CREATE+ENGAGE
Create+Engage is a multiple-part series of free virtual sessions and hands-on workshops with invited guest speakers and artists to deep-dive on specific topics of civic engagement.
Through these sessions and additional planned programming, we hope to bring people together in a dynamic space to inspire creativity while engaging in meaningful action leading up to the November 2024 U.S. elections.
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All programming is free and accessible for all participants, there are two ways to support this programming:
1. Become a paid subscriber on Substack
2. Make a financial contribution to Create+Engage. These contributions will go to speaker honorariums and support the series.
Next Session
CONTINUE ACTION
November 13, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
This is our final 2024 Create+Engage session!
We will be thinking about how we carry our creative, community, and civic engagement along with us at all times.
We are devoting this final session of the year to highlighting creativity and community. If you’re in need of a little time to ground and connect, this is it. For anyone who used to come to the original Creative Fuel Wednesday sessions, this is going to have a little of that energy.
Bring your sketchbook, some art supplies, and come join us in creative community.
PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS
Micro-Media: The Power of Zines with Sarah "Shay" Mirk and Christina Appleberry
Wednesday March 13, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
Join us for a hands-on zine workshop!
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What are you paying attention to in your community, and what media do you consume to learn about it?
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In a world flooded with news and media, it can be hard to pay attention, hard to focus on the issues that impact us.
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In this workshop we’ll explore how micro-media, in the form of zines, can be a way to focus attention and scope. We’ll learn about the history of zines from librarian Christina Appleberry and do a hands-on workshop to make our own zines with artist and educator Sarah "Shay" Mirk.
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FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Christina Appleberry
Christina Appleberry (she/her) is a school librarian in Palo Alto. She is especially interested in programming that provides opportunities for creative self-expression. She has taught zine making workshops to all ages and has advocated for zines in libraries at the American Library Association Annual Conference for a decade.
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Sarah "Shay" Mirk
Sarah “Shay” Mirk (she/they) is a graphic journalist, editor, and teacher. For six years, Shay was a contributing editor at comics publication The Nib, where projects she worked on won both Eisner and Ignatz awards. They are the author of Guantanamo Voices, an illustrated oral history of Guantanamo Bay prison. They are a zine-maker and illustrator whose comics have been featured in The New Yorker, Bitch, and NPR. Shay is currently the Applied Cartooning Fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. She is white, nonbinary, and queer. In her free time, she befriends strangers’ dogs.
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Follow: @mirkdrop
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The Way of Water: Exploring Local Ecosystems with Heather Bird Harris and Renee Royale
Wednesday April 17, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
Join us for this workshop fusing art and environment.
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How does a local connection to nature/environment serve as a catalyst for staying engaged?
That’s the driving question for our Create+Engage workshop for Earth Month. In this creative session we will be focusing on water systems. Do you know where your drinking water comes from? How often do you think about waterways in your local environment, and how they interact with plant and animal life? How can healthy watersheds help communities flourish?
In this workshop, we’ll explore the centrality of water in our own local communities. We’ll deep-dive into data about our community water systems with artist, writer, and independent curator Renee Royale, and do a hands-on workshop to visualize our waterways in full health with artist, curator, and educator Heather Bird Harris.
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Suggested materials for this hands-on workshop:
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Pen or pencil
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Watercolor or mixed media paper / sketchbook or notebook
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Water-based media (ie, watercolor paints, inks, etc)
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Brushes/droppers
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A painting by Heather Bird Harris: an abstract look at Louisiana's eroding coastline. Photo by Halle Parker
FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Heather Bird Harris
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Heather ‘Bird’ Harris is an artist, curator, and educator who prioritizes caretaking and connection. Her work explores the throughlines between history and ecological crises, engaging with communities, scientists, and site-specific materials to investigate land memory, systems of complicity, and possibilities for emergence. Bird lives in Atlanta with her partner and two children. She is an MFA candidate in Painting and MA candidate in Art History at Georgia State University.
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Follow: @heatherbirdharris
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Renee Royale
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Renee Royale is an artist, writer, and independent curator.
Her recent work centers studies of belonging, call-and-response from an ecological perspective, time based explorations, and trauma responses. Both a process and conceptual artist, she interweaves disciplines at whim to add layers and context to what is being conveyed. She is currently based in Chicago, IL, where she is pursuing an MFA in Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University.
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Follow: @reneeroyale
Visual Storytelling: Art as Communication with Tessa Hulls and Janelle Washington
Wednesday May 8, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
Join us for a hands-on workshop devoted to powerful visual storytelling.
We know the power of a good story, but how do stories with visuals impact us differently than stories with words?
In this workshop we’ll explore the art of communication, with two graphic storytellers Tessa Hulls and Janelle Washington. While using different mediums, they both create compelling work to help tell complex and nuanced stories. We’ll learn how to hone in on the details of bringing a story to life—whether it’s our own or one in our community.
