OUR TEAM

Shiloh Sophia lives life as a great adventure narrated by the creative fire of her Muse! She has dedicated her life to the belief that self-expression is a basic human right and shares her message with thousands around the world.

Through her paintings, poetry, and teachings she leads a global movement of revolutionary education focused in Intentional Creativity® serving tens of thousands of women for over 25 years. Her work is offered in the Color of Woman Teacher Training, Motherboard Coaching and Red Thread Guide for those who are a part of the lineage. She co-founded MUSEA: Centers for Intentional Creativity® with locations around the world.

She lives in the Bay Area with her husband Jonathan, also a poet as well as a chef and wine-maker. Most mornings, she can be found having tea with her Muse, pouring over quantum physics, philosophy, and sacred texts in the Red Thread Cafe. In the afternoon she will be in her studio painting or at their little art gallery on the Sonoma Plaza called Musette. She is the published author of 5 books with 2 being published in 2020. Join us for a cuppa’ something good and a great conversation!

Jonathan McCloud is Musea’s President Emeritus, Resident Scholar, and Chef/Winemaker who is a poet and artist. He was born in a small West Virginia town and was built for adventure. He spent two tours jumping out of airplanes for the US Air Force and retired from service because of injuries. He found himself swept into the glamor and gastronomy of the food world and worked for top chefs around the world serving fine cuisine. He owned several restaurants as well as earned two advanced degrees with honors in business, as well as a Master of Arts.

After nearly 30 years of developing his career in hospitality, he changed his life path to take up life as an artist, photographer, and poet, as well as working for Burning Man, Couch Surfing, and more in the artistic, digital, and business startup realms.

He met Shiloh Sophia in 2012, and the two of them struck up a quantum conversation, resulting in a lifelong partnership and working together in business with Intentional Creativity through various technology platforms.

Described by his colleagues as an alchemist, Mr. McCloud co-founded the Intentional Creativity Foundation, prepares cuisine for participants around the world with his culinary genius, and creates intimate supper clubs and world-class wines in the famous Los Carneros wine region of Sonoma, CA.

Sumaiyah Wysdom Yates is an Artist, Author, Educator, Coach, and Weaver of Wisdom…

Certified as an Intentional Creativity Teacher & Coach in 2013, and as an Intentional Creativity Guide in 2021, Sumaiyah has over 10 years of experience spreading the Intentional Creativity Method through her offerings. She uses Intentional Creativity in her day-to-day living, infusing its principles in all that she endeavors to accomplish. As an author, Sumaiyah published Dear Sister: A Book of Poetry and Conversation in 2014 – a book where poetry written by her friend and colleague was then used to offer the reader a short Intentional Creativity process lead by Sumaiyah that they could do on their own. As a sur-thriver of domestic violence, Sumaiyah was honored to have her publication endorsed by the leader of RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) upon its publication.

In 2022, Sumaiyah took up the art of weaving on a table loom and quickly realized that with each pass of the shuttle through the warp, that she was intentionally infusing the cloth that she was creating with the wisdom that lies within. Weaving is her chosen meditative practice, and as such Sumaiyah finds herself weaving knowledge divinely inspired by her Ancestors into the very fiber of her BE-ing. This includes the Wysdom Wraps, Traditions Totes, Sacred Scarves and other handwoven fabric adornments that manifest from Sumaiyah’s weaving adventures.

As the Executive Director for MUSEA Intentional Creativity Foundation, Sumaiyah is dedicated to being in service to the organization, offering her 30+ years of technology expertise to the furtherance of the MUSEA Brand, both through strengthening MUSEA’s digital infrastructure as well as providing the best online experience for MUSEA’s members and community. She endeavors to help the organization’s teams continue the mission of MUSEA, including creating abundance significant enough to ensure sustainability for 500 years, as is the Founder’s vision.

Milagros Suriano-Rivera is a mixed media artist and Color of Woman 2019 Graduate and Intentional Creativity® Teacher. In addition to being a Musea Guild Member, Interview Host for our Mini Facebook Live Series, she has joined our circle as a Musea Co-creator Guild Member. She is a mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, lover, and creative catalyst for healing. As a Latina Woman of Color and member of our BIWOC community, she is grounded in her ancestral connection through Intentional Creativity®. Milagros love collaborating with the universe and creating medicine through painting, sculpting, stayed glass, resin, and witnessing our beautiful community!

Her art is influenced by many talented artists, however, it was the teachings by Shiloh Sophia regarding the use of creativity to catalyze and awaken oneself. She believes creativity is about embracing her shadow, creating our own light, and dancing between the worlds so that bring healing by being a catalyst to impress, inspire, and impact others.

Semerit Strachan is a Feminine Power Transformational Coach and Facilitator who has dedicated her life to helping women break out of the inner fears that limit them from blossoming into the fullness of their contributions in their chosen careers. She uses her experience as a Certified Intentional Creativity Coach and ancient African cultural wisdom as a Griot of Medicine to reconnect her clients to the literacy of the symbolic language of the body, recovering their ability to perceive what their body is telling them through discomfort, symptoms, and illnesses.

