Author: Michael Chesnick

Jeff Beekman has been appointed as the next director of the University of Arizona School of Art. He will start July 1.

Beekman is coming from Florida State University, where he has chaired the Department of Art since 2023 and held other leadership roles since 2013, including associate chair and director of Foundations and BA programs. Previously, he taught at the University of Oklahoma, Georgia Southern University and the University of New Mexico-Gallup. 

“I am truly delighted to welcome Jeff to the University of Arizona School of Art. Jeff leads with care, curiosity, and a deep respect for artists and educators, and I know he will be a wonderful steward of this community,” said Hasan Elahi, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Arizona Arts. “His energy, generosity, and collaborative spirit make this an exciting moment for the School of Art.”

Beekman was awarded an Emerging Arts Administrators Fellowship by the National Council of Arts Administrators in 2023, in addition to being named a Leadership Award finalist at FSU for “those who have made a significant impact on the Tallahassee community.” He received his BFA from the University of Florida in 2000 and his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2005.

As an artist, Beekman has focused his work “on our relationship with the landscapes we occupy,” “on our relationship with the landscapes we occupy,” including lens-based projects in recent years. He has exhibited broadly across the U.S. and internationally at venues in New Zealand, Australia, China, South Korea, Hungary, England, Ecuador, Italy and Vietnam.

“While I am proud of my time at FSU and all that we have accomplished together, I have a deep love for the American West,” Beekman said. “Joining a school the caliber of the University of Arizona and working with a faculty as dynamic and well-respected as those in the School of Art is truly exciting.”

Founded in 1927, the University of Arizona School of Art enrolls nearly 700 major and 60 graduate students. It offers nationally ranked programs — including in Photography, Video and Imaging (PVI), rated No. 3 by U.S. News & World Report. Undergraduate and graduate degrees include Art History; Art and Visual Culture Education; Design Arts and Practices; and Studio Art in 2D Studies; 3D & Extended Media; Illustration, Design and Animation; and PVI.

Beekman will oversee 30 full-time faculty and 14 adjunct faculty — including those who have earned Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, exhibited at major biennales and published field-defining research — in addition to an acclaimed alumni base that shapes creative industries around the world.

“I look forward to building on my experience as an artist and administrator to connect people, ideas and resources,” Beekman said, “and to work collaboratively with students and others across the school, college, university and community to expand the future horizons of an already thriving School of Art.”

He will succeed Karen Zimmermann, interim director, and Colin Blakely, who left as director after 10 years to become associate provost at the Rhode Island School of Design in July 2025.

“I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Karen for her thoughtful and steady leadership as interim director, and to the search committee for the time, care, and commitment they brought to this process,” Elahi said. “Their collective work has positioned the School of Art exceptionally well for its next chapter.”

As chair at FSU, Beekman worked to add additional faculty lines and over $1 million in facility repairs and upgrades. He worked with donors to fundraise over $1.2 million for Studio Arts, doubling its previous endowment, to support a named professorship, increase student scholarships and awards, expand outreach to magnet high schools and state two-year colleges, and assist experiential learning opportunities and student travel.

In addition, Beekman expanded support for co-taught courses and collaborations between disciplines within Studio Art, as well between Studio Art and Art Education, Art Therapy, Dance, Design, Music, Physics, and FSU’s Innovation Hub. A list of recent external collaborators include CERN, the Florida Department of Community Corrections, and the Jacksonville Zoo, where FSU students designed interactive enrichment toys for animals.

“Overcoming institutional silos can be difficult, but when done well it opens innumerable opportunities for our students and faculty and facilitates a culture of collaboration, creativity and inclusion within the department and beyond,” he said.

His personal artwork explores human and environmental trauma, including the “Florida Coastline Project” and the “Battlefield Project,” which photographically explores conflict sites in the U.S. Civil War with archival photos of soldiers projected upon the battlefields where they fought and fell. Current exhibitions those at the Centro Cultural Benjamin Carrión (Quito, Ecuador) and Middlebury College (Vermont), where he is exhibiting alongside colleagues in the Eco.Echo Art Collective.

