the Westport School Committee. Tongue has always been actively involved in community volunteering. He coached little league baseball for six years, soccer for three years, serving on the board of directors for the soccer league, coached basketball for seven years and was a volunteer referee for basketball for a few years. He was a cost estimator in the commercial electrical industry for thirty-five years.

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This page was last updated on 11 November 2005