We Make Worlds is an exhibition that celebrates the often unacknowledged experience, creativity, and resilience that surrounds us everyday. We Make Worlds is focused on communities and the worlds that we can make together, instead of being about the artist or the objects they make. Artist Sandy Sampson initiated We Make Worlds before the pandemic began, but isolation reinforced the value of community, collaboration and mutual support that have become significant themes of the show.

The exhibition originated with a project Sampson conceived in 2019 as the inaugural ˿����Ƶ Artist in Residence. Former PCC President Mark Mitsui founded this residency program, inspired by the way President Obama centered poetry and the arts in his administration. Mitsui wanted to embed artists and poets within the institution, to observe the development of the new strategic plan and the college’s structural reorganization. The artists were tasked with interpreting these processes through their own creative lens. And they were invited into many conversations that they would not have otherwise experienced. Sitting at these tables, reminded Sampson that an institution’s structure shapes and delimits people’s work within it, impacting their ideas of what is possible.

Though the residency began in 2019, the pandemic required Sampson to pivot and find new solutions for connecting with the communities that are integral to their practice. Both the earlier iterations and new activations of Samspon’s projects infuse the North View Gallery with stories and ideas gathered around Portland between 2007 and 2022. The residency provided a springboard for the exhibition and the opportunity for Sampson to revisit past projects engaging with ideas that hold new relevance today.

We Make Worlds is set in an institution of higher education and it asks us to consider, “What is Not Education?” opening space for new ways of thinking about how and where we learn. Educational institutions are also places of employment and the exhibition asks us to consider “What Makes Work Good Work?” What would it be like to work in a place where you feel fully dignified and in just relationship with your colleagues? The exhibition additionally allows opportunities to consider how art can contribute to the growth of communal understanding. Finally, the works in this show explore the shape of power, considering what power looks like in the context of an art gallery, an educational institution and a workplace. We Make Worlds proposes space for people to explore new power dynamics and new system shapes.

North View Gallery  |  ˿����Ƶ, PO Box 19000, Portland, Oregon  97280  |   www.pcc.edu/galleries

We make worlds and we have the power to make them in ways that work better for us than the current worlds we are moving through. In what ways can art help us see each other anew and learn from the brilliance that surrounds us? What does it mean to say that an art exhibition is not about an object or an artist, but about us and the worlds that we make? And in what ways can art be engaged to help us rebuild broken worlds and explore the possibilities for new ones?

Please join us for an opening lunch reception on Wednesday, January 18, 2023 from 1:00 – 3:00p.m., a poetry reading from residents at the Carolyn Moore Writer’s House, Thursday, January 26 at 6:30 p.m. and a Public Speaking performance on Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. along with other events to be announced.

About the Artist:

Sandy Sampson is a Portland based artist and educator. Their primary art practice engages with the public to reveal connections, and highlight the value of community members. Their projects employ a variety of media and techniques, however conversation and collaboration are consistent key components. They work with members of specific communities and affinity groups as well as the general public. Sampson’s publicly engaged community based work includes commissioned projects for Midway Alliance, Portland Art Museum, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art: TBA, Bétonsalon, Paris, and Apex Art, New York. See more of their work at .

Sponsored in part by the President’s Office and the ˿����Ƶ Artist in Residence Program.

About the PCC Art Galleries:

˿����Ƶ is home to four art galleries: the North View Gallery, the Paragon Arts Gallery, the Helzer Gallery and the Southeast Gallery, each located on one of our four comprehensive campus locations in Portland, Oregon. The Art Galleries are dedicated to supporting education and community building through the arts.

You see, when I’m not teaching, I’m parenting two children under five. Writing usually fits in the cracks between that paid work and that unpaid work, always pushed aside by other, more pressing tasks to attend to.

But serving as Writer-in-Residence this year pushed writing up on the priority list. It gave me a reason to sit down each week and spend time researching, erasing, editing, and reading. I wrote — and some of what I wrote is below — but I mostly credit this year with offering a mental shift, a deliberate break in routine which allowed art to emerge from the detritus of dishes and grading. This year, I allowed writing to demand my attention.

