2025 is on fire

I started writing my previous post the first days of 2025 as an email update to what I've been doing in my career as an artist and in higher ed. There was a technical error on Jan. 6th with my mailing list provider that prevented this from going out. At the same time the Palisades fire began and then later that evening the Eaton fire began (and several more since). Our home and studio, in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles (6 miles south of the Eaton fire evacuation zone at the time), was filled with smoke. We worried about our friends as we watched our city burn. We packed our bags in case we too had to evacuate. So far we have remained safe, but it devastating to watch as more and more of the people in our communities announce they have lost everything.

This weekend I chopped up broken tree limbs and hosed my driveway and yard to clean up all ash that has accumulated. I did the same for my elderly and disabled neighbors next door.

I am grateful for the friends and family near and far who have reached out to check on us (Jeremy, Milo and I), repeatedly knowing how volatile this situation is.

For those wondering "how can I help?"  here are some places you can donate that will directly support my community of artists and designers.

Contribute to the Otis College of Art and Design Emergency Relief Fund.

Close to 100 people (students, faculty and staff) at Otis College of Art and Design, where I have worked for over 24 years, live in the communities most impacted by these fires. 

Grief and Hope: Art World Fire Relief LA is a group of volunteers—artists, gallery employees, and other cultural workers have begun three pronged efforts - a survey of who needs help, a survey of who can provide mutual aid and a GoFundMe to support the more than 100 artists and art workers who have experienced loss of use or total loss of their homes, galleries or studios.

LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund
Join a Getty-led coalition of major arts organizations and philanthropists providing emergency relief for artists and arts workers in all disciplines who have lost residences, studios, archives, artworks, or livelihoods or have otherwise been impacted by the devastating Los Angeles fires. 

Beginning Monday, January 20, 2025, artists and arts workers who have been impacted by the fires can visit the CCI website to apply for emergency funding.

Directories of GoFundMe accounts:
Historically Altadena is a community that did not have redlining, allowing Black families to purchase homes when other Los Angeles neighborhoods did not. This community has been devastated and here is a GoFundMe Directory of Displaced Black Families. This directory also includes links to GoFundMe directories for displaced Latine families, Filipino families, Disabled folks. 

Help Artists Rebuild - List of Fundraisers

And here are some friends and former students of mine that you can support directly:

Asher Hartman - GoFundMe

Emily deArujo and family - GoFundMe

Emily Hopkins and Jon LaPointe - GoFundMe

Greg Ivan Smith and Michael Fitzpatrick - GoFundMe - Amazon Wish List

James Anderson and family - GoFundMe

Juli and Adam - GoFundMe

Kelly Akashi - Venmo - List of tools, studio and art supplies needed 

And a few other organizations who need your support for their staff and teaching artists.

Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena

Side Street Projects, Pasadena

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Although I tend to think of the new year as starting in late summer/early fall (coinciding with the start of the school year and aligned with the Jewish calendar), the start of 2025 feels like a big deal. I will turn 50 this year and I have now been a professional artist and educator for half of my life.  

The first college class I ever taught was in winter session 2000 during my last year of grad school at RISD. When I graduated and moved to Los Angeles, I knew I would teach while making art and figured it would be some combination of teaching kids with Autism, “at-risk youth,” and college students. I have done all of this and more, and for the last sixteen and a half years my administrative role at Otis College of Art and Design has grown significantly, while I continue to teach one or two classes a year - my favorite being Inclusive Collaborations in Disability Arts with students from Otis and ECF Art Center Westside (fall 2024 class pictured on the right). Their end of the semester exhibition, I wanna know what art is. I want you to show me, can be seen until Jan. 19 at Otis.

My career in academia has far exceeded my goals and expectations, sometimes I think to the detriment of my art career. Last academic year (2023-24) I was promoted to full Professor and in addition to my role as Director of Interdisciplinary Studies I was asked to be Acting Chair of Graphic Design and Illustration after the previous Chair left unexpectedly. And this academic year (2024-25) I’ve been asked to take on the Interim Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs role to support the transition of the new Provost and ease the workload of the Dean. Service to Otis College that I am particularly proud of has been being the faculty advisor for the Disabled Students Union and working with the Dean of Student Affairs to support our community as we navigate our mixed responses to the war in Gaza and the US Presidential election. I am grateful to be acknowledged for my capabilities and honored to work within the academic leadership, contributing to this amazing community of artists and designers. 

