About

Kim Lyons
President

Kimberley Lyons, AKA Black Cloud, founding member of Ktaadn Arts, is a lifelong resident of the Katahdin region. Kim learned early in life to truly appreciate the beauty of Mother Nature, which is her biggest inspiration for her artwork. Although she has dabbled in many mediums, acrylic painting is her primary choice.

Kim volunteers as an Art Teacher for grades Pre-K through 12 at the Katahdin Christian Academy in East Millinocket. She resides in Woodville, Maine.

Samantha Cote
Vice President/Director

Samantha is a mixed-media artist who finds herself commonly meandering down various creative avenues since she was young. Samantha studied Arts Administration and Psychology at University of Maine: Farmington and resides in Millinocket, where she works as a Graphic Designer at Designlab. She has found a great deal of inspiration in the surrounding natural world. Her personal creative work ranges from paintings on birch bark to jewelry using wildflowers. 

Growing up during the papermill closures, Samantha has seen and experienced struggles endured by the surrounding communities in their honest attempts to comprehend/heal from the financial and emotional depression caused by those closures. Being a founding member of Ktaadn Arts, Samantha has found herself occupying a niche role in contributing to the revitalization of the economic/emotional vitality in the Katahdin region by way of art and creativity.

Diana Furukawa
Treasurer

Diana Furukawa is a photographer and librarian based in Millinocket. Originally from Seattle, she moved to Maine to study fine arts with an emphasis on printmaking and darkroom photography. She has lived in Millinocket since 2018 where she does community outreach work at the Millinocket Memorial Library. 

From personal experience, Diana knows how living a creative life can help you learn to see– to look, look again, and ultimately pay attention (which is close to her definition of love). But she says she’s involved in Ktaadn Arts because she believes in the power of a creative community to connect us to the place we live in and to each other, in all of our beauty and complexity. 

Sara (Trafton) Young
Board Member

Sara has 20 years of executive leadership and development experience in the nonprofit sector. She currently works as the Grants Manager for Four Directions Development Corporation, a Native American Community Development Financial Institution located in Orono.

Sara is extremely proud of her heritage and the history of her ancestors being among the earliest settlers of the coast of Maine. Born and raised in Boothbay Harbor, a town founded by her ancestors, Sara relocated to East Millinocket in 2020 where she currently resides.

Peter Jamieson
Board Member

Peter Jamieson is a Millinocket native who discovered a passion for the performing arts as a child. He grew up on the stage; singing, drumming, acting, dancing, performing acrobatic routines, juggling, and riding unicycles. After spending his undergraduate years in California studying at Musicians Institute, he returned home to his roots, where he met his wife, Stephanie. They live in Millinocket with their two children, Karagh and Andrew, their two dogs, Tuck and Iko, and their cat, Jerry Garcia.

Peter is now very involved with the Millinocket community and the Katahdin region and serves on numerous boards. He is currently the Katahdin Region Economic Development Director with Katahdin Region Development Board and EMDC. Peter believes that the arts are vital and will be a critical piece to the puzzle as we work to revitalize and grow the Katahdin region. On the weekends, you can find a tie-dye-clad Peter Jamieson on the road gigging, playing drums for the Brad Hutchinson Project.

Ken Gross
Secretary

Ken Gross currently works as a registered Maine Guide at a Millinocket-based resort, but he has spent the previous 30-plus years working as a professional cartographer. Ken’s primary focus in that field was map design and editorial policy, with an eye towards visual story-telling through maps. In addition, Ken is an accomplished artist working with printmaking, drawing, and watercolor.

Ken brings his experience with several other arts organizations and a strong interest in building creative communities to Ktaadn Arts. He has a masters degree in Community Planning and Development from University of Southern Maine and a bachelors degree in History from Kent State University.

Barbara Riddle
Board Member

A native New Yorker, Barbara received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University after attending Reed College in Oregon. She has worked as a teacher and medical editor. Currently, she divides her time between Maine and Florida, teaching ESOL and working as a career counselor to immigrants. Her coming-of-age debut novel, “The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke,” is available from the Millinocket library. She’s working on a second novel, and a graphic memoir about her girlhood in Greenwich Village. You can see her walking the Michaud Trail when she’s not happily renovating her Victorian fixer-upper across from the newly-renovated library in Millinocket, Maine.

On a personal level, she loves smashing stereotypes and creating empathy in her work. She has a feisty Tuxedo cat named Lakey, and her daughter Laramie is an emerging screenwriter/director of indie films in Los Angeles. For more, see http://www.barbarariddle.com

Bruce Fleming
Board Member

Bruce A. Fleming grew up in the Katahdin Region of Maine without cable television and before the time of the internet. Needing a way to entertain himself, Bruce became a fan of continuing television dramas and sites the crazy, over-the-top stories of Dallas and Melrose Place as his faves. The Milliken Mills series is written in that vain. 

Bruce offers rich creative insight to the board and represents an important artistic sector, being the literary arts.