And we have limited attention— because we have limited time. The writer Oliver Burkeman published a book in which he calculated that the average lifespan of a human being is four thousand weeks. That seems absurdly short. In light of that inevitable limit, Burkeman asserts, we can’t do it all; we have to make choices. The key is “to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done and instead focus on doing a few things that count,” he writes.

This year, I got to do a few things that counted.

Part of my charge was to reflect on and reflect back experiences of the PCC community. To engage students in the arts, I ran four public workshops that were open to the PCC community. These were generative workshops, designed to offer opportunities to read and write without the stress of grades or expectation. I was astonished by the quality of work produced in these workshops, as well as the camaraderie that formed among participants.

I also thought deeply about community. My position was done remotely; I sincerely hope that future writers will be able to step foot in classrooms and interact with students face-to-face. The remote modality has made me think about what it means to be a community. How do we care for and care about each other in these times? How do we connect to each other? What are our shared values and common goals?

This year, I interviewed staff, faculty and students from PCC about their pandemic experiences. Their stories ranged from tragic to hopeful to contemplative. I think of these stories as a quilt: each square represents a single life, a single thread in our collective. They are diverse and distinct, and yet they are all stitched together through the institution of our college. Some of these folks critiqued the institution; others praised it. All are invested in some way in PCC. Read their stories here at

In addition, I wrote articles that were published around town, about the drive to and . I wrote poems about raising children in a warming climate, where the future of life seems increasingly precarious. I revised a huge essay on risk and risk aversion, reflecting on what it means to perceive danger in our own animal bodies. I spend many hours interviewing and finished a book proposal based on those conversations. And I kept up the Two Deep Breaths blog that had been started by my predecessor, Justin Rigamonti.

There are a great many ways to spend your weeks; it has been a delight to spend my time as the Writer-in-Residence this year.

Photo credit: National Parks Service

First, would you tell us a little about yourself— your background, your writing practice?

I have a strange hybrid writing practice. When I was younger I wrote poetry and short fiction; then I went to journalism school, needing a way to support myself financially. A few years ago, I went back to get an MFA in poetry — so I feel a bit like a patchwork quilt, with practices from all different kinds of writing disciplines.

I studied journalism at the University of Hong Kong, which influenced my work quite a bit. Because the program draws from students internationally, I became particularly interested in changing communities and human migration, which have been themes I’ve kept exploring in my nonfiction. I ended up living in China for three years and studying the language. But I really didn’t want to work as a journalist; I was way more interested in big ideas and human-level storytelling than in the fast pace of current events. Not that ideas and stories aren’t featured in journalism. I just wanted something more intimate and creative. I started developing a style that used journalistic interviews and research, but folded into an essay that’s all about exploring one idea in all its nuances.

I moved back to Oregon to start a family. I’m originally from Portland, grew up in Northeast. After college, I didn’t really expect to come back, but family and friends drew me back. It turns out that community is really important to me, especially as an artist. Unless you’re independently wealthy, it’s impossible to make art in isolation. Writing requires solitude, but you have to be supported and surrounded by folks who can make that creativity possible: people to read your work, people to watch your kids while you write, people to talk about books and ideas with. Oregon offered that sense of community for me as an artist and a person.

As a parent and a teacher, I’ve found it necessary to carve out specific writing times during the week for myself. I have certain times when the family knows not to disturb me, and I turn off my phone and shut down email and just work. That said, being a writer is not all about blissful “me” time. I do a lot of writing during child nap times, after my kids are asleep, and very early in the mornings. It’s tough to find a regular and disciplined practice. I think at this point, it’s about hustling to find those spaces that are available to me and making the most of them.

You teach Writing and English courses at PCC, but you also teach within the Future Connect program— could you tell us a little about the program, and what you like about it?

