Essays on Artists & Acquisitions


August 9, 2024

Cara Romero’s Native Theater

An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Cara Romero is a contemporary artist creating photographs that speak to Native American identity. In a theatrical style, Romero’s photographs explore the history and representation of Native existence, counteracting the inaccurate and offensive portrayals common throughout academia and popular media.

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Building an Archive of Resistance with Dominique Moody and The Dream Window

An oeuvre that has spanned over 50 years, Dominque Moody’s work has centered the cultivation of freedom through self-agency, housing, mobility, and practice—so much so that she adopted the term assemblege (purposefully spelled with an e to separate the term from Eurocentric ideas) to define her approach. A self-described nomad, Moody is familiar with the […]

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February 13, 2024

Art & Ecology in the Anthropocene | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kate MacDowell

                        As English-teacher-turned-ceramicist Kate MacDowell knows, there are many ways to tell a story. MacDowell synthesizes her taste for poetic allegory and her fascination with scientific case studies to create pieces that tell the story of human impact on the natural world. In this […]

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November 13, 2023

Replanting: Seeds of Change | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Crystal Morey

Crystal Morey’s latest series, RePlanting, features porcelain sculptures that explore the interconnection and precarious balance between humans, flora, and fauna. While her work focuses on weighty topics, such as endangered species and climate change, her pieces are imbued with whimsy and hope for a more consciously interconnected future. Morey’s sculpture, Scrub Jay and Deer, was […]

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The Power of Porcelain | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kieko Fukazawa

Banner designed by Cecelia Blum SC ’24 Kieko Fukazawa uses clay to fuse ancient craftsmanship with contemporary commentary. Her recent series, Peacemaker, uses delicate porcelain to pay homage to the many victims of senseless gun violence in the United States. In this interview, she shares her thoughts on the universality of social issues, her upbringing […]

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October 12, 2022

Conduit Between Artist and Audience: An Experience with Jenny He

            As you enter the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, to your left, you will find the Spielberg Family Gallery, home to the first room within the Stories of Cinema, an ongoing exhibition that spans the first three floors of the museum. Here, museum-goers are invited to view a multi-channel […]

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October 11, 2022

Tara: A Powerful Feminine Force

The presence of Tara in the Buddhist pantheon over the centuries, both as a bodhisattva and as a female buddha, has offered a sense of inclusivity to many female practitioners.

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August 18, 2022

Highlights of the Collection, Oliveira, Everts, and Marini

These artists employ the recurring motif of bodily distortion to express postwar trauma.

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May 11, 2022

Gilded Dharma: A Japanese Lotus Sutra

These sutra fragments are so sacred and artistically refined that they often rank among the most highly treasured objects in temple, museum, and private collections.

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October 28, 2021

Recent Acquisitions of Laurie Brown’s Photography

The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has recently acquired five photographs from Southern California-based photographer Laurie Brown (Scripps College class of ‘59). Brown’s work focuses on the oftentimes jarring division between the rural and the urban, addressing issues from urban sprawl to the impact of industrialization on the natural landscape. She is interested in areas that […]

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