 Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you all so much for being here. Really excited to see so many faces. And for those of you joining us online, thank you for joining us. My name is Cecily Cullen, and I'm the director and curator here at the Center for Visual Arts. And I'm also the current chair of the Colorado Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I'll tell you a little bit more about the committee in a minute. But I would like to start by offering an acknowledgement of the space that we're currently occupying. The CVA acknowledges the privilege we have to gather in this place. Once the territories and homelands of so many indigenous people, including the Arapaho and Cheyenne nations, both of whom were subject to genocide and forcibly removed from this land. We respect the many diverse indigenous people still connected to this land, and we value the knowledge systems they have developed in relationship to their lands. We understand that offering a land acknowledgement neither absolves settler colonial privilege nor diminishes colonial structures of violence, either at the individual or institutional level. Land acknowledgments must be accompanied with ongoing commitments to displaced indigenous communities. To learn more about the spatial relationships of indigenous communities to lands, visit native-land.ca. So if you haven't been here before, I'm just going to give you a little bit of history about CVA. We are the off-campus gallery for MSU Denver. And as a branch of the university, we extend the MSU mission into the community. We do that by provoking dialogue about challenging issues of our day, locally and globally, through the lens of contemporary art. We believe strongly that art is a crucial form of communication that allows multiple entries to talk about social justice in ways that other forms of communication do not. CVA also works to provide access to vital art and experiences without a financial barrier to participate. That's why admission at CVA is always free. And that is why we always pay our interns, whether they're high school interns or college. And that's why we always pay artists to participate in exhibitions. So I hope that you find this exhibition and this evening's program worth supporting. And sorry, I do have some notes to read. So I hope that you'll sign up for our mailing list, stay in our orbit, and if you are able, consider making a donation or becoming a member so that we can continue to welcome everyone in for free. So you may have heard that this was the summer of women. In pop culture, at least, it was clear that the cultural contributions of women made a significant impact on the economy. But like Greta Gerwig's film pointed out, anyone who thinks that sexism is over is living in a fantasy or a Barbie world, maybe. The reality is that despite some important gains, parody is still out of reach for women in the art world. Gender plays an outsized role in who gets representation in museums, major galleries, and auction sales. When you factor in intersectionality, such as race and sexual identity, the disparity is even more stark. To demonstrate that, I just want to share a little bit about the Burns and Halpern Report that came out in December 2022. These two women, Charlotte Burns and Julia Halpern, have conducted large surveys three times of American museums in the global art auctions. In the latest report, they found that between 2008 and 2020, only 11% of museum acquisitions were of work by female identifying artists. And only 0.5% were by black American women. Auctions were no better. Only 3.3% of work by female identifying artists were sold at auction. And 0.1% were black American women. So as much as we like to see celebrations like this exhibition, the reality is that we're still far behind and we're generations behind. They estimate that we won't have parody for another 30 years. An important part of that conversation around equity, CDA has mounted another exhibition in our student-run gallery behind me. The 965 Student Curated Gallery currently features an exhibition titled Fluid State that examines and expands on the constructs of gender and identity. Our student curator, Christy Zaragoza, organized this exhibition in response to Colorado Women to Watch. I hope you have a moment to check it out. It's really a great show. So now on to Colorado Women to Watch. This exhibition is a celebration and an entreaty, demanding that the world pay attention to and support female identifying artists. Kim Dickey, Ana Maria Hernando, Maya Ruth Lee, Tsuchitra Matai, and Senga Nangudi each have created a visual language that is poetic and transcendent. Their work is complex, intelligent, and powerful. Their achievements, despite barriers, are inspiring. And they've each been nominated for inclusion in an exhibition in Washington, D.C. at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. That museum works to balance the scale of opportunity and equity by bringing national recognition to female identifying artists, and they invite committees from around the world to nominate artists for consideration. The Colorado Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts was founded by nine women to ensure that female identifying artists from Colorado are recognized and supported at a national level. The committee had the great honor of working with Nora Burnett Abrams, the Mark G Falcone Director of MCA Denver. Nora selected the five nominees. So many thanks to Nora for her leadership in selecting these amazing artists, and to my colleagues on the Colorado Committee for their great work on behalf of women in the arts. Before I pass the mic over to Nora, I just want to say thank you to the staff at CVA. They're small and mighty staff, and they're incredible, and they do amazing work and spent all day setting up this talk and getting it prepared for the online environment. So thank you all of you. I'm honored to work with you. And I also want to thank the CVA Leadership Council, our advocacy board, that helps