Drawing Connections considers how we chronicle history, and how we go on to tell those stories generation to generation.

These retellings of moments in our histories inform the foundation of how we understand who we are, our relationship each other, the nation, and the world. The visual articulation of a timeline is a powerful thing. It lets us envision our own ability to make the future through our viewing of the past... but at what cost.

Art History is an action.

As an action, it can provide both reward and consequence... and in doing so speak to power… all the while ensuring a narrative that benefits those who wield such power, allowing them to continue to hold on to it.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them - James Baldwin

This series of mixed-media monotype prints explore the tacit connections between Western Art History and American History, and how these thin threads of information and image inform US identity. 

Using collage, printmaking, and painting questions emerge that examine how these stories and images affirm mythologized heroism, colonialist narratives, and conceptions of whiteness?

How do purposeful ommissions of shared stories in the Western Historical canon lead to insurrection?

Can a painting of a founding father start a riot?

In this time of pandemic, we have seen what it means for people to rise in to roles of leadership.  

…Not the kind of leadership that is about supervision, or power, or even some idea of success. But rather, a form of leadership that is about taking on the responsibility to care for another person. The kind of leadership that centers the humanity that we all share, and that reveals the better angels of our nature.  

Frontline workers, nursing home workers, hospital cafeteria staff, cleaning crews, and more. They come to work everyday, at great personal risk to themselves in this current moment, because they know, this is what needs to happen... they are saving peoples lives. Not just through infection control, not just from contracting Covid-19, but from the isolation that takes hold as we stay separate, to stay safe.  

Leadership isn't the grand gesture. It abounds in the moments of quiet compassion. It manifests even when you feel the existential fear of not knowing what the future will bring. I see this leadership in the countenance of my coworkers. I hear it in the voices of my sisters and brother.    

They… are leaders.

As an educator, and a person deemed 'essential' in doing the work of elder engagement (non-clinical), much of my creative practice, especially in the beginning of the pandemic, was focused on attempting to capture how I was feeling. The confusion. The fear. Knowing the implications for my parents... knowing the risk for my siblings, all essential frontline workers... knowing that my place of work, and the folks I worked with, were especially vulnerable.

... I began through the process of exquisite poetry; pulling from books on my shelf. Most, non-fiction essays from the likes of Solnit and hooks. 

As I continued to write, the textual elements became more personal. I began documenting my home, a place that I spent 12 weeks working from, while waiting to be called in for onsite work. When I was finally called back in during mid-May, I continued to document my experience through writings and photographs.   

The work remains - in process. 

What does work toward an equitable practice of education look like? How does the action of this work manifest in real time? For me, the work needed to change the future of education starts in the examination of histories untold, and the collective labor of all folks working to understand those histories. It also taking an active role to make sure the documentation of today reflects the accurate accounts of events in real time. Histories should be shared, and not the singular narrative of the oppressor. 

The Myth is a painted installation consisting of 40 paintings, created in 40 days. Each panel is 12in x 15in and contains various scribbles and notes along with a depiction of one letter. The total scale of thw work is about 12ft x 5ft, and spells out the following: THE MYTH OF OUR GREATNESS WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.

The project, Warnings, explores the relationship between history, the influence of tyranny, and the role of complacency in not seeing/identifying the warning signs of  such rhetoric's influence young minds.

Desk panels are adorned with illustrations and graffiti one would typically find on well-used school furniture. Each desk also contains a lined notebook paper of varying quality and functionality, as well as a pencil in a various state of use. As the panels progress, the desks become more damaged, and the paper and pencil become increasingly more limitied in their function.

Each paper contains repeated lines from a poem by Stephen Dobyns, Toward Som Bright Moment.
Each desk includes both random drawings as well as lines from On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.