Self-Preservation Exhibition Catalogue

UNBOUND VISUAL ARTS

SELF-PRESERVATION: A COMPLEX HUMAN INSTINCT Monday, April 19, 2021 to Wednesday, June 30, 2021 Self-Preservation: A Complex Human Instinct Presented by Unbound Visual Arts Curated by Cecilia Christman Designed by Kyung Eun Lee Exhibit Assistance: Renée Fritschel, Enrica Gabriele-Smith, Sarah Lolya, Chelsea White Artists: Nancer Ballard, Donna Caselden, Linda Clave, Catherine Lawrie, Sally Lee, Elisandra Lopes, Kat Masella, Maia Monteagudo, Michaela Morse, Jennifer Jean Okumura, and Diane Sheridan The Covid-19 virus has drastically altered our way of life. It has also exacerbated a pre-existing condition that is endemic to our society: fear of “the other.” Rooted in self-preservation, it became most apparent in the unfounded judgement of the Asian community in the United States. Fear of another based on race is not novel to the twenty-first-century United States, given the systemic racism deeply rooted in our nation’s foundations. As a result of the pandemic and the country’s reckoning with racial injustice, the practices of individualism and self-preservation have burgeoned into many new forms.

This exhibition, a follow-up to Portraits in Refuge, explores the ways in which self-preservation can hurt, heal, divide, and unify.

2020 has undoubtedly brought many trials to the United States. A novel virus, political turmoil, and heated race relations collectively contributed to a dramatic spike in alienation and fear of “the other.” Some communities grew closer, but many fell apart. When the world around us seems to be crumbling, how do we practice self-preservation? Does prioritizing ourselves need to come at the cost of hurting others? Has self-preservation ever saved your life, taught you something new, or led you to new communities? Please share visually with our art community, how self-preservation or fear of “the other” has impacted your life while coping with this ongoing pandemic.

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KAT MASELLA Love No. 10 18 x 26 x 1 inch (h x w x d) Oil on canvas USD 2200

KAT MASELLA Repose no.. 7 32 x 24 x 1.5 inch (h x w x d) Oil on canvas USD 3400

KAT MASELLA Forging Ahead 30 x 28 inch (h x w) Oil, Mixed USD 3400

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NANCER BALLARD Sibyl Speaks to my Phone (Detail) 4.5 x 9.3 inch (h x w) Photography, hand and machine stitching, fabric, book board USD 75

NANCER BALLARD Sibyl Speaks to My Phone 9.3 x 4.9 inch (h x w) hand and machine stitching, fabric, book board USD 75

SALLY LEE The Chinese Virus Digital Illustration

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SALLY LEE The Orientalist Male 72 x 44.5 inch (h x w) Charcoal and chalk pastels USD 525

MICHAELA MORSE My dried hot drinks journal 7 x 5 x 1.8 inch (h x w x d) Artist’s Book, handmade papers with tea leaves and yerba mate, commercial papers stained with coffee

MICHAELA MORSE My dried hot drinks journal (Open) 5 x 7 x 1.8 inch (h x w x d) Artist’s Book, handmade papers with tea leaves and yerba mate, commercial papers stained with coffee

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MICHAELA MORSE My dried hot drinks line up 6 x 36 inch (h x w) Digital photograph

LINDA CLAVE Self Portrait 1d 10 x 8 inch (h x w) brush pens on paper sketch pad

LINDA CLAVE Self Portrait 1c 10 x 8 inch (h x w) brush pens on paper sketch pad

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LINDA CLAVE Inner Turmoil Series, Afternoon Easing 10 x 8 inch (h x w) brush pens on paper sketch pad

DIANE SHERIDAN Self-Preservation 3 9 x 9 x 1 inch (h x w x d) Mixed media USD

ELISANDRA LOPES Self-Preservation of a Cape Verdean Woman 12 x 16 inch (h x w) Colored Pencils, Black Ink USD 500

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CATHERINE LAWRIE Survivor 42 x 30 x 1.5 inch (h x w x d) Acrylic paint on canvas

MAIA MONTEAGUDO Panic Attack 20 x 16 x 1 inch (h x w x d) Acrylic paint, pen on black canvas USD 90

SALLY LEE The Protection and The Fragile (series 4) 4.8 x 3.5 x 2.3 inch (h x w x d) Porcelain

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SALLY LEE The Protection and The Fragile (series 3) 10 x 5.5 x 2.5 inch (h x w x d) Porcelain

