CASTANO DESIGN ASSOCIATES / ArtsGloucesterJo-Ann Castano is a sculptor, arts educator, community arts activist and organizer. She received her BA at Goddard College and also lived and worked in Pietrasanta, Italy at the marble studio of Sem Ghelardini and the Marianni Foundaria. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her more recent work has been in polarized kinetic light sculpture having exhibited at the Science Museum in NYC and gallery representation, Carmel, CA. She is a founder, past president/acting director of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (seARTS) funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) John and Abigail Adams fund for economic development & the creative economy; Gloucester, MA. Also helped establish City of Gloucester Committee for the Arts. She founded & ran an art center in Salem’s Old Town Hall (1977-1983), founded arts community cultural development & service organizations in Gloucester, Salem, Newburyport & Brockton MA. She initiated the MCC-LCC, Salem Cultural Council during that period. She has lectured on the arts & marble carving at Yale in conjunction w/ teachers symposium - Exhibition I, Claudia : Women in Ancient Rome & on teaching technology at MIT, We Wired the Classroom: Now What?. Jo-Ann is also a web designer with a focus on artists and arts related web sites. She taught polarized light sculpture, web programming and design for eleven years at the Women in Technology (WIT) summer program of the Vermont Technical College. Ms. Castano, acting as president and executive director, developed and managed a state funded artist residency and professional development program (Community Development Through the Arts) raising over 1M dollars, employing and training over eighty artists and services for over 300 artists. She has experience in grantsmanship, board development with fiduciary and governance leadership.