t’s March, which means organizations and individuals all over the country are celebrating the badass women of history whose contributions have impacted the lives we live today. At You Belong Here, we love Women’s History Month because it gives us a chance to stop and do some intentional thinking about the women who came before us and how we can continue to honor their stories and their sacrifices. This year, we’re taking it to the next level with our Nasty Womxn’s History Month Showcase.
The Nasty Womxn’s History Month Showcase is the brainchild of YBH Co-founder Nic Roc, who wanted to see what would happen if she set groups of artists free in our space with the single instruction to make art that honors badass women of history. Painters, photographers, writers, sculptors, paper artists, comedians, and other artists are joining forces to link the stories and lives of historical women to the stories and lives of women today.
This will be a no holds barred showcase, and the artists are already honing their creative chops. We’ve gotten wind of a life-size piñata of Mother Teresa calling attention to femicide and current border issues; an Afrofuturistic tableau honoring the women of NASA during the space race; and a multimedia installation exploring connections between Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit and modern-day mass incarceration. There may even be a comedy sketch involved somewhere along the way.
With over twenty artists and 600 square feet of exhibition wall space, we’re pretty sure the Nasty Womxn’s History Month Showcase is going to be wild, crazy, and full of impact.
Artists
Vayunamu Bawa
Vayunamu is an artist from Abuja, Nigeria, currently living in San Diego, California. Vayunamu is passionate about issues of culture and politics, specifically the many ways our daily lives are affected by political structures and how our various identities are connected with that. The storytelling forms she works with are writing and photography.
Vayunamu makes and appreciates art in the form of fashion/style as well and the most important part of the art-making process to Vayunamu is genuine and accessible expression.
Currently, Vayunamu works in the nonprofit sector and as a freelance photojournalist.
Carolina Brocamonte
Coraza De Aguila (Armor of Eagle) is a proud San Diego Native who was raised in the heart of the diversely rich community of City Heights. She is a Spanish/English bilingual mental health clinician, advocate and an artist. She has varied creative mediums which include writing, candy and piñata making. She's a first generation college graduate who holds a Bachelor's from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in Sociology and dual minors in Political Science and African American Studies. In 2014 she combined her passion of working with children, youth and families with her passion toward healing interventions and social justice by obtaining her graduate degree in a Master of Clinical Social Work from San Diego State University (SDSU). She feels honored and grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve children, youth and families on their journey to healing their minds, bodies and spirit's. Coraza De Aguila has acquired a varied work experience background over the past ten years working in both community agencies in San Diego and the Bay Area (where she lived for a few years). Coraza De Aguila has utlized art as a coping mechanism throughout her life and believes in its capacity to aid in reframing disempowered trauma-based narratives about the self.
Mischelle Brown
Mischelle Brown a.k.a. Colorado, sentient being from the galaxy Vartarnia by way of Denver, Colorado is a Modern Day Conjurer and Nomad. Present day purpose is to serve self by being of service to others. Presently Colorado is on a pleasure seeking pilgrimage investigating how to make art, make friends, make love, and build community with the one hope to flourish her human self and to inspire other humans to do the same.
Marisol Castro
Born in Oaxaca Mexico, Marisol is a Visual Artist with 7+ years of experience in the digital arts. Her personal style emanates joy and fun, the use of color expresses the vibrant spirit and atmosphere of her Mexican culture. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Communication from Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) and specializes in visual media.
During her career she has worked in different creative areas from photography, digital design and video, just to name a few. One of the main goals on her work is to always include culture and diversity every time possible, she strongly believes that in a multicultural country we all should be represented as a whole.
www.createwithgusto.com
@createwithgusto
Amari Dixon
Born in Northern California as part of a military family, Amari has lived in the States and London and is a product of her broad cultural experiences. She began college as a Journalism major and one day picked up a camera to photograph for an event, and never looked back, graduating from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Photojournalism. Her work reflects a mixture of interest from street photography, social justice, and people from the perspective of a photojournalist. Amari's unique flair allows her to capture once-in-a-lifetime moments and form a lifelong connection with those she meets.
Channin Fulton
Channin Fulton is an illustrator, letterer, graphic designer, and muralist. She graduated with a B.A. in Graphic Design in 2014, has worked for local agencies, and enjoys teaching typography and lettering on the side. She currently runs a studio business out of Ocean Beach, San Diego. A huge inspiration for Channin is the surrounding environment (physical, socio-economical, political) and she brings themes of optimism-activism into her work through bold shape and vibrant color. Think: graphic equivalent of a smile or a hug.
www.channinfulton.com
@channinfulton
Chitra Gopalakrishnan
Chitra Gopalakrishnan is a graphic designer and social entrepreneur with a great affinity for new media and traditional craft forms. She has an MFA in Graphic Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and the ESAG Penninghen, Paris. Her work is informed by her role as a design educator, co-founder of a women-centered social enterprise called Kara Weaves and most critically, as a mother.