Future Connect is a program that offers a scholarship for first-generation and low-income college students. In addition to that money, we have a wraparound support system in the first year, so I work on a team with a Reading instructor and a College Success Coach to support students who don’t really know how to navigate the academic systems. Because we focus on the whole person, not just the subject matter we’re trying to teach, we really can engage with folks who need extra help and make sure they feel comfortable and ready for college. I love the community aspect of Future Connect. It feels like a family. We get through our first few terms as a close-knit cohort and those bonds formed while writing grueling research papers definitely endure.

You have said you are a storyteller, and that part of your teaching work is to bring out the storyteller in your students. In what ways has your mentorship influenced your writing?

I think a lot of people get told, at some point in their lives, that their story doesn’t matter. It stops people from writing, from telling their stories in the arts. When I mentor students, I get to see people who didn’t think they had stories to tell suddenly realize that their lives are full of rich, amazing subject matter, that their opinions matter, and that they have a unique voice. Interacting with people in that way reminds me of how lucky I am to work with language and have a good relationship with language. I always go back to my own writing refreshed and energized. And I just find people so interesting. Listening and observing forms the foundation of my writing practice. Any time I get to listen to student stories, I add texture to my own understanding of concepts and processes I’ve been mulling over, and I can sink deeper into my own ideas.

What role have the arts and humanities played in your life? Are there any childhood or college experiences which spurred or nurtured your interest in those disciplines? 

I was surrounded by the arts growing up. My grandmother and father are painters; my grandfather was a jazz pianist; my mother was a ballet dancer. Neither of my parents had much money growing up, but they always believed that books and art and music were riches that wouldn’t fade, and they passed that on to me.

I was really into detective stories as a kid, and I think that same sense of wonder and curiosity and desire to find clues and solve mysteries animates my work now. When I write essays, it feels like dusting for fingerprints: trying to figure out how things connect to each other. Discovering the theme of a story happens as I write, not before. If I didn’t have that sense of discovery, I doubt I’d keep writing.

Poetry was my first love. In third grade my teacher took us to the computer lab and had us write poems about something we saw. There was this beat-up looking red door frame, so I wrote about that color red. It was my first poem. It made me feel so alive, looking closely at something and trying to figure out what it looked like — forming my first metaphor. Writing just clicked with how I saw the world. For me, writing is not an artistic discipline or skill set so much as a way of seeing. A way of being. It’s about slowing down, noticing, listening, paying attention. So much of what I intuited about that red door frame was about being deeply mindful to the colors, shapes, and textures of the world around me.

Later in life I developed a meditation practice. Sitting still, watching my own mind, seems to me a twin to the work of writing; I’m focused on my breath and then something in me shifts around and starts making rhythm. Beats, sonic patterns. Eventually, words. Listening is always the start of a new piece of writing for me. The sound of sentences arrives before the meaning.

As you settle into the HARTS Writer-in-Residence position, what are you looking forward to? Are you working on a writing project now?

I’m really looking forward to interacting with people! I want to get folks involved with writing who might not otherwise have access to it — through social media and blogs, through workshops, through conversation projects.

My current writing project is about isolation, community, and risk, and the ways those things push and pull against each other in tension. It feels like risk, isolation and community fluctuate in relationship to each other. When you pull hard on one (for instance, going into quarantine to isolate yourself) the other two grow taut. That tension interests me. I’m working on a larger essay about those themes, but also I’m interviewing folks in the PCC community. I want to hear about their experiences with this pandemic, but also about their lives in general, and use those conversations to generate mini-essays about people in our community (so if you get an interview request from me, please consider saying yes!).

HARTS 2021-2022 Writer-in-Residence, Caitlin Dwyer Young, is a writer, storyteller, poet and multimedia journalist. She’s always curious about the deeper story behind the headlines. Her essays braid reflection, observation, journalistic interviews, and scholarly research, all in search of intimate, human portraits. In her poetry, she explores mythology and motherhood. She also helps produce and host the podcast Many Roads to Here. She studied journalism at the University of Hong Kong and creative writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. For the last five years, she has taught at PCC with the Future Connect program and the English department. When she’s not teaching, she is probably wandering around in the forest or lost in a book. Visit .

