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ECIC Exhibitions Artists in Residence at the Preserve PDWP Public Art Projects ECIC Exhibitions ECIC Exhibitons Lorraine Bubar Desert Cuts July 12, 2025 - December 14, 2025 Download Artists in Residence at the Preserve Lorraine Bubar Celebrate the Lunar New Year with Papercutting Craft January 29, 2025 - Saturday, May 3, 2025 Download PDWP Public Art Projects Nancy Baker Cahill Lifelines 2023 Download Nathaniel Ancheta and David Edward Martin THEN | NOW | A | DREAM 2021 Download Devin Thor Paleolithic Herd January 2021 Download Ann Weber Little Giant November 2020 Download Artists in Residence PDWP Public Art

Volunteer at MOAH Tour with Robert Education Tour Museum Overlook 1/9 VOLUNTEER IN TEREST FORM The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH), MOAH:CEDAR, Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center (ECIC), and the Western Hotel Museum (WHM) are now accepting volunteer applications! Our volunteers are passionate about art and history, making valuable contributions to the museum at all levels. As a volunteer you will have an integral role, working directly with staff and supporting various operations. Throughout your time with us, you will be able to grow and be a part of an invested team. If you are interested in volunteering and support our mission statement, fill out the Volunteer Interest F orm as provided here . For the department interest section, be sure to add MOAH. Volunteers will be able to: Become an expert on each of our exhibitions and engage MOAH’s visitors as a docent by sharing your knowledge with our diverse audiences. Assist with gallery security and enforcing policies throughout the gallery space. Foster direct relationships with our community of patrons, artists, residents, and staff members. Assist with different departments including our Guest Services, Collections, and Education at our various locations. Support the Education Team with tours for audiences of all ages. Connect with a team of volunteers and enjoy our museum benefits. Benefits! Museum volunteers also enjoy personal benefits, such as special invitations to museum and volunteer events, a 20% discount on select purchases in the Vault Museum Store, and participation in educational workshops! Ideal Qualifications: Ideal volunteers should maintain a courteous and positive attitude, dedicated to upholding guest relations with all visitors, staff, and artists. Volunteers should have a keen interest and knowledge in current exhibition materials, express excitement w hen interacting with diverse groups of all ages, including children to seniors. Ideal volunteers should be punctual and able to remain calm in difficult or stressful situations. They should also be comfortable with public speaking and participating in different training avenues, such as public programming and educational events. Volunteers who can communicate in multiple languages (especially Spanish, American Sign Language and Standard Mandarin) or have CPR training are highly desirable. Volunteer Shifts: Volunteers will be scheduled for their shift based on their personal availability during museum hours. Standard shifts are typically 4 hours in length, up to twice a week. The Museum of Art and Histor y (MOAH) is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 AM – 4 PM. On Thursday and Fridays, we are open from 11 AM – 8 PM . If you are unable to volunteer for our standards shifts, the museum may be able to accommodate your availability. How to Apply: If you are interested in volunteering, fill out the Volunteer Interest Form through the City of Lancaster, as provided here . For the department interest section, be sure to add MOAH. Paper applications are also available at the Lancaster Museum of Art & History’s reception desk and can be picked-up and dropped off during our regular operating hours. Applicants will receive an email to schedule them for a short interview at the museum, then notified thereafter. Volunteer Requirements: Volunteers will be subject to a LiveScan background check through Human Resources at Lancaster City Hall. Volunteers will be required to submit a PPD Skin Test (TB) clearance before starting the volunteer role. If you already possess a report administered by your own doctor, it must be dated within the last six months. Human Resources will confirm the location for testing, and the results should be given to HR offi ce at Lancaster City Hall (44933 Fern Ave, Lancaster, CA 93534). We are currently only accepting applications for volunteers who are over the age of 18. Volunteer Orientation: Once your volunteer application has been processed and you are selected as a volunteer, you will be scheduled to attend a volunteer orientation! During orientation, volunteers will be given a specialized tour of the facility and information packet, learn how to docent, and meet other volunteers. You will also learn about what makes a great museum tour, along with techniques to engage your audience and the fundamentals of storytelling! Thank you for your interest and we look forward to meeting you!

