art + community collabs

What drew me to community art was mural making. I was painting and drawing but wanted to make something impactful for more people than just art collectors. This lead me to assist with after-school programs, lead workshops for at-risk communities, teach sensory play to children, and curate shows.
workshops

jive all five

a sensory workshop for toddlers
rutabaga toy library
Philadelphia, Dec 2019

A full-sensory workshop for toddlers. The goal is to activate their sight, sound, touch, smell, and yes, even TASTE! Sensory play is vital for early-learning and creativity.

wheatpaste workshop

kensington storefront
mural arts philadelphia
Philadelphia, Sep - Dec 2017

Introduction to writing emotional affirmations, designing posters, and making wheatpaste related to the theme of "Progress not perfection." Participants were invited to install their work in their community using the wheatpaste they made.

automat collective
While a member of Automat Collective, I curated two shows: Lamppoon, and Assorted Tropicals.

lamppoon

Philadelphia, May 2017

In this exhibition, dark humor and domestic objects come together to reveal the artists' discomfort with expected roles or relationships. They find hilarity in confusion and consumer goods. A ponytail is potted like a plant. A purse drains like a sink. A play on words turns into sardonic commentary of gender systems, and the grotesque.

Lamppoon features three artists who use humor to accentuate or alleviate darkness found in gender and relationships. Colleen Billing and Shelley Picot’s domestic sculptures take on cartoon-like qualities as they veer from their intended functions and reform as awkward substitutes. Eleanor Farley unpacks cartoon imagery in works that reveal entangled roles and memories. All three women employ comedy as a way to cope with tragedy. They turn grotesque into goofy. They revel in the confusion, anxiety, and discomfort found when confounding expectations. What looms beneath the surface of these works is made acceptable through laughter.

assorted tropicals

NoBa Artspace, Aug 2017

Assorted Tropicals is an exhibition of paintings and sculptural objects that consider the overlap between consumerist aspirations and nostalgia. Within their separate individual studio practices, Alex Ebstein, Jess Machacek, Eric Simmons, and Elliot Walters use a casual representational approach to unpack the transaction between memory, place, and object that happens after a vacation ends. They consider the souvenir purchased as a tiny portal of reminiscence and flashback to aquamarine leisure and fun.

Featured in the exhibition are works from Ebstein’s yoga mat paintings, Machacek’s vinyl panels, Simmons’ landscapes, and Walters’ ceramic swimming pool vases.

my paintings + drawings

I paint and draw from real life flowers, fruits, and containers gathered from shopping at thrift stores, superstores, and boutiques. These bright, jazzy patterns, contrasting market values, and nutty, flat compositions make me laugh at the constant stream of consumption and its confusion in my life. While laughing, I wink at the mad men who invented this tempting world. The viewers of my work may chuckle about these mash-ups or may find deep connections to the objects they see.