Beekman also has a curatorial practice, which began while coordinating the University of New Mexico-Gallup Ingham Chapman Gallery. His most notable exhibition was 2017’s “Broken Ground: New Directions in Land Art” at the FSU Museum of Fine Arts.

“Whether exploring the enduring impacts of climate changes on local communities, the Land Arts movement as a catalyst for contemporary art making, or the ethics behind the memorialization of sites of violence, the work I make consistently examines the relationships between land, memory and human activity,” he said.

Jacques Servin isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.

And on a warm Saturday afternoon in downtown Tucson, neither are his University of Arizona students as they mix dirt, sand, water and buffelgrass. They’re making adobe bricks that could someday be used in low-income housing projects, while also helping remove an invasive grass that threatens native desert ecosystems and fuels wildfires.

The messy work is part of a School of Art special topics course led by the internationally recognized media artist and activist Servin, a visiting professor who enlisted 10 undergraduate and graduate students to assist local buffelgrass adobe builder David Walker in realizing a decade-old vision.

“Digging deep in the mud pit made me realize how perfectly this applies to the ‘bottom of the barrel’ metaphor — everybody knows that the sweetest apples are at the bottom,” says Beihua Guo, a second-year MFA student in Photography, Imaging and Video. “I’m fascinated by the course. Everyone is pursuing something that’s going to be able to save a human being, no matter what Mother Nature throws at them. ‘Buffel-brick’ is the answer.”

Servin thinks so, too. As co-founder of the Yes Men, who use socially engaged art and satire to confront corporate greed, Servin calls the buffelgrass adobe project “revolutionary” — because Walker’s idea is to eventually pay unhoused people to help build their own housing.

“I thought it was the best idea I’d ever heard, and I wanted to help make it happen,” Servin said. “Another revolutionary thing is that it’s turning the scourge into a resource. So, it becomes a positive thing. The weed gets used and it disappears.”

Public presentation set for May 6

Beyond brickmaking, Servin’s class is producing risograph-letterpress posters, videos and a website to raise awareness about buffelgrass and how it can be used to develop community-driven, affordable housing. Students also are meeting with city officials about building codes and other issues — and will hold a public presentation on May 6 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the School of Art lobby and atrium, 1031 N. Olive Road.

“(Servin’s) absolute sincerity is what impresses me most,” Guo says. “If you look at the premise of using a highly flammable, invasive ecological disaster to build homes, you might think we’re making a really strange satire. And yet, it turns out that these things actually work and could be funded by Tucson and the university to help people.”

During their Wednesday class session in the Art Building, Guo is joined by fellow School of Art students Fiona Doherty, Josiah Lamas, Bella Mayer and Alex Scherotter; History major Clare Jones; College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA) students Annamaria Pongratz, Abigail Power and Lauren Stock; and MS student and CAPLA lecturer Sheehan Wachter.

They make the bricks on Saturdays, taking turns at different stations at the Barrio Buffelworks Adobe Brickyard, 931 W. Mission Lane, just west of downtown near Mission Garden.

As the students shovel and mix the mud and grass in wheelbarrows and troughs, others pack the mixture into molds — sliding the long, fresh bricks into neat rows under the sun to dry.

Calling the course “an exciting interdisciplinary studio,” School of Art Interim Director Karen Zimmermann is impressed by the students as they “manufacture materials and advocate for change through public demos and policy work.”

“These skills will help students address future issues and provide a model for future community and collaborative work,” she says.

Buffelgrass bricks are resilient

To help give the class a long-term vision, Servin turned to Walker, who has organized community buffelgrass pulls on “A” Mountain and used it to build for over 20 years. Students have promoted the Saturday events to the public, and Walker also invites high school students from the local Nosotros Academy to help out.

“Nice and easy,” Walker tells students as they try to lift a brick from the mold. “Take a deep breath … and pull straight up.”

The beige-colored bricks can dry in one to four weeks, but Walker says during the summer heat it might take just a couple of days.

“I’ve built three casitas with adobe buffelgrass,” Walker says, including one in his backyard 23 years ago for his mother-in-law when his son was born. “It’s my favorite room.”