Frances Ferguson is the HARTS Student Assistant and an Editor of �±������������Բ�.��She is pursuing a B.A. in English with a focus in Creative Writing.

From my first question, Rochelle Kulei Nielson gently shifted my focus. I arrived at our interview ready to talk about her career as an artist, a singular individual with a series of successful gallery openings. She is that — but she widened the conversation to encompass her context: as an Indigenous artist, someone for whom art is communal endeavour, spiritual practice, and cultural inheritance. This year’s HARTS Artist-in-Residence played peekaboo with my daughter on Zoom while we talked about the generosity of art-making, her commitment to process, and the essential role of community in creative work.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

Caitlin: I want to hear about the origins of your art practice. When did you start making art and what originally got you interested in art making? Where does that come from for you?

Rochelle: First of all, I’m from the Northwestern band of Shoshone Nation. Sometimes there’s a stereotype of what Indian art is supposed to look like, Native American art, Indigenous art, and yet it’s also contemporary work. And what does that mean? In the Indigenous perspective, we look at: how does art serve the community? And it has always served the community first. It was never individualized. It was not about gaining profits. It’s not about seeking to be an artist. It’s not a singular thing. Art is made for the community and that’s how you serve each other.

But then as an artist, you bring in the community to be a part of your work. So then everyone has that ownership of the work.

One example is Maria Martinez. She was a famous Pueblo potter. And she felt bad for her community because they were selling theirs [for less money]. And so she would go to their pots and she would sign all their work so that they could get the same price as her. It was all about that community.

Then along come the Europeans and then they tell us what art is…There were several [artists] who broke that and said, wait a minute, we’re doing contemporary art, we’re abstract artists. We’re seeing so many different types of art. And then they’re like: why are we required to stay in this [traditional] way? And that’s another thing, historically: we’re always adapting to new materials. We borrowed, we traded with new materials.

Caitlin: It’s really interesting to hear you contextualizing this, because one of the questions I wanted to ask you about the use of repurposed modern materials. You bring in cars in some of your exhibits. So you’re really explicitly taking found objects in the community. Can you talk a little bit about how you try to incorporate those different materials?

Rochelle: Why I make the work I do is because of my history and upbringing. My reservation was burnt in the sixties and seventies. And the land was sold underneath us in Washington and Utah illegally and given to the farmers, and the farmers came and they burned our homes. And so everyone had to move to different reservations or the city, in my case. We moved to the city in Boise, Idaho.

My mother didn’t want me to learn the language. She didn’t want to teach me the traditional craftsmanship that she had learned, the foods, the cooking, all those things that define who we are as people. None of that was passed down because her fear of discrimination and the difficulty she had and her family through boarding schools. And so with that, then they’re like, okay, we don’t want to teach any of this because we fear that you’re going to experience this.

When I first entered art school at Marylhurst University, I thought I had to just mimic whatever was shown to me, mainly European artwork. It wasn’t until a professor introduced me to — he’s an artist, but more of a performing artist — and when she showed that to me, I’m like, you mean I could bring in my own culture? I could bring in things that I connect with?

And that’s when I started really delving into my history. I started to make angry work because I realized what the government had done to the people. And I’m mad. I’m exposing everything. I’m trying to paint everything I see and learn, owning that story and that power.

In my master’s program, I thought, I want to connect with my language. I want to connect with the craftsmanship. I want to connect with storytelling.

On the reservation, there were abandoned cars. We didn’t have the concept of something that it was never going to get disintegrated, wasn’t going to go into the earth naturally. So it just stayed there. And then at that time, we didn’t have the means to get a tow truck and take it to a junk yard, or we used it and always recycled the parts.

And that’s where Because I realized that we all can relate with vehicles. And as an artist, you want to try to reach your audience. Everyone has stories that they can tell in their vehicle, right? Their first kiss, their first time they get to drive alone by themselves or take out friends. For me, these reservation cars, we call them Rez cars, that was my playground. I didn’t have a jungle gym. I didn’t have the monkey bars. I had these abandoned cars and I would play in them for hours and hours. So that’s where that idea came from the truck: I wanted some way to really have people relate with that, but it was also my story.