bring new people into the fold, and helps us build our fundraising. So thank you to all of you as well. And with that, I am pleased to introduce Nora Burnett Abrams, the Mark G Falcone Director of MCA Denver. I want to start by certainly thanking Cecily and her team for organizing and inviting us all to be here tonight. I have to say that it's been such, and I don't get to say this as often as I would like, it has been such a fun experience to work with all of these incredible women and creative and creatively ambitious artists to continue to learn from and be inspired by and be provoked by your work and just you as human beings. And Tsuchitra, of course, is wrapped in all of this as well. So I wanted to say first and foremost, thank you. I had a whole list of questions that I had prepared and sent to Cecily last week that I wanted to kind of use to anchor our conversation together. And then I read a review of this show in the Denver Post, and it really kind of like, I don't know, it pricked me a little bit. And I'm sure some other people here as well. And so I wasn't going to lead with this, but I just feel like it's so, it's really on my mind, which is the extent to which all of you artists are thinking through your work as women, as female identifying, and to what extent that is a useful and productive and generative lens for you or not. And really where I hope to kind of take the conversation is to what extent do you find that there is still a need for kind of gender based, organized as the organizing principle, gender based exhibitions such as this one, or are we kind of in a moment where perhaps that's no longer a useful construct? And I open it up to all of you, whoever wants to respond. Hello everyone. Is this working? Hi, this is working. So after I read the article, I was thinking about it. And of course, you know, for all of us, for me, my work is so much about the feminine. And I do, you know, in all of the things I do in my work, it's because I'm curious and I want to learn as a person. And I guess that's how I made my work to learn more about these things. And I read the article. And I think it's so wonderful that we can talk about these things and what it means. And gender is something that has opened in a very open way more and more. Where I think all of us, we are asking about who we are, how we are. And the article, I think it's very valid in that way. And at the same time, I was thinking about the creation of the National Museum of Women in the Arts that was in the 80s. And thinking, first I thought, oh, museums, men's museums. And then I thought, my God, there are thousands and thousands of men's museums. So even though I think the proposition would be wonderful that at some point we don't need to talk about this imbalance, it's still, it irks us. We are living it in politics. We are living it in so many messages that are under so much of what we read and everywhere. So I need the feminine in all of us. I need the feminine in whatever gender you want to say you are. Because I think historically, we have been so unbalanced in that way. And I think it's why also we are suffering a lot of the damages of climate change, of people suffering where not all of us have been taken into account. So in that way, I think it's a very important conversation to have. How can we bring more balance in that? And hopefully, one day, there will not be women to watch shows. So I don't know, anyone else? Okay. First of all, Ditto. And I really found the article important in that. Oh, just hold it closer to your mouth. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. It's really important to have an article like that so that we have something to talk about. And we can gauge where we are in the moment. And it's really easy for the male gaze not to gaze on us equally. And I agree with you with everything you said about that. And it feels like fun going out with girlfriends to lunch. And it feels like fun talking about stuff. And so there's a positive energy that goes along with the female culture. And I'm just really happy that he wrote that article. And then we can talk about it and flesh all this stuff out and see what's really real right now. I mean, no, you can keep talking. I think there's another mic right there. That's just. I'm going to agree with both of you. And this is going to be one of those panels. We're all going to be nodding. I think that the article was helpful in the way in which it illustrated exactly the point that we don't have parody that we have a long way to go. I wish I think like everyone here, I think we all wish we were in a different place and that exhibitions in which that were defined by gender because that gender is historically underserved wouldn't be the case, but it is. It's clearly even worse, I'd say, in our culture now than it's been when I was younger. So sadly, we definitely need this. And I think also this is a wonderful celebration to on this point and saying this point of of what contribution we all do have and the female can bring to the table. And I love as an artist to work from that place and multiple places all at the same time, like, not just my female identity, but my mother identity, my teacher identity, my New Yorker identity, my Colorado identity, whatever it is that feels I'm in conversation with and they can all be celebrated. At the same time, I think a lot of the work that I've done has also been interested in a kind of place of beyond gender or genderless freedom to not be to be released from that strange or definition and find a space that somehow is universal. So that's also something that comes up when I think about this. Thank you. For me, you know, article or not, I'm just really honored to be showing you and, you know, just you're all artists that I've really lived up to. Sangda, I've studied you for a really long time, even when I was living in Korea. And for me, it was just such an honor to be here in the space with you. So for me, article or not, I'm just happy to be here. And I think that's really