Maharani Peace Hall
Maharani Peace Hall is a Community Activist/Organizer and an Advocate for Social Justice. Her bio reads:
Maharani Peace has been a community organizer for many years. She has been advocate for exposure and change for the arts, education, students, and displaced populations amongst other things. She has spent the last several years attempting to draw attention to issues revolving around Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). Throughout the years Maharani has had a range of experiences that have led her to want to create, host, and facilitate "Elephant Talks" in an effort to address, unpack, and hopefully start positively changing some of the major topics that impede our humanity. Her sincerest hope is to create a safe yet brave space where conversations can lead to actionable solutions which can take root in the hearts and minds of many so we can literally be the change we want to see in the world.
Chloe Lamfers
Chloe Lamfers is an artist and designer from San Diego. She specializes in paper illustrations and is kinda of nerd. She loves to use lots bold and vibrant colors in her work. She draws a lot inspiration from comic books and just everyday life. She is married and has a very independent little girl.
www.chloelamfers.com
@chloelamfers
Roxana Lopez
Roxana Lopez is a San Diego native and a recent graduate of San Francisco State University, where she earned her Bachelors of Art in Art History. A documentarian by nature, Roxana created her freelance photography business in 2007. The Bay Area’s murals and street art helped her to connect the dots between her photography and writing. She developed and gave walking tours that examined the visual elements, social justice themes, and community history woven throughout the murals. Roxana is passionate about documenting and sharing street art because it is a critical component of elevating the stories of marginalized communities.
From the Bay Area to San Diego, Roxana’s main focus has always been and always will be expanding minority representation in the arts.
Semoria Mosley
Semoria F. Mosley is an artistic photojournalist from South Carolina who has an unconventional way of storytelling. With a B.A in Mass Communications from historically black college, Claflin University, Semoria is a proud product of her environment. While on her enlightenment journey, she now resides in San Diego, CA. Being from the south, has been a privilege for her and serves as her main inspiration. Without a doubt she believes African-Americans biggest contribution to this country is, culture. “Where I’m from, I’m not the minority. It wasn’t until I left the south that I remembered. My lens on life has been groomed by the grit, historical challenges, country living and innovative mentality that my elders have; I am the light of ancestors that worked harder than their circumstances. I will tell our story through photographic art because we deserve to be seen. Things that survive, should be preserved. I will preserve US.”
Amanda Murphy
Amanda Jean Murphy was born in Philadelphia, PA, and moved to San Diego in 2014 to pursue her career as an artist. She holds a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Art Teaching Credential from Point Loma Nazarene University. Amanda is an Artist and Art Educator, teaching students from Pre-K through adults. While currently exhibiting in San Diego, Murphy’s goal is to exhibit her art internationally. Her paintings can be found on canvases, murals, and oftentimes digital work, with a concentration of acrylic and watercolor mediums.
Amanda Jean’s art focuses on the intersection of color and form to evoke emotion and tell a story. Her themes are centered around entertainment, mental health, travel, and nature--encompassing the human spirit and culture that surrounds her. Murphy is constantly exploring the world around her, soaking in all the emotions and colors that go with it. Much of her work has a meditative, spiritual vibe to it, if not comical and out right obnoxious. Amanda uses art as her form of meditation, helping her focus and channel her emotions into a positive expression of her most authentic self. With a bold and vibrant personality, Amanda Jean’s art reflects the outgoing and bubbly personality she projects in her daily life.
Courtney Pittam
Creative Writer/Poet
A San Luis Obispo native, Courtney Pittam is a Public Relations professional by day and non-profit Communications Manager by night. She is a published writer and poet determined to make the world a better place through compassion and advocacy. Her passions include feminism, storytelling, relationship-building, and popcorn.
www.israelcastillo.com
@courtneygpittam
Nic Roc
Nic Roc is co-founder of You Belong Here, founder and designer of The Roc Shop, and a professional “do-er”. Nic’s focus is in design and fabrication. She works with many creatives to help them bring their concept to life, from small-scale prototype design to largescale installations. She utilizes the use of wood and acrylics within her realm of work. Not formally trained as an artist, Nic has a knack for learning new skill sets and challenging traditional institutions of study and belief. She prides herself in creating personal work that has political and activist undertones, often not seen or figured out at first, upon first glance.
www.therocshop.com
@the_rocshop
Elizabeth Salaam
Elizabeth Salaam is a San Diego-based writer, speaker, and visual storyteller. Known for her compelling narrative style and the intimacy with which she approaches each subject, Elizabeth’s work reflects her fearless emotional honesty and her unabashed love for the humanity in all of us.