And then bring it into community. If you go in and look at the car there’s details of beadwork. I had everybody in my Native community over to my home and they all beaded. And then I would have dinner. I’d have food for everyone. And that way, when they went to the show, they could take ownership of that.

But during this whole process, I’m teaching myself and having my mom teach me the language again. She’s now open about it. And she’s learning the history of her history.

And then I got to record my mother telling stories in the Shoshone language. And she gave herself permission. It became this beautiful event of healing for everyone. I didn’t have an interpreter. I didn’t want to have one. So [in the exhibit] you got to sit in the car and listen to the stories.

It was beautiful. It just brought tears to my eyes to see her tell the story and, and her language. She was so happy and it was like her inner child, like I get to tell a story and not be ashamed about that.

Caitlin: Have you always been an artist?

Rochelle: I was in nursing and then I decided I didn’t really want it. I just was a nurse because everybody told me I was a nurturer and that’s what I should do. My mom went to school; she’s the only person in her whole family of 13 who actually graduated from high school, got a degree in college and served in the army for seven years. So I had an example and just knew I needed to do it. I didn’t know why I wanted to go to school. So they said nursing. I’m like, I guess I like science, so sure.

I was specifically told through a dream that art was where I needed to be. And I had never done anything. Never studied art, never taken classes. Never even knew I was creative, but I was. That wasn’t a thing that my mother recognized because she is trying to put food on the table. She was a single mother. And that’s something traditionally would have been recognized, had we been a community. But because of the trauma, we’re separated. And that’s purposeful by the government too, to separate community — because [community] is strength.

Caitlin: I love hearing how process is really important. So it’s not only inviting people to do the bead work, but it’s also having a dinner with people. It’s not just that people are involved in the end product, but that people are involved in the process.  I’m wondering, obviously since we’ve been so isolated has the pandemic affected your ability to make art in community? Has that been difficult for you?

Rochelle:  It’s been depressing in that way. Like I really connect with the Native community. I always had women come over — and men — but I would have an activity night where everybody brought a project. Even if it’s just bead work, whatever the project was. Or maybe someone had someone who passed away. Well, our tradition is we have giveaways. And so they would bring all their things or we would all contribute to that, and then create these packages for these giveaways. We are starting it again, but it’s just only my daughters and a niece. I just miss community so much and always want everyone to be safe. I don’t want to be responsible if someone got sick.

Caitlin: Do you have particular artist influences, artists that have really been powerful for you?

Rochelle: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith does that same thing, always bringing in the community, but she’s a feminist in a matriarchal indigenous society in that feminism means everyone rises together. Not who’s going to get to the top first as an artist. She advocates for every indigenous man, but more so women. She’ll introduce you to so-and-so and so-and-so, and so-and-so because she wants everyone to be elevated, to be successful. And Marie Watt does that really well, too. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, she was my idol. I read everything about her and love her work. She’s been my inspiration.

Caitlin: So you teach painting and drawing and then in the Native Studies program, Intro to Native Studies and Indigenous Art in U.S. and Canada. Native Studies is a relatively new program at PCC. What has that experience been like teaching in that program? 

Rochelle: I feel like I’m in my home, because I don’t have to compartmentalize who I am. As an Indigenous person, teaching Indigenous courses, I can’t separate mind-body-spirit, because that is who I am. And I can’t. And I get to talk about that. I get to talk about my wisdom. I get to talk about the culture because it’s not religion. It’s the way of being. I love that part that I get to totally divulge everything about myself and my experience as an Indigenous woman. So that is the part I really enjoy. Not to say that I don’t talk about it in art classes because spirituality is part of the making and connection for all artists. But I don’t get to totally delve into it in the way I get to in the Native Studies program.

