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Author: Michael Chesnick

Doctoral candidate Chavez named Tyson Scholar

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

Ricardo Chavez, a University of Arizona School of Art doctoral candidate in Art History and Education, has been named a prestigious Tyson Scholar in American Art for the fall 2023 semester at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Chavez will spend the 15-week residential fellowship doing research for his dissertation, “The Lost Utopian Classroom: Radical Pedagogies in American Art.” The project involves the intersections of art, education, and activism in American art and the legacies of the social movements of the 1960s as they impact artistic practice today.

Ricardo Chavez

“The biggest thing for me is the feeling of reaffirmation for both myself as a scholar and for the value of the research I am conducting,” Chavez said. “The whole experience of being a visiting scholar at such a well-renowned American art institution feels incredible to me.”

Established in 2012, the Tyson Scholars Program in American Art​ has supported more than 70 scholars, attracting national and international academic professionals. Crystal Bridges, founded in 2005 by the Walton Family Foundation, has a collection that spans five centuries of American art with 3,000 paintings, works on paper, sculpture, photography and new media.

“We believe your proposed project has the potential to advance the understanding of American art, and we look forward to welcoming you to the fellowship program,” Cyrstal Bridges executive Mindy N. Besaw told Chavez in his invitation letter.

For his “Lost Utopian Classroom” dissertation, Chavez plans to use his residency “as an opportunity to immerse myself in the museum’s social and community engagement programs that demonstrate the kinds of pedagogical and socially engaged art practices that are central to my dissertation work.”

Chavez grew up in Merced, California, in the heart of the state’s rural Central Valley.

“My location, coupled with being the son of immigrant parents who never entered into higher education, meant I had little exposure to art until I entered college,” Chavez said. “After taking some introductory courses, I really got into the subject when I took a course on contemporary art history and became fascinated with the diverse artistic voices and their creativity in expanding the definition of art in the present.”

Chavez earned his B.A. in Art History from California State University-Sacramento in 2011 and his M.A. in Art History and Visual Culture from San Jose State University in 2018.

He chose the University of Arizona School of Art to pursue his doctoral degree to work with Professor Larry Busbea, his adviser who specializes in design and art of post-war United States and Europe.

“I also was drawn in to earn my minor with the Art & Visual Culture Education program, due to its strong focus on using art education for social engagement,” Chavez said.

“My studies have thus pushed me to find ways to bridge the gap between what the fields of art history and art education have to offer one another,” he added. “Doing so while finding my own voice as a scholar and educator have been both the most challenging and rewarding aspects of my time here.”

Chavez, a graduate teaching assistant for the School of Art, said students interested in Art History and Art & Visual Culture Education should “expand the field.”

“Push it beyond its disciplinary boundaries,” he said. “That is what art history needs the most. It is not just a matter of studying creativity, it is also about being creative while doing so.

“Begin by identifying what interests you the most within the field, whether it is a movement, a time period, a medium, or a theme, and then try to build on that,” Chavez continued. “Try to build on the way art history perceives it, and eventually you might find a new and unique way of doing so that the field has yet to consider.”

Prof Saracino receives fellowship from prestigious Huntington Library

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

Jennifer Saracino, an assistant professor of Art History at the University of Arizona School of Art, has received a Barbara Thom postdoctoral fellowship from the prestigious Huntington Library near Los Angeles for the 2023-24 school year.

The fellowship will allow Saracino to revise her dissertation on the Uppsala Map of Mexico-Tenochtitlan into her first book manuscript. Uppsala is the earliest known map of Mexico City, painted by indigenous Nahua artists after the Spanish Conquest (c. 1540).

Jennifer Saracino, assistant professor, School of Art

“I’m so honored that they’ve recognized the significance of my project,” Saracino said. “The Huntington Library has always been an institution of which I’m dreamed of becoming a fellow. The strengths of their collections include the Hispanic Americas, Maps & Manuscripts and the history of science. These are all avid research interests of mine, so it is an ideal setting in which to carry out my research and manuscript revision.

“Not to mention, it’s absolutely stunning,” she said. “I’m really drawn to the fact that it has a research library, art museum and botanical gardens. It’s the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary art historian like myself.”

