The Team
Board of Directors
Steve Toll
Stephen Toll joined the SVVA/SVOS board in 2019 as Executive Director following the retirement of Mel Thomsen. Steve is a landscape and nature photographer who has exhibited with SVOS since 2014 after a career as a tech company executive and management consultant. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Linda Toll
Linda Toll has her own firm providing general accounting services to small and medium-sized organizations. She received her MBA from San Jose State University in 1980 with a concentration in finance and accounting. A former Controller for an electronics firm, she was a Founding Member of the Montclaire Educational Foundation and was active on local school PTA boards. Linda joined the Silicon Valley Visual Arts, Inc. Advisory Council in May 2015.
Her interests include reading, outdoor activity, and needlework. Linda and her husband, a landscape and nature photographer, enjoy travel. She enjoys visiting and working with the many artists in the area.
Barbara Pease, Secretary
Barbara Pease
I was born in Seattle Washington in 1951, and moved to Colorado in 1969. I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1977. I’m married with grown children and wonderful grand kids.
After graduating in jewelry design, a cramped apartment and a stint in jewelry manufacturing changed my mind about working in metal, so I’ve worked in other media for most of my career. I’ve painted in watercolor since 1992. In 2008 I had a chance encounter with silk painting and was immediately drawn to the vibrancy of that medium, and have largely been working with silk in the last few years.
In my nursing career, I worked in oncology from 1990 to 2012. I worked in Hospice from 2012 until 2017. I currently work part time in a small infusion clinic specializing in women with immunologically threatened pregnancies.
Ida Gamban
Ida Gamban has been honored with international and regional photography awards for fine art landscape photography. You can see her work at luminousgalleries.com and idagambanphotography.com
Nancy Woods
Nancy Woods, after graduating from The California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland California in 1972, started a Graphics and Sign company in 1978 specializing in small business brand identity through logo design, collateral materials and complete signage.
Nancy served on the Civil Grand Jury in San Mateo County in 1993 for the term of one year heading up the group that inspected the Board of Education and the Board of Human Resources.
In the recent past 8 years, Nancy had an artist studio at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame California. She did all the signage for the Museum and studios inside and out and did all the signage for incoming shows on an ongoing basis. Since its closing in 2020, she now works on her art at her “in-home”
She joined the Silicon Valley Visual Arts group board in 2014 and works in various capacities. Her interests here include educating emerging artists to the various opportunities provided by the Silicon Valley Open Studios organization for them to sell their works and grow as professional artists. She is also working to help “grow” the SVVA’s audience of Art Lovers and introduce more artists to the benefits that SVVA offers to them through the Open Studios programs.
Roberta Kiphuth
Roberta is President and co-founder of Detati Digital Marketing and Pacific Light Studios. As an agency owner, Roberta has spent the majority of her career working as a branding, design, content and marketing consultant for businesses in the high tech, medical device, solar, start-up and non-profit industries.
She has been a presenter at the Women’s Networking Alliance Marketing Summit, the Small Business Digital Marketing Summit and for the National Association of Women Business Owners and has served on the Sunnyvale Arts Commission, the boards for California Music Center and Sunnyvale Community Services.
She has a B.A in Art, a J.D from Santa Clara School of Law and Certificate for Management Development of Entrepreneurs from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Roberta started Detati Art in 2019 to give adults an opportunity to learn and create art in a safe, supportive environment. Detati Art offers weekend & remote classes as well as private instruction in drawing, painting, mixed media and photography.
Nada Marriott
I create beauty for the soul.
From my earliest days in Beograd, the former Yugoslavia, I understood that stopping to smell the proverbial rose was good for my soul. I believe beauty manifests the hope that is in all of us. That if the beauty we see outside each day can be a part of our inside world, life will be infinitely better.
Creating beauty for the soul involves crafting permanent works of art for others to appreciate and enjoy. Painting abstract art allows me to express myself through my sense of style and color. Abstract art is freeing, it allows the viewer to see that which expresses who they are.
The hallmark of my portrait photography is my ability to capture people’s essence, their sweetness, and joy. And I am a musician too, who is creatively inspired by playing the piano and singing with The Choral Project I also enjoy crocheting, or baking my “famously” delectable chocolate chip cookies.
Carol Woodard
Carol Woodard, ASID is president and award-winning principal designer for Woodard & Associates, Inc., an Interior Design firm in Saratoga, CA. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the International Association of Color Consultants of North America (IACC-NA) where she did extensive study on the hard science of color.
During Covid, she found the time to pursue, what was previously a hobby, her passion for art. Throughout the years, she has played with all types of art, but now discovered Alcohol Ink as her media. It allows her to be truly expressive with her art. It is abstract, colorful and often three dimensional. It is also complex, emotional and interesting. Like a well designed house, there is always something new to see and enjoy.
Malti Lee
Malti B Lee is a British Indian artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing on her experiences living and working across Europe, Asia and America, Malti explores the fusion and contrast of nature in urban landscapes through her acrylic paintings. Her artwork has been exhibited widely across the San Francisco Bay Area and is collected internationally.
With a degree in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate from University College London, Malti has always sought to understand the wonder of the complex world around her. She has pushed the limits of this through both her academic and creative pursuits. Following academia, Malti transitioned into management consulting advising companies globally. In 2022, Malti established herself as a full-time artist, marrying her passion for business with the arts.