Who We Are

Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Executive Director

Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., an art historian and curator, merges administrative, curatorial and academic practices into her cultural practice of supporting artists and community development. As an advocate for racial inclusion, equity and access, Jeffreen has developed a curatorial and leadership approach that invites community participation, particularly those in historically excluded communities. Her curatorial projects include  SILOS (2016-18), Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman (2018-2020),  AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People (2018), Process (2019) and AFRICOBRA: Nation Time (2019).

Jeffreen also speaks and writes about art history, Black art, and arts activism. She participated in TEDX Jacksonville and spoke about “Arts Activism in Simple Steps” and “Small Great Conversations on Race.” Additionally, Jeffreen has spoken at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Norton Museum of Art; ArtPace; Rollins Museum of Art; and Columbia College among several other arts organizations and institutions.

Her writing can be found in several independent online print art publications as well edited museum publications. Some of her books include Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People, and Etched in Collective History.

She currently serves as an advisory board member for CONDUIT: A Midwestern Black Visual Art Preservation and chair of the Art Events and steering committee member for The Soul of Philanthropy Chicago exhibition. Jeffreen was previously an advisory committee member of Light Switch Dance Theatre and Open Television, respectively.

As the Executive Director of Threewalls, a position she has held since 2015, Jeffreen provides strategic vision for the artistic direction and impact of the organization in Chicago. Under her leadership, Threewalls intentionally develops artistic platforms that encourages connections beyond traditional engagements with art. These engagements help manifest the organization’s vision of art connecting segregated communities, people and experiences together.

Jeffreen earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary, a MA in Art History from Howard University, and a BA from Florida International University in Humanities.

Lastly, Jeffreen’s leadership practice is rooted in her matrilineal connections to her West Indian heritage and love of Blk people.

Photo by Shané K. Gooding.

Sharbreon Plummer, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Co-Director of Programs

Sharbreon Plummer, Ph.D. (she/her) is a researcher and arts practitioner with a heart for expanding how artistic practice is defined, supported, and framed through theory. Her upbringing in southern Louisiana informs her interest and investment in how culture and ancestral memory act as influencers of identity and contemporary artistic production, especially within textile-based practices. For over thirteen years, her praxis has involved shaping resources for communities of creators whose work serves as an act of resistance, self-determination, and collective freedom.

Sharbreon has served as an Alliance of Artist Communities Diversity and Leadership Fellow, YWCA Leadership for Social Change Fellow, and Tate Intensive participant. She has actualized and facilitated work featured in institutions such as Project Row Houses, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Hampshire College, Americans for the Arts, Blaffer Museum and several others.

A few of her creative projects include her internationally distributed zine Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre and Textiles (2022) and curatorial projects such as Stitching Abolition (Chicago, 2022) and Mirrored Migration (New York, 2017). Sharbreon has also been featured as an artist-in-residence at Rogers Art Loft (Las Vegas, NV) and Arquetopia (Oaxaca, MX). She is the founder of AYA Thought Studio and co-founder of Stitch x Stitch, a multidisciplinary convening that examines the intersection of textile-based making, healing and abolitionism across history.

Sharbreon earned a Ph.D. in Arts Administration, Education and Policy from The Ohio State University, a M.A. in Arts Administration from The University of New Orleans, and a B.A. from The University of Houston-Downtown in Fine Arts.

Adia Sykes (she/her/hers)

Co-Director of Programs

Adia Sykes is an arts organizer and curator based in Chicago. Her practice seeks to center philosophies of improvisation, intuition, and care, engaging them as tools through which meaningful relationships between artists and viewers can be cultivated, while leaving space for the vernacular to mingle with constructs of history and theory.

As an administrator advocating for racial equity and sustainable ecosystems for creative practitioners, she has held roles with organizations like the Chicago Artists Coalition, where she started their SPARK Grant— a joint effort with the Joyce Foundation providing unrestricted grants to artists of color, not formally trained artists, and artists with disabilities. At present, Adia is also a Lead Organizer of the Chicago Art Census, a city-wide research project that collects, maps, and visualizes data that illuminates the lived experiences and working conditions of art workers in Chicago.