Saracino grew up in Western Pennsylvania but received her B.A. in Art History from the University of Southern California, not that far from the Huntington Library.

“I’m very excited to go back to my old stomping grounds and spend some time by the coast,” Saracino said. “Much of my Filipino family also lives in Los Angeles, so I’m excited to be able to spend more time with them.”

The Huntington complex, in San Marino, Caliornia, is one of the world’s top independent research libraries, with over 11 million items from the 11th to the 21st centuries. The Thom fellowships, lasting nine to 12 months, include a $50,000 stipend and are intended to support non-tenured faculty who are revising their dissertation for publication as their first monograph.

In the past, Saracino said art historical scholarship regarded the Uppsala Map of Mexico-Tenochtitlan as having a pronounced European influence compared to other Indigenous-made manuscripts of the same time period.

“I felt that a deeper analysis of the map was missing because of this,” she said. “These artists were extraordinary cultural brokers between the local European and Indigenous populations. They were fluent not only in multiple spoken and written languages but also visual languages.

Jennifer Saracino at the Newberry Library in Chicago

“As the daughter of an immigrant and someone with my own multicultural identity, I felt that these artists were owed more recognition in the scholarship as the extraordinary individuals that they were,” Saracino said. “I wanted to explore what it meant to hold multiple identities and how that is reflected in their representation of the dynamically changing world in which they were living.”

Last fall, Saracino presented a paper, “The Ayer Map of Teotihuacan as Embodied Action & Performance,” after being invited to the 21st Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr. Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

She also enjoyed participating in an interdisciplinary exhibition that saw University of Arizona professors across departments imagine how a Charles Dickens tale, “David Copperfield,” might find a homeland in the Sonoran Borderlands. From digital installation to performance, sonic experiments to film, cartography to micro-publication, the exhibition explored questions about the relationship between arts and public-engagement, literature and everyday places, and authors and readers.

“Art History is important because it allows us all to learn about different people, cultures, values and worldviews through the things they made,” Saracino said.

After earning her undergrad degree from USC, she received her master’s and Ph.D. in Art History from Tulane University in New Orleans. She was a junior fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection in Washington, D.C., then taught at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, before coming to the University of Arizona in August 2021.

Saracino co-organized a panel, “Ecocritical Art Histories of Indigenous Latin America” on Feb. 18 at the College Art Association (CAA) conference in New York City.

“Art History has broadened my worldview and afforded me the opportunity and privilege to travel the world and meet so many different people,” she said. “I think that to learn about others and their artistic and cultural traditions instills in you a greater empathy and appreciation for difference and diversity.”

Alshaibi earns praise from Regents, has solo show in UAE

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

Just weeks after Sama Alshaibi was formally inducted as a Regents Professor, a mid-career solo exhibition of the Iraqi-born artist began in the United Arab Emirates.

The Arizona Board of Regents honored the School of Art professor during the University of Arizona’s Outstanding Faculty Awards Ceremony on Feb. 15 at Crowder Hall.

Regents Professor Sama Alshaibi

In large part to Alshaibi’s contributions, the school’s Photography, Video and Imaging program has grown substantially and is ranked No. 3 in the U.S. News & World Report’s list of best photography schools.

“We are in awe of your impact,” said John Milbauer, associate dean for Faculty Affairs for the College of Fine Arts, who introduced Alshaibi at the ceremony.

“Tell it to the River,” a mid-career survey of Alshaibi’s work, started Feb. 27 at the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, UAE. The solo exhibition, which runs through June 30, 2023, brings together significant parts of her practice over the last two decades.

The exhibition debuts two commissions, one of them inaugurating Alshaibi’s 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and the other marking the closing chapter of an eight-year long photographic series. The two new projects mark the return of Alshaibi to her homeland of southern Iraq following a 40-year displacement.

Alshaibi’s work “explores the notion of aftermath — the fragmentation and dispossession that violates the individual and a community following the destruction of their social, natural and built environments,” Milbauer told the audience on Feb. 15.

In her photographs and videos, Alshaibi often uses her own body as both subject and medium.