The casitas are “pretty raw on the outside, with no finish, but they’ve lasted in the weather,” Walker says. “The adobe on the surface might wear out, but then it hits that buffelgrass, and it can’t erode anymore. The grass acts as a stabilizer and an insulator.”

When he moved to Tucson some 30 years ago from southern California, Walker built straw-bale and rammed-earth homes. “I’d been wanting to try (buffelgrass adobe), but I didn’t want to do it on my own. It’s such a good idea because it involves the community in picking the buffelgrass and making the bricks — and we need low-income housing.”

“I’m in love with the idea that this is 4,000 years of history below our feet,” Walker says. “There are pit houses underneath us, and we’re using the same earth. It’s hyper-local.

“Native Americans were making adobe into huts forever, so it’s nothing new. But they didn’t have buffelgrass, and if they did, they probably would have used it because it’s pretty strong material.”

In the 1930s, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service introduced buffelgrass to Southern Arizona for cattle forage and to control erosion. Planting continued until the 1980s, when it became widely recognized as an invasive species dangerous to the desert.

College gives Servin thumbs-up

Given the low-income housing shortage in Tucson and hoping to “dig ourselves out from under a giant corporate system,” Servin pitched the idea for the buffelgrass adobe class to Zimmermann and College of Fine Arts and Arizona Arts Dean Hasan Elahi, whom he met years before.

Both administrators loved the project, even though “I didn’t know how to build anything,” Servin says with a laugh. “But I do know how to organize and process the class. And everyone seems like they are getting along really well.”

Servin is happy to help shape the next generation of creators at the University of Arizona, as he has done previously through teaching appointments at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Parsons School of Design.

The Yes Men produced three feature-length films — including “The Yes Men Fix the World” — and screened them at film festivals, universities and art institutions. In one of their most well-known actions, Servin impersonated a Dow Chemical spokesperson during a live television broadcast, drawing global attention to the company’s ongoing failure to address the catastrophic Bhopal disaster.

Servin, who grew up in Tucson, is a 1986 University of Arizona graduate in Mathematics. His father, Henri Servin, taught French literature as a U of A professor from 1967 to the late 1990s.

Jacques Servin gave the Fall Convocation keynote speech to College of Fine Arts graduates in December 2025. Comparing the world’s current problems to a Jenga tower collapsing. He told students “the blocks are there for the artists to play with — and that’s what we do best. I’m really convinced that we’re more likely now than ever before … to effect real change in the world.”

For Servin, his buffelgrass adobe class is also a way to effect change “by literally digging ourselves out from under the big corporate building trade — in Tucson at least — while providing housing, work and community for the most vulnerable members of our society.”

“It’s completely outside the machinery of capitalism,” says Servin, his hands caked with mud. “We actually can house everybody without relying on corporations.”

Three University of Arizona doctoral students in Art & Visual Culture Education will present their research during the 2026 National Art Education Association Convention in Chicago.

Ziyu Feng, Seoyeon Jenn Kim and Yuqing Wang will join School of Art Assistant Professor Ilayda Altuntas, who will be leading the Seminar for Research in Art Education (SRAE) Interest Group Chairperson’s Panel on March 6.

The panel features Graduate Student Research Lightning Talks — a mentored national session designed to support emerging scholars as they share current research, build professional networks, and engage in conversations about research development, publishing and academic career pathways.

Feng integrates climate data visualization with sustainable handmade papermaking to explore how knowledge emerges through embodied and ecological engagement. Rather than treating climate data as abstract information, her work re-materializes it through tactile processes, positioning fibers, water, environmental forces, and human bodies as active participants in meaning-making. This transdisciplinary approach bridges art and science while foregrounding sustainability and climate education.

Kim will present “From Page to Practice,” which investigates how picturebook pedagogy and arts-based inquiry cultivate critical consciousness in art teacher education, with attention to race-conscious and socioculturally responsive teaching.

Wang will present “Self-Expression and Body Marks: Community-Based Art Practices for Healing and Body Awareness.” Her arts-based research is grounded in embodied epistemology, and during the community engagement portion of the session, she will facilitate a participatory activity connected to relational meaning-making through body marks.

