Executive Director, Co-founder
For more than five decades Ron Brent has built creative bridges between East and West. He co-founded Asia, Arts & Culture, produced Asian Art on the Hudson, showcasing the works of nine breakthrough Chinese painters. He also edited and published Laozi’s Dao De Jing: The United Version (Wapner & Brent Books).
Ron co-launched Heroic Leadership, guiding innovators like Apple Inc. on cross-cultural strategies. He has produced a series of short documentaries on poet-sages in Egypt, India, Nepal, Tibet, Israel, and Turkey, plus a feature on Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.
In the late 1980’s he helped establish The PRASAD Project in rural India, and is currently a board member for the Children’s Dental Health Project. As an adjunct lecturer he co-taught a course at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Artistic Director, Co-founder
Andrey Tamarchenko is a painter, filmmaker, and educator whose exuberant teaching style has inspired audiences to “meet the Muse within.”
For more than thirty years he has guided hundreds of students—from New York to the Italian Alps—using meditation, nature study, and spontaneous mark-making to unlock creative autonomy. He founded Nandi School of Art in Montclair, NJ; JoyArt in New Paltz, NY and the Vistanuova Art Retreats in Italy. Andrey has co-directed the Monferarti Artist Residency in Piedmont, Italy and has produced interdisciplinary performances, installations, and short films worldwide.
A native of Saint Petersburg, Andrey has exhibited in over fifty solo and group shows across Europe, the United States, and Asia; his work lives in private collections on six continents. Whether wielding a brush on a cliffside or mentoring beginners in a studio, Andrey’s mission is constant: awaken wonder through the living brushstroke.
Project manager, Cinematographer, Editor
Julia Tamarchenko is a New York–based editor and cinematographer whose work spans documentary, arts administration, and travel storytelling. At Freak & Genius Productions she facilitates all aspects of video production for Know Your Muse, including cutting the pilot and developing course assets. Her earlier credits include tourism films in Italy (Contural), educational shorts for JOY ART, and the Vistanuova art retreats. A co-founder of ART FARM and the NANDI School of Art, she brings a teacher’s eye for process and story.
Cinematographer, Editor
Alisha Tamarchenko is a documentary filmmaker and multimedia artist. She seeks to tell stories that allow audiences to experience different ways of being, evoking wonder and curiosity, and ultimately moving viewers to help build a balanced and kinder world. Her work has screened around the U.S. and internationally, including at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Environmental Film Festival in D.C., the Nashville Film Festival, the Planet In Focus Environmental Film Festival, the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, and on PBS. She’s worked with Vice, ESPN, ITV, Harper Collins, Coca Cola, among others. Most recently, Alisha worked as a Video Production Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution.
She holds a BA in documentary film and anthropology from Ithaca College.