HARTS 2021-2022 Artist-in-Residence, Rochelle Kulei Nielsen, is a member of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Marylhurst University and Master of Fine Arts in Contemporary Studio Practice at Portland State University. She is very involved in the Native American community having spent the last ten years as Coordinator of the Native American Education Program in Vancouver, WA. She is an Adjunct Professor of Art at ˿����Ƶ, Eastern Washington University, and an affiliated faculty with the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at PSU through her course on Indigenous Critique of Native American Art. Rochelle served as the coordinator of the Northwest Indian Story Teller Program with the Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. Rochelle maintains an active studio practice, with over 20 solo, competitive group and invitational exhibitions and portfolio exchanges dealing with Indigenous inappropriate appropriations and Indigenous history. Visit .

HARTS 2021-2022 Writer-in-Residence, Caitlin Dwyer Young, is a writer, storyteller, poet and multimedia journalist. She’s always curious about the deeper story behind the headlines. Her essays braid reflection, observation, journalistic interviews, and scholarly research, all in search of intimate, human portraits. In her poetry, she explores mythology and motherhood. She also helps produce and host the podcast Many Roads to Here. She studied journalism at the University of Hong Kong and creative writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. For the last five years, she has taught at PCC with the Future Connect program and the English department. When she’s not teaching, she is probably wandering around in the forest or lost in a book. Visit .

HARTS: So you’re PCC’s Writer-in-residence. First of all, is this a new position? What is it exactly? Yeah, it’s the first year, the pilot program. I’m a guinea pig! And a happy one. PCC President Mark Mitsui pitched the idea of an Artist-in-residence program to the HARTS Council last August. He was inspired by programs he saw during his time in the Obama Administration— artists were invited to sit in on administrative meetings, so they could take part in those dry processes that would otherwise lack the creative perspective artists can bring.

HARTS: So, is that what you do? Sit in on meetings? Yeah! I’ve had the immense pleasure and privilege of being the poet in the room for many of the Strategic Planning and reorganization meetings. I’ve mostly listened, absorbed, but I’ve also chimed in when I felt qualified as a teacher and writer, trying to help shape language and vision. The school is undergoing massive change, and I think it helps to have a metaphor-maker sitting at the table.
HARTS: That makes some sense, the artistic perspective, but can you give us an example? Oh, gosh—well, I think it was my first meeting with Vice President Sylvia Kelley and Traci Fordham, and we were discussing trajectories, et cetera, and I got really hot on this idea of the school being like a living organism, a cell, the implications of it, and I wouldn’t shut up about it. I was excited! I felt bad for the poor consultant they had in there that day.

HARTS: That’s amazing. So what else have you done as Writer-in-residence besides sitting in on meetings? Well, I’ve written a few poems and an essay for the school but I’ve also been doing a bi-weekly poetry post on Inside PCC called “Two Deep Breaths” – I post poems by faculty or nationally recognized writers, poems “to lift your spirits, to help you catch your breath” is what it says. Although recently I’ve posted a few somber ones, given the circumstances.

HARTS: Yeah, there’s a lot that’s happened since you took on the position. How do you see your role with regard to everything going on, first a virus shutting down the school and now the protests against racialized police violence?  I stand with the protestors. I’m a white guy, which means I’ve got an inordinate amount of privilege. How does my voice matter? It honestly doesn’t, not right now, so besides speaking out against white supremacy, I’m trying to step back and focus on foregrounding the voices of writers of color, like this week’s poem by Danez Smith. And if you haven’t yet, please go back and read Tricia Brand’s “Woke at Work” articles, also on Inside PCC. Tricia is PCC’s Chief Diversity Officer, and we’re really lucky to have her.

As for the virus, I think the college has handled it remarkably well—we’ve got amazing people like Tricia and Mark and Katy Ho in leadership who are very very capable, even visionary. They’re steering this ship toward equity and unity and sustainability, a leader among colleges in the Northwest, and I’m really proud to be a part of all of it.

For more about Justin and to read some of his poetry, here’s . And here’s an interview he did with The Bridge. And here’s he did recently for OPB.

JUSTIN: Hello, Sandy! First off, tell us a little about yourself— your background, your art practice.