In November, I attended the RISD alumni and parents event at the Hammer Museum. While my friends and I were speaking with president Crystal Williams, she asked us if we were still making art. When it was my turn to respond, I said “yes, while trying to balance that with parenting and growing academic administration roles,” (Not to mention home repairs on the fixer Jeremy and I bought in spring 2023). 

I postponed my sabbatical to try out this Assistant Dean thing, but I can’t stop making art - “ART IS A GUARANTY OF SANITY” - Louise Bourgeois. 

I work slowly, and simultaneously, on multiple long-term projects across a range of media. I combine strategies of conceptual art, process art, documentary and social practice - but I still think of myself as a sculptor at heart. This work explores personal, social and political relationships. It helps me make sense of the world and connect with others. It helps me stay sane. 

Although I haven’t found much time to focus on editing my four-hour, multichannel video installation Dearest Pauline, that I began during my spring 2018 sabbatical, I have found time to work on conceptual textile projects (sometimes while in Zoom meetings) and a few other projects (sometimes blurring art and life).

In 2024…

I updated my NEVER AGAIN design to include Arabic text in response to the Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war and genocide in Gaza. Christy Roberts Berkowitz bought the original drawing at an auction supporting Palestine. Versions as t-shirts, stickers and tote bags are available through threadless.com. Proceeds go to support Jewish Voice for Peace. 

I exhibited two drawings from the series Paul’s Brain in a year long exhibition, Viral Integration, at the UC Irvine's Samueli College of Health Sciences, curated by artist in residence elin o’hara slavic, and I am thrilled to report that these pieces have found a new home in the College's inaugural permanent collection. 

I embraced yard work as both exercise and subtractive sculpture. 

I cultivated new friends, connections and motivation after joining Netvvrk. 

I found satisfaction in deconstruction and reconstruction - both in art making and home repairs.

I continued to make constellations with deconstructed American flags, based on data and statistics about state laws, and began new work using only the flags’ stripes. How can you celebrate at a time like this? (L) was installed as a site specific installation for Nomad III organized by the Torrance Art Museum at Del Amo Crossing in August.  A companion piece, Joy is an act of resistance (R), is ready to be exhibited when the opportunity arises. 

I accepted that I don’t have to do everything by myself.

I began working with graphic designer, Giovanni Gutierrez, on a book documenting my project “Collaborating with my five/six year old son while social distancing.”  Inspired by Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art Manifesto, and the fact that artist parents cannot have a successful career without a supportive partner and adequate childcare, this book includes all the art Milo and I made together in the first year and a half of the pandemic. I’ll be looking for an art book publisher early this year. (Suggestions and introductions are welcomed).

Back at the RISD alumni event, after I told President Williams what I do, she said “You didn’t ask for advice, but it sounds like you are letting others direct your path.” She implied I should direct my own path. In many ways she is right. So I am keeping that in mind as I plan my goals for 2025 and beyond. 

Thanks for reading all this. I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve just been in it - too much so to tell you all about it. Follow my instagram if you want to see what I am up to more often; and let me know if you want to visit my studio in my renovated garage at my newish home in El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles. 

All my best for 2025!

Michele Jaquis

Viral Integration at UC Irvine

Two drawings from the project Paul’s Brain will be on exhibit through Dec. 15, 2024 at UC Irvine’s College of Health Sciences. Viral Integration was curated by artist in residence elin o’Hara slavick. Opening reception is Thur. Feb. 1, 6-8pm in the 3rd floor lobby. Viewing hours are Mon. - Fri. 8am - 5pm. More info here.

Samueli College of Health Sciences
856 Health Sciences Rd.
Irvine, CA 92617

Two Solo Exhibitions included in the 10 year anniversary of Proxy Gallery

Two works of mine are included in the upcoming 10 Year Anniversary exhibition of Annetta Kapon’s Proxy Gallery.