With 39 years experience as a medical doctor she is intimately familiar with integrating healing techniques that incorporate and balance mind/body/soul approaches to facilitate moving clients from exhaustion and burn out to revitalized creativity; from confusion and lack of direction to knowing their gifts and how to package them into unique and needed contributions. Semerit holds a Medical degree from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York and a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University. She has served as Griot and Director of Medicine at the Cultural Wellness Center in Minneapolis and has been a faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.

Visionary Artist, Urban Shaman, Reiki Master and Sacred Wanderer. My belief is that we all have “creative bones” in our body, and we have the ability to access our own internal wisdom, to create art. When we open our heart to connect with the voice of our Muse, and silence the Critic, magical things happen that can transform our lives in ways we never thought possible. It’s true, it happened to me!

Creativity is what we are made of, it’s who we are, and it’s how we will change the world. What are you here to cause and create? Let’s find out, together.

Sarah Mardell is the keeper of many hats as a mother to 5 daughters and a visionary entrepreneur running a full time home-based business. Sarah’s business, which she co-founded with Melanie Bates, serves powerful women entrepreneurs who provide intuitive-based services, and include Artists, Coaches, Authors, Transformational Teachers and Thought Leaders. Sarah is the one who weaves the threads behind the scenes for the MUSEA suite of companies, along with her amazing team, to become a confidant, supporter and key player in the many intrinsic details required to build and maintain a thriving online business.

Sarah finds deep fulfillment serving on Shiloh’s team, and connecting with the Intentional Creativity community, working alongside women and men who value intuition over social norm in running their business and making life choices. As a mother to 5 daughters, it is her dream to raise daughters who feel liberated to make their own choices, break the societal rules of gender and follow their passion.

Inspired by the Beauty that surrounds us and the Beauty that is with in us, Kelly Beth Bonsall creates experiences that evoke playfulness and pleasure while also sparking transformation and curiosity. Kelly has been an art educator and creativity guide since 2008, teaching formal art technique and theory while mixing in intuitive creativity and mindfulness practices. Her experience ranges from school classrooms to paint & wine parties to Intentional Creativity® workshops and beyond, and within this range of approaches, there is always the common thread of loving kindness and joy.

In addition to earning a BA in Arts Education and Studio Art and a Teaching Credential, Kelly has also completed the Color of Woman Teacher Training and is a member of the Intentional Creativity Guild. Kelly is also a prolific working artist bringing the wonder and magic she cultivates in her life on to paper and canvas and out into the world. She has exhibited at Musea in Sonoma, CA, Studio 180 in Santa Rosa, CA, ArtSpace Gallery in Austin, TX and many more. As a member of the Intentional Creativity Foundation, The Art Society and the Austin Visual Arts Association, she finds deep value in being in community with other creatives.

Anne LaBrie is a passionate energy healer, experienced visual artist and heart-centered Intentional Creativity teacher that combines all three disciplines into amazing transformative experiences for her clients and students.

She truly has the ability to migrate through dimensional space with her paintings and in her experience with coaching, social media, and graphic design. Anne’s favorite word is ‘alignment’ because from that state of being, the flow of personal soul essence and joy is truly amazing.

Rosamaría Polidura is the founder of Education as The Art of Hope and lives in Mexico City with her husband. She has been in a journey of discovering and learning the healing arts of psychotherapy, energy healing, coaching and facilitation for more than 20 years. She holds a PhD. in Gestalt Psychotherapy from which her Body of Work was born. Her mission is to create a culture of hope, connection, creation, and beauty; thus, the new generations of the world can evolve into their full genius and potential. She deeply believes that as women we have a deep calling to be the weavers of a new culture and the face of the planet can be changed forever. A teacher at her heart, finally she is fully embodying and sharing a new iteration of her Body of work through Intentional Creativity ®, as certified teacher, coach, and guide, as well as being part of the Co-curator team of MUSEA. She is the mother of two daughters and 4 rescued dogs.

MUSEA holds a vision for artists to grow and learn together in community over many years, to develop and show our work together, and to create experiences with one another while forging uncommon connections that transcend social divides. This vision permeates our entire working group.

We are all at different places on the path with our transformational work, yet there is a sense that if you are called here, you are a creative person looking to connect with other creative persons. For the past twenty years our organizational model has been rooted in projects that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, or an evolution into the next project. Not unlike a work of art, MUSEA’s projects change with the minds, hearts and hands of those who are present at the time of their initiation. Truly, our working group and the individuals that comprise it guide the direction of our programming and projects.

Our common thread is that we are artists who work with intention, honoring our unique beliefs, cultures, identities, and political positions. We do not seek to homogenize or stifle the brilliant creativity and prowess of our team. Over time we have learned to steward a colorful and spacious working group of creatives where many threads of creative contribution are celebrated and serve to catalyze us all.

Our intent as well as our actions flow from a commitment to human kindness and inclusivity for all people. We aim to carry this out to the best of our ability within any given project, with continual exploration of how to honor and respect all people involved.

We center projects that arise from the community’s creative imagination and desire and have leaders who are prepared to bring those projects forward. We also seek to provide a model where the projects inherently fund themselves so that there is a measure of sustainability and a lack of dependency on outside funding sources.

We connect with each other through the talisman of Red Thread, which is a symbol representing and acknowledging our innate interconnection and shared origin stories. From this place of acknowledgment and the invitation to truly belong, we work together with hearts and minds open and create a supportive environment where everyone feels free to ask questions, make mistakes, learn, grow, and shake this world up!