Anna Valdez Paints Her World Black Lives Matter: Artists Making an Impact Michael Chiklis Talks New Show, Coyote
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Boston University College of Fine Arts Magazine Fall 2020 Anna Valdez Paints Her World Black Lives Matter: Artists Making an Impact Michael Chiklis Talks New Show, Coyote Boston University College of Fine Arts Magazine Fall 2020 Dean Harvey Young Assistant Dean, Development & Alumni Relations Janna Schwartz Senior Associate, Development A NOTE FROM HARVEY & Alumni Relations Denise Savino (CAS‘11) Anna Valdez Paints Her World Director of Communications Black Lives Matter: Artists Making an Impact Michael Chiklis Laurel Homer (CAS’98) I have been thinking about Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black Talks New Show, Coyote Communications Manager boy who was murdered in 1955 by two white men in Money, Miss. If Emily White he were alive today, Emmett would be fast approaching his 80th ON THE COVER Anna Assistant Director of birthday. He would be a few years older than Donald Trump and Joe Valdez in her studio. Communications Biden. Even at an advanced age, Emmett would have swagger. Photo by Shaun Roberts. Rebecca McDade (COM’07) When his mother made the bold decision to allow the world to Editor see his bloated dead body, she sought to render visible the violence Mara Sassoon that often targets African Americans. If people could see the ef- Art Director fects of bias, prejudice, and racist hate on the most innocent among Lee Caulfi eld us—a child—then a campaign for justice to safeguard future gen- Contributing Writers erations might occur. Joel Brown Rosa Parks remembered Emmett Till when she chose not to give Marc Chalufour up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Muhammad Ali, who was Taylor Mendoza (CAS’18) Andrew Thurston almost the same age as Emmett, found lifelong inspiration to fi ght for equality and justice. Countless others were awakened to action. Published by Boston University Today, the spectacle of dead or injured African Americans is College of Fine Arts distressingly common. Videos are pushed to our handheld devices: Produced by Boston University Eric Garner and George Floyd gasping for air; Walter Scott and Marketing & Communications Jacob Blake getting shot in the back. A social media campaign, #SayHerName, has helped spotlight the similarly horrifi c experiences of Black women, including Breonna Taylor and Michelle Cusseaux. It is a sobering fact that our newest undergraduate students were CFA ON INSTAGRAM nine years old when Trayvon Martin was killed. They were the same age as Tamir Rice, who was twelve years old when he was shot to death on a playground in 2014. Much of their tween and teenage years have been spent witnessing death. Our current students are rejecting the inheritance of systemic racism. They have taken to the streets to call for justice. They have organized within CFA to make very reasonable demands, includ- ing antiracist training, more staff and faculty of color, and more inclusive syllabi. I am proud of CFA students and alumni who have chosen to stand up and speak out as part of efforts to end racism everywhere and create actively inclusive communities. I am impressed by CFA staff and faculty who, in the midst of a global pandemic, have organized workshops, overhauled syllabi, and begun to revise conceptions of core and canon across disciplines. There is more work ahead. If you would like to support efforts toward active inclusion or share your thoughts on why it matters, please email me at [email protected]. Harvey Young, Dean of CFA @buarts Here’s to a blank canvas and the possi- bilities that a new semester brings! Good luck this WRITE: Share your thoughts on ENGAGE year, Terriers! May your art-making inspire those this issue—and anything else CFA- ffacebook.com/BUArts around you #myCFA #ProudtoBU related—at [email protected]. t @BUArts YSearch “Boston University @meghancmurrayart College of Fine Arts” Natasha Moustache 1020 CFA Fall 2020 CFA Magazine Fall 2020 2 SHOWCASE OBJECTS OF HER AFFECTION Anna Valdez (’13) layers personal stories in her plant- fi lled paintings 8 COLLAGE The World of CFA 26 PROCESS How artist Lena McCarthy (’14) CHANGING transformed a MINDS Victorian fi rehouse Michael Chiklis (’85) rein- vented himself to stay on 36 CLASS NOTES top in a fi ckle business You’re painting, sculpting, performing, PAINTING HER EXPERIENCE directing, Adrienne Elise Tarver (’07) explores perceptions of writing, teaching, Black women in her art composing— creating a whole world of art 41 MUSE Maria DeCotis (’15) turned a press briefi ng by Andrew Cuomo into a hit parody video THE FUTURE OF OPERA Chicago Opera Theater music director Lidiya CONVERSATION Yankovskaya (’10) is