The Floating Gallery Los Angeles presents: Annetta Kapon: Proxy Gallery 10 Years.
August 5-September 30, 2023
Opening reception Sat. August 5, 6-8 pm
Floating Gallery 5760 W. Pico Blvd, LA 90019

More info here.

Tikkun/Repair from Proxy Gallery 78. Michele Jaquis: We are Here, Together. June 2021.

Proxy Gallery 84. Michele Jaquis: Shelf Life. June 2023.

Photos and design Antonis Ricos.

Sociality - group exhibition at LA TATE Gallery

Two drawings and one of my deconstructed American flags will be on display in the group exhibition, Sociality, Curated by Keith Walsh, at LA TATE Gallery, March 11 - April 8. Opening Reception is March 11, 5-7pm. More info here.

LA TATE Gallery
4816 West Adams Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90016

Art by Michael Green, Robby Herbst, Michele Jaquis, Vincent Ramos, Michael Shaw, Laurie Steelink, and Keith Walsh.

Sociality unites seven Los Angeles artists who dynamically engage ideas and systems of association, self-representation, grass roots political organization, and humanism with communities within and beyond the art world.

Our work is founded on the principles that artists who make art are shaped by their social environs, whether experienced or mediated. We are responsive and committed to an art that attends to social issues as forms of commentary, consciousness, self-determination, resistance, and constructing potential solutions to the challenges of forging communities within the atomistic realm and tropes of the capitalist art world and society. 

The gallery is a temporary political center and social space that allows us see the world anew, to recognize the art exhibition as a hub and generator for making connections beyond its doors.  We avoid dry analyses and hypotheses by utilizing dynamic means to engage objective subjects and subjectivities. Sociality presents our agency for personal, cultural, political emancipation and community building.

Telling Stories exhibition at El Camino College Art Gallery

My two channel video installation, Paul’s Brain, will be included in the group exhibition, Telling Stories, curated by Michael Miller at El Camino Art Gallery in Torrance, CA, February 13 - March 9, 2023. More details here.

As part of the exhibition programming, I’ll also be facilitating an oral history recording workshop in conjunction with my project We Are All Americans, Tuesday Feb. 28, from 12-4pm.

Telling Stories artists Jane Chafin, Joyce Dallal, Marsian De Lellis, Joseph Hardesty, Michele Jaquis, Lauren Kasmer & Joyce Dallal, Thomas Kidd, Karen Medley, Rosalyn Myles, Mei Xian Qiu, Craig Torres, the Wednesday Gang Quilting Group and the El Camino College Anthropology Student Association uses painting, puppetry, recipe sharing, quilt making, Culinary Performance, and photography. Workshops are happening every day. The El Camino College Anthropology Student Association is creating the Title Wall: Our Stories: A Self-Portrait of El Camino College. Please send your selfies to eccartgallery@elcamino.edu. Come by the Art Gallery to see how you can participate.

Public Reception
Saturday, February 18, 2-5 p.m.
Homesite: A Culinary Performance
Featuring the Wednesday Gang Quilting Group

Campus Reception
Tuesday, February 21, 1-4 p.m.
Featuring Craig Torres Master Class on Tongva uses of Native Plant Food Source

Tuesday, February 28, 12-4 p.m.
Michele Jaquis: We Are All Americans: Oral History Recording Workshop

Artist Conversations
Tuesday, March 7, 1-4p.m.
Marsian De Lellis and Mei Xian Qiu

Un-Civil War! exhibition at Torrance Art Museum

My recent work, altered American flags and a few drawings from the series We Are Here, Together, are included in this group exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum.

UN-CIVIL WAR! (AN ELECTION SPECIAL) CURATED BY MAX PRESNEILL

The events of January 6th, 2021, in Washington DC shocked the nation. The country has felt a divided space with a polarization and demonizing of opposition that has left many citizens in fear that a spark could ignite the fires of civil war. There has been a steady build in journalist articles reflecting upon the possibility of a second US Civil War. Regardless of the realities of this the fact remains that this concern is a part of the current zeitgeist. What will the current mid-term elections bring us? Increased enmity or a rejection of extremism? Will democracy win out or will armed insurrection begin? Or will the status quo continue to stoke the embers of discontent?