DONNA CASELDEN Urban Renewal 36 x 36 x 1.5 inch (h x w x d) Oil on canvas USD 2800

DONNA CASELDEN Pandemic 30 x 48 x 1.5 inch (h x w x d) Mixed media USD 3000

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JENNIFER JEAN OKUMURA Between Breaths, Same Same But Different 55 x 36 x 1 inch (h x w x d) Oil on paper USD 2200

JENNIFER JEAN OKUMURA Move with Love 24 x 48 x 2 inch (h x w x d) Oil on canvas USD 2500

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Self-Preservation: A Complex Human Instinct Part 2: Artist Biographies and Artist Statements

Move With Love Jennifer Jean Okumura Oil on canvas 24 x 48”

Virtual 360 Degree Exhibition Curated by Cecilia Christman

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Nancer Ballard Nancer Ballard is a writer, book artist, photographer, lawyer, and founder of The Heroine’s Journey Project blog and website heroinejourneys.com. She has an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars, has studied book arts and paper engineering at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and has worked as a photojournalist for newspapers in Ithaca New York and Boston. She is a recipient of The Juror’s Choice Award, The Librarian’s Choice Award and a Judge’s Merit of Distinction Award in 2013 and 2016 for her artist books in Beyond the Book, Exhibitions of Book as Art. Her photography and artist books have been exhibited at the Zullo Gallery Center for the Arts, Brandeis University, the Attleboro Art Museum, Boston City Hall, and the Boston Public Libraries, among other places.

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In 2020 it became viscerally clear that, for me, self-preservation cannot be separated from preservation of democratic values, compassion for other people and their histories, and our planet.

Last fall I worked on voter protection in several swing states.

Although taking action helped, I found myself searching my heart and mind for “what can’t be taken from me.” This became the artist book, "Sibyl Speaks"-- a book of pockets to save advice such as, “Listen to Everyone,” “Tire Not of Learning,” and “Think Like a Mortal,” that seems as relevant now as in Ancient Greece.

Ironically, polarization has only amplified my appreciation for diversity in nature and people. The photograph of the threshold to a shuttered beauty salon with its “Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful” poster hanging silently on the wall captures my prayer that we persevere and cherish the wonder that is unique to each of us.

2021 brings me cautious hope. Although there is much to be done, I am grateful for all those who made Inauguration Day such a joy. The colored bands on the Branches of Democracy suggest the outfits/apparel of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Laura Bush, Eugene Goodman, Amanda Gorman, Lady Gaga, the Secret Service and more. The branches serve as a reminder that we are part of the natural world, and as totems to honor Native Americans. The branches are housed in a transparent vessel – a symbol of my hope that we openly attend to ourselves, one another and our future.

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Donna Caselden

Donna Caselden is a well-known talent across the spectrum of visual design. An award winning experimental artist and clothing designer, Caselden also works one-on-one with clients on interior design and home décor projects.

Caselden works from her studio in the seaside village of Annisquam, Massachusetts, as well as among the vineyards in Napa Valley, California. Her works are showcased in museums, galleries and private collections throughout the United States, including the highly regarded Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts.

As a painter, Caselden has won acclaim for her work with acrylic and oil paint and is known for her experimental 2D artwork, incorporating unusual substances like marble dust, mica or sand to achieve unique texture and effects.

Donna Caselden is a board member of Cape Ann’s Experimental Art Group at Rockport Art Association & Museum, as well as a member of Society for Encouragement of Arts (seARTS), Rocky Neck Cultural Center, Boston’s Fort Points Art Community, the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), and a Master Artist of Newburyport Art Association. She has gallery representation at Gallery on Jarves in Sandwich, Massachusetts and Charles Fine Arts in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

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Linda Clave

Linda Clave, of Brighton where she maintains her art studio, has been active in the annual Allston Arts District Open Studios. She also participated in UVA's Healthful exhibition at the Honan-Allston Library Art Gallery in 2015. She has participated in many other solo and group exhibitions in the area.

Linda's artwork began as a child. She was convinced that she could draw and color a world of her making and it would be real not imaginary. Something inside told her that she could travel to ancient sites in Mexico and the Amazon or Native American places in New Mexico. Magic seemed even more real to her when at ten her father moved the family to live in Argentina for several years.

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Catherine Lawrie

Catherine Lawrie is a classically trained painter and art educator.

