MENTORS

 PHOTO: Center for Craft, MACR graduate Mike Hatch’s exhibit Crafted Roots: Stories and Objects from the Appalachian Mountains, on view August 3 – October 23, 2020.

SPRING 2022 MENTORS

Second-year students continue working with their Fall 2021 mentors through the Spring 2022 semester.

First-year students work with a new mentor this semester:

Meghen Jones is Associate Professor of Art History at the School of Art and Design of the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University. Her research focuses on the histories of ceramics, modern art, and craft theory in Japan and in international perspective. Recent projects include curating and coordinating the exhibition, conference, and catalogue Path of the Teabowl for the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. Mentor to Tina Wiltsie (‘23).

Judith Leemann is an artist, educator, and writer whose practice focuses on translating operations through and across distinct arenas of practice. A long-standing collaboration with the Boston-based Design Studio for Social Intervention grounds much of this thinking. Leemann is Professor of Fine Arts 3D/Fibers at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and holds an M.F.A. in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her writings have been included in the anthologies Beyond Critique (Bloomsbury, 2017), Collaboration Through Craft (Bloomsbury, 2013), and The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production (School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MIT Press 2007). Current pedagogical research takes the studio critique as site of study, with emphasis on collective undoing/remaking of the form. Worked with Darrah Bowden and Matt Haugh. Mentor to Rena Tom (‘23).

Dr. Tiffany Momon is a Teaching Fellow in our program during the fall semester, and serves as a student mentor and advisor during the spring. View her full bio on our Core Faculty + Teaching Fellows page. Mentor to Jill DiMassimo (‘23) and Joanna Weiss (‘23).

Mike Murawski: Consultant, change leader, and author living in Portland, Oregon. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, Mike brings his personal core values of collaboration and care along with a deeper understanding of placed-based connections into the work that he leads within organizations, non-profits, schools, and communities. Mike is the author of Museums as Agents of Change: A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker (2021), and is co-producer of Museums Are Not Neutral, a global advocacy campaign calling for ethics-based transformation across museums. In 2016, he co-founded Super Nature Adventures LLC, a place-based education and creative design agency that partners with parks, government agencies, schools, and non-profits to expand learning in the outdoors and public spaces. When he’s not writing, drawing, or thinking about museums, you can find Mike on long trail runs in the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Mentor to Beryl Perron-Feller (‘23).

Lehua M. Taitano is a queer CHamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from Yigu, Guåhan (Guam), familian Kabesa yan Kuetu, and co-founder of Art 25: Art in the Twenty-fifth Century. She is the author of Inside Me an Island and A Bell Made of Stones. Taitano’s work investigates modern Indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora. Mentor to Miriam Devlin (‘23).

Anuradha Vikram is a Los Angeles-based writer, curator, and educator. Vikram is co-curator (with UCLA Art Sci Center director Victoria Vesna) of the upcoming Pacific Standard Time: Art x Science x LA exhibition Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption (opening 2024), and guest curator for The Craft Contemporary (fka CAFAM) of the mid-career survey exhibition Jaishri Abichandani: Flower-Headed Children (open January 30–May 8, 2022). Her book Decolonizing Culture is a collection of seventeen essays that address questions of race and gender parity in contemporary art spaces (Art Practical/Sming Sming Books, 2017). Vikram is faculty in the UCLA Department of Art, CalArts School of Art, and USC Roski School of Art and Design. Mentor to Jen Hand (‘23).

FALL 2021 MENTORS

Sonja Dahl is an artist, writer and lecturer of contemporary art at the University of Oregon. Her work critically explores the cultural, historic, metaphoric and embodied aspects of how textile processes such as indigo dyeing, whitework embroidery and patchwork quilting live within and reflect the values of human societies. She conducts her research and art making from a situated acknowledgement and critical engagement with her white, American, settler identity. She is a founding member of Craft Mystery Cult, a member of Ditch Projects artist-run space in Springfield, OR, and a continuing collaborator with Babaran Segaragunung Culture House in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Her arts research projects and subsequent collaborations in Indonesia (2012 - ongoing) are supported by the Fulbright Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. Sonja’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and her writing is published in peer-reviewed journals and both printed and online arts publications. Mentor to Jill DiMassimo (‘23).