Artists: Lisa Anne Auerbach, Sandow Birk, Diana Sofia Estrada, Michele Jaquis, SC Mero, Jeremy J Quinn, Dread Scott, Allison Stewart, Gabie Strong, Keith Walsh, Bruce Yonemoto

Opening Reception is Oct. 1, 6-9pm
Show runs through Dec. 10, 2022

Sandow Birk, “In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of the Californias”

Migrant Madonna exhibition at SoLA Contemporary

I’m excited for this work to be shown together for the first time: Fake Passport, 2008, lightjet print; we’ve unraveled ourselves, 2012, framed inkjet print with shelf and two balls of yarn from unraveled sweater made by my great-grandmother; Tikkun/Repair, 2021, remnant of sweater made by my great grandmother hung; and We Are Here (Yiddish / Spanish), 2019, embroidery on canvas. All included in the group exhibition Migrant Madonna, curated by Joyce Dallal and Naima White. On view at SoLA Contemporary April 21 - May 14, 2022.

Conney Conference on Jewish Arts

Looking forward to presenting my work next week at the Conney Conference on Jewish Arts at University of WI, Madison and on Zoom.

The Jewish Arts in an Expanded Field:

The conference will address themes of interdisciplinarity, diversity and intersectionality in the changing landscape of the Jewish Arts. In a moment in which we are experiencing a generational shift among Jewish identifying artists to a more inclusive and polyvocal, fluid understanding of Jewish identity, the politics of Jewishness are foregrounded in astounding new ways. From graphic novels to digital art and highly charged dance and performance, to theater, music and literature, we see both a return to ritual and a search for new narratives of the contemporary Jewish experience. The 8th iteration of the Conney Conference on Jewish Arts will focus on the remarkable evolution of the field as it has expanded into the future while acknowledging its own histories.

Dream House: A Collaborative Zine in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of Womanhouse

One image from my series Collaborating with my five year old son while social distancing has been included in Dream House: A Collaborative Zine in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of Womanhouose, edited by Cindy Rehm.

Dream House, Perfect Bound, 88 pages, 2022 Available for $20 purchase here.

Like the destroyed physical structure of Womanhouse, the dream house is a ghost, a mirage, a utopian fantasy always in need of reconstruction. Through a collective dreaming and the use of materials old and new, we build the woman-house of today. Dream House includes the work of over ninety contributors organized into four thematic sections. Whispering Walls includes works which echo the social structures that have historically limited women’s autono- my. Body House contains renderings of the femme maison, and visceral manifestations of the body. By Her Hands considers all forms of women’s labor from mothering, housework, handiwork, and emotional labor. The final section, New Constructions, contains works that refuse easy notions of the feminine or present imaginings of utopian herlands.

List of Contributors:

Beth Abaravich, Cathy Akers, Jerri Allyn, Claressinka Anderson, Amanda Maciel Antunes, Lani Asuncion, Tricia Avant, Renée Azenaro, Gianna Ayora, Therese Bachand, Launa Bacon, Holly Boruck, Lauren Bradshaw, Polly Breckenridge, Amelia Briggs, Ursula Brookbank, Nancy Buchanan, Alicia Byler, Karen Carrie, Wai Yan Cheung, Andrea Biller Collins, Anne Colvin, Karin Crona, Sydney Croskery, Paola Daniele, Laura Darlington, Emilie Dashe, Nicole Daskas, Cherie Benner Davis, Chelsea Dean, Kim Degen, Jessica Dillon, Jessica Dolence, Lala Drona, Sleepy Ephem, Alexis Espinosa, Diana Sofia Estrada, Trisha Faye, Lea Feinstein, Rachel Finkelstein, C. Finley, Luka Fisher, Michelle Francescon, Malado Francine, Dwora Fried, Marisa J. Futernick, Vivian Geilim, Yves B Golden, Lindsay Goltz, Sarah Green, Kristy Higby, Michele Jaquis, Shalla Javid, Yvonne Jongeling, Sharon Kivland, Grace Kredell, Karolina Lavergne, Elizabeth Leister, T. Charnan Lewis, Aubrey Ingmar Manson, Aline Mare, Kelly Marie Martin, Lilly McElroy, Brooke McGowen, Tom McLaughlin, Alyce Haliday McQueen, Siofra McSherry, Memoticon, Mother Art, Mehregan Pezeshki, Minna Philips, Jennifer Pilch, Melissa Potter, Alison Pirie, Mary Anna Pomonis, Ali Prosch, Fiona Quilter, Heather Rasmussen, Fay Ray, Cindy Rehm, Chelsea Revelle, Michelle Robinson, Yasamin Safarzadeh, Jinal Sangoi, Hannah Scott, Safi Alia Shabaik, Peggy Sivert, Frances Smokowski, Felís Stella, Allison Stewart, Kayla Tange, Celeste Voce, Danielle Giudici Wallis, Rebecca Waring-Crane, Susan J. White, Elizabeth C. Wild, Julie Zemel

