Partners
MADA is a collaboration of over 10 local and regional partners who serve Santa Fe and the Northern New Mexico community through arts, design, culture, education, multimedia, creative entrepreneurship and technology.
Alliance partners have committed to collaborate on significant programming partnerships for greater community impact and most will fully or partially relocate to the Midtown Site once the MADA buildings are renovated.
Our Partners
CENTER Santa Fe
CENTER is a nonprofit that supports socially and environmentally engaged lens-based projects through education, public platforms, and partnerships. Through MADA, CENTER will provide photographic and visual storytelling internships, and training opportunities as well as exhibitions and public events throughout the year.
https://centersantafe.org/Creative Startups
Creative Startups provides support and resources to help creative entrepreneurs and startups thrive. Through MADA, Creative Startups will provide intensive creative entrepreneurship workshops with a focus on creatives of color and low-income creative entrepreneurs, creating 60 new jobs through relocating to Midtown.
https://creativestartups.org/Girls, Inc
Girls, Inc. offers long-lasting mentoring relationships and a pro-girl environment to equip youth to navigate gender, economic, and social barriers and grow up healthy, educated, and independent. Girls Inc. will develop collaborative teen programming with MADA partners, ensuring that teens feel a sense of belonging within the MADA community and develop life skills in arts, design, and culture.
https://girlsinc.org/Little Globe
Little Globe co-creates multidisciplinary arts stories by and about the people who call Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico home. “Connect, Heal, and Thrive through the art of Storytelling.” Working with partners such as the Santa Fe Public Schools, Little Globe will create 22 jobs and 20 annual internships through relocating to MADA.
https://littleglobe.org/MAKE Santa Fe
MAKE Santa Fe is a non-profit community workspace where people can access tools, resources, and workshops to make, repair, invent, or create anything they can dream of. Through MADA, MAKE Santa Fe will be able to significantly expand their facilities including new printmaking and darkroom facilities, a kids makerspace, and will increase internship and class offerings with partners such as Santa Fe Public Schools.
https://makesantafe.org/MASS Design Group
MASS Design Group’s mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. The Indigenous-led Santa Fe office is MADA’s architect. Relocating to MADA will allow for internships and collaborations with UNM, with a focus on new pathways for emerging Indigenous designers to become architects.
https://massdesigngroup.org/Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe Art Institute supports and amplifies dynamic artistic practices that engage complex social issues, inspire individual transformation, and inform collective action. SFAI is the lead organization and MADA partner, working collaboratively to integrate local community artists, creatives and culture-bearers with their residency program.
https://sfai.org/Santa Fe Indigenous Center
Santa Fe Indigenous Center (SFIC) is designed by and for Indigenous Peoples with the mission of supporting, promoting, and enriching their vital, diverse community. SFIC will continue their highly effective food distribution program at MADA and will have more space for classes, gatherings, and cultural convenings for their constituent base - over 8,000 Indigenous Santa Feans.
https://santafeindigenouscenter.org/The University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico and its partnering divisions, the College of Fine Arts, Continuing Education, School of Architecture + Planning, and STEAM NM, serve as the State’s flagship institution of higher learning. UNM will provide continuing education classes and work to provide a more streamlined pathway for Santa Feans to attain a four-year degree.
https://unm.edu/Vital Spaces
Vital Spaces sustains and enhances Santa Fe’s cultural vibrancy by creating affordable spaces for artists working in all media, fostering a collaborative creative community and supporting people, ideas, and art forms that are underrepresented in Santa Fe’s commercial art scene. Through MADA, Vital Spaces will provide permanent working and exhibition space to local artists of color.
https://vitalspaces.org/YouthWorks
YouthWorks! is a cutting-edge, innovative organization offering a continuum of services designed to reconnect “at risk” and disadvantaged youth ages 14-25 with their community through education, employment training, and job placement. YouthWorks will relocate their Santa Fe Youth Corps, environmental restoration, agricultural and land management training, and labor crews to the MADA campus - providing training to over 50 youth and young adults. They will also develop and operate a youth-run social justice café as part of their Culinary Arts Training and Catering social enterprise.
https://santafeyouthworks.org/
Little Globe film workshop at the Midtown Block Party, Santa Fe Indigenous Center’s Native Earth Day, MAKE Santa Fe, Round Dance at the June 2024 event, Presente by Little Globe
Development Team
We have a stellar team helping to fundraise, design, estimate, finance, and provide development expertise!
