Shelley Morningsong is of Northern Cheyenne heritage and her husband Fabian Fontenelle Zuni & Omaha, together have recorded six sensational Native American, Contemporary and traditional albums and have emerged as two of New Mexico’s finest Native performers.. Shelley & Fabian have recently won the Native American Music Award for "Native American Artist's of the Year" for 2016 in New York.
Fabian Fontenelle is Zuni and Omaha, born in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. Fabian adds a breathtaking and beautiful element to their performance with his traditional northern plains style dancing, storytelling and drumming. Fabian is an original member of the American Indian Dance Theater and has traveled all over the world in order to share culture and education.
Looking for a way to engage his history students and to make history relevant to today’s world and problems, Peter Small began his historical portrayals for his classes while teaching in public and religious schools in the greater Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles areas. His costumed performances made his lessons memorable and enjoyable for his pupils. This led to his employment in the Adventures in Education program at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Adventures where he was the presenter for the Thomas Edison Workshop for ten years. There, he developed his interactive demonstrations, showing how electro magnetism, sound vibrations, and optical illusions influenced Edison in his invention of the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and motion pictures. He has performed his portrayal of Thomas Edison and other historical figures for over twenty years to a wide range of audiences nationally, at places such as the Presidential libraries of Herbert Hoover, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon and the Hoover Dam. Portraying Golda Meir is not unusual for Peter Small. His portrayal of this great woman is more challenging, but no different than his portrayals of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. To Peter, it is just a matter of changing wigs and stockings. He understands and feels suited to play this role after living in Israel for six years. With the current conflict in the Middle East, the world faces a similar threat from terrorism that Israel has dealt with for more than 45 years, when Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel. Her message then is as relevant today. In addition to his live portrayals, Peter has made numerous television appearances including the History Channel, KTTV-TV, and KTLA-TV. He is currently an adjunct instructor for the North Orange County, CA, School of Continuing Education's Older Adult Program. To learn more about his enlightening portrayals, visit his website at www.history-alive.com. He can be contacted at 949-631-2703 or historyalive5@hotmail.com. PETER M. SMALL HISTORICAL IMPRESSIONIST
David Liebman, who lives in Norfolk, Va. and has been involved in Mosaic since about forever, is a man of many skills. He is a wildlife and plant photographer, and has been published in National Geographic and other leading magazines. He can recognize just about every species of flora or fauna in the world. He is also a handwriting expert who has appeared on television and routinely testifies in famous cases. And he's a professional horn player, having learned 14 different brass and woodwind instruments, and has toured with The Platters (of "Only You" fame), among other bands.
He's wrestled alligators. Trained rats. Tracked panthers. Created a new species of guppy. He even knows the secret of Skunk Ape - it's a Florida thing.
He is The Most Interesting Man of Mosaic.
Liebman, age unknown ("I'm afraid to say," he says when asked), is famous at Mosaic's Jewish Outdoor Escape for leading nature walks, photography clinics and slide shows (as well as for his ability to stay up until dawn with other night-owls). How does he manage to be an expert in so many things?
"It may be related to ADD," he says. "But I don't have the hyperactivity. I can focus intensely on something, if I'm interested. I give it everything. But if I'm not interested, I can't do it."
It's this single-mindedness that got him started in his zoological career. A Norfolk native, he remembers being four or five, and sneaking out at dawn to wander in the nearby salt marsh, catching minnows and eels in tin cans, looking for snakes, and studying plants. His parents eventually caught him -- he was leaving muddy footprints when he came back inside.
Over his school years, he devoured books about nature. He once caught a non-poisonous green snake, put it in a shoe-box and brought it to show and tell. The frightened teacher knocked it out of his hand, and the snake got loose. The school was evacuated. Another time, he found a dead shrew on the way to school and decided to dissect it at his desk with a small scissors. His teacher (different from the snake incident) caught him and thought him a sadist. He was forced into psychological counseling. "The doctor said, 'He's just a young naturalist,'"
Liebman recalls. "I was always messing with animals," he says. "It's an affliction."
As an adult, he opened a tropical fish wholesale business in Norfolk. He got the idea of developing pink guppies. After thousands of cross-breeds -- it took about 10 years - he succeeded, selling the species at $100 a pair to hobbyist all over the world. His success was documented in a 1979 edition of People Magazine and Ripley's Believe it or Not.
He also got into handwriting analysis, an interest he says developed while studying psychology in college and during his time working as an aide in mental institutions. In the wards, he had undertaken a project examining the handwriting of patients with various psychoses. The idea was to look for similarities between patients with the same diagnosis, which could help doctors recognize and diagnose mental disorders.
He soon became an expert in the field of handwriting analysis, and eventually became president of the National Association of Document Examiners. Over the years, he has appeared on television and worked with police on such famous cases as Jon Benet Ramsey, Vince Foster and the D.C. sniper. He continues to be called to testify in court cases.
After he sold his tropical fish business, he started teaching science in high school and college. About this time he began to notice that the photographs of animals in textbooks were uninspired. I can do better, Liebman told himself, and began to shoot his own pictures. Using his knowledge of animal behavior, he photographed animals in the midst of their natural activities, capturing scenes that appealed to magazines and book publishers alike. Today, he continues to sell his work and the work of other naturalist photogs, with a catalog of more than a million pictures.
He's been attending Mosaic's annual Labor Day weekend event for more than 20 years, and served on the MOCA Board of Directors for five years. "I love the Mosaics," he says. "I've made more friends here than in anything in my life."
Oh, and when you see him at the next event, you can ask him about Skunk Ape. Maybe he'll let you in on the secret.