She has taught students from 3-96 over her career. Her practice has taken many twists while raising her family. Primarily as a communications and graphic designer freelance consultant to major corporations. Now that her family has flown the nest, she has returned to painting. Catherine currently devotes her day work giving back to a DV agency (the Stone House) in Roxbury.

She connects culture with healing and raising funds as the Community Engagement Manager, but she reserves Fridays for her painting. Catherine has returned to showing her works over the past few years, including exhibits at the Beacon Hill Art Walk and HPAA (MAC Center).

As a survivor of domestic violence I have lived a life with a smile on my face. If I smile then no one will know my pain inside and ask questions.

My work is often autobiographical; using imagery to capture the paradoxes of life. My works are called “Lifescapes”.

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Sally Lee Boston-based installation artist Sally Lee has spent the last two years honing her work at the city’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, whilst completing a master’s thesis. Sally’s work offers a current event commentary while speaking to the intersection of conflict and culture and of societal and familial norms.

Having spent time in China and Hong Kong, attending pro-democracy protests, Sally has explored the normalization of outrage, and used her platform as an Asian-American artist to depict an imagined future in decorative and ornamental objects in porcelain. The decorative patterning often mimics chinoiserie wallpaper alluding to the relationships between cultural identity, femininity and the domestic space. Lee’s current direction has evolved from both her experience in physical installations and her skill in digital illustration, to bring her illustrations in large-scale, to public spaces.

Sally currently works at the School of The Museum of Fine Arts as a Postgraduate Teaching Fellow for the First Year Program, as the Ceramic Studio Technical Assistant.

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My artwork reflects my experiences surrounding cultural identity. In the efforts of highlighting the cultural consciousness and shared experiences of being Asian in America, I start by depicting my own personal narrative of being a westernized Chinese woman in America. The feeling of displacement shapes a world that I want to belong in and recognize. In turn, my work is my individuality; a melting pot of my Chinese, British, and American identities.

My art practice has served as a mechanism to navigate my place in the world as a first-generation immigrant. These experiences inform me on how to create conceptual work through historical, political and cultural contexts. The interdisciplinary approach and curiosity in my current practice, work in conjunction throughout my problem solving and conceptual decision making. My process involves laborious art making such as hand cut patterns into Chinese satin fabric, mimicking the design that already exists; and large amounts of ceramic pieces that assemble to a whole. Like my cultural identity, my combined aesthetic between Eastern and Western styles and philosophies are a part of my artistic fingerprint.

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Elisandra Lopes

I am a Cape Verdean artist whose work draws influence from everyday life, activism, environment, and nature. I work mostly with colored pencils, watercolor, gouache, and acrylic while having the heart for making collages. I immigrated from Cabo Verde in 2007 to the United States of America to pursue a better education and health services. After a rough journey facing financial issues, inequality and abuse of power from a dominant group, I continued to finish my education. In 2016, I earned my BFA in Illustration from Lesley University College of Art & Design.

I am currently a graduate student at Lesley College of Arts & Social Sciences pursuing my masters in Counseling Mental Health specialization in Art Therapy. I plan to have more of my work displayed online and in gallery exhibitions. I already had some of my art pieces displayed in galleries such as the artwork related to immigration were displayed at the Crossing/Borders Exhibition at Parker’s Gallery in University Hall, Cambridge, MA. I am the graphic designer for the Office of Community Service at Lesley University. I also do freelance artwork for the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) team and volunteer with Lesley Community Service.

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Capturing simplicity, color and texture is everything for me. As an Illustrator/Designer these three components have always been what I look for when I create new artwork. It’s my inspiration. I usually combine different mediums together to form something unique. In this artwork titled Self-Preservation of a Cape Verdean Woman, it is representing me as a Cape Verdean woman in America during this pandemic. I am surrounded by what is keeping me motivated and what kept me going during hard and difficult times. I want people to see the many hats I wear daily but also the struggle I went through while doing all of those things. In this piece, I’ve incorporated the following key terms: power, voice, equality, strength, pride and honor.

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Kat Masella Kat Masella was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. She received a graduate certificate in Visual Arts from Harvard University; still, she continues her life-long art studies. She feels indebted to acclaimed artist mentors Katherine Chang Liu and Frank O'Cain. O'Cain studied under Vaclav Vytacil, who also mentored Louise Bourgeois and Robert Rauschenberg. Kat learned to see more abstractly from O’Cain.

