INTRODUCING our new Director, Lisa Vortman. With 15 years of industry experience and 5 years dedicated to the APA board of directors, Lisa is leveling up her position from Chair to Director with enthusiasm and determination. Early in her career Lisa experienced the myriad of challenges that came with stepping into the world of photography and motion production from portrait and wedding photography. She recognizes the benefits of her time at AAU but feels it was field experience that taught her the most about this industry. Through her time as a photographer and producer Lisa discovered the truth in the struggles to understand “how it works” and what the standards or expectations are. She witnessed how isolating and competitive this career path could be, and how the hustle mentality could lead to burnout. On a quest to help others persevere and thrive, Lisa’s work lives beyond her imagery and throughout her guidance and facilitation of creative community. Lisa prioritizes wellbeing and relationships as well as career development and for this, we are lucky to have her as our new Director!

Represented by Wilde Management.

Paint the Void is an award winning Art initiative created in the wake of COVID-19. A passion project that started as an effort to uplift the community through crowd-funded Murals led to a movement and new appreciation of public art in the Bay. Spanning over multiple cities and now multiple years, with the support from the city of San Francisco, including collaborations with Yerba Buena, Illuminate and many others this project has been a light for so many! We have been awarded by SXSW and featured in a series of broadcasts and articles.After a Retrospective Mural and Photo Exhibition we are now working to archive this project in a Art Book.The Project still lives on and is passionately led by Building 180. paintthevoid.org

The Loom is an East Oakland project led by Highbridge Equity Partners. I was brought in as a partner to develop The Loom Creative, Studios and Community Space. Our mission was to help drive awareness of The Loom's mission while providing a home for creatives to work, connect and grow in. We saw an incredible amount of interest and support from both the creative community and the city during our incubation period of 8 months. We quickly outgrew the artist studio that housed The Loom Creative Community and before further expansion have decided to press pause to evaluate the mission of The Loom at large. We are now currently on pause as the larger initiative is finding its footing and looking for additional funding.

At the start, our focus was to expand Marc's photography business and clientele. He needed an assistant and I filled that position with tasks of promotional marketing, blogging and social media, as well as photography assistance on set. Over time and through the growth of our team I transitioned into the role of producer. Working closely to decide on creative vision, talent and stylist bookings, agency relations, location scouting, scheduling, release forms and negotiations, budgeting, catering and overseeing the success of the shoot. We found it most important that Marc's sets be both creative and professionally orchestrated.

At A Shared Humanity we design experiences and platforms that invite creatives to foster meaningful relationships and community through shared art, stories and experiences. Art & Artifact, an initiative of A Shared Humanity, is a quarterly subscription box service created and curated by artists who inspire with purpose.As the Director of Artist Relations I worked closely with artists during the process of on boarding and curating. I also work closely with the founder and production team to ensure our community and initiatives are inspired and on track with our goals of contributing to a world as it ought to be.

Training the staff at Stanford how to use Photoshop.