Introducing Future Front's 2026 Governing Board
Future Front is proud to welcome long-time organizational leaders—Hali Martin, Diana Lynn Gorham, Auburn Rutledge and Taylor Danielle Davis—to the 2026 Governing Board.
BOARD PRESIDENT | FOUNDING MEMBER
Hali Martin
Hali Martin (she/they) is a community builder, marketing strategist, facilitator, and ceramic artist. Throughout her career, Hali has led data-driven campaigns for technology companies, film festivals, and universities, building demand and sharpening strategy for brands including Cloudflare, Bonterra and Q2, where she optimized programs to increase return on investment from 12x to 60x.
She's balanced her career by centering her life outside it in the arts and community work. Hali has moderated panels at Future Front's WORK, taught workshops, and hosted a Career Club in Austin—helping local Austinites translate their experience into new roles, making sense of AI. As a deliberative facilitator, she has guided city officials, university faculty, and residents through the civic processes that shape their communities.
That commitment now anchors her role as Board President of Future Front Texas. She joined Future Front as a Community Curator in 2019, and the board in 2021 to build connection and to get engaged with the artists and creatives shaping Austin's culture, grounded in a belief that understanding the world we live in means being an active part of it.
A black, nonbinary, queer Texan by way of the Bay Area, Hali reads voraciously — N.K. Jemisin, adrienne maree brown, and Octavia Butler among her favorites. Find her at the pottery wheel, the farmer's market, with the Sunday paper or in the kitchen chasing a new recipe.
“I came to Texas in the early nineties, left, and found my way back in 2018. I joined Future Front to root myself in a place, to root myself in the arts, and because I know that engaging in the world, helping it grow, and maintaining our local communities lets me live a much more robust life as an artist and as a person invested in the city I call home.
I’ve come to see what we do at Future Front as an act of world-building: the deliberate, collective practice of shaping the world we want to live in, one relationship and one possibility at a time. This is the heart of it — we shape this place, and it shapes us.
From talks with Jane and our resident artists, to hearing Constance Y. White speak about art in public spaces, it’s become apparent to me that there is a way to be an artist in every walk of life. Art isn’t only the work that hangs on walls or appears in magazines; it’s how we translate that work into the spaces we live in. It’s how we engage one another, the pieces we create to represent our world, how we build community, and how we make room for the creativity in the spaces we share.
Our city, our country and Future Front, nestled on the corner of 12th Street, are all in a pivotal moment of change, looking for ways to root art in our community, uplift artists, and keep making space for them.
At Future Front, we are an arts and culture organization where it is deeply true that we are art — and that, together, we create culture. The future is local. Culture is infrastructure. You are art. I came back to Texas to find a home, and found a community already building one. I’m hopeful, and I’d love for you to build the next part of it with us.”
BOARD TREASURER
Diana Lynn Gorham
Diana Gorham (ella/she/her) also answers to Tesora (to her wife), Tia (to nieces/nephews), Madrina (to ahijada/os), and D (to 80’s softball team still kicking it).
A born-and-bred Tejana/Chicana, Diana has led a life that far exceeds what she (and most of society) expected: first in family of 8 siblings to attend & graduate college; taught public schools; registered/voted as member of the Raza Unida Party in the 70s; served on local/regional/national nonprofit/municipal boards since 1970s; helped to found arts/folkloric nonprofits in the 80s; helped to establish/manage successful Latinx businesses also in the 80s; earned MBA in 1991; and served as executive director of allgo (91-93) and YWCA Greater Austin (1994-2015). Retirement has afforded time for overseeing the building of two post-retirement homes; searching for my mother’s garden and finding my own; honing cooking skills; taking road trips; volunteering with Future Front; and working to turn Texas blue (again).
BOARD SECRETARY
Auburn Rutlege
auburn rutledge (she/they) is a creative coach, consultant and people leader whose work weaves together frameworks of liberatory leadership, storytelling and inclusive systems design. She believes that how we build our organizations and communities must critically begin with a focus on belonging and she brings that conviction to every room where she leads, facilitates or participates.
With more than thirteen years of experience building inclusive, high-performing teams, designing human-centered programs and frameworks, auburn pairs her strategic background with the ongoing study of imagination, leadership and human-centered culture change. She received an MA in Creative Leadership from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2025 and is currently pursuing an MS in Creativity & Change Leadership from SUNY Buffalo.
auburn’s work centers her intersectional identity as a queer, Black, mixed and AuDHD person and how these perspectives from the margin facilitate new ways of solving problems and painting the vision of what’s possible. Her coaching practice is rooted in empathy, truth-telling and narrative design: how to reclaim identity, nurture creative exploration and curiosity and build pathways toward wholeness. Additionally, she acts as a consultant and facilitator on leadership development, storytelling and design thinking for problem-solving.
BOARD CURATORIAL OFFICER | ARTIST RESIDENCY ADVISOR
Taylor Danielle Davis
Taylor Danielle Davis (she/her) is a curator, cultural arts producer, public art facilitator, and landscape designer who has been producing artist centered events and exhibitions in partnership with private, non-profit and city arts organizations for the last ten years. By shaping curatorial concepts, building relationships with artists, and aligning with the right partners, she creates programs and exhibits that engage communities, illuminate cultural themes, uplift emerging artists, and open pathways for sustained artistic growth.
With a background in design and construction, cultural production and project management, she has curated over 20 visual arts exhibitions in Austin and San Francisco, produced dozens of public programs including educational workshops, artist development curriculums and public art programs. She has partnered with major non-profit and city organizations in Austin, including Future Front Texas, The Trail Conservancy, Women and their Work Gallery, MASS Gallery, City of Austin Arts in Public Places, Waterloo Greenway, Martha’s Gallery among others.
Taylor is passionate about creating engaging conversations with both artists and arts leaders by emphasizing the importance of the artistic process and the value of connecting artists to the communities that shape them. She collaborates with artists, organizations, and cultural partners to activate curatorial projects, public art strategy, community engagement design and cultural programming and welcomes inquiries from those seeking thoughtful curation, community-centered creative strategy, and support for emerging artists.
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