About JAF . Board
Cathi Bates Perry . President
Cathi is a great-grandniece of Nellie Mae Rowe and a cherished friend of Judith Alexander’s.
She grew up in a close-knit family that enjoyed weekly visits with Great Aunt Nellie. Memories of those times include being instructed on how to draw a beautiful signature. Cathi and her sister Cheryl recall their efforts were never as beautiful as Aunt Nellie’s. According to Aunt Nellie.
After Aunt Nellie’s death, Cathi was a regular at Judith Alexander’s weekend salons that included many friends and artists, among them chef, teacher and author Edna Lewis and Aunt Nellie’s favorite wrestler Thunderbolt Patterson.
Having worked at IBM for 34 years, she is now employed by Home Depot. At every opportunity, Cathi grabs her suitcase and travels the world — domestically and internationally. She has enjoyed exploring the souks in Morocco, riding camels in Egypt, zip-lining in Costa Rica with her sister, snorkeling in the Caribbean with her nephew, Princeton, and attending the European premier of the documentary film about her Aunt Nellie, This World Is Not My Own, in Stockholm. At home in Smyrna GA, she designs and creates beaded jewelry using treasures found on her travels.
Judith Alexander Augustine . Director
Judith Alexander’s first cousin-once-removed is a native of Atlanta and grew up in a state of confusion, having been given a name by her parents, Hermi and Cecil, that was already in use — to huge effect — by her beloved and awe-inspiring cousin.
While a Journalism student at Boston University in 1971, she met, photographed, and recorded Nellie Mae Rowe for a photo essay project.
Judith lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years. Post-graduate studies at the California College of the Arts in Oakland CA led to a career in graphic design and art direction with publications including The Berkeley Monthly, San Francisco Magazine and The San Francisco Chronicle, as well as numerous freelance design projects.
In 1983, she returned to Atlanta, married Ed, and raised a son, Jed, staying active in a number of volunteer positions in Jed’s schools and elsewhere, teaching at Literacy Action Atlanta, and directing, with Ed, the Atlanta chapter of Children’s Express News Agency. Judith and Ed now live practically next door to Jed, his wife, and two precious grandchildren. She has been at the helm of JAF since 2010.
Rachael Millkey . Treasurer
Born and raised in Georgia, Rachael is the third generation of the Alexander family architects, artists and designers.
She founded Rae Millkey Interior Design after earning her master’s degree in Interior Design at The Pratt Institute in NYC and undergraduate degrees in Fine Art and Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon.
One of her earliest memories is watching scenes from the film Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes at the Alexander Gallery— an experience that imprinted on her in ways she’s yet to entirely unpack.
Barbara Archer
Judith Alexander was mentor and dear friend to Barbara Archer. Owner and director of Barbara Archer Gallery, since 1995, Archer’s clients include prestigious private and corporate collectors as well as major museums.
Beginning in 1985, Archer documented the work of self-taught artists in the American South, research which resulted in the first comprehensive folk art exhibition organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Outside the Mainstream: Folk Art in Our Time, in 1988.
A member of various advisory boards and committees supporting the arts, Archer received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, and pursued graduate studies at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. She has lectured widely and has served as faculty member of the Atlanta College of Art; Mercer University, Atlanta; Belmont University, Nashville, TN and the High Museum Adult Education program.
Archer is a former practicing ceramic artist recently returned to her craft.
Fred DuBose
Texas-born Fred DuBose (now a New Yorker) served in the Peace Corps in Polynesia, married back in the States and moved to Australia, where fate led him into book publishing via Reader’s Digest General Books. During his seven years in Atlanta, a chance meeting with Judith Alexander led to assisting Judith at the Alexander Gallery — an adventure he says he wouldn’t trade for the world.
He took early retirement in 2002 from Reader’s Digest, but still writes or edits reference books of all types. He has two Australian-American daughters and three grandchildren.
Though he has no degree in art history, DuBose’s love of art is what drove him to learn all he could about art. His passion, Outsider Art, where people wanted to draw or were driven to create without formal training, was nurtured by his friendship with Judith Alexander which continued long after he worked at her gallery.
Cheryl Mashack
Cheryl Mashack is an experienced professional in the field of radiology. Driven by her passion for caring for and serving others, she has accumulated seventeen years in this field, seven of which have been solely dedicated to pediatric radiology. She pursued and achieved a degree in higher academia from Herbert H. Lehman College in Bronx, New York.
Beyond the world of medicine, her interest lies in many arenas. One of her greatest passions is poetry in which she loves to express herself through the aspect of Spoken Word, as she writes and directs skits with her poetic license.
The world of creating and experiencing different genres of art comes from her extensive travels locally and abroad. Textile art and quilting are at the top of her list as she hails from a long line of familial quilters. Quilting is one of her favorite pastimes as well as cooking, and these two creative arts allow her to connect with her ancestral teachings to follow and expand the path they have carved.
Cheryl is a daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, friend, and great-grandniece of Nellie Mae Rowe, who loves God and has the heart and capacity to love many.
Mario Petrirena
Cuban-born Petrirena has been an Atlanta-based visual artist for over 20 years. His sculpture and installation pieces often relate to his dual heritage and identity. Through his ongoing Postcard Project, initiated in 2013, he expresses political commentary, among other themes, using a collage technique.