SANDY: Hi! Well, when I moved from Denver to Portland in 1982, I took classes in graphic design here at PCC. After that, I moved to the UK for about 5 years and worked for a design studio in London. London and Glasgow— then back to Portland.

I worked a wide variety of jobs—as a scenic artist, mostly for Opera and Ballet, and even some work on contract for Will Vinton studios back in the day (now Laika)— but that work was pretty incompatible with single parenting, so I tapped back into PCC to learn some “marketable” skills.

After a few years of working a  “straight job” with a financial consultancy, I started to feel like maybe I could do something I believed in rather than helping to make rich people richer (I was in the hedge funds department). I decided to go back to school, this time to PSU, with the goal of becoming a teacher of art.

As an artist, I first started showing in Denver as a painter, but I was soon doing performance and more conceptual work— including something I didn’t think of as “art” then but now would call Social Practice, or socially-engaged art.

Whether I work with paint or other materials, I try to match the media and process to the project. When people ask me what medium I work in and I say that I’m involved in more project based work, that’s what I mean. The objects I make are most exciting and successful to me when they are artifacts of a process, particularly a collaborative process, when they come preloaded with a shared history.

JUSTIN: You said you earned your MFA at PSU with the goal of being a teacher. How long have you been teaching? What do you teach?

SANDY: Once I received my MFA in 2009, I began teaching pretty much right away, One term at PSU, and pretty shortly after at PCC—so, a little over 10 years. I always teach drawing, and lately also design, black and white and color, and occasionally painting or experimental media with a socially engaged art focus.

JUSTIN: So, you are one of PCC’s two Artists-in-residence— what’s it been like so far? What has your position entailed?

SANDY: It’s been really amazing. Just the fact that this is happening is so exciting. Incredible, really. It’s also been a bit like that children’s book “Harold and the Purple Crayon”—you know, the one where he draws what he needs around him and under him as the need arises.

We were asked to reflect on and convey something about some of the changes that PCC is building right now— specifically the Strategic Plan, the reorganization, and the YESS initiative. Whether what we made was about the feelings people are having about these changes, the processes of building these changes or something else related to them was left entirely up to us. As is the form.

Even though what we make and how we make it has been up to us, the administration has invited us to sit in on meetings where these things are being discussed. Very powerfully in the fall, my first real introduction to this project was attending many of the facilitated listening sessions with various groups district wide.

It is so unusual for an institution, or more to the point, for people holding power in a large institution, to recognize the value of artists, not simply for their abilities to manifest an object or textual composition, but for the different lenses we bring. This is a profound acknowledgement of the importance of diverse perspectives in every aspect and at every level.

JUSTIN: Are you working on a project for the residency? If so, can you give us a hint of what it is?

SANDY: Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I try to find a material or form that makes sense conceptually, and then work with it collaboratively. I’ll tell you it really took me a minute to latch on to an idea I felt was right— but I have.

So, I’m going to make a form, and the idea is to create a basic material to eventually build with. That basic material starts with a surprising ingredient: dryer lint from the PCC community. That way, everyone’s experience will already be embedded in the actual material that the form is built from.

To do all this, I’m making use of some of PCC’s amazing resources, the printing presses, and the laser cutters, in order to create a modular system. Then I’ll ask folks to come together to help me assemble the form, and each time we meet to stitch these pieces together, we’ll also be talking about our stories of change, the story we would like to see PCC enact. What’s the narrative we want to see—what’s the change that we imagine?

My project was all about change from the beginning, and now we’re all experiencing change of a whole different magnitude, which I’m sure will be manifested in the project. I’m having to alter my process since I no longer have access to certain facilities and equipment, but the most important need I have is for collaboration, so I’m shifting up my process to include snail mail and zoom, at least for now.

I’m really excited about it— this project is evolving a lot like Harold and his purple crayon; a project about change that is changing its form in response to the changing context of its making!

Justin Rigamonti teaches writing at Cascade Campus, sits on the HARTS Council, and serves as PCC’s Writer-in-Residence.

For more information about Sandy’s project and to get involved, contact them at sandy.sampson@pcc.edu.