“Your work is exemplary, as your professional accolades demonstrate: an extensive list of fellowships, exhibitions, publications and awards on both national and international levels,” Milbauer said.

Among those accolades, in addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship, are an exhibition at the 2014 Venice Biennale, a monograph published by Aperture (“Sand Rushes In”), a 2014 Fulbright research fellowship to the West Bank city of Ramallah and a 2019 Artpace International Artist Residency in San Antonio.

Regent Larry Edward Penley formally inducted Alshaibi as a Regents Professor on Feb. 15.

Earlier Provost Liesel Folks, senior vice president for Academic Affairs, told the audience that the Regents Professor is “the highest honor the university system can bestow on a faculty member.” The honor is “reserved for faculty scholars with exceptional ability who have achieved national and international distinction while maintaining a robust portfolio of student-facing work,” Folks said.

Alshaibi joined the School of Art in 2006. In her field, she is among the most sought-after presenters, having given nearly 100 presentations, and among the most frequently cited visual artists, with more than 200 citations. Her work has also been featured in recent exhibitions such as “Women in the Face of History and Migration(s)” and “Meaning in Art.”

Four other University of Arizona faculty members were formally named 2022 Regents Professors: Jean-Luc Brédas (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Juanita L. Merchant (Gastroenterology and Hepatology), David Pietz (History) and Donata Vercelli (Cellular and Molecular Medicine).

Mosley showcases social justice storytelling

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Before bringing her storytelling skills to the University of Arizona School of Art’s graduate program, Semoria Mosley found out just how impactful her photography could be during a social justice reporting project for the San Diego Union-Tribune called ­“____ while Black.”

Mosley amplified the voices of seven Black Americans who faced subtle and overt discrimination and exclusion in San Diego after interviewing more than 300 people. She told her editors, “I have hopes that the photographic art I create will give the invisible the superpower of being seen and probe the ones who never saw them to ask themselves, ‘How long have I ignored this voice?’”

Semoria Mosley’s project for the San Diego Union-Tribune

Her hopes were answered.

“When it was published online and in print, I started getting calls and emails from San Diegans who felt moved by the work — it caught me by surprise honestly,” Mosley said. The seven profiles online contained film and digital photography, along with audio clips from her interviews.

She was one of six young journalists from diverse backgrounds selected to participate in the 2019 project, which won national and local awards. She grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, which has a 40 percent Black population compared to 6 percent in San Diego.

Mosley, 26, is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Video and Imaging after earning her B.A. in Mass Communication and Media Studies from Claflin University in South Carolina. “While emphasizing the Black American experience, my work is a portal to multicultural understanding,” she writes on her LinkedIn page.

She answered questions for the School of Art during February’s Black History Month.

Q. How did your Southern roots help you become a better photographer and storyteller?

A. Being from the South taught me that there is a truth that’s subjective (and pretty objective in my opinion, but y’know) to my lineage and a truth that is subjective to their lineage. It inspired me to look beyond the normal bounds of truth and storytelling to see where the proof could exist; beyond devices like bondage, history, racism and representation.

Q. How important is authenticity and preserving cultural identities in your work?

A. Preserving cultural identities in my work is imperative because it assists me in being resistant to colonial constructs and more uplifting of the “discredited way of knowing that discredited people often have” (to quote Toni Morrison) — which I find in myself. It’s the permission I’ve given myself to fully immerse in the actuality of my experiences. With representation on everyone’s plate, at the dinner party where all men are created equal, I have hopes that outside the smoke and mirrors, my work can serve as reference to a life truly lived — in all of its subjectivity, nuance, and vision.

Q. You attended the same middle and high schools as Dylann Roof, convicted in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. How does that reminder affect you and your work?

A. It reminds me that Black, Brown and other colored communities are in close proximity to racists whose ideals can manifest in extreme ways and not even know it. In creating work, I realize I have no time to be slight in my expression as an artist; nor do I have time to explain. Walking on eggshells is a disservice to the resilience of my people. I think we’ve been cornered into being submissive to the voice that is not ours for far too long. My voice is my gift, so I work it as such.

