To be awarded such an amazing honor leaves me speechless. We all wish to be acknowledged and applauded for our work, and I am so very fortunate to gain that opportunity. Not bad for a kid from Chicago.

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My practice has evolved immensely this past year and throughout the pandemic. The separation from the regular routine of work allowed for a reflection on what had been important to me in my exploration of architecture, art, and public space. I took the time to make again. Making with my hands reminded me of how liberating and joyful it can be to allow the intuition in my hands to direct form.

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The term engagement implies both a design to find out more about an issue and an ethical obligation to become concerned and to act. It is to such engagement that we work so that media and institutional leaders treat the climate crisis like the existential emergency it is and take the ethical lead in responding to the collective emergencies. The bigger the platform, the bigger the responsibility.

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We’ve experienced firsthand the fragility of our connections to one another and the necessity of reinforcing those bonds in intentional and infrastructural ways. People in many artistic disciplines are rebelling against the inadequacy of current institutions, and creating new institutions that reflect their values. We feel incredibly fortunate to be part of various networks of solidarity through this period of extraordinary upheaval. We continue to explore our core concerns and make work that unsettles.

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Our most recent lesson: it takes a village! The pandemic taught us that only by building and fostering community can we weather uncertainty, as our small office pulled together creatively to maintain functionality. Quarantine also showed us all that space matters, that quality of space and access to air and light should be a right. These lessons converged in our involvement with the Neighborhoods Now initiative, through which we designed and installed public outdoor seating in the hard-hit neighborhood of Jackson Heights.

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The physical nature of my work and its emotional intensity helped me recover from each of the five surgeries I had between 2020 and 2021. My work with unseen forces in my practice heightened my intuition about the inner workings of my body during moments of emergency and healing. Being an artist isn’t just about making art, it’s about how the practice sculpts you into a wiser, more courageous, compassionate, and flexible being.

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I am encouraged to witness a growing number of people working to contextualize Craft beyond materiality, natural history, tradition, and technique. Contemporary Craft is deserving of platforms for audiences to consider trajectories that push into new economic, cultural, social, and political territories. Complex and sophisticated craft traditions can be found in the most mundane of locales and made of commonplace materials. I hope we continue to flush out these wonders so they can optimally inspire.

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The pandemic has been difficult for all of us, from the universal experience of prolonged isolation to the all-too-common loss of loved ones. Episodes like these can also serve as reminders of the importance of building community and cultural continuity. I feel more urgency than ever to use my work to hand down skills and traditions and to create connections between generations in my community.

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This past year, through the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, I have offered educational programs in the woodshop for Black women. These initiatives create radically welcoming and authentically supportive experiences in spaces that have historically excluded many folx. From day one, I have been in awe of women’s immense capacity to give, love, and create – the depth from where the creation comes gives me hope for our future.

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Artists work to imagine futures, synthesizing the past with the present through material exploration. This is a messy process, which requires a unique balance of sincerity, deep contemplation, light-heartedness, and faith.

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This year, I have been going to the beach a couple mornings each week to walk my chihuahua Miss Sprinkles. There was a unicycler that I kept seeing riding on the bike path, so I decided to put a unicycler on an art piece, respectfully. Taking time to be aimlessly present in my surroundings is a crucial part of my art practice.

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For years I’ve focused on Palestinian embroidery, which is an emblematic Palestinian cultural export, and I consider it the center of my practice. That being said, in the past year I’ve endeavored to expand the materials I work with, turning to other, maybe lesser-known, Palestinian and Levantine craft practices for inspiration. I am currently  developing works using three new media: metalwork covered with handmade glass-beads, a technique practiced in Hebron, Palestine; wooden objects inlaid with brass, mother of pearl, and various woods, a technique employed across the Levant; and basket weaving using wheat, which is found in Palestine and throughout the Levant. The widening of my scope across other crafts besides  embroidery has been exciting and enlightening. It has solidified my commitment to craftsmanship and learning the cultural traditions of my ancestors. 

