Dana Smiley has been a member of the Nanaimo Arts Council since early 2000. She held a variety of positions starting with working the front desk at North Town Centre, planned many member shows, and organized some Art Around Town exhibitions. She joined the Board of Directors in 2016, holding various positions including Vice Chair and acting Treasurer, and kept the organization’s accounts as bookkeeper from 2017 until 2019.

She organized campaigns for the Cancer Society and presently organizes the Arts and Craft Sale held at the Nanaimo Golf Club, where she has been a golf member since 2007. In 1967 she and her husband moved to Nanaimo where they raised a son and daughter, and now have 3 grandchildren.

In 1983 she took an Accounting Technician Course, subsequently working as a bookkeeper for various Nanaimo companies until 2007. She presently works from home doing books for Creative City Networking of Canada.

Dana started painting in 2000. She currently works in acrylic, and also operates a small business dealing in knitted toques and other items. She is looking forward to being part of the NAC Board to help move the organization into the future.

Jamie is an artist, digital strategist, and human-centered designer. She holds a Master’s in Educational Technology from the University of British Columbia, where her research explored how public art and digital communities foster environmental conservation. With over a decade of experience across media production, communications, and service design, Jamie helps complex organizations scale by aligning digital tools and internal processes with audience needs to deliver experiences that feel intrinsically human.

Alongside her career in service design, Jamie runs Unknown Studio – a fine art and teaching space offering workshops and mentorship in collaboration with local artists. She is passionate about scaling the impact of arts programming by strengthening digital communication systems and fostering a collaborative ecosystem between artists, city officials, and businesses to ensure a vibrant, inclusive future for creative arts in Nanaimo.

Jenaya Shaw is a fourth-year student at VIU, majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Psychology. She has grown up writing in the Cowichan Valley, a passion that blossomed into 3+ years of experience editing and helping others improve their own writing. She was Art Director for Portal 2024, and has a book review of Burning Sage: Poems from the Lytton fire by poet Meghan Fandrich published there, as well as photography titled “Wall Crawler,” “Match Made,” and others.

Jenaya is Managing Editor of VIU’s The Navigator Student Press, which publishes student journalism and literary works; several of her articles can be read there. She has dabbled in English tutoring, portrait painting, and photography, and spent her childhood fishing and sailing the West Coast of Vancouver Island with her family in a 1972, 32-ft Ericson called Windfall. She has recently found home in the Nanaimo Arts Council’s team as an Associate Editor of the Sea Wolf Literary Review and Program Coordinator for Art Walk.

Amelia Watford is a writer and artist from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She is currently in her final semester at Vancouver Island University, completing her Bachelors degree in Visual Arts with a Minor in Creative Writing. When she’s not indulging in her various creative endeavours, she’s busy working as the Creative and Art Director (among many other jobs) for The Raspberry Literary Magazine.