Her curatorial projects include Locating Memory (Chicago Mayor’s Office, 2018), Project Radio London (Centro Arte Opificio Siri in Terni, Italy, 2018), and The Petty Biennial.2 (Chicago, 2019-2020). She has also realized projects with the Art Institute of Chicago, Sullivan Galleries, Woman Made Gallery, ACRE, Material Exhibitions, Roman Susan Gallery, and Comfort Station.

Adia earned a Masters in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Photo by Leslie Frempong.

Lynna Tyler, MBA, MBE (she/her/hers)

Bookkeeper

Lynna Tyler is President and CEO of Tyler Bookkeeping and Management Services Inc., a consulting firm that provides accounting, bookkeeping, HR and CFO services to a variety of businesses and not for profit organizations.

Lynna worked in banking for over 20 years. She held positions as Accounting Manager and Assistant Vice President of Accounting Operations.  When her position was downsized in 2006, she devoted 100% of her time to developing Tyler Bookkeeping and Management Services Inc. Lynna has worked with CPA firms as an auditor and accounting consultant.

She attended Roosevelt University where she obtained her undergraduate degree and Keller Graduate School of Management where she obtained her MBA.

Lynna is the founder and Executive Director of C&T Afterschool and Tutoring, an afterschool and training program and cofounder of Reinvent Life Treatment Center located in Chicago, Illinois. She also sits on advisory board for Sistah’s House of New Beginnings, located in Chicago, Illinois which serves homeless young women and women re-entering society after imprisonment. Lynna is also a Professional Affiliate member of Illinois CPA Society.

Lynna is the proud mother of two young men and enjoys cooking for her family and when time permits, enjoys reading and journaling.  Lynna continues to improve her efforts in meditating, exercising, and being present in the moment.

Lynna has been working with Threewalls since 2016 and manages our financial policies, payment systems and leads our auditing process with outside auditors.

Renata Cassiano Alvarez (she/her/hers)

Spanish Interpreter and Translator, Collaborator

Renata Cassiano Alvarez is a Mexican-Italian artist and interpreter born in Mexico City and currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas School of Art. Cassiano Alvarez’s artistic practice is based on a constant search for developing an intimate collaborative relationship with material and material language. Influenced by archeology and history, she is interested in the power of the object as survival – objects with a sense of permanence and timelessness, and language as transformation; specially how adopting a different language can affect the physicality of the human body, and how this translates into material. Educated in Mexico, Italy, Denmark and the US, she has had the opportunity to work in different artistic environments, a cross-cultural and multimedia experience which has lead to the belief that an artistic practice is a space in constant evolution and something that exists in motion. This practice extends to the interpreting and translation fields, where she functions as a bridge for non English speakers in different settings. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in public and private collections around the world. She works between her studio in Veracruz, Mexico and Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Renata’s collaborative role with Threewalls is as our Spanish translator and interpreter.

Alice Berry (she/her/hers)

Counselor, Collaborator

Alice Berry, an SAIC alumna (1980), has completed her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology (Counseling Practice) (2014) at Roosevelt University, has LPC licensure, and is currently engaging in this relational art piece as a psychotherapeutic practice. She has a 30-year background in the arts as a fashion, textile and installation designer, entrepreneur and visual artist.

A bit about Alice’s practice: “Seeking to create a “therapeutic moment” benefitting other artists as well as myself, I have decided to concentrate my counseling on working artists and creatives (individually, group or institutionally), looking for ways to connect and sustain a practice that would benefit this misunderstood and underserved population. My training included extended therapy with working creatives, and my experience with the piece TX~ART has shown me the majority of people who sought out that particular therapeutic moment tend to be artists, and/or people open to experience.”

