Erika ("Riki") Sabel

Senior Manager – Teaching and Learning

Riki Sabel has been CAW’s Manager of Teaching and Learning since 2024. She first joined the core staff of as a Program Manager in the fall of 2022, after working as a CAW Teaching Artist during the 2021-22 school year and as a Teaching Artist on the Monte de Flores mural team during the 2022 summer Public Art Youth Employment program.

Riki’s teaching experience informs her current role, which includes managing teaching staff, collaborating with partners, and developing and implementing curricula that comply with creative youth development best practices as well as NYC and NYS standards. She aims to create learning environments that are supportive, kind, and inclusive. Her approach to teaching employs Visual Thinking Strategies, an inquiry-based pedagogy with an emphasis on contemporary artists and artworks.

Prior to joining CAW, she worked as a teaching artist at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York, the Tang Teaching Museum in Saratoga Springs, and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. She also has experience working in various aspects of exhibit fabrication, installation, and administration at The Glenstone Museum, the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, the Tang Museum, and for various New York-based artists.

Riki holds an M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art and a B.S. from Skidmore College. Her personal art practice is grounded in drawing and painting, but she experiments in all mediums, including weaving, installation, sculpture, and ceramics.