Dream House cover image: Karin Crona

Dream House zine
pg. 52 Rebecca Waring-Crane (top) and Mary Anna Pomonis (bottom)
pg. 53 Michele Jaquis

2022 Present Work Finalist

Happy to announce I am a finalist in Prospect Art’s Present Work, which “will feature one Los Angeles-based artist yearly in the form of a physical exhibition and public talk. The program provides an opportunity for local artists to showcase completed work that has yet to be shown. Prospect Art will secure an exhibition location for the artist's work to be presented free and open to the public. Artists will be provided with a small honorarium to help offset production costs.” More here.

We Are Here, Together at Cerritos College Art Gallery

detail of installation view at Cerritos College Art Gallery (photo credit: James MacDevitt)

Sept. 12-25 day and night you can see my multi-lingual text-based drawings and embroideries through the windows of the Art Building at Cerritos College in Norwalk, CA, as part of the Gallery’s Window Dressing Series. More info here and here.

DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In - Aug. 13-21

On Saturday Aug. 13, will be facilitating a socially engaged project Mud Drawings: Reflecting On Our Grief as part of DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, inspired by one of the projects I made last summer for Collaborating with my five year old son while social distancing. Participants will be invited to collect natural materials from the site, make drawing tools with those materials, and then use their handmade tools make a drawing with mud dug from the hole. Participants can make mud drawings independently throughout the week.

Press Release:

DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, a project by Cara Levine, invites the audience to experience a container for their grief and mourning following over a year of collective loss. The initiative was created as a collaborative project supported by American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity (IJC), a network designed to elevate Jewish artists based in Los Angeles.

During a week of activities at the Shalom Institute, nestled in the breathtaking Malibu mountains, Levine will dig a large-scale hole in the ground, inviting various communities and audience members to join her. Artists and community leaders will offer a schedule of activities in and around the site, ranging from collective drawings to live performances, audio recordings, and community rituals.

Please follow this link for the full schedule and registration.

The weeklong duration reflects the symbolic period of shiva, or seven days of mourning in the Jewish tradition. Culminating on the second Saturday, participants will fill the hole with water and perform a ritual cleansing, or mikveh, before refilling the hole with its original dirt, and planting native seeds to complete the cycle for renewal.

This will be a collective space to hold and process some of the grief of the year, with rituals and performances inspired by different faiths, histories, and viewpoints. As the pandemic era transforms and yet holds great uncertainties, it is important to mark this moment. While Levine continuously digs on a daily basis and invites the public to deepen the hole, she has invited artists Adrienne Adar, Dorit Cypis, Faye Driscoll, Ekaette Ekong, Sonia Guiñansca, Asher Hartman, Michele Jaquis, and hannah rubin to make or lead new work on site.

Alan Salazar, a local Chumash tribal leader, and storyteller will launch the project with a blessing on August 14. Cantor Chayim Frenkel from Kehillat Israel will perform a Havdalah service on Tuesday, August 17. The closing Day on August 21, will be marked by a group celebration and live performances.

The Shalom Institute campus was devastated by the Woolsey Fire of 2018. The leaders and community from SI welcome DIG as part of their grief process over the loss and sacred transition taking place on their land.