In 2013, she founded the Northeast Art Workshop Retreats, the region’s only art center hosting exclusively internationally acclaimed artist instructors. Now on hiatus due to health reasons, the center was a 'think-tank' where like-minded artists were free to experiment and grow in a supportive environment.

In the last season of the center, Kat initiated a tuition-free program for the elderly and disabled.

Kat is a recent finalist of an eight artist show at the Attleboro Arts Museum. Her art has been featured in Art New England and Artscope magazines.

Of her artwork, Kat says, "When hard times come, and the world is in disarray, I wonder how I can make a difference through art.

I have chosen to depict feelings of peace and goodness as we all eventually need these essentials in life. If I can provide even the slightest bit of wonder and joy through my paintings, then my mission is in part accomplished."

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For this current work, I honor and empathize with the human experience, the fragility of life, and the love that often prevails. I contemplate how we can embrace every moment we have in this short life and make the best of it.

Sketches both from observations and memory inform my work as I empathize with the human condition. Working with layers of mixed media, including oil, wax, and marble dust, my process becomes an adventure and a deep dive into the subconscious.

Often I begin with intuition or automaticity, but analysis and problem-solving also become critical for my intentions of a unified expression.

When hard times come, can art make a difference? If my work can provoke reflection, cherishing life and humanity, I am grateful. The pandemic inspired me to cherish the positive moments and make the best of the challenging times. This body of work aims to highlight peace, love, repose, and joy found in everyday moments. It is what we all need in the end.

The visual elements are designed to create shifts in and out of pictorial space as metaphors for the adaptations we make throughout life.

Working in archival means of adding wax and marble dust to oil paint allows the exploration of a multi-layered existence in the figurative and literal sense.

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Maia Monteagudo My name is Maia Monteagudo and I was born and raised in Boston, MA with two incredibly progressive and supportive immigrant parents from Guatemala. I had been brought up to explore the arts and creativity in a wide array of modalities including: visual arts, music, dancing, and acting. Throughout elementary and high school I explored my own artistic styles through school art programming as well as extracurricular classes in fashion design. While pursuing my B.A. in Psychology at Connecticut College, I ventured into graphic design to further expand my skill set and creative platforms. Between my B.A. and M.A. I dedicated myself to fully developing my artistic voice through retail visual merchandising to better understand composition and form as well as self-guided exploration of acrylics and inks. During this time I would continue to hone my craft by commissioned art and illustration along with tattoo design consultation. In 2017, I graduated from Lesley University Graduate School with an M. A. in Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapies. Currently, creative exploration not only drives the foundation of my therapeutic practice but also serves as my own exploration of who I am as I continue to evolve.

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Creativity is how I communicate. Being raised the child of two worlds, Guatemala and the United States, language and expression quickly became ever present in my identity formation and art making process. I quickly found my unique perspective through the arts transcended English or Spanish, driving my fervor for acrylics, ink, pen and multimedia. My work has evolved to explore the multiple layers of identity, perspective and expression through the use of text, shapes, colors, lines with strong cultural influences from my Guatemalan roots and Mayan ancestry.

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Michaela Morse Michaela Morse received a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the combined degree program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her BFA thesis, "SMFA Garden," received a Tufts Green Fund grant to establish a pollinator-friendly garden with arts programming at the SMFA. She also served on the curatorial team for her senior thesis exhibition, "Outrageous Plans for Sensible Ideas."

Michaela’s BA thesis, "Coffee in Contemporary Puerto Rican Artworks: Materialism in the Age of Anthropogenic Climate Change," combined visual and material studies research with the development of the "my dried hot drinks" photo series. For this work, Michaela participated in the Tufts Summer Scholars program, with funding from the Schwartz/Paddock Undergraduate Fellowship in the Visual and Performing Arts.

While at Tufts, Michaela also served on the SMFA Sustainability Committee, worked for the Tufts Office of Sustainability on visual communications and outreach, and attended the 2019 a2ru conference on Food+Place as an Emerging Creatives Student Representative. She received a 2020 Tufts Senior Award from the Tufts University Alumni Association and a 2019 National Udall Scholar Honorable Mention in the Environment category.

Michaela has exhibited in student shows while studying at the University of Minnesota and Tufts University, and previously with UVA. She hosts workshops and has lectured on her work with pollinators, materiality and documentation.