He is the recipient of several awards including an NEA individual artist grant and the Pollock-Krasner award. He has exhibited widely; locally, nationally as well as internationally. His work is included in several museum collections including The High Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, The Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.
He is represented by Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta, GA.
Judith Alexander was a tremendous champion of Mario and his work and her influence and devotion have remained with him despite her physical absence. In a Burnaway article, published in January 2021, entitled Personal Thoughts on Process and Progress, Petrirena acknowledges his mentor when he writes, “Remember that others write about art, critique it, collect it, curate it, own it, sell it, but the artist creates it. My friend Judith Alexander taught me that lesson.”
Anne Lambert Tracht
Anne Lambert Tracht is the President of ConsultArt, Inc., an Atlanta-based art consulting firm specializing in Georgia and Southern art and focused on corporate and residential clients.
She holds a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and serves on the boards of numerous Atlanta art and civic organizations including Midtown Alliance, Living Walls, Atlanta Metropolitan Public Art Coalition (MPAC) as well as The Judith Alexander Foundation.
Anne grew up in Atlanta, where her mother, Marianne Lambert, was a close friend and collaborator with Judith Alexander. She participated in some extraordinary occasions and learned invaluable wisdom while immersed in that world.
Anne and her husband David live in Atlanta with their two teenage children.
Xenia Zed
Xenia Zed worked in the visual arts community in Atlanta as a maker, writer, editor, gallerist and educator during a time when working in multiple capacities wasn’t considered as acceptable as it is today.
She holds two Master's degrees: an MFA in printmaking and an MA in art education. Among some of the most notable (for her) resume-related memories are her work at The Alexander Folk Art gallery with Judith Alexander and Nellie Mae Rowe; her work with Bill Arnett at what was to become the Souls Grown Deep Foundation; giving Jacques Derrida a ride in a Yugo to a reception in his honor after a lecture and interview in Atlanta; and working at ACA Galleries in New York in 2001–which included being in that city on 9/11.
Following that year of transfiguration, she returned to Atlanta and taught visual art in Title I elementary schools for 14 years believing that the need to enlighten and educate those students on the value and power in recognizing the use of their own creativity and imagination, needs to begin at a much earlier age.
Marianne Lambert . Board Member Emeritus
Marianne Lambert at home in Atlanta
Marianne Lambert, a founding board member at The Judith Alexander Foundation, has been at the center of our wheel since the beginning. Her innate understanding of WWJD (What Would Judith Do?) has been a guiding force, one that we will continue to call upon as we move along.
Having been a “collector of things” since childhood, Marianne began collecting art seriously in 1968, following her graduation from Stephens College and a stint at Delta Airlines in Atlanta. She has been a curator,
arts patron and arts advocate for Georgia artists since then.
She has served on various art boards in addition to The Judith Alexander Foundation, including the High Museum of Art Member's Guild, The Hambidge Center, Art Papers magazine, Nexus (ACAC), the Sculptural Arts Museum (brought Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party " to Atlanta) and the New South Group (now defunct).
In 1981, Lambert began a contemporary arts study group (CASG) that ran for 28 years and educated 140 members on various aspects of contemporary art by arranging meetings in art galleries, artists' studios, art collectors' homes, and museums.
From 1982-1995, she was hired to produce and curate a large fundraiser for Trinity School, " A Spotlight on Georgia Artists". It is a very successful annual art event that continues today and benefits the school as well as the artists of Georgia.
In 1983, Lambert started the first art consulting firm (ConsultArt, Inc.) in Atlanta, which her daughter, Anne Lambert Tract, now owns.
In 1995, Lambert began curating "Artwalk at Lenox Square," an art exhibition space (no longer there) located between the Mall and the office buildings/hotel. She produced 50 shows by Georgian and Southern artists until it closed in 2005.
In 2000, she became the Curator of the Swan Coach House Gallery, where she remained until 2019, establishing 6 shows every year focusing primarily on the work of Georgia artists that benefitted the exhibiting artists and the Forward Arts Foundation.
Her "most fun" job was "Art in the Sky: A Gallery of Georgia Artists", a billboard project instigated by Adams Outdoors in 1988. She chose 22 of Georgia's most prominent artist's work to be painted onto billboards all over Atlanta... complete with a hand-out driving map.
In 2010 Lambert was given the O.T. Hammonds Award, and in 2013 received the Governor's Award for Arts and Humanities.
Of her early interest in collecting, Marianne says that since the age of 5, she collected beautiful rocks and books, and later, "First Day of Issue" stamps and envelopes that her Aunt started her on. “It is a compulsion with which I was born! I loved going to museums with my parents and looking at art books in my grandfather's library.
When I became old enough to work I began collecting art because it was my passion and my need to possess it. I have focused my collection on art by Georgia artists because I know them and love their work. Through my relationship with my dear friend and mentor, Judith Alexander, I began to collect folk art, most of which is displayed in my mountain house in North Georgia.” In the city, she has early pieces by Don Cooper, Benny Andrews, Benjamin Jones, Rocio Rodriguez, Nellie Mae Rowe, Radcliffe Bailey, and Lucinda Bunnen, to name just a few.