Q. How did your Social Justice reporting project with the San Diego newspaper come about? What was the experience like?

A. I applied after my photo editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune suggested it. Of course, there weren’t any guarantees, but I’d just done 10 portraits for their front-page Sunday story — about a week after George Floyd was murdered. The editor knew I was eager to do more print work and that I would deliver, so it was a good opportunity. Working on that project solidified the passions I have for documenting, community and creating. I worked on it for about six months.

While I was excited, I was hesitant to speak about a community I had only been in for a year. Careful not to impose my idea of Black, my identity politics on to them, I asked the Black community what they dealt with. I interviewed anybody who considered themselves Black and was a native of San Diego — making exceptions for individuals who migrated to San Diego and/or lived there 10-plus years.

After listening to 300-plus people’s experiences, I picked seven to express the recurring sentiments I heard of Growing up / Birthing / Speaking up / Identifying / Fostering / Parenting /  being Homeless … while Black. It was hard to meet the subjects because Covid was extremely new, we were about four months in. The subjects changed often due to feelings of health anxiety, targeting from the (police department) and not wanting to lose their jobs — I understood. I’d like to do a shout-out (to the subjects) — Mikey, James, Ms. Shelley, Eryn, Billy, Ms. Ebony, Diamondz and Ra — for lending their stories and voices. The community appreciated it. I appreciated it, much gratitude. …

I spoke on San Diego’s NPR about it which made more people engage with it. It made me more confident. Now, I have community in pockets across San Diego, that are just one call away if need be. I also keep up with what’s going on, always still there to lend a hand.

Q. What attracted you to attend the MFA Photography, Imaging and Video program at the School of Art?

A. friend of mine (alumna Nassem Navab, MFA, ’19) who I met in San Diego suggested it to me. She was a graduate of the PVI program and knew it’d benefit me. I had always wanted to go to art school and the opportunity presented itself as organically as it could. The care from the School of Art and PVI’s welcoming arms, it felt right — and you always do what feels right. I’d like to give a shout out to Nassem; you’re a real one!

Q. What project(s) are you working on now?

A. I’m working more with the moving image, making myself the subject, challenging my visual language. I’m definitely in an experimental phase, but I enjoy.

Q. What are your career goals after you graduate?

A. It’s too early to tell. Circle back in 2025!

Alumna Crabbe wins Eisner research runner-up award

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Kendall Crabbe (Ph.D. ’22, Art and Visual Culture Education) has been selected by her peers to receive the Elliot Eisner Doctoral Research Runner-Up Award in Art Education.

The National Art Education Association will honor the University of Arizona School of Art graduate April 13 in San Antonio.

Kendall Crabbe

“There is no greater testament of your exemplary contributions to the field of visual arts education than being chosen for this prestigious award,” said Mario R. Rossero, NAEA executive director.

Crabbe’s 2022 dissertation, “Intergenerational Counternarratives of Creative Agency: Reimagining Inclusive Practices Through Youth Participatory Action Research,” analyzed the effectiveness of programs aimed at increasing youth participation in the arts.

Associate Professor Amelia (Amy) Kraehe was Crabbe’s dissertation adviser.

“I wanted to share this exciting news and to thank each of you for supporting me. I appreciate you and your time,” Crabbe told Kraehe and fellow AVCE faculty members at the School of Art: gloria j. wilson, Carissa DiCindio and Ryan Shin.

Crabbe is a lecturer and director of the BFAAE Program at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and assistant editor of the Art Education journal.

Her research interests grew from her teaching practice within youth programs in art museums.

Crabbe received her M.A. in Art History in 2011 from the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) and B.A. in Art History in 2008 from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, where she also was a Division III national champion diver in 1- and 3-meter springboard.

“Your colleagues throughout the United States and abroad join the NAEA Board of Directors in applauding your leadership, commitment and service to the profession,” Rossero told Crabbe.

Elliot Eisner, who died in 2014, was a professor of Art and Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

Grad student Walter surprises Walton with repainted chair

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Basketball television analyst Bill Walton is a huge Grateful Dead fan. As luck would have it, the University of Arizona School of Art graduate student tasked with repainting his special McKale Center chair also shares his love for the eclectic rock band.