This project is made with additional support from American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, Cantor Chayim Frenkel, and the Shalom Institute.

The Institute for Jewish Creativity (IJC) is a proud project of American Jewish University (AJU). The IJC cultivates a network of local Jewish artists, and supports a contemporary, vibrant, Jewish cultural landscape in Los Angeles and beyond, in the spirit of AJU’s mission to elevate individuals and communities through Jewish wisdom and creativity.

We Are Here, Together at Proxy Gallery

Happy to announce my solo show of recent text based drawings and embroideries opens today.
Michele Jaquis: We Are Here, Together at Proxy Gallery, June 1 - 30, 2021.

I will be in conversation with Annetta Kapon, Proxy Gallery Director/Curator, and Sojung Kwon whose work was presented last month at Proxy Gallery, on June 11th at 5pm Pacific Time. Contact me for the Zoom link.

CWI Spotlight: Conversations with Educator Change Makers

I had a great conversation with Joe Brooks, Executive Director of Community Works Institute for their Spotlight Series. Here’s the video.

How to Teach Art in a Pandemic

I am happy to be featured, along with two other great art teachers and our students, in Anuradha Vikram’s article “How Can I Teach Art in a Pandemic?” for KCET Southland Sessions, Feb. 9, 2021. Read the article here and check out the online exhibition my Otis College students produced in collaboration with artists from ECF’s Westside Art Center and UCPLA’s Washington Reid Gallery.

Inclusive Pedagogy (during a pandemic)

Today I gave a talk for colleagues at Otis College of Art and Design about my experiences teaching last semester. Here it is…

In 2014 when I was pregnant I pulled Meg Cranston aside after a Chairs Council meeting to ask her to lunch. 

I needed to know… How do you successfully balance an art career, while running a department and parenting?

Meg told me “it's not that long of a conversation… Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” At the time I had no idea what to do with that advice.

But when the pandemic forced us all to work from home and pre-K – 12th grade schools to close, I began to understand.

I considered not teaching in the fall. I was too overwhelmed by what felt like being half a person trying to do the jobs of three. But I didn’t want to let my course community partner down and with all the furloughs I was worried – what if I lose my job? I will never get another in academia without a full semester of online teaching experience. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. 

My fall Creative Action class Uniquely Abled partners with progressive art studios [ECF Westside Art Center and UCPLA’s Washington Reid Gallery] for adults with developmental disabilities including autism, down syndrome, and cerebral palsy. Marlena Donohue is the dedicated course Mentor [which essentially means we team teach, but I am the instructor on record].

The goal is not to design for people with disabilities, but instead to make art in collaboration across differences. It’s a balance of bonding over similar interests and forgetting about diagnoses, while simultaneously supporting a range of communication, physical and learning needs that anyone from Otis and our community partners might have.

As a collective we became a sister site of the Self Isolation Pandemic Artists Residency Program started by Samantha Fields at CSUN and we loved the idea of artists with disabilities infiltrating this normative space.

Each week we had 28 people on Zoom and it was beautiful chaos when everyone was visible and active in the chats. Unlike these screen-shots taken during a break.

So how did we make this inclusive? First I added everyone’s timezones in my phone so I was conscious of what time it was for each person in the class.

Closed captioning was installed on my Zoom account so it was automatic without anyone needing to request it.

We kept our Zoom meetings under two hours and utilized breakout rooms. Each room had a mix of participants from each site with one facilitator (myself, Marlena, our TA, or staff from one of the partners). 

I mirrored the NEST [Otis College’s course management system] course content in Google Drive to allow for multiple access points to the course materials.

And provided in class demos and step by step visual instructions on how to access the drive from multiple devices. I also encouraged the use of peer assistance, so if you have trouble uploading something, just email it to someone else who can help.

The staff at UCPLA and ECF reported that my group emails to all participants outlining each week’s asynchronous work was too overwhelming for some of their clients, so instead I would cc only the staff who would then review the content on Mondays in one on one meetings.

Reflections on asynchronous work were accepted in written, audio or video format to allow multiple ways for participants to respond – this is also something I learned from Meg. 