Jonathan Michael Square is a writer, historian, and curator specializing in fashion and visual culture of the African diaspora. He is an Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture at Parsons School of Design. This year, he also holds a joint appointment as a fellow in the History of Art and Visual Culture at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His writing has appeared in The Fashion Studies Journal, Vestoj, Guernica, Hyperallergic, British Art Studies, and the International Journal of Fashion Studies. A proponent of the power of social media as a platform for radical pedagogy, he founded and runs the digital humanities project Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom, which explores the intersection of fashion and slavery. Mentor to Joanna Weiss (‘23).

Dr. Julie Hollenbach has been appointed Assistant Professor of Craft History and Material Culture in the Division of Art History and Contemporary Culture at NSCAD University. Dr. Hollenbach earned an MA, Art History, from Queen’s University, before finishing her PhD in Art History from Queen’s in 2017. She has produced a number of peer-reviewed essays and curatorial projects to date, and has published research on contemporary and historical craft and art, material culture studies, museum studies, and gender studies. Mentor to Miriam Devlin (‘23).

Jen Delos Reyes is a creative laborer, enthusiastic educator, writer of endless emails, and radical community arts organizer. Her practice is as much about working with institutions as it is about creating and supporting sustainable artist-led culture. She is the director and founder of Open Engagement, an artist-led initiative and conference committed to expanding the dialogue around and serving as a site of care for artists working within the complex social issues and struggles of our time. Delos Reyes currently lives and loves in Chicago, IL where she is the Associate Director of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago. Mentor to Rena Tom (‘23) and Lexie Harvey (‘22).

Rosemary Logan, Ph.D. teaches food, field, and sustainability-focused courses for Flagstaff College. She earned her doctorate in Sustainability Education at Prescott College and has an expertise in expeditionary and transformative learning. She has taught a wide variety of sustainability courses, initiated food studies projects, and conducted research in transformative sustainability learning. Rosemary's professional background includes museum education, curriculum development, permaculture design, and field-based educational programming, including sustainability/permaculture-focused study abroad programs. She is the recipient of Northern Arizona University’s 2016 Sustainability Faculty Award, 2017 Teacher of the Year Award (University College), and 2019 Sustainability Leadership Award. She received her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2012 from Wayne Weissman (The Permaculture Project) and completed her Permaculture Teacher Training in 2017 (Pandora Thomas and Lisa DiPiano). Rosemary is raising two adventurous girls with her husband in Flagstaff where they live in a passive solar home they built together. In her free time she loves to train Brazilian jiu jitsu and spend time with her human and plant friends and family (in the forest/meadow/river, garden, and kitchen).. Mentor to Beryl Perron-Feller (‘23).

Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D. is a scholar, critic, curator, and Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado Denver, where she teaches courses on Modern and contemporary art. Her recent publications include the books Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art and Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture; contributions to the anthologies Nation Building: Craft and Contemporary American Culture and Design History Beyond the Canon; catalogue essays for numerous international exhibitions; and articles and criticism in such journals as Art Journal, Flash Art, The Journal of Modern Craft, and Art Jewelry Forum. With Hilary Robinson, she edited the 2019 anthology of new writing, A Companion to Feminist Art. She has also been a regular contributor to the popular feminist magazine BUST since 1999. Her current book project, Art of Noise, explores the ties between contemporary feminist art and popular music. Mentor to Kat Gordon (‘22) and Kae Lorentz (‘22).

T’ai Smith is associate professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver where she has taught since 2012. Her research focuses on textile media, concepts, and economies. Author of Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), she has published in Art Journal, Grey Room, Texte zur Kunst, and Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung, among other journals. She has also contributed to numerous museum catalogues and edited volumes, including Modern Women (Museum of Modern Art, 2010), Anni Albers (Tate Modern, 2018), and Anni Albers, On Weaving: New Expanded Edition (Princeton University Press, 2017). She is currently finishing a book manuscript, Fashion After Capital. Mentor to Laurin Guthrie (‘22).