“I’m a big fan, so I originally did a design where it was all Grateful Dead,” said Gabrielle Walter, an MFA candidate in Illustration and Design. “But then I did some research on Mr. Walton, and I realized he also loves the Sonoran Desert and Tucson.”

Gabrielle Walter chats with Bill Walton via Zoom. Photo by Mike Christy / Arizona Athletics

So Walter incorporated more desert artwork on the seat and a small university logo on the back, while still including two small skull and lightning bolts – the band’s iconic logo – on the front. The lettering on the back, with the band’s font, simply says “Bill’s Chair.”

“I wanted to make sure the design was a culmination of all the things near and dear to his heart,” Walter said.

The finished product left Walton almost speechless on Jan. 7, when Arizona Athletics presented the yellow chair to Walton before the men’s basketball game against Washington State. Walter, who goes by “Gabi,” attended via Zoom and chatted with Walton as School of Art Director Colin Blakely and Assistant Director Karen Zimmermann looked on along with University of Arizona President Robert Robbins and Director of Athletics Dave Heeke.

Walter’s design incorporates Grateful Dead logos and Sonoran Desert artwork.

“Oh, my. Look at this chair,” Walton said after it was unveiled at center court. “You’re incredible, Gabi. How did you know I like all this stuff?”

The new paint job idea came out of a meeting between College of Fine Arts Dean Andrew Schulz and Matt Ensor, assistant athletic director for communications.

“Obviously Bill is an iconic fixture in all walks of life and a champion of the University of Arizona,” Ensor said. “Once the idea came out in conversation with Andy, it was off and running.”

Walter ran her design ideas by Blakely, Zimmermann and Arizona Athletics. Walter sandblasted the chair to begin with, then had it finished with a protective coating afterward.

“When you get artists involved like Gabi, this is how cool you chair can look,” Blakely told Walton.

“Yes, I now have an ultimate destination (on press row),” said Walton, admiring the chair, which will stay in McKale.

“Bill’s Chair.” Photo by Mike Christy / Arizona Athletics

The tall chair makes the 7-foot Walton seem even more imposing. A member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, the center led UCLA to two NCAA titles and helped the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics win NBA championships in a stellar professional career.

His career took a toll on his body — Walton has had nearly 40 orthopedic surgeries, including several on his back — so he asked the University of Arizona years ago to order him a plain gray metal chair that helped his posture during the games.

To spruce up the chair, the School of Art ordered some enamel paints, and “I was lucky enough to get to do all of the detail work by hand,” Walter said. “A lot of the imagery is inspired by the Saguaro National Forest and the plants found there.”

Walter grew up in Houston and listened to her family to stay in Texas for her undergraduate degree, which she earned at Texas Tech. She loved Lubbock, creating a mural there, but said she was “ecstatic” when she was accepted into the University of Arizona School of Art.

Gabi Walter designed the bandanas to welcome new art students last fall. 

Her partner, a graduate student in Omaha, Nebraska, also is a huge Grateful Dead fan. Walter plans to move to Omaha to be with him after graduation in May.

Walter is a graduate assistant for the School of Art, teaching studio art classes for First Year Experience students.

“I really love teaching,” Walter said. “I also worked with high school students as an undergrad at Texas Tech. I realized how much a difference you can make as a teacher.”

She certainly made an impression with Walton.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. “Spectacular job, Gabi. Empty the Thesaurus. You did it right here.”

Walton added: “I need my chair, and now I have a special one, and I can beam ever more proudly.”

“I’m happy to do anything for a fellow Deadhead,” Walter said.

Alum of the Year Meyer excels in art and advertising

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

From his first job designing sofa ads for a small firm to developing a national advertising campaign for Walgreens, John Meyer has always understood the importance of making the right “pitch.”

It’s a skill he learned as an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona School of Art.

“The School of Art created a more focused foundation that helped bring out my talents to make myself more marketable,” Meyer said. “The U of A in general … also encouraged creativity and independent thought – while exposing me to other cultures and backgrounds.”

John Meyer listens to his introduction by Prof. Karen Zimmerman (top, left). (Photos by Jonalynne Bustamante)

Now an award-winning creative director, marketer, strategist and image maker, Meyer (BFA 1982, Studio Art) is being honored as the College of Fine Arts’ 2023 Alumnus of the Year — one of 15 alums being recognized by the university.

