About
About Tapestry
The Balance-Center-Connect Riding Program is an offering of the Horse-Human Relationship Program of Tapestry Institute. Tapestry is a unique 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization, founded by a Native American (Choctaw) scientist to operate within Indigenous worldview. We help people reconnect to the earth by integrating different ways of knowing, learning about, and responding to the natural world. We carry out our work in community, through collaborative efforts among groups of people from highly diverse backgrounds, cultures, areas of expertise, and experience.
About the Staff
Joanne (Anne) L. Belasco, Esq. is Director of Tapestry’s Horse-Human Relationship Program and the organization’s President. In her position as Director, she is the head trainer for the Balance-Center-Connect Riding Program and is the primary facilitator and trainer in the Women and Horses Program. Anne is a life-long rider who trained in dressage for several years under advanced-level event rider Adrienne Iorio. Her work has included researching the impact trail riding has on group meeting process, gentling wild Mustangs, creating and managing the Mustang Freedom Project (which provided a home for wild Mustangs at Tapestry’s former ranch in Nebraska), conducting extensive literature research for the past 10 years on the horse-human relationship, and co-directing the Voice of the Horse Conference. She is also a retired attorney, having received a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in Boston in 1993. She worked as an attorney for the Boston Police Department for five years and is a trained criminal profiler. Her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (1990) is from Boston College. She was Vice President of Tapestry from 2001-2007, accepting the mantle of President in September of 2007.
Dawn Adrian, Ph.D. (Choctaw) is Tapestry’s Founder, Vision-Keeper, and Senior Scientist. She was Tapestry’s first President (1998-2007) and has been Principle Investigator on all of Tapestry’s National Science Foundation Grants. She holds a doctorate in vertebrate paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley (1989) with a specialty in large animal locomotion and biomechanics, expertise she now brings to Tapestry’s Horse-Human Relationship Program. She was a college and university professor for 15 years, has served on numerous federal science committees, is a sought-after speaker for public and academic events at the national level, and has received awards and honors for outstanding teaching of science in relationship to art, religion, and the humanities. An enthusiastic rider as a child and teenager, she is an adult re-rider who knows first-hand what it takes to reclaim childhood motor skills in a body with middle-aged muscles. She conducts expert biomechanical assessment of a rider’s balance-center-connection with her/his horse as a part of Tapestry’s Balance-Center-Connect Riding Program and Women and Horses Program.
Carol L. Francisco, Ph.D. is an artist and certified art therapist (retired) who brings her skills to bear in Tapestry’s work by using art as a way of learning and knowing about the world. She holds a Ph.D. in World Religion from Southern Seminary and has taught philosophy, ethics, and religion at the college level. Since joining Tapestry’s staff in 2001, Carol has organized two major art shows affiliated with national meetings, has produced over 100 works of original art relating to nature and its relationship to humanity, and has carried out independent research on using art as a way of learning about that relationship on both personal and cultural levels. She carries out art assessment of a rider’s balance-center-connection with her/his horse as a part of Tapestry’s Balance-Center-Connect Riding Program and Women and Horses Program.