A funny thing happened on the way to DC

I’m gonna need Inauguration Day to get here sooner rather than later. When I look back at the end of 2020/ beginning of 2021, I don’t want to think of it as the series finale of America. I want to remember this period as a time of career milestones.

I thought debuting “The Home Inside My Head” well after Election Day would keep it from being buried by political news, but nooo… election coverage is still going strong. Fortunately, I also received a fantastic Christmas gift: a positive review of my work in the Washington Post!

So yeah, I was a little sad to close my first solo show at Morton Fine Art— but also relieved, because it ended just before the post-election insurrection at the US Capitol Building.

We’re entering the second week of 2021. Why is 2020 trying to hold on like a piece of toilet paper to a shoe?

BLM Artist Grant: What about the kids?

I can’t wait to hear more about the fall 2021 exhibit planned at Washington State University! The twenty Black Lives Matter Artist Grant winners have been announced. Now for the next step: showing our work on campus, in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

I’m glad the selection committees included a few students like Mikayla Makle, president of the Black Student Union. Now that the first jolts of excitement have worn off, though, I wonder how the exhibit will land with other WSU students. I don’t expect anti-BLM protests. But as recent graduate Promise Calloway observed, micro-aggressions are fairly common.

I’m well aware there are plenty of people who think BLM means “only Black Lives Matter.” Not just in Pullman, Washington, but in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, where the two other branches of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum are located. I hope the only thing (and it’s a big one) that might interfere with the exhibits is another spike in coronavirus infection rates. The current lockdowns in Washington and Oregon are supposed to end on December 14th and 16th, respectively. So mask up, all right? Let’s not delay The Big Show any longer than necessary.

Throw us a lifeline: collage in the time of coronavirus

Hoo boy, has it been slow in art news… like running underwater.

“Overreach” (detail) by Lisa Myers Bulmash

A little good news, though, thanks to the Northwest Collage Society: An exhibit I juried for them recently opens next week on October 1st! ‘collaging through a pandemic’ is the group’s first completely online show. One perk of judging the show is that I get to share an example of my own work…

“TODAY, America. Today,” the judge’s entry in ‘collaging through a pandemic’

But the best part is the opportunity to funnel help to other artists. NWCS will donate its own net funds from the show to the Artist Trust COVID-19 Relief Fund. Plus, NWCS is awarding prizes to a lucky few artist-entrants. Find out who won what in ‘collaging through a pandemic’: you can access the show from October first to December 31st.