“I have developed campaigns from A to Z – Adobe to Zima. I would have to say that Walgreens, ‘At the Corner of Happy & Healthy,’ was my favorite because of the rebranding,” Meyer said. “I was responsible for the new creative campaign (in 2013), which affected over 100 million customers nationally.”

Meanwhile, Meyer and his former agency, Innerspin, squared off against another Los Angeles agency during the second season of the AMC television reality series “The Pitch.” The two firms battled to see who would help Bliss, a spa-inspired skincare company, launch its latest product, “Fuzz Off,” in the episode that aired in August 2013.

Innerspin won, led by Meyer, who devised an idea of a removable purple mustache sticker with the hashtag #fuzzyourself, which would be posted in various nighttime hotspots. “I love the stuff this guy does, I gotta tell you,” Meyer’s then-colleague, Elcid Choi, told Bliss executives during their pitch.

“It gave our whole agency an opportunity for exposure,” Meyer said. “We shot for 6 to 8 weeks in Los Angeles.”

John Meyer looked at student portfolios before his Alum of the Year ceremony. (Photo by Michael Chesnick)

Meyer had come a long way from his first job after graduation, working with a small design firm out of Huntington Beach, California. He rendered photos for Sunday newspaper print ads of sofas and chairs and worked on other local accounts, “which enabled me to create in several different categories – branding, retail and promotion.”

He secured his first big client, Burger King, during his next career move to JWT, a global advertising and branding agency.

“I didn’t give up,” Meyer said. “I kept improving my odds.”

Besides Walgreens, his other mega clients have included Apple, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Subway, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Chevron, Absolut Vodka, Pom Wonderful, TD Ameritrade and Virgin.

He’s now the chief creative officer of Absolutmeyer in Scottsdale, a firm he founded in 2015. “We’re finishing up a national rebranding effort for 3E Energy Drinks: ‘The Better for You Energy Drink,’” he said.

Meyer understands the importance of giving back, both to his alma mater and charities.

John Meyer helped students design these postcards when he taught a class for the School of Art in 2017.

“Teaching helped me understand the next wave of talent coming out of the university and gave me such a sense of pride,” said Meyer, who assisted students in getting internships with his firm and others across the country.

He also designed a series of Tucson-centric greeting cards, with a patriotic and western theme, while working with students in the Letterpress & Book Arts Lab run by Professor Karen Zimmermann, assistant director for the School of Art. “The cards are beautiful,” she said. 

A few years ago, he taught an Illustration and Design capstone class at the School of Art that focused on portfolios, branding, promotion, ethics and financial issues.

“It’s been the best part of my career to give back to the school,” Meyer said. “It’s been very rewarding to have the ability to help mentor such deserving and talented students.”

Meyer has volunteered creative support for several non-profit groups, including the L.A. Epilepsy Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. “We’re on this planet to serve others,” said Meyer, who is grateful to doctors who helped one of his three children with epilepsy treatments.

“Hopefully, my career path and highlights will inspire others to achieve more than they dreamed,” Meyer said.

His advice to students?

“Give more than you’re paid to do ­– money will follow,” he said. “Visualize your future and stay positive. Keep pounding and don’t lose the faith.”

• John F. Meyer: 2023 CFA Alumnus of the Year

Outstanding Senior: Amanda Lipp’s passion for art history ‘boundless’

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

Amanda Lipp made no secret about it. After taking her first Art History class in high school, “I quickly realized that I wanted to study the subject for the rest of my life,” she said.

Fortunately for the School of Art, she decided to pursue her passion at the University of Arizona – and now she’s unlocking mysteries of 18th century Mexican pottery and researching discrimination that still exists 50 years after Linda Nochlin’s 1971 groundbreaking essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”

Lipp, who just graduated, received the fall 2022 Outstanding Senior Award from both the entire College of Fine Arts and the School of Art for her devotion to scholarship and art communities through her museum work, volunteerism and leadership.

