SONI CASTLEBERRY and her husband, Brad, moved to Louisville just after they married over 50 years ago. The Fellowship of Reconciliation was one of the first groups in which they were involved while raising their daughters, Kendra and Kara.
Soni worked at The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times as a copy clerk, re-writer, and reporter in the court system in the 1970s. She resigned so she could advocate for justice issues of concern to her.
Using her educational background in journalism and public relations, Soni worked in non-profit organizations related to housing, homelessness, older adults, domestic violence, elder abuse and neglect, mental illness, children’s services, and fair trade. Soni spent her last five years prior to her 2020 retirement starting and working in Writing for You, primarily a grant-writing business she initiated with two friends.
Soni has been an active member of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church since 1988 and served in a variety of capacities.
Since its origins in a youth Sunday school class in 2018, she has been involved in the Gun Violence Prevention Team which has grown to include people from various faith and community groups. Guns to Gardens Louisville is a part of that effort and Soni serves as one of its spokespersons.
CRAIG KAVIAR
Sculptor and Blacksmith, Craig Kaviar has been producing forged iron and bronze sculpture, architectural elements and furniture in Louisville, KY since 1985. Kaviar is an alumnus of Tufts University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and has studied at the Boston Museum School. Kaviar has been passionately making metalwork for over 30 years in the inferno of Kaviar Forge.
Craig not only works with glowing hot températures to shape unyielding materials, he also shares this mystical experience by teaching others. The primary forge where Craig heats metal to 3,000 degrees has been converted to run on waste vegetable oil. Neighborhood restaurants kindly provide him with fuel to help reduce the forge’s carbon footprint while allowing him to produce high quality work.
His public artworks include a bronze sculpture in front of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts; five-foot-high bronze door handles at the entrance of the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft; gates and grills at First Unitarian Church and Christ Church Cathedral; the Holocaust memorial at Temple Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom and pool gates at the Jewish Community Center; all in Louisville.
He is also represented in many private collections throughout the United States.