Elizabeth grew up in Boise, Idaho, where as a young black girl in a city lacking in racial and cultural diversity, she began to write to make sense of the world she lived in. Praised and awarded for her writing at a young age, she found her place in the world through the words she wrote. This remained true through her college years as a poet, her graduate school years as a fiction writer, and eventually, her career as a journalist and personal essayist. Some of Elizabeth’s strongest work is found in her personal narrative essays, which are emotionally honest and rich with keen observations of the world around her. Elizabeth’s essays have been published in Elle Magazine and the San Diego Reader (where she has written over 50 cover stories since 2010) and have earned her invitations to speak at prestigious events, including a Women of the Year luncheon hosted by Assemblymember Cristina Garcia and TEDxUCSD 2020.
Elizabeth facilitates a creativity workshop based on The Artist’s Way, which has resulted in her own creative expansion. In September of this year, she will present Write or Die, her first visual art showcase at You Belong Here. @writeordiesd @ecsalaam
Angela Santora
Angela Santora is an expressive abstract painter who channels her emotions into work. Her style is whimsical, colorful, sometimes aggressive and always involve layers and layers of under paint. As a practise of impermanence, the works go through a process of destruction before reconciled into a balanced piece.
Arpie
Shekoyan
Arpie Shekoyan, 27, is an LA-based artist who works primarily in craft materials and paint. When she was 23, she began her research during her tenure at UC San Diego in exploring the limited narratives of women from S.W.A.N.A. regions represented through the lens of Western Art History. Growing up as an Armenian-American, topics such as erasure and dispossession of land lead her to focus on reclaiming narratives of these nameless women in paintings accomplished by Western artists. Shekoyan continues to use craft and patterned paper in her 2-D works not only to allude to both low/high art, but to challenge the notion of gendered mediums. In doing so, her patterned silhouettes of women and the materials utilized in their environments are escalated, and a means for both artist and viewer to confront the representation of women in history and the art world.
Diandra Stithe
Diandra Stithe is a San Diego transplant, originally from the vibrant desert of Las Vegas. Her art explores many of the different intersections of her identity and uses a multitude of mediums to convey these dynamics. She is most passionate about exploring womanhood, the duality of being mixed race, and the effects of the ever-present systems of oppression on our humanity.
Through her writing, photography, and visual art she aspires to find resolution. She focuses on healing through aesthetics. Finding ways to honor the complexity and struggle as well as the beauty of the human condition.
Diandra is currently studying Cognitive Psychology and working at an NGO.
Natasha Teymourian
Natasha Teymourian is a visual artist and writer that aims to deromanticize the exotic.
Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Natasha’s work explores how the third space, or the liminality of the world around us, interacts with the immigrants’ every day. Her medium of choice is printmaking: bold, dark lines that only reveal themselves upon inking.
Natasha is currently based in San Diego, California, where she got her BA in Literature & Writing Studies. During the day, she works at a digital marketing agency as a brand storyteller and strategist for small businesses with human-driven values. Her poetry can be found online and in print publications.
www.natashateymourian.com
@natashateym
Sierra Therese
Stardust Coyote is a San Diego based collage artist and art educator. Using found materials, she explores themes of identity and culture in the Internet age. She looks at art as a scientific endeavor and believes artists should ask tough questions of their audience, present information in new ways, create new connections, and pose alternate ways of looking. As an outspoken advocate for art education and art teacher, she hopes to provide others with the tools to create as well as to decode artistic language. Stardust Coyote believes that art is an integral aspect of the human experience and her mission is to break through barriers of race, gender, ability, and economic status to engage all people in creating, looking at, and talking about art, and above all, thinking creatively.
www.stardustcoyote.com
@sierratherese
Jennifer Vargas
Jennifer Vargas was born and raised in San Diego, California. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Architecture, and finished the Museum Studies Program at San Diego Mesa College. She currently works in the behavioral health field, using art as a tool to work on behavioral goals. Her design background, and her desire to use art as a tool to empower, guide her art practice.