Artists Joel Christian Gill (’04) one of America’s few and Charles Suggs (’20) discuss women conductors using their work to tell lesser- Stephanie Eley (Tarver); Patrick Strattner (Chiklis); Hannah Rose Osofsky (Conversation); Kate Lemmon (Yankovskaya) Lemmon (Yankovskaya) Kate (Conversation); Osofsky Hannah Rose (Chiklis); Strattner Patrick (Tarver); Eley Stephanie and a force for change known stories from Black history bu.edu/cfa 1 OBJECTS OF HER AFFECTION Anna Valdez layers personal stories into lush, plant-filled paintings By Andrew Thurston Photos by Shaun Roberts Anna Valdez (’13) has filled her California studio with plants. “Plants remind me of home and they just bring life to a space,” she says. 4 CFA Fall 2020 ARTIST ANNA VALDEZ’S California studio and sumptuous surfaces,” calling the show is full of plants. Vines tumble from shelves “visual poetry at work, at once rooted in art- stacked with art books, and succulent green historical practices while also remaining leaves frame oversized canvases. Her child- faithful to the present moment.” Vice has said hood home bloomed with flora, too: her dad her “houseplant paintings have seriously chill grew up on a farm and worked in a nursery. vibes.” “Plants remind me of home and they just Valdez has painted sparse deserts, rocky bring life to a space,” says Valdez (’13). “And bays, even old beer cans, but for the past cou- they provide form in my paintings. They grow ple of years, her botanical studio has been the into the space and create lines. They really star of her work. It’s not just crowded with help me in navigating my compositions.” plants. The space is filled with canvases and Plants are everywhere in Valdez’s recent painting supplies, books, fabric wall hangings creations: in 2019’s Self-Portrait in Studio, the (her mom is a quilter), sculptures, pottery, artist’s face is hidden by fiddle-leaf figs; 2018’s shells, an upturned milk crate. Landscape in Studio is a painting of a painting “The paintings I’m making right now are of palms, snake plants, and more. very much about the studio,” she says. “It’s Valdez’s work—primarily oil on canvas, but an environment that I have complete control also monotypes, ceramics, and wallpaper—has over and have curated over time. I suppose I been shown at galleries and museums across end up loving the space that I am creating as it the United States and Canada. In 2018, Face- becomes reflective of a personal landscape or book commissioned her to paint a mural in one as a self-portrait.” of its Menlo Park, Calif., buildings. In 2020’s Objects of Aection, the canvas In its review of her 2019 New York brims with details from Valdez’s studio. A exhibition Natural Curiosity, art and culture skull, a Venus de Milo statue, and an amphora magazine Juxtapoz complimented Valdez’s of the goddess Diana fight for space on the “signature palette of rich reds, bright yellows desk; a cow pelvis leans against a stack of Opposite page: Boston View with Taxidermy Butterflies (2019) Oil and acrylic on canvas, 52 x 42 in. Left: Landscape in Studio (2018) Oil and acrylic on canvas, 66 x 84 in. Above: Self-Portrait in Studio (2019) Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 in. bu.edu/cfa 5 books about women artists. There’s a story in retellings of her life. The paintings show not Left: Objects of Affection, solo the objects—all what she calls symbols in art only what she sees in the studio, but what’s on exhibition installation history. her mind—things she’s noticed and thought at Hashimoto “I wanted to make a painting that glori- about over days and weeks. Contemporary in San Francisco, Calif. fied women in art, but without it being a nude “There are so many moments that go into of a woman reclining,” she says. “When you making one painting,” she says. “I try to layer Right: Objects of Affection (2020) Oil on see women depicted in art, it’s usually from a a lot of moments into a piece. You see me as a canvas, 85 x 80 in. The male lens, so it’s usually sexualized.” person in it.” painting brims with Objects of Aection is a big painting, more Occasionally, the view shown from a win- details from Valdez’s studio, far right. than seven feet tall and six feet wide. Valdez dow may be an artistic lie: a snapshot from a says she spent a lot of time climbing up and previous day or even of a dierent place alto- down a ladder to add the many details. gether. Sometimes, the artworks shown hang- “It’s a very physical action to make that ing on her studio walls live only in Valdez’s painting,” she says. “It’s interesting because big sketchbook—they have no canvas of their own. paintings are considered masculine paintings. “And there are little surprises that hap- I like that little bit of duality in the piece.” pen,” says Valdez.