Our Scene

I grew up in Minneapolis, and then a few years ago I spent two years at an art school in Portland, Oregon. Though I was told on numerous occasions that this school was a community of loving and attentive creators that were more like a family than a bunch of future career competitors, the feeling of community this school claimed to offer was contradictory to the feelings of loneliness I was experiencing daily. I left the school in Portland and came back to Minneapolis with a new resolve to become an artist without a degree (out of spite more than anything else).

I had the grand opportunity to be the community coordinator for Mascaras y Milagros: a series of events hosted in October by the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. After more than a dozen events celebrating Mexican arts, dance, music, and culture in Minnesota, words cannot express how proud and honored I feel to be a part of this incredible event series—and, more importantly, my admiration for the work and contributions of all the artists and community members, both locally and internationally, involved in this collaboration.

I grew up in L.A. and I went to UC Berkeley for my undergraduate degree. I would have majored in art history, but my parents thought a degree in political theory would be more lucrative, so that was my major; I minored in art history. A Ph.D. in art history was a different story, though, so my mom gave me her blessing to pursue a doctorate at the University of Michigan. I finished my dissertation in 2010, and I was fortunate enough to have a job waiting for me as assistant curator at the Weisman Art Museum.