Samantha Martinez < Back Rosemary By Samantha Martinez Name Rosemary, Rosemary they say originally from the Mediterranean which in Latin means dew of the sea. Date of entry unknown: I remember being sprouted from a tough, dry ground, only receiving water once in a while, allowing me to expand my roots slowly. Around me were my three older plants, and later on, the pitiful woman I call mother gave birth to seven more despite my pleas. I would plead to her to stop sprouting because we were poor, POOR something she could not grasp. I was forced to take root much faster than my family as I was in charge of nourishing my siblings and washing their aromatic leaves, feeling how they were connected by a delicate stem pricking myself each time. However, after 21 years, I had my own seed to worry about. I still remember coming home each day, being unnourished from traveling miles in a pot, somehow finding my way home each time only to find that there was no food in the garden knowing better than to ask my mother plant I would withhold the pain I felt in my stem. The only thing my son received daily when in my womb was water and the nutrients my soil provided me with. In two years’ time, my sunshine was pulled away from me; I was being ripped away from my sprout by a man who picked me up from my roots and confined me until we reached what was known as “ the land where dreams came true.” I had made it; I had escaped my poverty but at what cost. The cost of leaving my tiny sprout behind with the motherly plant I hated? With the plant, I had promised to shelter him from? NO, NO, I could not accept this reality, so I went back, back, back on my own terms. I remember hiding through the bushes that seemed familiar, the sunshine that became the fear of being caught, the abuse I had to withstand each day ripping my long, skinny, and once beautiful leaves from my stem, allowing me to feel each emotion and temperature brush my skin. Then when I had given up all hope, I started to smell an air that I had grown to find comforting; I had made it, I made it back to my land to see my bud. Forwarding a couple of months, the MAN returned, pleading for me to grab my once rejected bud and go back to America. My innocent and fragile self back then thought it was the best thing to do. So I go back except this time my flowerlet is feeling the way the dirt becomes an accessory on our delicate green leaves, how the ground goes from cold to hot from dry to wet—counting the days that would go by, by taking note of when the sun rose and when it set. In a week’s time, we made it; I had successively done the impossible Twice. Nevertheless, life was not all sunshine and daisies but more like pouring rain and thunder. I was getting physically and mentally abused by this MAN who swore he was going to change. Plumule, my plumule, was asking for a sister because he felt lonely and unwanted, but I had learned from my momma plants flaws. I had learned not to bring an innocent seed into a world full of neglect. Then my Plumule told me something that shattered my heart; he missed his “mom,” he missed the motherly plant I had grown to hate. So we returned, we went back to the tunnels of darkness, the place where chills ran up and down your peduncle no matter the weather. The mountains that stunk of fear and desperation reminding me of my once comforting smell of bitterness with a slight sweetness. An aroma that would start to burn if you stood and smelt it for too long. Again my bud and I found ourselves in our Tierra, Linda, y Querida (land), and this time; I promised myself that I would start a life in the land I wanted to escape from so severely. But it is said that once you see shadows, they will never leave your side, and in 6 months, the man returned, and I was back by his side in the promised land. Again how could I be so naive to believe his trancing words? He would leave for months on end, leaving me alone in a tiny room in a city I did not know with no nourishment and no one to talk to. It got so bad that I felt as though I was shriveling and drying up in the corner I called home. One thing, however, did stay true about my promise to myself, and that was never neglecting my flowerlet as my mother plant did to me, which is why for ten years, I would attempt the impossible just to see my plumule for a few weeks until his wish came true and my daughter sprout was born. She was born, and the bud who wished for her so badly could not enjoy the blessing God gave me. He gave me this blessing to have someone to talk to in my solidarity and a guardian angel to guide me through my torment life. Always remember my kids the Name is rosemary, rosemary they say originally from the Mediterranean, which in Latin means dew of the sea. A journal that is written using the stories my vigorous mother told at “storytime.” By the daughter that became familiar with neglect through a different path. Previous Next