Glenn Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history and contemporary art. Currently Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, he has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design; Head of Research at the V&A; and Curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee. Mentor to Jennifer Hand (‘23).

Karen Olson is the editor of American Craft. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of Public Art Review and Utne Reader. She’s also worked as a freelance writer, leadership coach, bookstore manager, and firefighter. Karen holds a BA in art history and literature, an MA in creative writing, and an MFA in fiction, and she’s taught writing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Colorado State University, and Northern Arizona University. She loves exploring big ideas, being in and on water, and the process of turning her urban backyard into a food forest. Mentor to Kate Hawes (‘22).

Alpesh Kantilal Patel is associate professor of contemporary art and visual culture at Tyler School of Art, Tyler University, Philadelphia, PA. His art historical scholarship, curation, and criticism reflect his queer, anti-racist and transnational approach to contemporary art. His first monograph, Productive Failure: Writing Queer Transnational South Asian Art Histories (Manchester University Press), mobilizes "affirmative criticality" and "productive failure" as conceptual frameworks to produce a more ethical, entangled, and transparent practice of writing (art) history. Patel was a Fulbright Scholar in Poznań, Poland, and a Critical Studies and Humanities Fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Mentor to Maru López.

SPRING 2021 MENTORS

Jen Delos Reyes is a creative laborer, enthusiastic educator, writer of endless emails, and radical community arts organizer. Her practice is as much about working with institutions as it is about creating and supporting sustainable artist-led culture. She is the director and founder of Open Engagement, an artist-led initiative and conference committed to expanding the dialogue around and serving as a site of care for artists working within the complex social issues and struggles of our time. Delos Reyes currently lives and loves in Chicago, IL where she is the Associate Director of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago. Worked with Lexie Harvey (‘22).

Pablo Helguera is a New York based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. Helguera’s work focuses in a variety of topics ranging from history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory and the absurd, in formats that are widely varied including the lecture, museum display strategies, musical performances and written fiction.
His work as an educator has usually intersected his interest as an artist, making his work often reflects on issues of interpretation, dialogue, and the role of contemporary culture in a global reality. Worked with Maru Lopez (‘22).

Sarah Margolis-Pineo is curator specializing in Modern and contemporary craft and design. Most recently, Sarah was curator of Hancock Shaker Village (Pittsfield, MA), where she oversaw the stewardship of the museum’s collection of 19 historic buildings and over 22,000 works of Shaker furniture, gift drawings, domestic objects, tools, and textiles. At Hancock, she curated exhibitions of Shaker material culture as well as contemporary art and design. She also developed symposia, events, and an artist residency program engaging the history and legacy of the Shakers. Worked with Colleen Hoesch (‘22).

Tiffany Momon is a scholar, Mellow Fellow, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Southern Studies at Sewanee, The University of the South. Momon earned a PhD in public history from Middle Tennessee State University, where she held positions with the Center for Historic Preservation. As a public historian, Momon’s work focuses on exploring African American placemaking throughout the southeast, documenting cemeteries, churches, schools, and lodges. Her most recent scholarship centers the experiences of enslaved and free African American craftspeople through the digital humanities project the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive (blackcraftspeople.org).

PJ Policarpio is an educator, writer, curator, and community organizer. He is the Manager of Youth Development at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. PJ has delivered keynotes and lectures at California College of the Arts, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, University of California at Berkeley, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the Field Museum, Parsons School of Design, and School of the Art Institute Chicago. He has organized exhibitions, publications, and public programs at Southern Exposure, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Public Library, Asian Art Museum, Dixon Place, and NURTUREart. His writing has been featured in Art21 Magazine, Art Practical, and Mabuhay Magazine. PJ is the co-founder of Pilipinx American Library (PAL), an itinerant library and programming platform dedicated exclusively to Filipinx perspectives. His publication Textiles of the Philippines is in the collection of the Thomas J. Watson Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He serves on Southern Exposure’s Curatorial Council and SOMA Pilipinas Cultural District’s Arts and Culture Committee. Born in the Philippines, PJ lives and works between San Francisco and New York City. www.pjpolicarpio.net. Worked with Heather Powers (‘21).