“The Chairperson’s Panel is intentionally structured as a mentorship space where graduate students not only present research, but also connect across institutions and engage with current issues in the field,” Altutnas said. “It reflects SRAE’s long-standing commitment to rigorous, community-oriented scholarship in art education.”

Altuntas will be joined by other School of Art AVCE faculty at the March 5-7 convention, including Professors Amy Kraehe and Ryan Shin and Associate Professor Carissa DiCinido.

Shin and Kraehe will co-present the Invited Studies in Art Education Lecture: “Principled Leadership in Art Education: Understanding and Promoting Change in Teaching, Research and Administration.”

Kraehe will be part of “Sociological Art Education: Methods and Applications for Today,” a panel presentation that takes stock of sociological approaches in art education and gauges interest in a book proposal on critical and reflexive sociological methods used by art education researchers and teachers. Sociological framings may be a useful pivot that keeps art education discourse mobile during trying times.

Kraehe also will participate in “Beyond Binaries: Creative Acts in Precarious Times,” a session that responds to the challenges that art educators experience in their classrooms and communities in these precarious times and the productive ways to navigate art teaching and learning.

Altuntas and Kraehe will be part of the SRAE Business Meeting session: “Networking and Research Advice for Graduate Students and Emerging Scholars.”

Shin will attend the Asian Art and Culture Interest Group executive board meeting and be part of the
Studies in Art Education Panel Session for International Authors. He also will help lead an advisory session, “Writing for Studies in Art Education,” for prospective authors interested in submitting manuscripts for review.

In addition, Shin will be a panel member of the session, “Policy & Action in Difficult Times: Supporting Art Educators’ Diverse Perspectives in Contested Art Educational Contexts.” The panelists will offer strategic policies for inclusive curricula, ethical pedagogies, and advocating for art education programs that address recent challenges to the field.

DiCindio will help present “Centering Critical Consciousness Through Local History, Public Art, and Monuments: Research Commission Sponsored.” She and the panel will discuss public art, local history and social practice to investigate the role of the arts in civic engagement, collective care and advocacy. DiCindio also will be part of the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education Author Roundtable, focusing on the theme of “Movement and Momentum.”

For her dedication to animation, illustration and creative storytelling, Sela Margalit has been named the School of Art’s Outstanding Senior for fall 2025.

The Studio Art major carries a near-4.0 grade-point average with a minor in Film & Television and Art History, is a paid intern at Arizona Public Media (AZPM) and helped produce animation projects for Biosphere 2, the Borderlands Restoration Network, Semiconductor USA and AZPM.

But Margalit has had the most blast — “no pun intended,” she said — creating her “Atomic Age Adventures” comic strip for the Arizona Daily Wildcat. Since fall 2023, she’s produced over 40 strips in the series, which features Sylvania Spaceray — a modeling-sensation-turned-government-recruited lunar ranger — and Crater the dog carrying out missions on the moon, including trying to outsmart a small alien.

“I think writing comes the easiest when characters feel like real people and I’m just checking in on their lives, which is definitely how I feel about Sylvania Spaceray and Crater the dog,” Margalit said. “So much, that I also made my capstone film, ‘Atomic Age Adventures!’ about them. My favorite recurring character is definitely the alien. I have a hobby interest in alien theory, and he’s just a really funny little guy.”

Her mom encouraged her to join the campus newspaper as a sophomore. “At first I was shy,” Margalit said, but she quickly rose to become comics and illustration editor while mentoring other artists. The confidence she gained led to more successes as Margalit:

• Worked on “Small Seeds; Big Change,” a Center for University Education Scholarship-supported initiative and class collaboration with Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN), in which she developed a short animation about the Sky Islands ecosystem. The clip was shown at the “What’s Up, Docs?” showcase at The Loft Cinema, where Margalit also participated in a Q&A on stage.

• Met award-winning documentary filmmaker Lisa Molomot, who hired Margalit to deliver a short animation sequence for Semiconductor U.S.A. to help teens learn how semiconductors work and are part of everyday life.