Ashna Pradhan < Back Green Is a Color as Well By Ashna Pradhan Everyday, you come at dawn You come bearing a watering can and perhaps clippers And everyday I pray, wishing they were for me Praying to be plucked as those around me, with jealousy through my stems Maybe one day it will be me, but for now, I shall continue to watch the creatures around me Pick the roses over me Perhaps my spiky leaves are not enough As you prefer thorns Perhaps my sharp aroma is not enough As the dogs prefer sweet Perhaps my fresh taste is not enough As the bees prefer nectar Perhaps my hue is not enough, As the world prefers vividness Perhaps there is no place for a mint plant in a garden full of roses The days will go on, the seasons will change Yet I am still the same old, green mint plant Hoping for a change in me A few thorns maybe? A simple flower bud? A hint of yellow hue? Praying for change seemed like an eon Even the old sycamore tree gained colors by fall Yet I am still the same old, green mint plant Eventually the day came You walked up to my soil, clippers in hand And you snipped off the two leaves closest to the burning sun, Which happened to shine a little brighter that day My leaves may have only been a garnish, Uneaten and unacknowledged, lying on the rim of a cocktail Yet that day, my existence was given a definition Perhaps being a shrub of green in a garden of roses wasn’t so bad after all Previous Next

< Return to Exhibitions Holiday 2012 Ann Marie Rousseau: Sight Lines sight lines jennifer-glass-cyanotypes_edited Accatino Collection 3 Kokeshi&Totem veritas300 Learn More December 6, 2012 - March 2, 2013 September 29, 2012 - January 1, 2013 Jennifer Glass: Cyanotypes December 6, 2012 - January 19, 2013 Madonna and Child: Selections from the Accatino Collection Kokeshi and the Totem: The Art of David and Kazumi Svenson Gary Baseman: The Seven Sacred Magi Winter Wishes: Letters to Santa Madonna Glass Totem Winter Rousseau Jennifer Glass: Cyanotypes Cyanotype Greek: kyano (blue; dark blue) + Greek: typos (type or form; print) English 1835-1845 Jennifer Glass captures moments in the life of women through her cyanotypes of vintage gowns. Selected from her private collection, these gowns are reproduced as cyanotypes through a process that the artist sees as a deeply metaphorical statement on the roles of women, politics, power, and fashion. Specifically, this body of work emphasizes the artist’s affinity for fashion as a polarized narrative. The large-scale reproductions are strong in their Prussian blue impressions while fragile in their ghost-like translucency. Glass explains that her connection to the world of fashion elicits a “strong emotional response to how [fashion] may either empower or constrain a woman depending on how she uses it”…she continues: “fashion has been used as a tool by women for years and although it has confined them in many ways, it also has liberated them…these garments belonged to someone.” Glass notes that although the women who wore these garments are now gone, in their time they danced, brought about new life, felt pleasure and pain, and likely changed policy, leaving their own imprint on the world however large or small. Glass’ prints are created through the deceptively basic methods of light exposure and chemical preparation on fabrics. The cyanotype was pioneered in 1842 by Sir John Herschel as a photographic method to quickly duplicate technical drawings that are normally time-consuming to draw and reproduce. Herschel discovered that when iron salts react with sunlight they leave a permanent blue imprint. When paper or porous fabric is treated with a solution of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, almost any image may be reproduced if it is drawn on a transparent surface, placed over the photosensitive paper in a darkroom and then exposed to sunlight. The areas of the photosensitive paper (or canvas/fabric) that are concealed by the lines of the drawing remain white while the exposed areas turn into an insoluble blue, resulting in a reverse silhouette. In 1843, shortly after Herschel developed the cyanotype, his friend and colleague Anna Atkins, a recognized botanist, utilized the cyanotype method to catalogue her extensive botanical collection. By placing her algae specimens on the photosensitized paper, she created the first known volume of cyanotype photograms. Atkins went on to self-publish her cyanotypes in her book: Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. Atkins published three volumes and only seventeen copies were reproduced. As a photographer, Jennifer Glass is carrying on this tradition in contemporary times, a method that has gone underutilized since the advent of digital reproductions. A Florida native, Jennifer Glass earned a Bachelor of Art degree in Social and Political Science from Florida State