the point, right? That, you know, oftentimes with group exhibitions, you know, there's a through line, there's a connector, there's an organizing principle that allows us to draw connections across bodies of work, across different practices, etc. And I what I appreciated about Ray's review was just that it's, you know, listen, it's a provocation and and he loves to do that. And I get that. I think the bittersweet aspect of something like that is just that it shows still yet how far we are from being at a place where we can really recognize gender as a spectrum in all aspects to on this point in all aspects of kind of the environment or context that we're in. And I think we can all agree, we're probably not there. And so, you know, I'm a part of a museum director's group. And every year when we get together, there's still a women directors, subgroup, subcommittee, even though a majority of the museum directors are women and female identifying, we still need to meet together because there's still a lot of inequities in our field. And, and I share that only as an example of how I think opportunities like this can be really, again, productive and exciting, because it can show how incredibly diverse the practices of these five artists are. And yes, they happen to be women. And yes, some of them are exploring gender specific ideas or questions, issues. And some are not. And all of that is a part of the conversation. And I think that's where we want to get to is a place where gender is or may not be a part of the conversation with regards to each of your practices. But it's on your terms that you're setting that up, right, that it's not on others. So with that being said, I think what is so wonderful about the way that this has been organized and curated is that each artist seems to have like their own kind of area. And yet because of the cross lines and views and the way that it set up, there are a lot of conversations that are posed by the different, by where everything has been placed. So I'm curious to ask all of you seeing your work, living with it here, conversations that brought it to this point. How are you, what are some things that have kind of surfaced for you by being in conversation with one or another? Don't be polite. Just grab the mic. It's a joy to be part of this show. And it has been a joy working on it. It has felt like flowing and the whole process. And when I was thinking during the program, you're thinking you have the conversations back and forth, but you don't know all of what's going around and what will come out. Maya was the last one to install her work. I have installed and then when I came and I saw all of these blues, I just was so happy with it because I felt like we were vibrating in the color field. And knowing just being here with Senga that I also admire and have seen her work in different contexts and visiting these amazing museums and there is Senga with her world and then going abroad and seeing her show. And it's like, oh my God. And with Kim, that we have known each other for a long time and being in these two parts of the building, you have your little paradise. And your pieces that you can eat them up. Just so body centered. So I feel, you know, with Tsuchicha that we have this exuberant and the textures and I'm looking at her piece and how it relates. So I find this sisterhood of conversations going. So I'm honored as you said. I think my first impression coming in, like Ana said, I was the last artist to install. And the first thing that really struck me was the feeling of the silhouette. I could really come in and sense the body in Senga's photographs, in Senga's, you know, installations, also as sculptures. And I kind of almost felt and even the silhouettes of your ceramics and Tsuchicha as well. I really felt sort of like a bodily reaction to the works. And I felt that that felt very cohesive throughout the show. That got me really excited to think about sort of, you know, who this work is for, who this work is made for. Essentially, it's made for us. It's our personal stories. But somehow it still kind of coincides and overlaps in this more kind of organic and poetic way with the different materials that are up. So that was that was the most. So you're hitting on another note that I think is one of the most striking aspects for anyone who encounters this exhibition, which is the range of materials that are deployed by each of you. And, you know, some of them you want to just like run your hands over it, or at least that's what I want to do. I think with Tsuchicha there's this back and forth between flatness and depth and two-dimension and three-dimension. Senga's works are obviously mostly wall-based, but they allude to the body and obviously so many different materials. Maya's works, we were talking earlier about the food tape and what that signifies as well as so many other aspects of the materials that she's deployed. And Kim, of course, with the sculpture and the texture that you evoke and that you pull out from the material. I just, on a formal level, there's so much going on in here. Can you just speak a little bit to how and to what extent the material itself drives and fires, motivates the work that you've created here? It's okay. Don't hesitate. Just jump right at it. So, you know, for me the pieces with the tool, it just, the tools enforce me the shape. And I begin with an idea, kind of, I call these pieces tool paintings. And when I, when I paint, I begin and I'm not sure where I'm going to end. It's the tool because they are more concise in some ways. The moment I choose the colors, but I don't have all of them. But then the last thing I do is to do the shape. It's really the material that tells me how much piece weight or that other way. You know, when we said, I'm looking at some of the pieces that they were very at the studio much before they came here. So I'm still learning about them. And I'm discovering little things. But it's, for me, it's the material. And like these pieces when installing it, I come