Jeannine was born in Atlanta, GA, and graduated from high school the last year that the Atlanta public schools were segregated. She went on to Duke University in North Carolina, and then to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She arrived in California in 1967, the “summer of love,” to work in a church with the Student Interracial Ministry.
After a few years, she realized that Christianity didn’t answer her spiritual questions and moved on to other spiritual quests, finally becoming a student of Buddhism. During this time she trained in an architectural office, eventually becoming a project manager for residential remodeling projects.
Most importantly, Jeannine found her true calling in her personal artwork with painting, drawing, and especially mixed media on paper. In the 1990’s she began combining her drawing talents with digital arts, and has created several books and two consecutive barn owl calendars printed by Pomegranate Publications. She is also a student of movement improvisation and finds great joy in dancing.
She and Sean Chappell were married on the Winter Solstice in 1983 and nine months later were blessed with the birth of their only child, Alex. He was their joy and delight (with a few minor exceptions during his teenage years).
The most horrible experience of her life came at 11pm on April 14, 2011, when she and Sean received the phone call that Alex had died in a crash on the freeway. Life since then has been, to say the least, a challenge. The constant support of their many friends and the continuing creation of art have provided the greatest comforts in the face of such a catastrophic tragedy.
David Brehmer grew up in Wanamingo, MN, a town you wouldn’t know unless you knew someone who lived there—but also one in which creativity, general decency, and kindness were not in short supply. Having graduated in 2000 with the vague idea he would be an actor or writer or musician, David attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 2004, when he graduated with a degree in Communication Arts and promptly began a career in television production.
It was in the midst of Madison’s wide and scrambling music scene that David first spotted Nissa from across a coffee shop. Long story short: she, he and a small group of friends decided to transplant themselves in Richmond, CA, and did so. There, between band practices and shows and graveyard shifts and life in general, David and Nissa got married, got a hairless dog, and began a weird and wonderful life together.
A few years later, David met Alex Chappell and Brian Wismar with the help of Craigslist, and they formed the band Thea. After a year and a half of fevered, fantastic creation and a fast cemented friendship, with a demo CD under their belts and a few shows on the horizon, it all changed on April 14th, 2011.
Throughout his brief history, David has remained a drummer, a doodler, a hopeless romantic, and a wide-eyed lover of music, movies, and books of all kinds. He loves to observe the myriad strange and beautiful details of nature and existence and is constantly thinking about the world. Occasionally, he writes these thoughts down.
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