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Suggested materials for this hands-on workshop:
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Pen or pencil
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Paper
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Sharpie or black marker
FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Tessa Hulls
Tessa Hulls (she/her) is an artist, writer, and adventurer who is equally likely to disappear into the backcountry or a research library. Her essays and comics have appeared in The Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, Adventure Journal, The Rumpus, and Lit Hub, and she is the creator of Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir. She has received grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4Culture, and the McMillen Foundation, been awarded residencies from Hedgebrook, Yaddo, and Ucross, and is a recipient of the Washington Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award.
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Follow: @tessahulls
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Janelle Washington
Janelle Washington (she/her) is an award-winning self-taught paper-cut artist from Virginia. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Fashion Design and afterward found interest in paper cutting. Through the simplicity of paper, Janelle creates images that showcase African Americans' courage, achievements, and grace in difficult situations. All her hand-cut paper cuts are designed using an Exacto knife and one piece of paper.
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Follow: @washingtoncuts
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Mapping Belonging: Art & Connection with Christine Wong Yap & José González
Wednesday June 12, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
Join us for a hands-on workshop exploring the role of art in creating community.
How can we use art to map belonging? How can communities effectively weave together commonalities and differences?
In this workshop, we’ll explore art as a means of creating community and belonging with visual artist and social practitioner Christine Wong Yap and conservationist, artist, and educator José González of Latino Outdoors. Through visual mapping, we’ll explore art as a means of building bridges, fostering engagement and action, and growing ecologies of relationships.
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Suggested materials for this workshop:
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Pen or pencil
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Paper
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Any other creative supplies you like to have on hand (markers, watercolor, etc.)
FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Christine Wong Yap
Christine Wong Yap (she/they) is a San Francisco Bay Area-based visual artist and social practitioner. She gathers and amplifies grassroots perspectives on belonging, resilience, and mental wellbeing through drawing, lettering, printmaking, publishing, textiles, and public art. She has developed public-facing, human-centered projects with the California College of the Arts, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, For Freedoms, Times Square Arts, and the Wellcome Trust. She holds a BFA and MFA in printmaking from the California College of the Arts.
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Follow: @christinewongyap
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Jose González
José González (he/him) is a professional educator with training in the fields of education and conservation while engaging in different artistic endeavors with art and messaging—often exploring the intersection of the environment and culture. His work focuses on frameworks and practices in the environmental, outdoor, and conservation fields. He is also an illustrator and science communicator.
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Follow: @josebilingue + Latino Outdoors
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Life in Color: Building a Power Palette with Alexis Joseph and Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman
Wednesday July 10, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
Join us for a hands-on workshop exploring color.
What is your color palette of creativity and joy? When do you feel most purely you? How can process, asking ourselves questions and mixing color help us clarify our values in ways that words can’t? Discover your own power palette of colors and connect with your agency in this fun and introspective session on creative action.
We can't wait to see you there!
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Suggested materials for this workshop:
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Pen or pencil
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Paper
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Some type of color (watercolor, colored pencils, markers, etc)
FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Alexis Joseph
Alexis Joseph is the owner and founder of Case for Making, a storefront located by the beach in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. Case for Making creates a line of handmade watercolors, letterpress watercolor paper goods and studio ceramics, presented alongside a curated selection of our favorite creative supplies. We exist to support our collective creativity and we believe in the act of engaging in an artistic practice for the health of ourselves and the health of our communities. We are interested in recognizing the presence of creative inquiry in multiple forms, and providing space for engaging in and valuing this work.
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Follow: @caseformaking
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Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman
Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman (she/her) is an educator, activist artist, and researcher. She is an artist-in-residence at Georgetown Lombardi Arts & Humanities Program; and instructor at Case for Making and MoCA Arlington. Interested in the connection between arts, culture and public policy, she is curious to explore — How do visuals become part of social culture and whose stories are centered? What is the role of national security in protection of arts and culture in conflict zones? How might arts and culture build understanding and communities of belonging? She received a Certificate in Arts and Peacebuilding Culture, Political Leadership Academy at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in 2023.
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Follow: @anjelika
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Can Art Save Democracy? Imagining Radical Visions into Reality with taylor brock and Autumn Breon
October 16, 5:00-6:30pm Pacific
How do we build a future if we can't imagine it? How can artists create new ideas of what’s possible—ideas that invite us to build new futures that center care, community, and liberation?
Come explore the role of art in shaping civic futures with cultural producer & creative strategist Taylor Brock, associate director at For Freedoms, and multidisciplinary artist Autumn Breon, who investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens.
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Suggested materials for this workshop:
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Pen or pencil
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Paper
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FEATURED SPEAKERS + ARTISTS
Autumn Breon
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Autumn Breon is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens. Using performance, sculpture, and public installation, Breon invites audiences to examine intersectional identities and Diasporic memory. Breon imagines her work as immersive invitations for the public to join in the reimagining and creation of systems that make current oppressive systems obsolete. Breon is an alumna of Stanford University where she studied Aeronautics & Astronautics and researched aeronautical astrobiology applications. Breon is a recipient of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition & the Advancement of the Creative Economy and the Race Forward Fellowship for Housing, Land, and Justice.
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Follow: @autumnbreon
CREATE+ENGAGE TEAM
Create+Engage is a collaborative endeavor.