installing it in other places, all very different spaces. The first time was outside and how it was just interacting with the storm and the wind and the rain and the night without the lighting. And here is so different. That first time, something, the piece became performant in because twice a day, I was taking a ladder and fluffing the cloud. And here it's the way it is since I installed it. So it is truly the material. And I'm in love with this. It feels like the insides I use because they are transparent and this is transparent and I complain with the colors. I'm most familiar with Anna's work because we've known each other while and I've seen amazing installations she's done in France and oh my gosh, it's like it creates a story. It creates a fantasy. And with these pieces, I really am about the body and dance and so on. And there's this constant movement that's going on with these pieces. And it really is very energizing. There's a lot of energy in these pieces. And if you choose, you can tell a story. And I love that this is tool because if you use the word tool, this is a female tool. And it kind of uses those feminine wiles in a sense. So that's when I get out of it. I'm sorry that I live in the springs. It takes me a while when I was up here installing the other pieces weren't here. So I apologize and I came in late. So I'll have to look at it afterwards. So I don't have as much history as you are. And with my own work, I just find what I can in the moment that speaks to what I want to say. And when I look at the material, we have a conversation and then we work together. And then something emerges that ideally is something that attracts who's looking at it. And they too can be a part of, you know, what I'm doing. Thank you. Can you speak specifically about some of the water based forms that that are depicted? What are these words? Depicted in your photographs. I did. Well, the water face? Is that what you meant? I mean, yeah, he's in a hot job. I don't know if that's water based because I do it water based. Yeah. Passers. That's of my husband who passed a year ago. Okay. Oh, that's better. I get it here. It's better. Thank you. Yeah. He passed about a year ago. And that was a photo taken, you know, maybe seven or eight years ago. And I just wanted to honor him. And it brought me into the realm of photography. And I'm a sculptor and installation artist, but I'm really liking photography right now. And it really upset me that with photography, you couldn't get that three dimensional feeling. And I always wanted to like somehow pull it out. And in this case, I think I would agree. I would agree with that. Yeah. I just, is this on? I just wanted to say a couple of dioramas actually when I got to see your photographs with your husband and also the whole installation sentence in terms of a tethering that happens. And his friends become a kind of tether to them, to him, into the world, into the water, and back out to us. And quite differently than how the tethers are working in the other photographs where there's tension. It's one of these dioramas. There's such a release that's in those photographs that I really appreciated. I just loved seeing this work and how incredibly privileged to be able to come in and see this work and know your work for so many years. And I feel a great privilege of being in this room with all of you and to give you a try. It's one of the things I was thinking is color is used in a very powerful mode of tool as meaning in the work in all of these artists. That it is, there's a total of the same white colors. So when you were talking about my, I totally agree, but then I was also thinking that it's contained, this color is contained within very powerful so it was. Just with regards to material, for me ceramics is the material, the main material I've been working with for decades. It's sort of everything to me. It's the ground, it's the container, it's the body, it's the plant, it's the animal, it's language. It's the earliest forms of language were written in clay and peniform. It is the history of humanness and humankind. So when I'm working with that material, it feels like growing the world and all the needs and struggles are part of the process, the struggles we all have. Certainly struggles making things as large as they seem to. But yeah, so there's just a deep connection to the material that I've always had that I felt tremendously lucky and privileged and completely in love with from the first times I engaged it. And then glaze is this other sort of extraordinary thing which allows you to add this sort of layer of color and painting and then it becomes like another whole lived environment or patina as inspired and it transforms and becomes a real thing in the world. So that's just a little bit about that. I think, I think my commercial channel is language. So I think language, speaking about I'm producing material and using sort of physical materials as a placeholder for the language is something that I like to challenge myself with. So kind of back to what Senko was saying, communicating and kind of being open to material to engage with you and a comment for you is something that I try to open my practice to. And even in Steel Blitz, I started this series in 2016 when I was living in New York. The reason why I started working with that material, I was trained as a painter and this was the first time I had made sculptures in a way. I had just sort of by chance walked into a building shop, a studio in Brooklyn and it was a big pile of discarded metal and I was instantly dropped with it because I recognized it because similar types of designs were used almost exactly, actually is used in Canada to where I grew up. So for me, that reunion is a form of recognition. I knew what it was, what it was used for. I understood it from the language and so as soon as I picked it up, I knew that I had to use it. So that became almost serious. And then I went into storage in 2018. I just got back two months ago and actually I was supposed to be