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Although financial sustainability and retirement are real worries for me as a mid-career, mid-life, immigrant Latina artist, I was so grateful to come back to my practice with the dancers in the studio after having been in lockdown for a whole year. It strengthened my faith in the value of the power of working in community and the healing power of the presence of the body and touch. Dance and its potential for healing ancestral generational trauma and collective trauma feels more relevant and important than ever. Our connection to ourselves, our history, nature, the cosmos, and to one another is experienced in the flesh when we dance and sing and come together in the studio and in the ritual of theater.

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I believe it is essential to honor the legacy and traditions of creativity in movement and rhythm intricacies, while allowing space to be contemporary and relevant in performances and applications. As artists, we willingly make sacrifices and investments to bring healing, laughter, hope, and inspiration to our students, families, audiences, and the world. It’s important that artists continue to lovingly and powerfully nourish this commitment within ourselves and are viewed as creative laborers and leaders in society. Artists: you never know who will notice and invest in your worth ethic.

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Over the past year my practice has taught me the value of unproductivity. That aimlessly wandering is a form of rest and that idleness isn’t a luxury but essential to my healing. I’ve learned to show up to the studio with no agenda and meet myself at that day’s edge. I’ve learned to give grief its space. I’ve learned when to push and when to find stillness.

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Before the dual pandemics, I and the artists I work with were already struggling with racism, bias, and phobias which were making our working and living environments ungrounding and unsafe. Since the onset of the pandemics I have been driven to make space, hold space, and offer ideas on how we can rest in movement and find refuge for that rest. This has been critical in order to survive the onslaught of bigotry and violence so we can be creative. What I have had to do this last year is to set aside my ambition to produce work in the ways I had in the past. I had to really leave the commodity culture that producing work for stage is rooted in. I had to set aside the demands I made on myself and those I work with and focus on what we needed as individuals so we could come together. We spend our time in a practice of grieving, condoling and resting. We share this practice. And I have let go of trying to meet the expectations of those who think I should be doing otherwise.

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I am thinking about how we shift from ideas of land-owning to collective land-belonging; and I’m curious how cultivation of plants informs human body-based artistic practices, what kind of movement and technologies might emerge, how humans can practice sharing space with plants and each other, and how plants can be a reminder of what’s at stake globally.

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I still get emotional watching my rehearsals. Bodies moving so generously and committed to what I propose is still a wonderful feeling. I am thankful that after all these years I find it adventurous and a little scary. Making a new piece gives me a chance to keep on exploring something like risky behavior, even if it is private.

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This year continues to bring about some of our most important decisions we have faced as artists. What do we tackle today in comparison to pre-pandemic? How do we use dance to show our strength and to address our fears? Our belief will always be that art unites us all. But in order to unite we must continue to address the unaddressed, admit what we ignore to move forward in growth. 

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My art-making begins with a devotion to the moving body.
I don’t know where it ends.

Dance is my refuge, my drug, my practice. After these past two years, I’m not sure what and whom it’s for.

It is, and must continue to be.
That, I do know.

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This year, nineteen months into the pandemic, I’ve learned to find a new pace and slower rhythm in my practice. I’ve learned that some burdens are not meant to be held alone, that in confronting the scarcity complex that encircles ego and unlearning a culture obsessed with single-authorship and hero’s journeys, I could share in the abundance and collective healing that comes with co-creating work. With co-creation comes a new methodology for artistic process: one that prioritizes relationships and “moving at the speed of trust,” as adrienne maree brown puts it; that is accountable to the community and creates a benefit to them; that grows locally and is rooted in intergenerational community knowledge and expertise; and that is grounded in collective care. 

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One surprising thing I learned this year is the value of resilience. Resilience comes from overcoming past difficulties in life. This pandemic has been tough, no doubt, but I’m grateful for the struggles I’ve been through. There was a time when I tried to downplay or evade my past difficulties in life, and after this year, I’ve learned that those difficult moments gave me the strength to persevere. I kept making my films and I’m proud of the resilience I’ve shown. I’ve learned that it is important to push no matter the obstacle and that effort can inspire others.

