More Ways of Seeing, More Ways of Creating

Hi everyone! Summer intern Tori here with my penultimate blog post. I can hardly believe how quickly August flew by.

As a current Smith student, I am so excited to share the work of a Smith alum, artist Erika Marie York '12.

York is a painter who was diagnosed with Stargardt during middle school. Stargardt is a disease that causes vision loss. As a visual artist with low vision, York’s bold, bright, abstract style on large canvases was born of her everyday visual perceptions, and her techniques for making creation and viewing more accessible to those with low vision. As she tells us in her recent interview for The Vision and Art Project, “Creating art isn’t only for able-bodied people.” (x) Certainly, art is often influenced by artists’ perceptions of the world, and low vision is another way of seeing and perceiving the world that results in another way of painting it.

This is something York’s work shows us. Shaped by her perceptions of the world as a low-vision artist, her bold abstract style first gained recognition when she was in high school: 

“What I learned in art class in high school was impactful because it taught me that I could do whatever I wanted with art. I learned that my version of a still life was way more abstract then the teacher expected and I was rewarded for that. My version of a still life was different and my high school art teacher encouraged that. I think that’s the best lesson that I learned.”

York’s work and words, which you can read in her interview for The Vision and Art Project, are important and insightful. She shows us that low vision is another way of seeing the world, and so, it is another way to paint it, too. 

You can view York’s work on her Etsy store, ArtfulDiscourse.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on "Art, Gender, and Sexuality"

We are so pleased to finally release our conversation with artist, performer, and curator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for our Art, Gender, and Sexuality segment. We talk about Bhutto’s journey around the world to his current home in San Francisco, his queer, Muslim, futuristic, revolutionary, zombie drag performance alter-ego Faluda Islam, Bhutto’s collaborations, and his work in Queer Muslim Futurisms.

Tiffany Shaw-Collinge on "Art and Climate Crisis"

Head over to Soundcloud (or Apple Music, Spotify, We Heart Radio, or your chosen podcast subscription service) to listen to our latest release with Métis artist and architect Tiffany Shaw-Collinge, where we discuss holistic sustainability, Ocicicwan Contemporary Art Collective, and Contemporary Indigenous Art and Architecture.

“Tiffany Shaw-Collinge is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and registered architect based in Edmonton, Alberta. She holds a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University, a Masters in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Tiffany has exhibited widely including the Architecture Venice Biennale, Winnipeg Art Gallery and more recently the Chicago Architecture Biennial. She has been the recipient of a major commission for Edmonton's Indigenous Art Park, among other public art projects, has produced several notable transitory art works and is a core member of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective. Tiffany was born in Calgary, Alberta and raised in Edmonton - her Métis ancestry comes from Fort McMurray via the Red River. “

All the Updates

It has been a busy past month, with moving, settling in, and recording.

During the past few weeks we have been fortunate to speak with several illuminating guests: Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman spoke with us about his upcoming feature film Early Stage, “…an anthology film, speculating about the inner life of artificially intelligent networks.”

For our segment on Art and Death, we conversed with Bethany Tabor, a cultural arts programmer whose work focuses on death and end of life practices, J Simmz, a curator, writer, and co-founder of Doppelgänger Projects in New York, who works closely with the Death Positive Movement. Simmz conceptualizes exhibitions with heavy focus on the cycles of life and death, mysticism, and transcendence. This segment also included poet, mixed media artist, founder of Thedna Arts, and death doula Carrie Redway. Redway’s work with death is closely related to cycles of nature, folklore, mythology, and ritual.

We also delved more deeply into our Art and Health segment, speaking with artist and physician Dr. Eric Avery. Avery’s work has spanned several decades, and includes work exploring the social side of the AIDS/HIV crisis, as well as emerging infectious diseases, human rights abuses, death, and sexuality. We were also excited to speak with Dr. Bettina Judd, a writer, artist, performer, current Assistant Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, and author of Patient, a book of poems that explores the historical utilization of, and standardization of the dehumanization of Black, non-cisgender male bodies in the field of Eurocentric healthcare that continues today.

Our new intern, Tori Currier.

We would also like to take this time to welcome our summer intern Tori Currier! Tori is originally from East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She currently resides in Northampton, Massachusetts where she attends Smith College. Tori is a junior (2022J) majoring in Art History. Focused on LGBTQ+ art, she is passionate about the role of art in social movements. Presently, she is conducting research for an honors thesis about AIDS crisis art and its continued censorship in the art world today. 

Tori intends to pursue a career in higher education. Her ambitions include changing how art history is traditionally taught by giving more attention to artists who have long been excluded or underappreciated. Interested in how history can be conveyed through creative fiction, Tori is developing a television screenplay about LGBTQ+ artists from the 60’s - 80’s, hoping to educate younger generations about the community’s history and the significant social roles that art has played throughout these decades. 

As an intern for Critical Bounds, she will strive to facilitate conversations about the importance of art in critical global issues. She is enthusiastic about how programs and websites in the social media age can become spaces for marginalized voices as well as tools to make education more accessible.

Tori will be doing research, handling a lot of our social media, and taking over the blog for the next few weeks, as well as making an episode of her own in August, and we are so happy to have her.

Our Episode with Carol Rashawnna Williams is almost here.

It has been A While since we recorded with Carol Rashawnna Williams for our Art and the Environment segment. Right before the Covid19 pandemic really hit the US, in fact (which is part of what has taken so long) but look for her episode to hit @criticalboundspodcast over the next few days. Image: "WATER". (2017). Carol Rashawnna Williams (Instagram @k_love_4art @klove4art). Painting, oil monoprint on canvas, 72 x 72". Photo by Chloe at Artist Trust.

Update on our Call to Artists and Curators!

Thank you all for your submissions so far. We have filled our "Art and Death" segment to capacity, but are still accepting applications for our "Art and Health" and "AI and Art" segment. If you are interested, please submit to criticalboundspodcast@gmail.com or via the form on our “Contact" page.