Jamie Blosser, Midtown Arts and Design Alliance Director/CEO
Jamie has worked to creatively address equity in the arts and built environment as an architect, arts administrator, and now as a community developer. She is the leading force behind the Midtown Arts and Design Alliance (MADA), beginning with her tenure as Executive Director of the Santa Fe Art Institute from 2015-2024. Jamie was a practicing architect for over 20 years and a real estate developer as Enterprise Rose Fellow at the Ohkay Owingeh Housing Authority. She has served as 2014 Chair of the AIA Housing and Community Development Network; United Nations delegate at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador; and Co-Founder of the Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative. Jamie was a 2015 Harvard Loeb Fellow and received her M. Arch from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ray Landy, Santa Fe Art Institute Board of Trustees, Chair, Midtown Committee
Ray worked at the architecture firm DMJM for 33 years, serving as it’s President and CEO for ten years and subsequently as President of AECOM Architecture until his retirement. His relocation to New Mexico after retirement to pursue art, farming and design eventually led him to his interest in SFAI’s values, it’s mission of thematic residency programs, a commitment to maintaining and preserving the Ricardo Legoretta-designed campus as well as supporting SFAI’s key role in the incubation and implementation of Midtown Santa Fe. Ray received his Bachelor’s of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin and after serving for three years in the Peace Corps in Tunisia and Morocco, he pursued and received his Master’s in Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA.
Matt Wexler, Grow America, Managing Director of Social Infrastructure
Matt began at Grow America, formerly NDC, in 2002 and works primarily with communities to structure and secure financing for community development projects. These include real estate transactions ranging in size from $2.0 to $120 million, and a wide range of development projects that are eligible for New Markets, Low-Income Housing and Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. Clients have included large and small cities and a wide variety of nonprofit organizations across the country. Matt oversees the Social Infrastructure division, which undertakes development projects on behalf of nonprofit and municipal clients, and manages a team which oversees the entire development process – design, permitting, financing, construction, and operations. Prior to joining Grow America, Matt served as a Senior Program Officer for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation where he created the NFL Grassroots Program, which rebuilds community athletic fields and promotes youth development. The program continues today with more than $58 million in total awards since 1998.
Joseph Kunkel, MASS Design Group, Principal and Director of Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab
A citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Joseph Kunkel is a community designer and educator, focused on sustainable development practices for Indigenous communities. Joseph’s work on exemplary Indian housing projects led to being awarded an Obama Fellowship in 2019. In 2018, he received a Rauschenberg SEED grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and a 2019 Creative Capital Award for his work on the Northern Cheyenne Healing Trail. Joseph is a Fellow of the Civil Society Fellowship, a partnership of ADL and The Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He was recently named a 2022 Rubinger Community Fellow by the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC). He is a past recipient of the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship. Joseph holds a Master of Architecture & Urban Design from the University of Maryland.
Emilie De Angelis, Serafina Consulting, Principal
For more than 25 years, Emilie has helped nonprofits in the arts, culture, and education fields find and connect with donors to achieve transformative ambitions. Her experience includes managing and raising $20+ million for Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre expansion; managing top level donor gifts for the $400 million Modern Wing expansion at the Art Institute of Chicago, and consulting with dozens of organizations across the US on capital campaigns, feasibility studies, major gifts initiatives, prospect research, board development, and more. A fourth-generation New Mexican, Emilie earned a Bachelor's in art history at Saint Mary’s College and has taught workshops at Metropolitan Library Services (Chicago), the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (Albuquerque), and the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Emilie served as chair of the City of Albuquerque Arts Board that oversees its public art program and currently serves as Board Chair at Escuela del Sol Montessori and Harwood Art Center.
Advisory Council
The MADA Advisory Council provides support and expertise on a volunteer basis. Thank you for all you do, Ana Marie Argilagos, John Cary, Liz Glassman, Scott Kratz, Paisley Mason, Dee Ann McIntyre, Andrew Rudnick, Jill Cooper Udall, and Christopher Webster.
Board
The Midtown Arts and Design Alliance LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Santa Fe Art Institute and reports directly to the SFAI Board of Trustees. Thank you Elizabeth Burden, Nicole Feliz Okumu, Ray Landy, Zachary Leonard, Richard Martinez, Jeremy Zilar.
Learn more at https://sfai.org/about/people/