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Over time, my practice as an interdisciplinary artist has shifted from examining clothing and textiles as the environments most immediate to our bodies, to exploring food and agricultural processes as environments that flow inside and out of the body.

A common thread has been considering the ways we are intertwined and engaged with others in relating to the world around us. What impacts do our bodies have on the greater Earth body? How do we communicate across this anthropological tapestry? In unpacking these questions, I’ve often turned to those around me, asking for their responses and contributions to my work.

Through the course of the pandemic, however, my practice has turned inward, as I’ve felt disjointed from the communities I so actively inhabited just a year ago. My work has asked me to relate more intimately with the materials themselves, learning to recognize them as their own agents in this world. Since 2019, I’ve recorded what coffee, tea or yerba mate I brew each morning, dried it out, and saved the materials in jars. Sitting at home with these inadvertent sculptures, I came to understand them as my way of coping with the anthropogenic climate crisis, of grieving for those disproportionately impacted and of preserving the materials that sustain me via the quiet moments of the brewing process. This material exchange has led me to a less human-centered way of thinking, joining a chorus of Indigenous ecologies and world-centered intellectual traditions.

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my dried hot drinks A reflection on following materials Looking deeply into your tea, you see that you are drinking fragrant plants that are the gift of Mother Earth. You see the labor of the tea pickers; you see the luscious tea fields and plantations in Sri Lanka, China, and Vietnam. You know that you are drinking a cloud; you are drinking the rain.

The tea contains the whole universe.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

When I think about the careful steps of my daily practice of preparing a hot drink, I take a deep breath and fill my lungs. My chest expands as my throat opens up, and the vertebrae of my spine stack one over the other until the exhale relaxes my shoulders and back body down, and sends my heart forward and up, sometimes with a trace of optimism to take with me into the day. An active weight is present in my core throughout this cycle of breath, and it grounds me to the Earth. This meditation is not unlike the ujjayi pranayama breathing of my yoga practice, nor are these moments of quiet breath the only time I experience such an inner pressure that builds in my chest and roots downward.

When I think about the irreversible ecological changes to this planet that have been set into motion by human activity, a similar, but more significant weight occupies the same spaces in my body, before settling in my abdomen. In this train of thought, however, my heart feels heavy instead of buoyant, and the sensation of air leaving my upper body lingers, but no relaxation follows. Looking to the jars full of my dried hot drinks, I came to realize that the practice of drying out and saving the beverages, as well as the daily habit this project is built on, is part of my response to the climate crisis. This is an inward response that doesn’t carry the external burdens of finding a “solution” to anthropogenic climate change, but instead wrestles with the complicity of my being in the world.

** ** ** My dried hot drinks (2019-present) is an ongoing, multidimensional practice that uses dried coffee grounds, tea leaves, and yerba mate to explore the tensions of my implicit human subjectivity with my desires to be complicit with nonhuman materials.

As an out-of-balance biosphere is pushing back on contemporary human ways of living with fires, infectious diseases, and extreme weather, we are acutely reminded of our species’ precarious position in this relational place. At the same time, we are invited to move towards a more balanced relationship with the planet, in which the livelihoods of all entities are always already inextricable.

Human being is just one way of being; if the world is to flourish in the face of this unprecedented age of anthropogenic climate change, the extractive perspectives of dominant political ecologies must be re oriented in recognition of how we are intertwined with the entities of all systems of life, and a truly global notion of ecological justice must be advanced.

My efforts to practice a more world-centered way of thinking join a chorus of Indigenous ecologies, ancestral cosmologies, and other non-dominant intellectual traditions. In this work I endeavor to think from materials, rather than about them, as I reflect deeply on the contemporary challenges of living in harmony with the world.

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Process Brewing specialty coffees or loose leaf teas has been a regular morning ritual of mine since adolescence, with the preparation of yerba mate added to the mix after spending time living in Argentina. Heating the water and preparing the organic matter is a moment of personal communion to start my day, to feel grounded within the greater Earth body that sustains me.

Since early 2019, I have recorded what I brew each morning, dried out the coffee grounds, tea leaves, or mate flakes, and saved the drink matter in repurposed glass jars. As I spent time at home during the pandemic, I came to understand this practice as means of selfcare, to cope in the face of natural devastation and grieve for those disproportionately impacted by its effects.