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One thing that surprised me this year was the reminder of how powerful seeing one’s own image is. I take that for granted because I’m in the rare position of seeing lots of African films, so it feels like everybody has the same opportunity. And while things have changed a great deal since I was a child, seeing thoughtful, hopeful, and affirming African stories still isn’t as widespread or common as it could and should be, and when it does happen it always packs a punch. I am constantly humbled to meet people who watch my film and feel “seen” for the first time. What that does for their health and psyche, that feeling and knowledge, never grows old. 

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Although I was fortunate to have a fairly successful debut narrative feature, the next film I want to make is very ambitious: a magical realism pop music opera set in Japanese-occupied Philippines during WWII. Initiatives like USA allow someone like me to continue to pursue writing and researching this film while still being able to support myself.

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My connection to Nature has deepened, and become my supreme teacher. Second to that is Toni Morrison. In her words, “I was always a little bored by demonstrations of evil. It always has this top hat, and a cape, and a cane. [But] Goodness never has anything, because it doesn’t want anything. Can’t use anything. It’s just there.” May our art continue to expose evil, but valorize even more the simple splendor of Good.

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I really enjoy making things. I’ve always known that, but I forgot how important it is to my process — to create, design, and build the things I want to see in the world. I always hope that my joy is discernible in the details of the work when others encounter it, but I have to remember to protect the part of the process that is joyful for me, whether or not others can access it.

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Artists are archivists, translators, and inventors who are expanding and extending research into something that can be felt. Artists are excellent at modeling potentials for change that can be reproduced and scaled up.

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Disabled people are leading survival praxis in apocalyptic times. Through media, art, technology, and community, we have been using online spaces to teach, organize, and disseminate knowledge. Many of our tools and techniques enabled the broader world to connect and socialize during the pandemic. Now, we are losing access to remote participation as the world attempts to pivot back to “normal.” We resist the idea of normal and follow our comrades in disability culture by insisting on radical accessibility.

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It’s cool that you want to make the art in your museum accessible for disabled people, we really appreciate the gesture, but it would be a lot cooler if you were to feature our art as well.

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This year I have been trying to cultivate more patience in my practice. One afternoon late in October, I was walking along the Bronx River and came upon a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) standing in the river. I told myself to stand and watch the heron, even if I got uncomfortable. I ended up watching it and taking notes on its movements for about twenty-five minutes before continuing on my walk. It was a riveting experience and one I am very grateful for! Thank you heron!

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This past year has been a time of reflection. People have suffered and are experiencing difficulties in the current pandemic. Although taiko is known for being exciting, energetic, and high volume, it has a softer side and can convey many internal feelings. I’d like to create music that offers a glimpse of optimism — that nature and its wisdom will prevail.

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The pandemic has presented me with the opportunity to create therapeutic music performance for community pain and has made American audiences more receptive to the ritual of music performance.

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[My practice] always reminds me of all the energies of how alive we are with our music, art, dance, theater, writing, filmmaking, building, and beyond. Beginning with just sparks of ideas and inspiration from generations ago of family, friends, nature, all creatures that surround us that gets to grow and grow until we’re all twirled up into creative and collaborative societies that are listening together to the world around us each day.

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I never know what I’m looking for. And I’m mostly okay with that. This year, I realized how much I rely on that sense of uncertainty to make the work. You never know where you’ll end up. Embrace the unknown and the possibilities are infinite.

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Music and dance are keys or tools for us to keep our culture alive, our language alive. To save our people. We’re doing this to save our lives and using art to try to bring a light to the darkness. It’s amazing to me how much our cultural practice brings healing and joy in the dark moon times.

