Student Portfolio
Years
2013-2017
Red Rain Boots
EKG Six
And It Was All Yellow
No Picnic
Emoticorn
String-It-Yourself
Slipping
Slipping
Summer Puddles
Summer Puddles
The Red Ball Bowls Project
For The Red Ball Bowls Project, I created a limited edition of ceramic bowls cast from a red rubber ball to raise awareness about the Free Meals for Kids & Teens program offered through a collaboration between the Rockridge branch of the Oakland Public Library system and Children’s Empowerment Inc., a local non-profit organization. This program serves meals after school to children who live within the community and go without food on a daily basis. The bowls were hidden among the shrubbery before family Storytime outside of the library, and finders of the bowls were asked to contribute to the effort. I designed the bowls with kids in mind to reflect a part of their everyday lives. I believe that it is meaningful to children to experience the power to make a difference in their world. I expected that the project would impact everyone who was involved, but I hoped that its ripple effect would be even more profound.
Resistance Ware
In April 2017 at Friday Nights @ OMCA (The Oakland Museum of California), I presented a project to benefit the Alameda County Immigration Legal & Education Partnership (ACILEP). Donations were accepted in any amount in exchange for a bowl. 100% of the proceeds from this work was donated to Centro Legal de la Raza to support the ACILEP. In March 2017 the ACILEP launched a 24/7 hotline where immigrants could get free help if they had been detained. As the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, I created this work as a response to the administration's immigration policies. These slip cast stoneware salsa-guacamole bowls riff off of the traditional hand-painted Puebla-Blue Mexican dishware I grew up with as a child. The bowls are subtly imprinted with a border wall upon which is hand painted the protest chant, ¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido! Left: Non-functional prototype. Right: Puebla-Blue bowl and riff (Photo credit: Argil Tool).
What’s a Feminist? 2014
This project, a social cups assignment for a beginning wheel throwing class, explored the conceptual potential of what pottery can do. I created 30 cups for an exchange as a way to explore human relations and their social context. In 2014 the frequency of the use of the term “feminist” skyrocketed. I analyzed the monthly occurrence of the term in Huffington Post headlines and found that in December 2013 the word appeared once, but by November 2014 the word “feminist” appeared in 18 headlines. During the course of 2014, celebrities made public their position on the applicability of the word to themselves and to others. By November 2014, TIME Magazine readers voted for “feminist” when asked “Which word should be banned in 2015?” The last headline I included in my analysis read, “Hey TIME Magazine, Feminists Are Here to Stay.” What’s a Feminist? sought to survey whether CCA community members identified with the term, to begin a dialogue about just what it means to be a feminist, and to give away cups that would continue the conversation elsewhere.
I designed three cups: The “front” of each cup read “Feminist?” and the backs of the cups responded to the question by reading one of three ways: “Fuck yeah,” “Meh,” or “Nah.”
At the CCA Holiday Fair I asked passersby to select the cup that best reflected their position, complete two statements with honest and thoughtful responses, take a selfie holding the cup, and keep the cup.
For each cup design I created a questionnaire with two questions. Every questionnaire asked participants to complete the phrase “A feminist is …” Then “Fuck yeah” selectors were asked to complete, “I am a feminist because …” “Meh” selectors were asked to complete, “I am indifferent about whether I’m feminist because …” “Nah” selectors were asked to complete, “I am not a feminist because …”
After one hour, all of the “Fuck yeah” cups had been given away. People were eager to talk about the subject, refined their ideas as we spoke, and generously completed surveys even when I ran out of “Fuck yeah” cups.
