Arts & Culture Connectors
Meet the Connectors
Building arts and culture communities across South Jersey
Raymond Tyler
Atlantic County
Raymond Tyler is SJCA's Arts & Culture Connector for Atlantic County. He is an artist of various mediums and disciplines; an award-winning visual artist, poet, DJ, and radio personality. He grew up in South Jersey where he continues to study, share, and teach.
Raymond is highly active in the arts in Atlantic County and beyond. He is a member of The Atlantic City Arts Commission, is the Black Art Matters curator at The Arts Garage of Stockton University, and is the producer of the radio show "The Light and The Wayback Machine" on WLFR (91.7 FM) in South Jersey and on WPPM (106.5 FM) in Philadelphia. As an author, Raymond pens the columns "The Light" for Shore Local Magazine and "The Art and Soul of South Jersey" for Atlantic County Magazine.
Connect with Raymond:
Email: AtlanticConnector@sjca.net
Emma Curry
Cape May County
Emma Curry is SJCA's Arts & Culture Connector for Cape May County. Born in Cape May, she traveled across the nation from a young age before ultimately returning home. Creatively, Emma has been a street photographer for 10+ years, is a supporter of artists, and is a promoter of youth arts. Professionally, she serves as the activities director at an assisted living facility. She also teaches night classes to adults working to obtain their high school diplomas. Personally, she enjoys singing karaoke, performing stand-up comedy, listening to live music, thrifting, and being a mother to her son.
Connect with Emma:
Email: CapeMayConnector@sjca.net
Kiyomi Locker
History | South Jersey
Kiyomi Locker is SJCA's Arts & Culture Connector for history across South Jersey. While the county-based Arts & Culture Connectors focus on performing, visual, and folk arts within their respective counties, Kiyomi works to broadly connect with South Jersey's history sector. She also plays a pivotal role in assisting the organization to pursue various DEIA initiatives.
Kiyomi is a multiracial, cisgender woman and is a historian in Central & South Jersey. She holds a B.A. in History from Georgian Court University, as well as an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She is passionate about the ideals of DEIA and advocating for small historical organizations.
Connect with Kiyomi:
Email: SJHistoryConnector@sjca.net
Andrea Sauchelli
Ocean County
Andrea Sauchelli is SJCA's Arts & Culture Connector for Ocean County. Based in Manahawkin, she is a full-time artist — an abstract landscape painter whose work plays heavily with nature’s movement, contrasting lines, and organic forms. Her work is featured as part of permanent collections throughout South Jersey, as part of AtlantiCare’s Healing Arts Program. She has exhibited in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia.
Andrea is also an art instructor at Pine Shores Art Association where she leads Plein Air in Pine Air — a free plein air artists gathering. She is represented at Refind Gallery in Bay Head and Solace Studio & Gallery in Surf City. She is also a Signature Artist of STROBE (ArtC’s South Jersey Artists Collective) and a Signature Artist at the Noyes Museum of Art in Atlantic City. Andrea holds a BFA from the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.
She is excited to act as an advocate for the arts in South Jersey because it provides her with a role to play in strengthening and advancing the arts and creativity throughout the region.
Connect with Andrea:
Email: OceanConnector@sjca.net
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Curious about SJCA's other programs?
For more information:
Julie Hain, Executive Director
Email: jhain@sjca.net
Phone: (609) 833-7380
More about the Connectors Program
Understanding the mission of SJCA's Arts & Culture Connectors
The South Jersey Cultural Alliance (SJCA) supports eight counties' worth of artists, organizations, cultural groups, and other cultural assets. With such a wide region to serve, it can be difficult for SJCA's small, nonprofit staff to deeply understand the strengths, challenges, and interests of each individual county. Additionally, South Jersey's cultural organizations and communities are hungry for local leadership to specifically represent them.
The SJCA Arts & Culture Connectors Program was created to appoint a set of individuals to serve as conduits between SJCA and the counties it serves. In so doing, the Program helps empower and develop local leadership in these communities. Guided by the feedback and locals-only insight of the Connectors, SJCA is able to convene more relevant cultural communities of practice and more effectively advance the interests of arts & culture organizations, artists, and cultural assets throughout South Jersey.
The Program awards each local artist/cultural professional serving as a Connector with a paid, 1-year field appointment for the South Jersey county where they reside and/or primarily practice/work. They also receive professional development to build leadership and community-building skills, and receive seed funding for a community-based arts and culture initiative in their local county.
Being a Connector for SJCA means being a researcher, technical resource, and cultural community leader. This includes activities like:
- Engaging with known cultural assets and seeking out new & diverse additions
- Facilitating local convenings, in order to develop a two-way communication network with the field
- Reporting relevant findings from the field to SJCA
- Providing technical assistance for grants and programs to other local artists and cultural professionals
- Ensuring wide and equitable distribution of information throughout their respective county (or counties)