University. Glass went on to study photography at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale along with taking workshops in New York with well-regarded photographers Debbie Fleming Caffery and Mary Ellen Mark. Glass currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ann Marie Rousseau: Sight Lines Ann Marie Rousseau is a photographer, artist and writer formerly of New York City and currently living in southern California. She works with photography, painting and drawing on paper. Rousseau has a deep interest in line in all its manifestations - drawn, painted, photographed. Madonna and Child: Selections from the Accatino Collection The Museum of Art & History is proud to present an exhibition showcasing Madonna and Child paintings from the Tom and Christie Accatino Collection. Dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the selections feature Madonna and Child paintings from Russia, Ukraine, and Spanish Colonial origins. The Accatino’s are regional collectors, based in Riverside and Palm Springs, whose eclectic tastes range from California landscape painting to Asian artifacts. They have a particular interest in certain themes and approaches associated with the Old Masters, and over the past few years have amassed a group of portraits, still lifes, and religious subjects by various painters – many still unidentified – working in the Baroque and classic styles prevalent in their day. The selections here are in honor of the holidays and include a range of treatments of the Madonna and Child subject. Kokeshi and the Totem: the Art of David Svenson and Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson David Svenson and Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson are mixed-media sculptors based in the High Desert of southern California. They both share an affection for folk art traditions, in particular the kokeshi: wooden Japanese dolls, and the wooden totems of Pacific Northwestern tribes. This exhibition highlights the Svenson’s traditional kokeshi collection and its influence on David and Kazumi’s mixed media work, which includes hand blown glass, neon, wood and concrete. Through their artwork and teaching, David and Kazumi are helping to keep folk art traditions alive by sharing their collection with the public and creatively interpreting the kokeshi and the totem through contemporary art-making methods. Although the couple shares an affinity for folk art traditions and sculpting with glass, neon and mixed-media, they come from very different backgrounds. David Svenson grew up in the 1960’s among the many contrasts of southern California. He was surrounded by the flashy neon signage of historic State Route 66 standing out against the vast expanses of citrus groves that dominated the landscape at the time. David recalls the contrast of multicolored light emanating from the neon signs against the darkness of night as an important impression on his aesthetic development. David subsequently left California to study Tlingit art and culture in Alaska where he witnessed the breathtaking displays of the Aurora Borealis. Having a similar effect on his aesthetic development, the use of light became central to his studio practice. While working with the tribes, David was equally influenced by the way of life practiced among the Tlingit families that adopted him into their clan. There, art and life are intertwined in daily interactions and the overarching respect for life is honored through the arts and gift-giving. Totems are always made for someone else, to honor another family or clan. David recognizes kokeshi and totems as fine craft, and sees kokeshi as similar to the Pacific Rim totems because they both honor the family and the spirit of gift-giving. In addition to his studio practice, David teaches at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and has taught classes at the Pilchuck Glass School, in Seattle, Washington; the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York; Urban Glass in Brooklyn, New York, and internationally. He continues to work periodically with a team of Alaska Native totem carvers. Learning, teaching, and sharing skills and knowledge about glass, neon, art and the cultures of the Pacific rim are central aspects of David's life and work. Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson was born in Sendai, Japan, the heart of kokeshi country. She creates miniature kokeshi as well as drawings and sculpture. Kazumi’s interest in kokeshi began while growing up with her mother’s traditional kokeshi collection, which consists of wooden dolls made in the 1930’s of Japanese maple, Cherry or Dogwood. The family collection contained examples from Onsen, an area in northern Japan renowned for its hot springs and kokeshi workshops that lined the streets offering the dolls for sale to tourists and locals. Traditional kokeshi are meant to honor the loss of a child or simply be given as a souvenir to bring happiness to the home. The floral and linear patterns painted on their kimonos have been developed and passed down through generations of kokeshi craftsman and are distinctive to the area where they are made. The 2011 Fukushima earthquake was centered in kokeshi country, a devastation that has taken an additional toll on keeping the tradition alive. Kazumi works in the relatively new “Creative Kokeshi” style which developed after the second World War as a departure from traditional doll making. Although many Creative Kokeshi retain the traditional limbless body, contemporary interpretations often show a more shapely body and additional features such as hair and perhaps a more colorful and exquisitely patterned kimono. The features, materials, and styles of Creative Kokeshi are always unique to their creator. Kazumi utilizes glass as her choice of material and creates in a range of scales from tiny dolls made of individual hand blown glass beads to the larger Italian glass and neon pieces. Because the traditional method of creating kokeshi was by lathe turned wood, it converts easily to glassblowing due to the similar methods of turning the material either by a blow pipe or in using a mandrel for bead-making. She often places her Creative Kokeshi miniatures in a mixed media ensemble of neon and old boxes, perhaps referencing her move to America and symbolically bringing the childhood collection with her. Kazumi recalls that the experience of coming to America afforded her the opportunity to see her own culture from a new perspective and allowed her to translate the traditional art form into her own visual language. Kazumi has been blowing glass for twenty two years as well as teaching the craft in Japan. She first began studying neon in the United States in 1994 and has continued combining neon with glass and exhibiting internationally. Gary Baseman: The Seven Sacred Magi MOAH is honored to bring the artwork of multitalented and internationally celebrated artist Gary Baseman to the Antelope Valley. Born and raised in Hollywood, the artist crosses many disciplines as a painter, illustrator, video and performance artist, animator, TV/movie producer, curator, and toy designer. His artwork captures the bittersweet realities of life: playful yet vicious, naughty but nice and always telling a story layered with the pleasures and pain that life brings across generations. Winter Wishes: Letter to Santa This charming exhibition showcased letters and drawings to Santa inside paper snow globes from local Antelope Valley school children. Baseman View or Download the Holiday 2012 Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

Jillian Stebbins < Back A Pine Tree Doesn’t Know English By Jillian Stebbins It feels like a windy night. One of the nights that make you forget about the people behind the names. It feels like dancing, the kind of dancing that little kids do when they can’t keep their hands quiet. What I know about that is about as much as I know about trains, or stamps, or how to tell a human being I have my own little feelings. One of them is so nice. My feeling, that is. It feels like rain in my limbs and those dumb sparklers from the 4th of July are spinning like there was a brick wall older than my mother right behind. But it’s so calm. I think maybe it’ll be okay if I can be there. I don’t always know if I’m sick or just thirsty. It was dark, for a while, and I was sick. I’ll look back and think it was silly turning green. But it was silly, and that was the point. I was sick and then I was calm and then I could be green. Reminds me of a strawberry I met once. I’d like to be a strawberry, but I’m scared I’ll lose the green. Or get sick again. But I think maybe I’m just meant to be small forever because I get sick cyclically. That’s okay, I think. I used to be terrified of staying small, but I think that maybe I’d like it. If I could just figure out when to take a drink, I think I could live in a forest somewhere and learn to live without the music. There are three of us. I think I like being in threes. Or at least I have been a lot. It’s been at least three groups of three now, and so many stories. Maybe it’s okay to not know anything. I don’t know myself, or at least I didn’t for a long time. So stuck in being one of three. As within, so without. I have always been able to do a backbend, but I don’t think it’s innate knowledge at all because I don’t have it. Once, I met someone whose words made me think of orange and pink on a canvas and places I’ll never get to see. I wasn’t a zombie at the time. I heard a story, several years ago now, and I can’t distinguish it from any other story. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Maybe with enough luck it’ll end up like raspberry or mistletoe. With cashmere there too. It feels like a story or two, like alliteration and the ghosts of Christmas past. I believe in dragons. I believe in dragons because if they didn’t exist, where would hummingbirds come from? I don’t like mushrooms. Every time I think about roots, I think about mushrooms. I wish they weren’t so pretty sometimes, but they make me flinch when I look at them. I miss my grandmother. I think my grandmother knew dragons, because she talked to hummingbirds and she talked to herbs like they knew the recipe for chocolate soda. I’m going to miss my grandmother. I don’t think angels come in visions, I think maybe we all just need to take a breath and let the angels alone. It feels like racing the sunrise. It feels like blurry summer nights and one time I married a boy in Paris. It feels like wanting to uproot myself just to see Vienna sooner. It’s all over, like no matter how cold the world is, there’s always a molecule that left me and tried to make the world a little warmer, and the world heard me and gave me summer. I’ve never seen a summer without Jim. At least in the winter, it doesn’t feel like splinters. It feels like once I knew a group of lemons and a lemon boy and I could always count on red. Yeah, I still have the windy nights, but prayers sound different when the hummingbirds don’t come say hi anymore. Previous Next

< Back to ACTIVATION 1/12 April Bey The Opulent Blerd January 22 - April 17, 2022 Raised in The Bahamas, Los Angeles-based artist April Bey provides reflective and social critique of American and Bahamian cultures. Her artworks are often weaponized with concepts of Afrofuturism, a genre of speculative fiction regarding the future and significance of peoples and cultures within the African Diaspora. Pop culture, racial construct, and feminism are some of the many topics that Bey discusses. Research, material, and processes are crucial contributors to Bey’s work, she often travels on a national and international scale, allowing her to gather experience, material, and cultural information directly from the source. Using an Afrofuturist lens, Bey repurposes familiar brands, phrases, and portraits to create what she refers to as her “rule-based” and “process based” artworks. Across graphic design, installations, paintings, prints, collages, videos, and handmade artist books, she creates visual commentary on the world’s rapidly increasing set of issues. Bey considers her work a physical representation of “power dynamics destroyed and radically alien views.” Her utilization of witty humor, along with her close attention to texture and color are visually striking, purposefully drawing viewers to decipher the message before them. April Bey is both a practicing contemporary artist and art educator. She is currently a tenured professor at Glendale College and is well known for teaching a controversial course, Pretty Hurts, at the Art Center College of Design. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing in 2009 from Ball State University and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting in 2014 at California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles. Bey is in the permanent collection of the California African American Museum, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas. She has exhibited internationally in biennials NE7, NE8, and NE9 in The Bahamas, and in Italy, Spain, and Ghana. Previous Next

Camille Murray < Back From an Oleanders View By Camille Murray The preschool kids have just now returned to school, disrupting my year of quietness given to me by the pandemic. The sound of basketballs bouncing and chains swinging and crashing into backboards. The clicking of skateboards and scooters going in and out of the cracks of the sidewalks. Women walk their babies, and families walk their new puppies. The sun is shining on everyone, giving the kids at the public pool sunburns. I can hear screams of happiness and see a handful of children sliding down slides and swinging on swings until the sight of the park gets blocked. I see a large figure sprinting towards me; the happiness in its face warns me that the figure is interested in me. I start shaking as the heavy footsteps approach me; leaves slowly fall from my branches, letting me know it was their time to go. The figure gets close enough to where I can see that it is one of the preschoolers who found a way to get out of the gated playground and past the supervision. The child collapses on her knees and examines my petals like a scientist. Her golden hair shines in the sun, and I can see each highlight of yellows and blonds flowing in the wind. The annoyance fills me up because I know she will pick my pink petals, and she does not know that I am poisonous to her. The sharp pain I experienced as a piece of my stem is pulled off, and the shocked look the girl had on her face after she felt the itchiness of the petals. She takes off running towards the gated playground and explains to her teachers that her fingers were red and puffy. A warning is spread around the preschool children about my dangerous presence, but it is not spread far enough throughout the park; someone new always finds me attractive and gets too comfortable with my looks. Previous Next

