Thank You SFAI! Looking to The Future!
L->R Harind Arvati, Megan Wilson, Vina Puspita, Nano Warsono. At SFAI to give a presentation to Art Hazelwood’s class in the printmaking department as part of the Bangkit/Arise exchange & residency between Clarion Alley Mural Project and artists from Yogyakarta Indonesia, 2018.
In February I began to hear talk that my alma mater the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was in danger of closing. I tossed this off as just another ‘crisis’ at SFAI, as it always seemed like the school was experiencing some sort of crisis since I had been a student during the mid-late 90’s, involving a mismanaged administration that lacked respect for its instructors and students. I had experienced that firsthand as a student. But then I received the email on March 23, 2020 that SFAI would be closing. I was in disbelief because somehow, the school had always managed to pull out of whatever hole it had dug itself into. But this time, it felt different, and from what I was hearing, it was. And here we are over two months later and it is. However, while I see the ship going down, I can’t help but think there will be some way that the community that is SFAI will rise from the ashes.
I applied to SFAI’s MFA program in 1994 while I was living in Somerville, MA and working for a suicide prevention agency, The Samaritans of Boston. My partner at the time was attending Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. I had received my BFA from the University of Oregon in Printmaking in 1992. While I loved the public policy world that had come to be my community in Cambridge and I was seriously considering applying to get a Masters in Public Policy, I missed being part of a thriving creative community. I started thinking about going back to school to get an MFA rather than an MPP.
My first exhibition in San Francisco at Meridian Gallery: Swell with Carolyn Castaño and Amy Berk - it was part of SFAI’s 125th Anniversary in 1996. Then Swell, 10 Years Later at Meridian Gallery in 2006. Carolyn and Amy were my first friends at SFAI and are still two of my closest friends today.
As I began to consider which schools to apply, I was primarily interested in going to an “art school”. Having done my undergraduate work at a state school with a broad range of requirements outside of the art field, I was craving an immersive environment of artists sharing ideas in a space solely dedicated to art-making. I applied to five schools – School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA), San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), Yale, and UC Davis. Each had their appeal – SMFA was an art school and nearby; Yale had the Ivy League prestige; SFAI and CCAC were both art schools and in the Bay Area; UC Davis had a great printmaking department and it was more affordable. I was accepted to three: SMFA, SFAI, and CCAC – the three art schools.
I visited all three schools. The standout and the school I chose was SFAI. The beautiful courtyard, the Diego Rivera mural, the view looking out at the Bay were all huge perks. However, what really sold me was the sense that making art and pushing boundaries through that pursuit was the most important criteria for being a part of the SFAI community. And while the environment was highly competitive, it never felt like it was about the potential for commercial success, rather it was about ideas and challenging the status quo. I felt honored to be included amongst the community at SFAI.
My Diego Rivera Gallery exhibition in 1997
This is not to say that it was all rosy. I came up against a number of challenges; most notably the printmaking department at the time was heavily male-dominated and alienating to many of the female students, including myself. I ended up transferring out of printmaking to new genres. Additionally, I challenged the school administration on its practice of providing individual studio spaces to its painting and sculpture students, excluding printmaking, photography, film, and new genres, yet we were all paying the same tuition. In other words, all of the students without private studios were subsidizing real estate that only some students were given access to use.
Those were the low points.
Feminine Protection: new work by Megan Wilson, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, 1997
The greatest take-away from SFAI was the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos that the school was firmly rooted in and encouraged. I was deeply influenced by Carlos Villa, Ann Chamberlain, Nayland Blake, and Claudia Bernandi, among others. That DIY culture is what has driven me and kept me making art over the past 20 years. When I’ve felt shutout or rejected by the mainstream art world because my work was too political, too ambitious, or not commercially viable – or not ‘cool’ enough, I knew that I could always find ways of realizing it and cultivating audiences and support without the institutional stamp of approval or recognition.
It is that sense of possibility that SFAI cultivated that gave me the confidence and courage to take risks and to create my own projects, locally and internationally. These have included two international exchanges and residencies with Yogyakarta, Indonesia in collaboration with Intersection for the Arts (2003-2006) and the Asian Art Museum (2018-present) as part of Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), a now 28-year-old artist-run public art project. I was introduced to CAMP through my community at SFAI, including two of its co-founders who are alumni (Rigo 23 and Aaron Noble). I’ve now worked with CAMP for over 15 years.
L->R Megan Wilson & Vina Puspita; Ucup presenting his work to Art Hazelwood’s printmaking class; Nano Warsono. The presentation was part of the international exchange & residency Bangkit/Arise between Clarion Alley Mural Project and artists from Yogyakarta Indonesia, 2018.
I am deeply grateful to the community of artists/ mentors/ instructors I met through SFAI and who helped me to believe and prove the ‘impossible’ to not just be possible, but actual.
And with that – I look forward to a new SFAI, up and running with a new vision, rooted in challenging the status quo and a new way of seeing the world through a supportive, open, transparent, compassionate, resourceful, and highly creative lens.