FALL 2020 MENTORS

Julie Decker, PhD, is the Director/CEO of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, which is a leading center for scholarship, engagement, and investigation of Alaska and the North. Decker’s career has been focused on the people and environment of Northern places and building projects and initiatives that are in service to local and global communities. Before becoming Director/CEO, Decker served as the Museum’s Chief Curator. She has a doctorate in art history, a master’s degree in arts administration, and bachelors degrees in fine arts and journalism. She has curated and designed numerous exhibitions, taught classes, and authored and edited numerous publications on subjects ranging from contemporary art and architecture of the North, to many aspects of the Arctic environment and histories. Worked with Amy Meissner (‘21).

Mark Essig is the author of two books: Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig (Basic Books, 2015) and Edison & the Electric Chair (Walker & Co., 2003): I’ve contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Atlas Obscura, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Gravy. I spent an unhealthy number of years in school (B.A., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Cornell). I’ve worked at burger joints, bookstores, coffee shops, and daily newspapers. I now spend many of my working hours writing and editing technical reports about science, medicine, agriculture, and international development. I grew up in St. Louis and now live in Asheville, North Carolina, a small city with nice hiking trails and an affordable housing problem. You can e-mail me by clicking here. You can also find me on Twitter: @mark_essig. Worked with Lexie Harvey (‘22).

Sam Ford is Director of Cultural Intelligence at Simon & Schuster, a ViacomCBS company, as well as a research affiliate with MIT’s Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing and a Knight News Innovation Fellow with Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism. Previously, he was VP, Innovation & Engagement, with Univision's Fusion Media Group; a director at strategic communications firm, Peppercomm; and a co-founder and project manager of the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium. He has consulted with a range of companies and projects in the media and marketing industries, academia, and the non-profit and public sectors. Sam is co-author, with Henry Jenkins and Joshua Green, of the 2013 NYU Press book Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, and co-editor, with Abigail De Kosnik and C. Lee Harrington, of the 2011 book The Survival of Soap Opera: Transformations for a New Media Era. Sam lives in Bowling Green, KY, with wife Amanda and daughters Collins, Harper, and Emma. More at his site. Thesis: As the World Turns in a Convergence Culture. More at samford.wordpress.com. Worked with Kae Lorentz (‘22).

Tiffany Momon is a scholar, Mellow Fellow, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Southern Studies at Sewanee, The University of the South. Momon earned a PhD in public history from Middle Tennessee State University, where she held positions with the Center for Historic Preservation. As a public historian, Momon’s work focuses on exploring African American placemaking throughout the southeast, documenting cemeteries, churches, schools, and lodges. Her most recent scholarship centers the experiences of enslaved and free African American craftspeople through the digital humanities project the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive (blackcraftspeople.org). Worked with Mellanee Goodman (‘21).

Ed Thomas was formerly Senior Director of Material Science Innovation and GM-Material Science Innovation and Sustainability at Nike, Inc. where he managed and led international research, design, development and commercialization teams working with suppliers, contractors, research institutes, universities, labs, material manufacturers, and product manufacturers. His experience includes living in Taiwan and Hong Kong for 7 years. Worked with Joni Van Bockel (‘22).

Deborah Valoma is an artist, professor, and chair of the Textiles Programs at California College of the Arts, where her specialized field of research, writing, and teaching investigates the role of textiles as signifiers of identity and agents of cultural continuity. She has developed a comprehensive series of graduate and undergraduate courses investigating textile history and theory through multiple lenses including colonization, cultural appropriation, and gender- and race-based hierarchies of value. Valoma has written articles and catalogue essays, presented papers, curated exhibitions, and published the book Scrape the Willow Until It Sings that traces the indigenous philosophies and practices of Julia Parker, the premier Native American basket weaver in California. Valoma is currently working on a multi-year interdisciplinary project that began when she inventoried a collection of one hundred heirloom textiles inherited from her grandmother—most made by her foremothers in home villages in Ottoman Turkey or in the Armenian diaspora. A combination of research, archiving, and responsive making, The Armenian Postmemory Project addresses the role textiles play in cultural survival. Worked with Kat Gordon (‘22).