SONDRA GRACE
Sondra Grace is completing the second catalog in a series that showcases collections from the MassArt Fashion Design Archive. The first catalog “Then & Now” featured the designs of MassArt alumnus Alfred Fiandaca along with works from other designers. The Archive represents over 20 years of collecting garments, millinery, shoes, handbags, textiles and ephemera. It makes accessible an investigation process that connects fashion history and design with cultural and social influences that speak to how we see, wear, collect and study fashion.
Professor Grace chaired the Fashion Design Department at MassArt and taught courses on Pattern Drafting, Tailoring and senior-year Degree Project. She has collaborated with MIT’s Media Lab and the Boston University School of Engineering along developing projects for MassArt students with TJX Companies, Primark and Stuart Weitzman. She is a MassArt Fashion Design alumna and earned a MS in Cultural Studies from the University of Massachusetts.
EDWARD MONOVICH
Edward Monovich first invited viewers to complete a “graffiti collaboration” at the Drawing Center in New York. The birth of participatory qualities in his work occurred while studying in Sierra Leone, West Africa. There Monovich witnessed powerful secular and sacred rituals involving masqueraded performers. The presence of audience participation, elaborate costumes, hybrid humans and performative elements in his drawings, find their roots in these experiences. Monovich received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. His works have exhibited in Colombia, England, Belgium, Italy, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, Colorado and Michigan. Edward Monovich serves as Assistant Professor in Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston.
Currently, Edward is working on The “Footprint Project,” a collaboration with the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Zürich. “Footprint” is a contemporary reflection on the state of the Alpine Ibex, combining visual art with genetic and ecological research. A central goal of the project is to share the legacy of the near extinction of the Alpine Ibex, and their successful re-introduction to the wild, with broad audiences. Artworks will investigate connections between ibex and humans, from empirical and subjective points of view. Participatory artworks will introduce viewers to ecological fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and ways that the Alpine Ibex narrative analogizes to universal concerns.
DAPHNE SANTANA–STRASSMANN
As a memoirist who writes about the liminal spaces of her LatinX heritage and American life, Daphne Santana-Strassmann’s teaching focuses on the individuality of voice, culture, and background to drive the writing process. She believes that claiming experiences of cultural expression and aesthetics allows us to write and read with the essential curiosity necessary for all writing, including academic writing.
At MassArt, Santana–Strassmann teaches 1st Year Writing (Thinking, Making, Writing) and Memoir & the Artist. At MIT, she leads the Nita Reignier Memoir Group and their publication. She teaches at the GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, and runs “Rekindle Your Craft,” a community writing project that reconnects writers of all genres and levels to their love of words. She is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop founded by renowned author Sandra Cisneros. Santana-Strassmann earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University.
She has served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and at Lesley University, where she was the Co-Director of the Women’s Center and Women’s Studies Steering Committee. In a past life, she found meaning in owning a delightful toy store.
JEANETTE LUISE EBERHARDY
Jeanette Luise Eberhardy is a writer, book artist, and educator. She serves as Associate Professor of the Practice of Writing at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. Eberhardy is working on the book Telling the Story that Exists in Your Art to explore pedagogical strategies for today’s students to express meaningful work using words and visual images.
Currently, Eberhardy is designing two gallery shows for 2022/2023: a 5th year retrospective for why I write. why I create where the next generations of artists and designers share their appreciations for creative work, and the art journal show Making Empathy, Collaborative Journals on Pandemic Experiences.
Eberhardy serves as vice president of the Art school caucus at AWP (Associated Writers Programs) and on the publication committee for NEBA (New England Book Artists Association). Her craft essays and appreciations for creative nonfiction writing can be found in the online literary magazine Brevity. Her recent memoir essay “Following Adventure” was published in the anthology Fearless: Women’s Journeys to Self-Empowerment, and her most recent artist’s book Subtle Thought was presented at the Boston Public Library’s show Beyond the Book. Eberhardy has delivered her Storyforth seminars in Egypt, Sweden, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and the U.S.
Eberhardy earned a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Goucher College. She can be reached at WivInc.com and at MassArt: jleberhardy@massart.edu.