Kendall Segale < Back Ripped from the Ground By Kendall Segale Ripped from the ground Taken from my home Unable to fight back Transplanted to unknown territory No one here is like me Not even myself, unfamiliar Budded then flowered Seasons change, time passes I branch out to feel beyond But over time, I wilt Creatures hide beneath me Protecting them, I am mother Roots run deep Wind comes in hopes of lifting them Unsuccessful but never gives up Pushing past my breaking point I don’t give up Now I can fight back Breath, I tell myself Nearing the end weak and accomplished I see my wind planted sprouts The sun so hot on my branches I let the light in I am carried on Previous Next

Lara Cruz < Back Roses By Lara Cruz Roses are gorgeous and universal; they can mean love or friendship. Many people relate to them because everyone loves roses. Someday I wish I could be like a rose. Having everyone adore me from the way that I look to the way that I smell. Letting my aroma enchant whoever passes by me. As well as always carrying a suit of armor as protection. Every rose is different though, their colors are symbolic for everyone. Red means love and passion and is given to someone special, someone you can not live without. While white tends to signify purity, and in the Catholic church, the Virgin Mary is continuously surrounded by white roses. If I could pick my color as a rose, I would want to be a yellow rose. My color would symbolize happiness, and people that would see me as a yellow rose can relate to a happy time in their life. They would have flashbacks of their childhood memories and remember how easy life was. A time in which they were energetic and optimistic about life and would want to go back to that same state of thought. My thorns would help protect me from anyone who tries to hurt me. Sometimes, as humans, we forget how much words can impact others' lives, but as a rose, my thorns will symbolize all the hardships I have endured. As I continue to learn from past experiences, I will gain more thorns from them to ensure that those experiences will no longer hurt me again. My thorns are a shield, but they are swords as well. Anyone that wants to take advantage of my beauty will be pricked by my blades made of thorns. As a rose, I would be happier because I would share beauty and confidence with the world. As well as understand the difficulty the world has to bring. I will adapt to my living conditions and use my thorns for protection. Most importantly, as a rose, I will learn to love and accept myself, which is one of the most complex challenges in life. Previous Next

< Back to ACTIVATION 1/1 Paul Stephen Benjamin Oh Say January 22 - April 17, 2022 “If the color black had a sound, what would it be?” This is one of many questions that conceptual artist Paul Stephen Benjamin explores in his multidisciplinary art practice. Through sights, sounds, and material, Benjamin explores the color black as a way to introduce and discuss different social perspectives. While visually understated, his work serves as an introduction to a broader and multifaceted conversation about race and identity. Benjamin states, “I work hard to make sure my work is not in your face,” noting that this aesthetic subtlety lends itself to a more critical and analytical approach to viewing his work. “Oh Say” (Remix) is a video installation that presents a compilation of various African American artists and their performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Featured artists include Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Beyoncé, with performances that range from music festivals to sporting events. The performers are arranged in conjunction with imagery of the American flag and the faces of American presidents. The work blends past and present histories, bringing these timelines into the context of today. “Oh Say” (Remix) examines the complexities and nuances of racial identity in America, allowing Paul Stephen Benjamin’s depiction of blackness to present itself introspectively. There is a visual and sonic power that is carried throughout the duration of “Oh Say” (Remix). Each scene is dense with visual information, rendered in black and white. The auditory factor of the work grounds its narrative through the repetition and rhythmic pacing of each audio track. Each track builds and builds until it creates a haunting symphony of sound. These elements act as a compression of time and space, allowing multiple histories to speak simultaneously. Previous Next

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