At a recent presentation at the Arizona State Museum on campus, Lipp enlightened an audience of peers, faculty and the public about the museum’s 18th century Mexican talavera jar – and how the earthenware has been misunderstood historically.

Amanda Lipp and talavera jar

“What makes Amanda so special is that she genuinely enjoyed tackling an object that was not going to reveal its secrets easily,” said Professor Stacie Widdifield, who oversaw Lipp’s project. “She not only literally looked at the jar from all sides, that is materially, but also in the context of the ASM collection and then in the broader art historical and museum context.

“Her joy and enthusiasm for the project was boundless.”

Some of that joy came from Lipp’s determination to learn more about her heritage.

“Part of my family is Mexican, but I’ve always felt a kind of disconnection from that culture,” Lipp said. “Connecting to talavera and to these deep parts of Mexican culture impacted by colonialism and many cultural shifts has been a way to connect back to myself and my family.”

Lipp grew up in Tucson and attended University High, where she was mentored in Art History by Whitney Sheets.

At the University of Arizona, she majored in Art History and minored in Art and Visual Cultural Education. She held internships in Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Phoenix Museum of Art, where she assisted in the curation and installation of the popular 2018 exhibition, “In the Company of Women.”

The Phoenix all-woman exhibition “got me thinking about tokenism, exceptionalism, and the idea of genius,” Lipp said. “I thought it was interesting that the Linda Nochlin article so many curators referenced — ‘Why Are There No Great Women Artists?’ — seemed to contradict having these ‘all-women’ exhibitions.

“Systemic oppression and discrimination are an ongoing battle, and part of that battle is researching and uncovering those systems,” said Lipp, who wrote a paper on the subject for Professor Irene Romano. “I want to continue research on this project in the future, because I think it is important to do research based on real world issues.”

In spring 2022, Lipp also interned at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, where she developed a research guide for women artists in the collection, facilitating hands-on activities at community events, observing gallery tours and providing feedback on the tours.

She was awarded the School of Art’s Undergraduate Schaeffer Prize in the Art History Research Paper Prize competition in spring 2022 for her analysis of the talavera jar in Widdifield’s class. Lipp presented her research at the first Arizona Latin American Studies Symposium.

For her final paper in Professor Carissa DiCindio’s museum education class, Lipp focused on engaging people with art outside of museum spaces, holding a “Kunst” event at her home and discussing ways museum education practices could be used to garner interest in artist Gustav Klimt among her guests.

“Amanda dives into projects with creativity and focus,” DiCindio said. “She is definitely a student who really loves the work she is doing.”

Lipp restarted the school’s Undergraduate Art History Club and became its president, planning events to raise interest in and awareness of art history. She also served as a grant panelist for the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona.

In Professor Larry Busbea’s classes, she conducted probing research on institutional critique and psychedelic graphics from the 1960s.

“Out of more than 30 years of undergraduate teaching, Amanda stands out in my mind as one of our Art History program’s most informed and mature students,” Professor Paul Ivey wrote, “exhibiting creative innovation, intellectual vitality and rigor, and a gregarious drive to learn and integrate what she learns with her goal to become a professional art historian.”

Lipp’s ultimate goal, indeed, is to become a museum curator or educator, preferably for Latin American art. She’s planning on pursuing a master’s in Art History and a doctorate in either Art History or Art Education.

“Right now, I have it planned out, but who really knows what the future holds,” said Lipp, who has future trips schedule to Europe, Mexico City and Puebla, Mexico.

“It turns out, I love to teach and make art accessible,” Lipp added. “The School of Art really provided the perfect place to interweave my dual interests of people and art.”

Shin co-edits book, ‘Counternarratives from Asian American Art Educators’

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

Professor Ryan Shin has published a co-edited book through Routledge, “Counternarratives from Asian American Art Educators: Identities, Pedagogies, and Practice Beyond the Western Paradigm.”

It’s his second book released this year – and he was the leading editor on both.

An e-book for “Counternarratives” is available now, and the hard copy will be out soon. Shin’s co-editors are Maria Lim, Oksun Lee and Sandrine Han.

