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Executive Director
About Nila Griffis Lampman
Nila Lampman, Executive Director of The Ashford Hollow Foundation finds her passion in connecting people to the art, programs and history that can be found both at Griffis Sculpture Park and The Essex Arts Center. One of Nila’s main goals is to pay homage to the great history that the organization holds while ensuring its sustainability for years to come.
Lampman is ecstatic to still have the opportunity to work with the students at Griffis Sculpture Park giving tours; the enjoyment that the students have in the open fields and interactive sculptures is tangible and connects her to the true mission.
Nila initially served as a dedicated volunteer to The Ashford Hollow Foundation for over 25 years, leading the charge of several fundraising events as well as the creation of marketing and PR materials.
Nila officially joined the Ashford Hollow Foundation as Executive Director in 2010. Nila moved full time into the non-profit sector after a careers in Advertising and Education. She worked in Advertising planning several corporate campaigns and functions. While her love of education came in many forms and took her across the world – including living abroad in South Korea for two years and teaching at Trillium College in Saint Catherines, Ontario for three years.
Nila is passionate about Griffis Sculpture Park and The Essex Arts Center and preserving the legacy they have as well as ensuring strong strategic goals are being met to increase the longevity of the organization. Griffis Sculpture Park is a true jewel in Western New York and Lampman wants to give generations to come the opportunity to come, see, create and enjoy there.
Nila Griffis Lampman at a 2021 sculpture unveiling in Buffalo, NY
Ashford Hollow Foundation- Board of Directors
Kevin Cichocki - Board Chair
A breakthrough, entrepreneurial executive recognized on a national level for establishing and growing a musculoskeletal care management company into a $45M business providing $200M+ in healthcare savings to payers, ACOs and TPAs over 20 years.
Catherine Gillespie, Board Vice Chairperson
Catherine Gillespie feels that the art is meant to be used and handled, therefore she creates very thin pottery pieces that are comfortable and enjoyable to use as well as view. She primarily produces fine hand-thrown stoneware with vibrant colors and themes from nature. Each pot is individually made; no two are exactly the same. She also makes tiles that can compliment her popular custom-made vessel basins. Catherine is a graduate of Tufts University with a BS in occupational therapy. Additionally, she attended Boston Fine Arts Museum School for ceramics and fine arts. She has run Chatham Pottery for more than 30 years.
In 2000, when she moved to Buffalo she was struck with the strong and vibrant arts community in the region. It became her goal to help people who live in the region realize the depth and quality of the arts talents here. She is instrumental in the publishing of the Buffalo Niagara Artist and Gallery Guide which Artists in Buffalo, Inc. produces, and is a primary organizer for the Holiday Open Studios and Galleries. Mayor Byron Brown appointed Catherine chair of the Buffalo Arts Commission in 2010.
Joseph F. Winter, CPA, CFE, CITP, Board Treasurer
Joseph Winter, CPA, CFE, CITP is an Associate Professor of Accounting at Niagara University. He has a BS in Accounting from Daemen College and an MBA from Canisius College. Prior to becoming an accounting academic, Joe has been a CFO in health care, insurance and economic development. He is the Chairman of the Erie County Budget Commission and is on the board of the Health Sciences Charter School, NCCC Accounting Advisory Board and Society of St. Vincent DePaul. He also serves on a number of high-profile committees at Niagara University, has published in a number of national journals and been interviewed on local media and national radio shows regarding highly sensitive tax topics.
Shasti O'Leary Soudant, Board Secretary
Transdisciplinary artist, designer and writer.
In her art practice, she uses a wide range of media and material to create immersive experiences that concern perspective, hidden forces, randomness, iterative systems and transformation, in an attempt to initiate meaningful engagements with the public. Shasti's work may be viewed at her website.
She has travelled extensively, exhibited internationally, and speaks fluent second grade French.
Ryan Arthurs, Board Member
Ryan Arthurs is a visual artist who lives in Buffalo, New York. He received his M.F.A. in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2012 and a B.A. in Studio Art from Carleton College in 2005.
Ryan was selected by The Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2018 Top 100. His series Strata was selected by jurors Lucy Gallun and Melissa Catanese as receiving honorable mention in the International Prize and the Publication Prize categories for the Silver Eye Center for Photography Fellowship 18 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 2020, Ryan launched RIVALRY PROJECTS, a contemporary art project space in the Allentown neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. RIVALRY is founded on Ryan’s competing motivations to have an arts space that can function as both a site of production and exhibition of emerging contemporary art.
Frank LoTempio III, Board Member
Frank LoTempio, III, President of LoTempio P.C Law Group. Mr. LoTempio graduated cum laude from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science where he also received two Management Certificates of Business from the esteemed Simon School of Business. Mr. LoTempio earned his Juris Doctor from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. While in law school, Mr. LoTempio clerked for the United Steelworkers of America Office of General Counsel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is admitted to practice in New York State, the State of Florida and the United States District Court Western District of New York
Kenneth Payne, Board Member
Sculptor Kenneth Patrick Payne was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin. After attending seven different colleges and universities, he received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin. He began teaching at Buffalo State College in 1990 where he has run the sculpture program for the past 25 years. He has lived and worked in many places and has completed large scale sculpture projects in several countries including Hungary, Israel, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and the United States. He recently completed a new sculpture in Zheng Zhou, China. He has shown widely and is represented in many public and private collections. He has lectured widely on his work both here and abroad. He has served on and chaired many national and international conference panels and symposium His work may be viewed at www.kennethpayne.net
Doug Sitler, Board Member
Doug Sitler has been a volunteer at the Griffis Sculpture Park since 2004. He first fell in love with the park while attending the legendary 10,000 Maniacs concert in July 1991. Doug has been a frequent visitor ever since.
Doug is the Director of National Media Relations at the University at Buffalo. Along with his wife Anna, they own a special event production company called SitlerHQ. They have produced several concerts, festivals, artistic events and are the creators of NIGHT LIGHTS. The LED light experience has attracted 63,000 attendees and raised $240,000 for WNY non-profits. ,
Jon Spielman, Board Member
Jon Spielman, President of Spielman Fabrication and Professor of Architecture at University of Buffalo. He is a former past-president of the Ashford Hollow Foundation.
Adam Zyglis, Board Member
Adam Zyglis is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Buffalo News, his
hometown newspaper.
Zyglis graduated Alden High School in 2000 and later began drawing weekly editorial cartoons for The Griffin at Canisius College, where he graduated summa cum laude from the All College Honors Program with a degree in Computer Science. After earning three national collegiate cartooning awards from his work at The Griffin, Zyglis landed an internship in the Graphics Department of The Buffalo News. At just 22 years old, Zyglis became the staff cartoonist for The News in August of 2004, replacing Tom Toles who left for The Washington Post.
Since then his cartoons have become syndicated through Cagle Cartoons and have appeared in magazines, books and newspapers around the world, including The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and MAD magazine. In 2013 he won the Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award, given by the National Press Foundation. His work earned him a National Headliner Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2007, 2011 and 2015. Additionally in 2015 he won the Grambs Aronson Cartooning with a Conscience award and the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartoons. Later that year he was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from Canisius College. In 2016 he was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi award by the Society of Professional Journalists. Over the years, Zyglis has served on the board of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) in various capacities, including his role as President of the Association in 2016.
In his free time he enjoys playing guitar, traveling and spending time with his wife and two young children.