Teaching Collaborative Art and Gift-Giving
Art For the Isolated was created to bring artists and poets together as collaborative gift-givers.
We believe gift-giving to be a radical gesture and worthy of consideration for students and practicing artists alike. Art for the Isolated worked with Syracuse University to develop a studio curriculum centered on our foundational principles. We collaborated with Doug Dubois and Sarah Harwell, professors from Syracuse’s Art Photography and English departments to create a semester-long curriculum that establishes a theoretical foundation for relating text to image and prompts the creation of collaborative artworks.
The curriculum includes selections from Robin Wall Kimmerer on the transformative effect of gift-giving, Gregory Orr on “Shaping Grief with Language” and Robert Adams on form and consequence. At the end of the semester, Art for the Isolated will publish a select number of pairings to be distributed to hospitals alongside our offerings from practicing artists and poets. This curriculum is suitable for wider implementation at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Curriculum Creators
Juliet San Nicolas de Bradley
Co-founder of Art for the Isolated. A photographer and speech language pathologist. Her speech practice cultivates culturally diverse literacy and language skills for children. Juliet lives in Merced, Ca.
Joshua David Watson
Co-founder of Art for the Isolated. A photographer and educator whose photographic work combines image and text. He holds an MFA from The University of Hartford and currently lives and teaches in Los Angeles, Ca.
Doug Dubois
Associate professor and department chair of Art Photography at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. His monographs All the Days and Nights… and My Last Day at Seventeen are published by Aperture.
Sarah C. Harwell
Associate Teaching Professor at Syracuse University. Author of the collection Sit Down Traveler (2012.) Harwell’s honors include the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in Poetry and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award.
Jordan Nakamura
A writer, born and raised in Hawaii and living in South Central, Los Angeles. He holds an MFA from Antioch University and his writing, interviews, and articles have appeared in The New England Review, The Adroit Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Zócalo Public Square, Lunch Ticket, and Curator Magazine.