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One surprising thing I learned through my practice this year has been the value of patience, reflection, and community. We suffered great losses during the pandemic. Yet somehow we managed to continue creating work in different ways, continuing in a way that heals, including ourselves. In my opinion, musicians became essential workers. Music healed us in more ways than I ever imagined or expected. Social media became our connecting friend, our catalyst for activism, social justice, kindness, and community support. 

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As an improvising artist, the isolation of the past year due to COVID-19 reaffirmed the essential importance of a present audience in my creative process. The transformational power of music has everything to do with immediate communication and being in community with the people who are receiving the work. I am excited to be in the presence of everyone again as things open up.

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I spent the last year reflecting on our field’s interdependence and the collective power that we artists have to evolve the theater industry. I spent most of the past year saving my 85-year old institution by adapting my skillset to focus on raising the necessary resources and bolstering the entire field to join me in the work. When our theaters were shuttered, I followed my fellow theater artists as we turned to other forms of expression: digital, immersive, XR, and through those forms I was able to connect and collaborate with my fellow creators all over the world. None of that would have been possible if it weren’t also necessary. With so much loss during this past year because of the pandemic, the privilege to pivot was a gift I could not take for granted.

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Last September, I escaped Zoom and opened my show in a real theater. Audiences made the effort to show up with their proof of vaccination, and their masks made me realize that sharing theater always was and always will be a human necessity. Software can never replace the experience of being in the room.

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As I wasn’t on tour or in rehearsals over the past year, I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood of Echo Park in LA. I saw patterns and presences I hadn’t fully attended to before, and so I began walking with my camera. In particular, I began making photos of vehicles in which people in my community live. They’re not houses, but are homes, and in many cases are covered in art. The walks helped me remember that we artists make work wherever we are with whatever we have on hand, and there are many more of us out there than we imagine.

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I’ve learned, more than ever, that my artistic practice is a survival technique. It is a language that has brought me closer to the earth and to strangers who appreciate and understand it. My practice is the biggest part of myself. My work is my breath, my activism, my reason for existence. 

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As a Native actor and playwright, the film and theatre community only inquire about my availability when they need an Indigenous voice. 2021 was my first time receiving  commissions where I had the luxury of writing about anything I wanted and not specific requests for Native content. 

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We had a highly challenging year where we were asked to practice physical and social distance but thanks to technology, creativity, and arts, we were able to stay close to each other and, in some cases, feel even closer than ever.

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After shutting down creatively during the early days of the pandemic, I have found my voice on cloth and am again making narrative quilts. Creating quilts for two Women of Color Quilters Network shows — on George Floyd and COVID-19 — helped me process this tumultuous time and reconnect with my artistic practice.

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Connection is strong medicine. With the potential to heal across time and space, it can doctor through soft touches, sweet smells, and aching memories. It is the connection between my beadwork, the wisdom of those who came before, and contemporary issues that fuels my work.

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Watch out. The plants are back.

Las Imaginistas has been infiltrated by plants in their heart chakra. They are transmitting messages to other skyborgs (social cyborgs working on behalf of the interlinked natural world). The time has arrived to ACTIVATE.

Black Jaguar, Ocelot, and Murciélago are networking a root system of liberation throughout Maiza and beyond. With the plants at the forefront, they will collectively deliver intergalactic peace.

The plants are interlinked
Interlinked

The plants are interlinked
Interlinked

The plants are interlinked
Interlinked

Program commence.

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Art connects emotion to experience, self to other, person to culture. The pandemic is not over, but the world already knows a profound new grief, one that is shared but not processed. Artists, who are expert at connection, can guide our communities toward healing and toward empathy. For medical reasons, my partner and I have basically lived in quarantine since March 2020. We have a large chosen family, and these relationships are vital to our lives. But what I have been surprised by is that, despite the loss of these visits, we are not depressed, and we are not lonely. We have used this time to grow the health of our creative practices, and art has proven itself to be the best company we keep. We feel closer to our community, and to each other and ourselves, than we ever have — because our imaginations are set to the work of offering a healing place. Artists are expert at connection because the artistic process itself is a process of connection. I thank the lord for that.