the reason why it's all bound in blue tape was because I wanted to use it as a stencil to make paintings. But once everything was wrapped in blue tape in the studio, I just thought I was sick. I liked that when it's steel, there's a moment in which you recognize the shape, maybe from the past doings of walking for a city or something, but I'm still not completely obvious and it takes a moment to realize that the tape is just a blue tape. And so I kind of liked to, so we changed the whole exhibition. So it ended up being different, but that's kind of how I purchased material is I just have to be very forgetful about the process and to myself. Well, it seems like that is a fairly common thread amongst all of you, which is to say to be led by the material that I think for someone who has as linear of a brain as I do, I'm like, oh, you must know what you want, where you want to land. And then you just take the steps to get there. And of course, after all these years working with so many amazing artists, you would think I would have learned my lesson that never is that the case. It is always about how the process is very much inspired by the materials really drives you to a place that you almost can't necessarily imagine and how beautiful is that and how fortunate are we to be able to experience that on the other side. I want to kind of shift slightly to a different topic, which is that what brought us all together was this effort to shine a light on the incredible work from the creative and brilliant artists in our community in Colorado, not specifically to Denver, of course, across the state. And I'm curious to hear from all of you, some of whom have been here for many years, some who are a bit more recently arrived in Colorado, to what extent does how has, let's say, being here informed and impacted your practice on the one hand, and then also a little bit more specific to kind of the art ecosystem, how has kind of being outside of those major centers of the art world also informed your practice? I'm going to jump in. I was talking to Maya earlier, both of us came here from New York, actually, San Diego, New York too. And I think the thing that was so extraordinary was this space. There was so much space all of a sudden to work within. And I think the other thing that was immediately apparent to me was the incredible love and welcoming nature of the arts community in this region. They just opened their arms so fully when I came here. I moved here in 1999. And I was so moved by this incredible group of artists working in all media in all generations. And it's just been an incredible journey since then to live and work in a privilege to live and work here as an artist. I had the privilege of having a really lovely conversation with Clark Rickard. I interviewed him for an art buzz right at one point. And I asked him what place had to do with the work that he made or what role this place had in the work that he made as an artist. Not in the meeting, but in the actual, those sort of visceral experience of the place and how we understand it, how we work from it and out of it. And he spoke about the drama of the front range and how we're on this extraordinary stage, right? The planes, the flat planes meet this incredible outcropping map of this and we're aware of this drama every day. And then the lights being so thin and this atmosphere is also incredibly dramatic, which gives these incredible kinds of shadows. And I think I'm so wet too. So I recognize that it had unconsciously in this conversation, I reckon it had it had affected my interest in theatrical sets and trying to create that little literal theater that in the work that I was doing since I arrived here. And so you know, that was one aspect that I think about both the community and this miraculous landscape we're surrounded by as tremendous influences. Okay. Yeah, when I came to Colorado, it was exciting that people accepted you for whatever you think. I mean, you could say you were a rocket scientist and they would believe you. Okay, rocket scientist. But I liked it because and not in the actual meaning, but sort of, I liked it because I could be on the down low and nobody would know anything, you know. And in New York, everybody's kind of looking over your shoulder. And so this allowed me a particular freedom. So I'm in the springs, which is a smaller city than Denver. And then Maya, I mean, she goes like, she's in even the smaller place, but it really allows a freedom of doing what you want to do. And there is nothing to my mind like Pikes Peak. And if you get a chance, if you've not been down to the springs, just experience Pikes Peak every single day. And I've been here 30 years, it looks different. And it's sort of my altar, you know, it truly looks different every day. And I am inspired by that. And I'm inspired by space too, although it's getting smaller with all the construction they're doing, that the energy that is around here, the space is really wonderful. And it does affect me. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think I've been at home for a few years now. I still feel like it's a fresh thing. I've never seen New York. But I think it's exactly that. You become much less self-conscious in the artist, too, which gives you the freedom to experiment and explore. And I think when you're amongst peers, it's such a tight post, you know, event or vicinity. Even if you don't want to start really considering, you know, people's attention and feedback or perceptions. And for me, I think at one point, that became quite suffocating to the artist. I started constructing an art in the way that I approached my work as well. So I think, you know, maybe kind of I played down at a piece of lyre, which is a very small town. And I maybe had one studio visit. And I think that's, you know, a lot of things happen online. But physically, I've had probably one studio visit. And I actually think that's so awesome. Because it just gives me so much more room to be myself on my own space. And I have to clean up