In this inward response to the climate crisis that wrestles with the complicity of my being in the world, I have experimented with embedding the dried drink matter in handmade papers, and activating them through the lens of the camera. There is a definite bitterness towards my inherited human exceptionalism that seems to have led me to capturing the drinks for my own purposes, but as the days pass and I spend more time with these materials, I feel as though they are inching me ever closer towards an understanding of interbeing with the rest of life.

Current State of Being: Photo Documentation Throughout the development of my dried hot drinks, I have come to recognize all the materials I work with, indeed all things in this world, to be their own entities, alive with vitality and agency as they go through the continuous changes of life. Expressing this exchange in the words of anthropologist Tim Ingold, “my seeing things is the way things see through me, my hearing them is the way they hear through me, my feeling them is the way they feel through me.”1 Photography was not previously a part of my practice, but my dried hot drinks asked me to frame the lyrical movement of the layers in each jar, and the lively exchanges of one jar with another, in the lens of the camera as I continue to coexist with these materials.

Acknowledging the ground beneath our feet is a consistent thread in my thinking, and I am encouraged to see the Earth’s geological layers reflected in these images. Stretching down for many miles, the layers of the planet contain a timespan that is much greater than our own. They tell a story of the Earth, and reflect how we have impacted it. We are at once a key player, and nothing but a blip in an infinite world of lively entities. The question arises, what happens next? ** ** ** There is a kind of unraveling of self-importance the more one becomes aware of everything else that occurs around and within oneself, the more one understands, as you say, one’s personal smallness, but also one’s fundamental connection to almost everything, a connection we don’t often recognize but which is more satisfying, in the long run, than self-affirmation. This is an affirmation of belonging to the world, to nature, to society, to others, and not just of one’s domination of these domains.

—Elizabeth Gorsz 2

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Tim Ingold, “Toward an Ecology of Materials.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (October 2012). 2 “All Too Human: A Conversation with Elizabeth Gorsz.” Qui Parle:Critical Humanities and Social Sciences 25, no. 1-2 (December 2016).

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NOTE on Artwork#4— my dried hot drinks: journal I made this journal out of the very hot drink matter I collect, in order to transfer in my record of what I brewed every day in 2020. At the time of submission, I have not finished writing the lists out by hand. Below is a sample of the text.

June 2020 1. Laoshan green tea from Shandong 2.

Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 3. Honey Brush tea 4. Blood Orange Hibiscus tea 5. Darjeeling 2nd Flush black tea 6. French Roast, Chemex 7. Masala chai Ginger Delight rooibos tea 8. Darjeeling 2nd Flush black tea 9. Japanese green tea 10. Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 11. Mate French Roast, French Press 12. Love Buzz coffee, French Press Green Tea bags, sun tea 13. Pu-erh tea 14. Masala chai 15. Tranquility herbal tea 16. Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 17. Dark Oolong Wuyi tea 18. Masala chai 19. Minty Moroccan green tea 20. French Roast coffee, Chemex, iced 21.

Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Turkish ibrik 22. Love Buzz coffee, Chemex 23. Honey Brush tea 24. Laoshan green tea from Shandong 25.

Darjeeling 2nd Flush black tea 26. Mate, with ginger 27. Masala chai 28. Love Buzz coffee, Chemex, iced 29. Lemon green tea 30. Mind, Body & Soul + Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, French Press mug

August 2020 1. French Roast coffee, French Press 2.

Folgers instant coffee 3. Masala chai 4. Roasted green tea 5. Pu-erh tea Blueberry tea, Ontario Canada 6. Dark Oolong Wuyi tea 7. Roasted Barley tea, sun tea Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 8. Love Brew + Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, French Press 9. French Vanilla coffee, French Press 10.

Blood Orange Hibiscus tea 11. Honey Brush tea 12. French Roast coffee, Chemex 13. Mate, with ginger 14. Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 15. Love Brew coffee, Turkish ibrik 16.

Masala chai 17. Laoshan green tea from Shandong Canada True Maple tea, sun tea 18. Love Buzz coffee 19. Masala chai 20. Kapha herbal tea 21. Lemon green tea 22. Love Buzz coffee 23. Minty Moroccan tea 24. Darjeeling 2nd Flush black tea 25. French Roast coffee, French Press 26.

Masala chai 27. Japanese green tea 28. Dark Oolong Wuyi tea 29. – 30. Vermont Coffee Co. Medium coffee, Chemex 31. Nespresso Vertuo Stormio coffee pod

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Jennifer Jean Okumura In the NOW, provocative in a decorous way, optimistic—these terms characterize me as an Artist. I believe art and its ability to elevate people are what inspire me everyday. My new series 'Knots of the mind’ explores the ongoing melee between the heart and the mind, complicated by love, hunger, power, doubt.