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More than ever, my art practice has been an important factor in my survival this past year. I’ve used my art to process. I’ve also used my art as a way of speaking up for and with my community.

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Information about Alaska Native traditional skin sewing and tanning techniques is found almost exclusively in ethnographic museums and documents that derive knowledge from Native communities. Yet the creative control, voice, and audience for these resources are not Native. This past year I realized that the Indigenous lived experience can only be accurately conveyed directly by those with collective cultural memory. When revitalizing cultural practices, it is vital that we are in the driver’s seat.

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My attention span favors those who tell tales. I must live to be slow-walked through anecdotal observations, personal accounts, and the retelling of family histories. This is something that my practice needs and has been suffering for in isolation.

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The hardest part about making art is creating. Any idea you have, no matter how big or small, just create, create, create.

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Throughout the years engaged in the harvest of fibers and clay bodies, I’ve come to attain a commitment well-regarded to understanding what it means to have permission from the Land to extend upon the use of its resources. Moreover, this year, within a reflection around loss and grief, an altar was conceived as a payment and acknowledgement to teachers we’ve lost along the path we sustain. As a result, I’ve come to understand a process of self-cultivation as a significant exercise in a practice to maintain a constant reflection around presence and growth.

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During the last few years, I had to find a deepness within myself. These last few years have been hard for everyone. My music touring came to a stop because of the pandemic, and that allowed me to focus on making art without interruption. For an artist like me, being isolated was hard, but not new. This is my life. I spent a lot of time with just my imagination. I tried new things in new places. I painted a lot. I found ways to reinvent myself in my 70s and I like the new me.

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I know my practice is not always legible, and I disappear into libraries or classrooms or get lost exploring different media, but that is authentic to the way that I think and work. And it feels incredible to be seen.

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It’s not exactly a revelation, but our collective global experience with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 has further reminded us how much we need the arts in order to survive.

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One surprising thing I’ve learned through my practice this year is that it isn’t nearly effective enough in scale both regionally and globally when considering the cumulative impact of climate change on our communities. These are hard truths to learn after years of dedication to each project but this growth, I’m learning, is what makes a life’s work measurably effective. 

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I figure if I can seduce [the viewer] with color, I can get them to ask a question. If I can get them to ask a question, I can begin to have a dialogue.

From interview by the Delaware Art Museum

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I continue to be surprised by how poems can come from anywhere and, in particular, from conversation. I used to believe writing was a completely solitary act, that it had to be, if it was going to be “true” or “pure” art. Now I believe in friendship and community as vital, as deeply essential to my creative practice and life. I can’t write without talking to and dreaming alongside other writers. 

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It probably sounds reductive or corny, but I’ve never known how dependent I am on hearing other artists create, revise, and talk, often insufficiently, about their works in progress. I’ve needed this every year of my life, but I’ve needed it more, having lost so many folks I love these past two years. 

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Quarantine time passed in a way I have never experienced, producing a strange, wonderful inattention to each day’s progression. Inside of that unstructured time, my mind was allowed to wander or to think of nothing at all. It was that wandering nothingness from which language emerged as if not coming from my thoughts, but from elsewhere. 

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[A surprising thing we learned during our practice this year was] when we won an Emmy. We have done our work on an SSI budget!

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Deep engagement with my emotional, spiritual, & intellectual life motivates my artistic practice, to know something important I did not know when I started the poem. Sometimes this is an aesthetic discovery & often it is a philosophical question or a response to feeling institutional inequities. Sometimes my own drafts wound me because the topics I feel most compelled to write about wound me. It is not until I stick them out in revision that the artistic practice delivers me into a new realm of understanding, into conocimiento.

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I know from being an athlete and musician that sustained, regular practice is important, but I could never apply this to writing. In July, my friend Calvin Hennick and I started writing together on Zoom for the first 90 minutes of the day. Some days are hard, but on most days, it is the best part of my day. I am most myself when I’m writing, and every day, I give myself this gift first. 

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