for some more, you know, display my work for someone who's coming into space. Like, I can just unknowledge that I could use to my pain. And that eventually really helps the work to flourish. And to see that happen for my eyes in just a very short amount of time. So, yeah, I think as an artist, we're all geographically sensitive. So we're all sensitive and spiritual beings that are using art as a tool to communicate. So, I think, you know, the spirit of Colorado, specifically, I love because, like you said, elevation mountains, but there's a certain energy that this space in the world has. I can do a few of them. And I felt that it's just our family. And it really affected my work. Okay, I do want to say this for all the artists that are out there that if you have something to say, and if you're passionate about it, then they will find you. When I first got here, people said, come on, nobody will see you there. You know, how are you going to get shows? How are you going to do this? They will find you. Trust me, they will find you. They found you. Yes, they found us. And so I would encourage you, even if you're in a location that's smaller, just keep the work up and they will find you. So, I grew up in Buenos Aires in Argentina and we were talking before with my about the sea. And Colorado is the first place that doesn't have to see all the other places I lived. The water was the guiding point of where you were in the city. And Buenos Aires is big. It's many millions and tall buildings. And then I lived in other places, but Colorado turns out it's the place I lived the longest. And when I moved here, I moved here, I was in a very vulnerable place and moved with my three small children. And on one hand, I was meeting the clients, you know, as an artist, we have our parabolic, you know, we have a raider and we think of all of these different ideas. And I was needing to be in a place that was quiet, where I could hear my own ideas and learn more about who I was as an artist. And also I found a very kind community. Where I didn't need this way or that way, I could flourish in my own way. I mean that way it was great. But also I was amazed by the skies. The skies became the sea. And my kids were very little. And at the beginning, you know, we would lay on the day and look up at the skies and see the clouds, you know, it was like going to the movies. And the light here, it has such a high vibrancy that I feel that companies mean the world. And as the years pass and you have opportunities to live in other places, I see how for me in every place I live, when I move to the States, I just mean one person that was my husband at the time. And then nobody else. So I felt so invisible, whoever I was in Argentina, didn't exist here. So if I was in the States or not, it didn't really matter. So I really felt invisibility in a very body way. And each place I did, I looked for a community. And when the community of Colorado and the community of artists in Colorado is so extraordinary how we help each other and what institutions of art have been doing through the years and the collaboration, the different institutions have been doing more and more. So that's how it feels just a great warm way. Well, I think we have time for one more question. And then is it okay to open it up to the audience? So I think to just kind of take all of the incredible observations and offerings that you have all shared with regard to your work and really your practice at large. I'm curious, what is percolating right now for each of you as a result of presenting this work, some of its new work, some of its work that is in conversation, the existing work with some newer elements, what's percolating for you now in terms of what do you want to explore next? Where are you thinking about with regards to this specific project or something else that's totally unrelated? But how has the experience of being a part of this kind of pushed forward or brought to the surface some new questions that you're thinking through? So recently I've been to a new feeling. After being in a small town for three years, I think for the first time, I think I was feeling the last and the feeling that way. Just feeling we're not on the loop anymore, we're not on the go. So the feeling of kind of survival had sort of settled. And for me, the first thing I kind of started feeling was, wow, I'm in a small town that's just incredibly white. And it's weird, I didn't really bother me, I didn't think about it. I was just kind of in my little cocoon making our area. And really kind of the first time in the past months, I've really been feeling that. And I was almost surprised. I was almost shocked by the feelings that I was having. Coming from New York, where I'm surrounded by friends who look like me and being in a very diverse community. And I've stayed here. And as much as I love that now, I'm starting to really kind of wanting a little bit more. So I think that's going to start coming into my work a little bit more. And I'm welcoming that feeling because, you know, this is America. So I'm not going to pick up and go to another place. I'm going to stay here. And as an artist, welcome these feelings and tackle these emotions as best way I can. And most of all, I can know how that will look like. But it's just something that's on my mind. That's beautiful. I can't wait to see what you make. It's funny because I would have proposed for this show to say it was completely different than what I ended up making. And I think this may maybe happen to a number of us. But it was funny. I think you have to be where you are. You have to land where you are. I realized the work I wanted to show, I wanted it to have a kind of mystical kind of longing. And that that was the longing is really what I was experiencing. This upsets that is acknowledging the strandedness that I feel sometimes in our culture right now. But at the same time, trying to make a place that sort of also offered hope for a space that could hold us, that could hold that hope and potential