“Counternarratives” collects and explores the professional and pedagogical narratives of Asian art educators and researchers in North America, according to Shin. Few studies published since the substantial immigration of Asian art educators to the United States in the 1990s have addressed their professional identities in higher education, K-12, and museum contexts. By foregrounding narratives from Asian American arts educators within these settings, this edited volume enacts a shift from Western, Eurocentric perspectives to the unique contributions of Asian American practitioners, Shin said.

In short, the book highlights the voices and experiences of Asian art educators and serves as a scholarly resource for exploring their identity formation, construction, and development of a historically underrepresented minoritized group in North America.

Shin contributes to the introduction and is the author of Chapter 6, “Decolonization in Art Education Theory and Practices.”

“My narrative delineates the transformative process of an art educator from an oppressed scholar who regurgitated Eurocentric and White art education theories as orthodox knowledge,” Shin says, “to a critical art education scholar who challenges and problematizes dominant Western pedagogy.

“Specifically, I describe the three stages of my pedagogical development as a counternarrative from an international graduate student who was immersed in self-colonization,” Shin says, “to an early career art education professor who introduced ethnic minority visual culture into the art classroom and contributed to establishing an NAEA issue group, Asian Art and Culture Interest Group … and finally to an Asian American art educator who develop Asian critical pedagogy (ACP) as a new lens to challenge White master pedagogy in the field of art education.”

Shin also co-edited the 2022 book, “Borderless: Global Narratives in Art Education,” with Karen Hutzel.

In spring 2022, Shin received the COMC J. Eugene Grigsby Jr. Award from the National Art Education Association. The award, from the Committee on Multiethnic Concerns, honors individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of art education in advancing and promoting education, investigation, and celebration of cultural and ethnic heritage within our global community.

UT-Austin names alumna Varela early career fellow

Posted on by Michael Chesnick

University of Arizona School of Art master’a alumna Bella Maria Varela was named a prestigious Early Career Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin as part of its Expanding Approaches to American Arts initiative.

For the next two years, the 2021 Master of Fine Arts graduate in Photo, Video and Imaging will receive research funding, studio space and robust mentorship at UT-Austin to help prepare for a career in academia.

Varela moved to El Paso, Texas, after graduation to attend the Border Art Residency (BAR), where she helped establish a new arts and philosophy program — Transformative Learning Communities — in elChamizal, a barrio on the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Bella Maria Varela

The artist uses video and cultural objects to explore the intersections of immigration, sexuality and gender identity. At UT-Austin, her teaching focuses on combining found objects, digital, photography, green screen performances, and experimental video into non-traditional and virtual classroom environments to guide students to explore their relationship with space, culture and community.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bella . . . into our community of artists and scholars,” said Raquel Monroe, a College of Fine Arts associate dean at UT-Austin. “(Her) curiosity and transdisciplinary methodologies are inspiring.”

Varela, whose parents were Guatemalan immigrants, grew up in inner-city Washington D.C. At the University of Arizona, Varela served as a facilitator with the Common Ground Alliance and QTPOC (Queer and Trans People of Color). Using photography, video and installation work, Varela’s artwork explored her identity as a first-generation Latinx women exploring and reclaiming American landscapes.

“I cut and reconfigure iconic material to skewer mainstream anti-immigration rhetoric, subvert the appropriation of Latinx culture and queer mythologies of Americanness,” Varela said.

Her practice is rooted in the resourceful legacy of immigrant hustlers, which has compelled her to not only collect but also corrupt and alter found objects and images to amplify the power dynamics inherent within it.

In April 2022, during her Border Art Residency in El Paso, she presented a mixed media installation at a Las Cruces, New Mexico, gallery entitled “@Border Becky,” which she also exhibited at the University of Arizona Museum of Art during her studies. It combined photography and two videos with fleece blanket assemblages to explore the intersection of immigration and gender identity through the lens of contemporary pop culture and mass media.

At the University of Arizona, she received first place in the 5 Minute Film Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Tucson for her work titled “Triathlon” and was accepted into the Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship Program. Varela attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she majored in Mass Communication and minored in Photography. After receiving her undergrad degree, she returned to Washington to serve as a museum assistant at the Phillips Collection, assistant manager at the Renwick Gallery Store, and as arts program coordinator with All Our Kids DC.

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