We slowed down. The participants spent two weeks drafting community agreements,

and two weeks sharing their prior work with each other.

Otis students joined Zoom workshops offered by ECF and UCPLA. 

And everyone collaborated through mail art, digital file sharing and shared virtual studio time.

You can see their final projects at UniquelyAbledArt.com

It was a challenging semester, but this class was the highlight each week just to spend time with such compassionate and engaged artists - who were amused, not annoyed, by my son’s occasional interruptions.

I continue to go back to these words [Everything worth doing is worth doing badly] because sometimes remote working as an academic administrator without adequate childcare feels impossible. Sometimes making and teaching art and design online feels impossible. And sometimes focusing on DEI efforts in the microcosm of Otis while the world outside is falling apart feels impossible. But all of it is necessary and worth doing, even if sometimes I feel I am doing it badly. I hear faculty talk of the pressure they feel from chairs to be perfect. To deliver better online classes than the ones they taught in person.  Instead I tell them of Meg’s advice. I see it as permission and forgiveness to skip a committee meeting [occasionally], to ask for and give extended deadlines, and to not hide our children behind Zoom backgrounds. 

I don’t want perfection. All I ask of myself and my faculty is that we are engaged, inclusive and authentic in our teaching – with all the messiness that this entails.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse

Postcard reproductions of four recent projects, We Are Here (Yiddish/Spanish embroidery), Never Again, and Collaborating with my five year old son while social distancing: Green Ninja & Aardvark Mom are included in the Exhibition in a Box, HINDSIGHT IS 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse.

The exhibition was recently reviewed by Carol Cheh for KCET’s Southland Sessions: 'Hindsight Is 2020' Offers Visceral (Not Virtual) Art Experiences in a Box.

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Below is the press release:

The Cerritos College Art Gallery is physically closed through Spring 2021, so our Fall 2020 exhibition has gone mobile. Inspired by art historical precedents - such as Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-Valise, the Fluxus Fluxkits, and Wallace Berman’s Semina mail art project - our Fall show is presented as a limited-run ‘exhibition-in-a-box.’ In the spirit of mutual aid food banks, the gallery will be distributing these art boxes free-of-charge (while supplies last) to anyone that requests one.

The exhibition, Hindsight is 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse, consists of miniaturized reproductions of works by fifteen contemporary artists exploring the events and anxieties of the last year, including: plague, virality, isolation, remote contact, face masks, parenting/childhood under lockdown, work/food/housing precarity, struggles in the service industry, plight of frontline/essential workers, disinformation campaigns, conspiracy theories, the constitutional crisis, the rise/return of fascism/anti-semitism, armed militias, police/state violence, protesting bodies, structural racism, xenophobia, the climate crisis, wildfires, etc.

The participating artists are Carmen Argote, Badly Licked Bear, christy roberts berkowitz, Michael Hanson, stephanie mei huang, Michele Jaquis, Jacqueline Bell Johnson, Elana Mann, Narsiso Martinez, Thinh Nguyen, Dominic Quagliozzi, Conrad Ruiz, Allison Stewart, Chester Vincent Toye, and Gordon Winiemko.

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Collectors were invited to reserve a boxed copy of Hindsight is 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse and to receive instructions with pickup locations and dates (contactless, free) or delivery options (donation required to cover cost of shipping), by emailing curator James MacDevitt at jmacdevitt@cerritos.edu.

Video Art Today at Shoebox Projects

Paul’s Brain and How I Read to My Son are included in the online video exhibition, Video Art Today, curated by Kristine Shoemaker for Shoebox Projects. The Artist Talk/Reception is Saturday August 22, 3-5pm pst via zoom. Click here for more info.

We Are All Americans at the ICA LA

I’m so excited to be participating in Field Workshop: Action Projects at the ICA LA. Join me on Aug. 21 to participate in Season 3 of We Are All Americans - a socially engaged documentary project in the form of an oral history recording workshop series and an audio podcast. Participants will be able to sign up for 1 hour time slots between 1-6pm to have social distanced (with masks) recorded conversations about how family stories are passed down from generation to generation and what it means to be American at this moment.

RSVP here.