for saving that we need to enact right now, very really enact this kind of act of saving. So that was really what generated this remix of work and trying to make these sort of very solo stages that were holding places or waiting places, refugees, but also sort of funny and hopefully kind of sweet in a way that like a good sweet thing makes you feel like you can exhale. But this is probably, I'm about to mount a totally different show, which is much more, I think, about Westminster and a little bit more intuitive to that end. So it takes a little bit of time, but this was what I wanted to show here. So in the way that I was talking before, I have many thoughts always and ideas and something that has happened for me with the tool and before when we were talking about materials and how to inform the other material that I find that informs me very much is the air around and the space and how that is an element to move through. So I find that when I'm working on these pieces, that is the other element that is happening for me. And with that I see how I'm thinking more and more in pieces that are more informative and also the recognition that all of this work I couldn't do by myself and how inviting more and more the community to make these pieces with me. And so on one hand I have this sense of this need of expansion. I have my amazing assistants that are there in order to be here, Southern, but it's this sense of a way bigger circle than just me. And with that I feel how maybe I'm thinking of pieces with more informative elements. Also when I was thinking about these work for here, I was feeling depleted, depleted, I'm tired and of course we all work a lot with a lot of things, but I was feeling depleted in this very deep way. We are now connected, we know of all tragedies that are happening all the time. We see these disappointments about ourselves and humanity and actions we take and ask society. And we know all these things that are happening. So when I was working towards this show, I wanted to name a word that would talk about the other part of that. I was talking about the need of a newspaper of good news, how all of the things that we are all working towards, who care as an artist, as society, all these things that we don't hear about. So I wanted to do pieces about that, about this deluge of good cards that we are working hard to balance all of these things. So these are things that I'm not even thinking about. I am thinking about exploring photography, as I said. But I do have a secret. I do have a secret. Okay. Everybody needs to wake up. And when I said I do have a secret, I hope you pay attention to your body. Because when someone says, I have a secret, all of a sudden you're energized. All of a sudden your body lives in a different way. And I'm always excited about that. My performances, my audience participation really deals with that. Getting people to see things in a different way, awakening yourself. And I made some t-shirts that said wow on it. And I wear them on occasion because when I wear them, when someone sees it, they say, wow. And they have to be participants in that moment. And so that's what I'm working towards. I love that. Can we sell those t-shirts? If it's all right, I'd like to open it up to our audience online and in person for maybe one or two questions. If anyone has a question, just throw your hand up. Yes. And I'll repeat it so that everyone can hear. I'm curious, what hobbies do you have? Your creativity flows out into other aspects of your body. So the question was, what hobbies do you have where your creativity flows out from your heart practice into other aspects of your body? I love it. So what's your love? Drifting. I thought you said drinking. I love drinking. And that's where I get a lot of inspiration actually, is going into thrift stores and looking at human things because, you know, I find different materials and sometimes I find stuff like, what the hell is this? And I have to research it. I have to think about the energy of the object. And I love interacting in that way with just talking about unidentified objects. So that's like the first thing I think you said. I have a lot of other hobbies too, but that's my favorite one. It's actually dangerous. I want to get thrifty with you. I do get thrifty, but I call it treasure hunting. I have a lot of other hobbies. One thing that's a little dangerous is how much it's just starting. So I kind of can take over your life. But yeah, and other things. But that definitely informs, I think I grew up with other things. So very serious, gardener. And I grew up in a big family and realized that if I wanted to have a next time with my mom, I'd just have to have a follower and a gardener. So I spent a lot of time on my days pleading. And I guess I got a great education and plans for my experience, which is definitely inspiring for me. I think we all have, as you said, probably have a lot of different hobbies. And I don't know if you would consider this a hobby, but I really like looking at rocks and picking up the rocks and sort of like some people do it with clouds. You know, they have fantasies about clouds. I love the shape of rocks, big rocks, small rocks. And just feeling them, seeing what they have to say. So I have piles of things I want to do that I never get to. So that I'm already thinking, oh, I can maybe, oh, if I believe for that, but those, they don't happen that much. And I'm a very intense person and probably a little obsessive. But something that I find that I like a lot, but also helps me to unplug is to make puzzles. It's a word that is hard for me to pronounce, but it's putting pieces together. And then when I begin doing those, I have to carry it at the table where I don't do something else in that area. And it becomes as well, I'm going to do one more piece and then I'll stop. Well, just one more. I don't do it that often because sometimes I have to say, oh, I have deadlines. I cannot do that because, yes. I love the past one instead. That was a great question. One