Alice’s collaborative role with Threewalls includes being part of the Wellness Circle, in which she offers counseling sessions to our RaD Lab+Outside the Walls fellows and she has offered sessions during “Wellness Wednesdays” now known as “Culture of Care.”

Jonelle Demby (she/her/hers)

Graphic Designer, Collaborator

Jonelle is a Graphic Designer and photographer based in New York City. Jonelle’s creative approach is to weave innovative storytelling and visual branding through impeccable and purposeful design. Jonelle is a graduate of Howard University. Her recent designs for the AfriCOBRA exhibitions, curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., allowed her the honor to come full circle with the heroes of her Howard University experience. The exhibition logos have been lauded by the original AfriCOBRA artists and from Hayes, who included and displayed Jonelle’s logo design as a mural within the exhibition itself as a nod to the continued presence of emerging Black designers today.

While she has spent years designing for museums, she also continues to pursue photography as passion projects honoring the beauty and forms of all women, and colorful patterns of strength and vulnerability in the Black community. Jonelle is also a major advocate in the global awareness, funding, research, and treatment for keloid skin.

Jonelle’s collaborative role with Threewalls is designing our RaD Lab+Outside the Walls Cohort II publication and building on the organization’s graphic identity created by BirkCreative. Jonelle developed graphics for Take Time for Joy, Response+Relief, and Culture of Care to name a few.

Lee Ann Norman (she/her/hers)

Managing Editor, Collaborator

Lee Ann Norman is a cultural worker and writer whose work highlights her interest in cultivating spaces that allow people to learn about themselves and each other through the arts. She currently services as Director, Leadership and Learning Programs for the League of American Orchestras where she manages the League’s $6.6 million signature re-granting programs. Previous work includes positions with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, ArtPlace America, Creative Capital, EmcArts, Chicago Theological Seminary, and the Chicago Park District’s Arts and Culture division.

Lee Ann’s collaborative role with Threewalls is serving as Managing Editor for our RaD Lab+Outside the Walls publications.

Daviree Velazquez Phillip (she/her/hers)

Organizational Health Consultant, Collaborator

Daviree Velazquez Phillip serves as the Lead Consultant with together+through, a counseling and consulting organization dedicated to centering those at the margins by providing services that are anti-oppressive, collaborative + culturally responsive.

Daviree became an Organizational Health Consultant for Threewalls in October 2020. Daviree provides support to the team through one on one consultation and group facilitation, with the intended goal of providing guidance and care as Threewalls continues to evolve. Daviree’s approach to this work incorporates organizational change management, social justice pedagogy, and restorative practices.

Laticia Thompson, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Business Psychologist Consultant, Collaborator

Dr. Laticia (Tish) Thompson, PhD is the Founder and Chief Business Psychologist of Legacy Blueprint, LLC, a management consulting firm that teaches people how to play respectfully and productively with each other in the workplace sandbox. She is known for driving change in organizations that stick and creating a learning experience that’s fun, thought-provoking and capitalizes on the knowledge in the room.

Dr. Tish holds a Master of Science degree in Management and Organizational Behavior with two concentrations from Benedictine University. She recently completed her PhD in Business Psychology from the Chicago School for Professional Psychology with an emphasis in Consulting. Her dissertation is titled, “Fostering Employee Engagement in Healthcare Settings in VUCA Environments.”

She earned the coveted title of best-selling author for her personal story called, “I Am Not My Hair.” Just the title alone makes you curious. Dr. Tish delivers content in the areas of leadership, change, organizational culture, and self-discovery. She is an alum TEDxNaperville speaker and her talk is entitled, “I Am… Bold, Bald and Beautiful.”

What inspires Dr. Tish professionally is working with organizations across industries that understand the power of getting things done through people and have an appetite for building the best organizational culture possible to make it happen.

She is a mother of four, a five-time marathon finisher and resides in Chicago with her family.

Dr. Tish’s role with Threewalls is to assist with internal operations, streamlining and strengthening our human resources practices.