YORK - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Enrollment Associate
Job Titles:
- Head of School
- Member of the Officers Team
Gerard Martin loves art, lacrosse, and boats. Following a boat ride with the dolphins along the north shore of Monterey Bay on a sunny September Saturday, we sat down together for coffee and conversation. With summer Santa Cruzans cavorting on the beach in front of us, he told me about his life's journey that brought him to York School, first as a sabbatical replacement in 2004, then as a regular faculty member in 2006.
The son of a ship's surgeon, Gerard has spent most of his life on the Central Coast. He grew up in Pebble Beach, messing about in the family sailboat and any other boat he could get his hands on. He attended Forest Grove Elementary School then Robert Louis Stevenson School where he developed his natural skills as an artist and discovered his love for lacrosse. His post-secondary education was at the University of the Pacific in Stockton and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he earned a B.A. in Studio Art and a B.F.A. in Illustration respectively. Youthful wanderlust took him to Reno but he soon realized the error of his ways and returned to the Pacific Coast and the Monterey Peninsula.
Prior to his tenure at York, Gerard taught at Stevenson School, Monterey Peninsula College, the Carmel Art Foundation, and the Carmel Adult School. Throughout his career he has continued as a freelance artist and illustrator and has received considerable acclaim within the art community as a plein air painter.
In the York School art studios, Gerard has inspired dozens of students to overcome their "I am not an artist" mindset and create wonderful pieces of which they can be proud. He has set before them a wide range of materials-paint, pencil, paper, canvas, clay, wood, and wire-and helped them to express themselves in ways they never thought possible.
As an award-winning photographer, Ian Martin has many lenses to choose from when trying to capture a scene. As a photojournalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, he also appreciates the relevance of history to the current moment. Fittingly, Ian's connections to and perspectives on York are long and deep: he is a York alumnus, parent of an alumnus, and, as of 2019, photography teacher.
As a high school sophomore, Ian's interest in photography was sparked while photographing shooting stills for the York yearbook with his mother's Nikon FG under the leadership of Robert Pucci and arts mentors Susan Manchester and Jan Wagstaff. After graduating from York in 1990, Ian matriculated to UC Davis, earning his B.A. in English English. While in college, Ian interned at The Virginian-Pilot, Virginia's largest newspaper by circulation, and upon graduation he joined the staff as a photographer for three years. Currently, Ian continues cultivating his craft as a wedding photojournalist and portrait photographer. [Something like:] He maintains a black and white darkroom for his personal work. Currently, he's working on a non-traditional landscape series.
Ian has fond memories of his formative years at York, recalling in surprising detail various teachers' hobbies and cars (back then Mrs. Trachsel drove a Chevy). Studying All Quiet on the Western Front in Mrs. Aronowitz's class instilled in Ian a lifelong love of world history which carries through to this day. In fact, after his tenure at The Virginian-Pilot, Ian was awarded a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography, spending over 3 months in South Africa and ultimately self-publishing a book of his work titled Invisible People: Poor and White in the New South Africa. Ian's current "passion project" involves digging up primary source material about architect Charles Sumner Greene and the World War I memorial Greene designed for Carmel. Ask Mr. Martin about Carmel-by-the-Sea during the First World War Carmel-by-the-Sea and watch his eyes light up.
Generous, enthusiastic and multi-talented, Ian appreciates living on the Peninsula with his wife and daughters and has given back to his community in many ways, including having served for 2 years on Carmel-by-the-Sea's Planning Commission. Photography, though, is his first love. Having guest lectured and mentored for many years in the United States and South Africa, he relishes the opportunity to develop a more extensive curriculum for York students. Registering that photography is subjective and projects each year will evolve based on student questions and interests, Ian knows there will be some mainstays: the value of understanding the behavior of light, using the entire full frame to make compositions and thoughtfully challenging outdated conventions.
Job Titles:
- Director of Teaching and Learning
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- Secretary
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- Vice Chair of the Board
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Member of the Officers Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- Treasurer
Spencer is a educator, composer, playwright, director, and producer. As a performing arts director and educator, Spencer just came from Boston, MA where he was the Director of Arts at Fessenden School, an all boy's independent PK-9 school. There he directed four musicals. Before that he taught at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, CA. At Pinewood he directed and produced An Evening with Stuart Brayson (US Premiere), Shrek, the musical, Whisper House (high school premiere), Snoopy!!!, Les Miserables and many others. He co-wrote and produced a developmental reading of his musical, For Tonight, at the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival; a hit that sold out and extended in a concert version at the same festival. It was also featured at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals Musicals in January 2015, and TheatreFest '15 on the Isle of Man, UK in October 2015. "One Step (Don't Forget Me)", was a Top 12 finalist in the 'Drewe & Stiles Best Song Award' and was performed in the West End, at the Garrick Theatre in May 2015. For Tonight was also a recent finalist in the New Horizons Music Festival. For Tonight will have its professional world premiere at Queensbury Theatre in February 2019. He is a Graduate of Boston University, MM: Music Education and Brigham Young University, BM: Music Education. Member of: Dramatist Guild, ASCAP, National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), Mercury Musicals Development (MMD) and Musical Theatre Network (MTN).
Job Titles:
- School's Director of Performing Arts Heads to London 's West End to See His Own Play on Stage