other maybe final question. I don't know if there's any in the chat or anything. Okay, we're good. No chat, no chat. Okay. Yes. So for young artists, would you all work or are you going to say on how you treat you? What sort of advice do you have when you're new in your career? Like what's something that you wish someone had told you when you first started? So the question was, what advice would you give to younger artists or artists who were maybe earlier on in their career? Something that maybe you received or you wish you had received or could have? Something that I've experienced and I wish other members would experience, too, is I think just notice the one or two people in your life that really support you and work. It doesn't need a whole group of people. Sometimes it really just takes one or two people, really believe in you. And I've been blessed with that. And I think that will be stressing me forward to, you know, doing what I had to do and continuing what I'm doing, even when I'm isolated in a small town. And it's the most encouraged me to know that this person, whether I'm in the room or not, they will be talking about me and they will be, you know, always supporting me, even behind my back. And I think that's, but noticing that and recognizing that is also a big part of it, I think. That's lovely. Yeah. I think I think it's, there's this myth of community, that artists work in those isolated bubbles, and we actually desperately need a community. And in fact, much of our work actually happens in community and with community. So that myth of a solo artist, I think, is true. And I definitely agree with Maya that it's incredibly important to cultivate that. I think the other thing I would recommend is just really taking taking yourself and your work as seriously as you can. Never apologize for it, cultivate your interests no matter how specific or evenly trivial, and run with them, be that, enjoy it and revel in it and see where it leads you. So good question. There are a lot of very, very talented people in the world. And I have known many and some stay the course and some fall off for some reason or another because of obligations and so on and so forth. So it's an issue of you being committed. And as I said, staying the course, high, low, everything like that. And make sure that your heart is in it and it will tell you where to go. It's a practice. It's a practice. So you're either in the practice or you're not. I heard an interview last night, these were musicians. And they said a curious thing that I had never thought of when they were talking about themselves. They said that we're lifers. So you are or you aren't. I mean, it can knock you off. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in the art world. It's hard. And you have to keep the passion in you of what you want to say and how you want to say it. It's really important. You know, your voice is important. So people will tell you this and that. Oh, no, I think you should do this, but I think you should do that. If it's an honest expression of how you feel, you have to stay with it. Yeah, I concur with all of that. Then I would say perseverance because you always and honesty because you are working and your heart is in it and you're out there and you're vulnerable. You are out there with all these things that are vital to you. And then something comes or you're not accepted here. This doesn't come out the way you want it. And I say just perseverance. It doesn't matter how many times we go down. It's how many times we go out. And I'm also the need of, oh, you know, we get these inspirations. No, work, you know, doing art is about working. And it's just going to the gym. Just every day you go to your studio, even when sometimes you don't know what you, you just go and it's work. You just work with it. You don't think about retirement because you love what you do. And you have universes of things, more things you want to do. So in that way, I think one of the worst enemies for artists is boredom. When you feel that something you are working on, the energy is just dissipating and going on your board. You need to move. That's telling you this is not the path. It's not about being entertained. It's just following that voice that tells you, oh, the energy, it's not there anymore. You need to move to what's true. Artists and scientists and what makes us scientists keep going is curiosity and discovery. If you can hold on to that and, you know, it won't be boring. You'll be constantly inspired and things will trigger for you. Well, I can't imagine a better note to conclude this extremely inspiring and meaningful and truly special conversation with all of you. I want to thank you so much for being so honest and direct and candid, which is, I think, what people also value so much from, particularly from those who are already being so vulnerable and sharing your work. So thank you for that. And thank you to Cecily and to her team for enabling all of us to come together and be together in this really riveting conversation. It's been such an honor to sit with all of you up here and just thank you all for being here tonight. What an awesome talk. Thank you so much and thank you, Nora, for leading the talk and bringing the questions and also bringing together these five incredible artists. It's been such an honor to work with all of you in such a joy. So I've been enjoying this exhibition so much and this is such a great way to celebrate it. And we have a few more events too if you want to come and get involved. We have an art making happy hour where we are going to be inspired by the works in the exhibition on October 11 led by Katie Taft, our education manager, and she is so much fun. And then on October 20th, there will be five MSU Denver dance majors who are spending the whole semester in the gallery getting to know this work intimately. And they are choreographing dance works based on the works in the show and that will be performed on October 20th. So we would love to see you back. Thanks so much.