• Participated in The Wonder Studio at Biosphere II Summer Residency, where Margalit produced a humorous short about a curious scientific researcher from Mars who investigates the history of biomes at the living laboratory north of Tucson. Following the residency, she curated a short animation program of her fellow residents’ work for First Friday Shorts at The Loft Cinema.

“Sela has sought out every opportunity in animation throughout her degree path and delivered consistently polished, creative, and conceptually impactful work,” School of Art animation Assistant Professor Nicole Antebi said in a nominating letter for the Outstanding Senior Award. “She has also positioned herself as a leader among her peers through her collaborative efforts.”

Last fall, Antebi introduced Margalit to Arizona Public Media producer Andrew Brown, who offered the student an internship with Arizona Illustrated in spring 2025.

“Sela worked successfully with our producers across a variety of projects that have helped us tell more engaging and dynamic stories and better serve our audience,” Brown said. “She has a good work ethic, is professional and easy to communicate with and takes direction well.”

Following the internship, Margalit became AZPM’s first paid student intern in animation. She contributed a key sequence to the story, “Eveli: The Algerian Born Jeweler of the Southwest” — a collaboration with Antebi’s animation class and another “high-stakes professional opportunity with a public-facing audience,” Antebi said. “Once again, Sela delivered strong, visually compelling, and polished work.”

Said Margalit: “When Eveli producer Özlem Özgür reached out to me about how she wanted more animation to be woven through the piece, I was ecstatic. It was a bit daunting as it was more animation than you typically do in the class, but with my film background I gained knowledge of editing and was able to pull it together quickly.”

In addition, Margalit pulled together her 4-minute animated senior capstone project for the spring 2025 BFA Capstone Show in Illustration, Design & Animation, despite an ambitious timeline. She “held auditions for voice talent, storyboarded the entire piece, animated and colored it, added audio, and had everything finished before the end of the semester,” adjunct instructor Valentin Mancha said.

“I’ve had memorable moments with so many of my professors,” Margalit said. “Professor Antebi really showed me the breadth of possibilities in animation, as well as offered constructive critique for my technical skills and advice about animation as a real career. I was unsure of design at first, but Prof. Watanabe made design both fun and actually digestible. Lastly … Prof. Mancha believed that I could finish my ambitious capstone and went out of his way to connect me with the resources and feedback I needed.”

Born in Los Angeles, Margalit moved to Tucson later in her childhood. “Being around a lot of art museums and media in L.A. “led me to having a passion for the arts,” she said. “Furthermore, my mom showed me so many different books, TV shows, movies — both educational and entertaining — that really ignited a spark for storytelling and creativity. I loved animated content from Cartoon Network, PBS Kids, and Disney, as well as comic books (especially X-Men).”

All those experiences helped her excel at the School of Art and with the campus newspaper.

“The Daily Wildcat is truly my home on campus,” Margalit said. “Coming into the comics desk, it was a great opportunity, but I wondered how it could be better. With the support of my fellow student members, as well as our advisor Susan McMillan, the comics desk has grown so much and I’ve had the opportunity to guide so many artists in creating their work, both in comics and editorial illustrations.

“Making art that supports the journalistic work the paper does is so important,” she said, “but it is also awesome that the completely creative pursuit of comics also has a place in the Daily Wildcat.”

As for the future, “I feel like being open to any creative opportunity is crucial,” Margalit said. “I’m planning on staying in town for a while and continuing to seek out as many opportunities as I can while promoting my work and continuing to develop my portfolio skills. I plan to do freelance work, try to participate in local events and keep integrated in the community.”

In her recent Halloween comic strip for the Wildcat, Margalit’s Sylvania Spaceray creates a lunar latte for Crater the dog, similar to a pumpkin latte. Crater doesn’t like it, calling it “dirt in a cup,” and Slyvania admits, “I didn’t say it was going to be good.”

For Margalit, though, even Crater the dog would agree that her future looks bright.

“Sela’s consistent determination, forward-thinking, and ability to creatively perform at a high level will ensure that she will make a significant impact wherever her career takes her,” Antebi said. “Through her numerous successful collaborations and the positions mentioned here, Sela has already taken the first steps in positioning herself on a strong career trajectory.”

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