Knots bind—like an embrace? as a restraint? Twisted strands of thought and feeling in our souls. Should we leap or remain motionless?

Jennifer grew up in Philadelphia and has been creating art for 15 years. She attended Syracuse University in addition to receiving her MFA from Boston University. She has a strong comprehensive knowledge of the Art Market: Modern and Contemporary Art with diverse and extensive Fine Art experiences such as Operations Manager, Fine Art Consultant, Design Associate, Adjunct Educator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and currently sits on the board as President and founding Exhibition Chair for National Association of Women Artists, Inc. MA chapter.

Selected exhibitions include Art Metropole Europe Barcelona, Spain in 2021, 'Contemporary Surroundings' at Sapphire & Ventura Gallery, Swiss Art Expo Zurich 2020, Van Der Plas Gallery, Red Dot Miami, ‘Harmony & Clash’ at Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, 'Botanica' (poster child) at Cahoon Museum of American Art, among others.

Represented by: House of Roulx, Saphira & Ventura Gallery NYC, Westport River Gallery CT, Invoke Contemporary, Galatea Fine Art, @theartling

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Self-preservation has no mistakes. It is our story - alive, noteworthy, always original not blinded by hunger, poverty, love, and hate. Humanity in every color - Humanity is colorblind. My protection, my feeling of security and safety found in being guarded of oneself by 'us'. It is the frailness in emotions, the memories in our heads, the damages left in our hearts but ultimately self-preservation 'for ourselves and our beloved shared experiences' - it captures the beauties of what we call life, all that is love and art.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenny.okumura/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennyjean25/?hl=en

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Diane Sheridan

Diane Sheridan has been a resident of Brighton since 1985 and graduated from Framingham State University with a degree in Fine Art. She has been involved with art and photography in the community since high school and has been taking photographs for as long as she can remember. She took a picture of her family, which may be her first photograph, around the age of 5.

She's worked at many of Boston's great institutions including Boston University Photo Services and the Museum of Fine Arts.

She is now in early retirement and is thrilled to be part of the Unbound Visual Arts community.

She was included in Unbound Visual Arts' Healthful exhibition at the Honan-Allston Library Art Gallery in 2015, in Olympic SPIRIT and Earned: Women in Business and Labor at the Scollay Square Gallery in Boston City Hall and Freedom at the Honan-Allston Library Art Gallery in 2016.

During the pandemic, I've been doing a lot of altering of photographs. I've been wanting to work with portraits and decided to combine self preservation and working on a type of portrait. Since the exhibit is about self, I decided to use my own photo. It has been a learning experience. I've had remarks asking if I was covering up wrinkles, dealing with getting old or feel trapped because of Covid protocols. None of these thoughts occurred to me. I was having fun working with color and collage.

While I admit to being uncomfortable surrounded with pictures of myself, it's provided personal growth. Moving forward, learning and being creative equals self-preservation to me.

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Unbound Visual Arts Ruth Rieffanaugh, President • John Quatrale, Executive Director

Board of Directors and Council of Advisors

Exhibition Artists

Louise Bonar*, Clerk

Nancer Ballard

Anthony Carmoega

Donna Caselden

Tsun Ming Chmielinski

Linda Clave

Francis Gardino

Catherine Lawrie

Marcie Laden

Sally Lee

Heidi Lee, Vice-President

Elisandra Lopes

Jeanne Lin

Kat Masella

Susan Loomis-Wing* Treasurer

Maia Monteagudo

Brenda Gael McSweeney*, Ph.D.

Michaela Morse

Andrea Newman

Jennifer Jean Okumura

Ira-Iliana Papadopoulou, Ph.D.

Diane Sheridan

Ruth Rieffanaugh, President Diane Sheridan John Quatrale*, Executive Director Karen Smigliani* Christine Winship* * Founding Member, October 3, 2012

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Unbound Visual Arts (UVA) is a local 501(c)(3) non-profit art organization that enriches the community with educational and inspiring exhibitions and programs.

Unbound Visual Arts, Inc. 320 Washington Street, Suite 200, Brighton MA 02135 www.unboundvisualarts.org 617.657.4278 info@unboundvisualarts.org

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