SPRING 2026 NEWSLETTER
Fundraiser for The Center for Print and Collaborative Arts, The Whisperers at Ditch Projects, Baby Owls
I’ve been remiss in posting, loyal Substack friends, these long, winter months for all the reasons: seasonal ennui, world on fire, the imminent event of my teen launching into so-called, adult life. I’m too old to make resolutions (I’ll post twice a month!) so it’s a welcome change to feel energized to reach out to say hello. Everything and nothing going on. Here are the highlights!
The Center for Print and Collaborative Arts Fundraiser
Since moving to Columbus, I’ve been working with The Columbus Printed Arts Center, a non-profit community space, founded by Elisa and Shawn Smith. The Center offers affordable print facilities, workshops, and organizes exhibitions and other programming. In its beginnings, the Center was housed in a former factory that manufactured fire engines at the turn of the century. In December 2020, I presented Return to Sender, an exhibition in collaboration with Suzanne Silver. Over the course of three months, we took turns making and installing new works, expanding upon a mail exchange we began in the lonely, early months of Covid-19.
In 2023, I worked with Elisa and Luke Stettner to organize the first Columbus Art Book Fair. Our mission was to provide an expansive and equitable platform for local, regional, and national producers and distributors of artist books, zines, print editions and more. The event also included experimental performances to explore the role of printed matter within interdisciplinary practices. The fair was held at The Pizzuti Collection at The Columbus Museum of Art. Participation was free of charge and featured 46 vendors from 14 states, Italy, and The Netherlands.
The Center is entering a new, thrilling chapter, heralded by its name change, The Center for Print and Collaborative Arts. In January 2025, Elisa and Luke signed a lease on a sprawling space of 22,000 square feet in the Southern Orchards neighborhood of our fair city. In addition to the print facilities, the space will include artist studios, a bookstore, a gallery and a community garden. The site will allow them to expand their programming and grow their mission with ambition and purpose.
It’s been a long haul and has cost a pretty penny getting the space ready, but they will, at last, open their doors in June. To get them through the home stretch, they are holding a fundraiser print sale featuring over 60 artists including the brilliance of Dionne Lee, Gina Osterloh, Whitney Hubbs, Carmen Winant, and many, many more. Prints are $150 each and the sale runs until May 11th. I donated one too. If you have the funds, please consider supporting this extraordinary project.
The Whisperers at Ditch Projects
My year did begin on an inspirational note with The Whisperers, a group show curated by artist Tannaz Farsi and art historian Simone Ciglia presented at Ditch Projects from January 17 - February 15. The exhibition featured artists whose practices utilize archival research to bring historical artifacts and images into a critical, contemporary sphere. The show included work by Noor Abuarafeh, Disobedience Archive, Shadi Harouni, MoRE, Zora J Murff, Gala Porras-Kim, Wendy Red Star, Service Works, and Stephanie Syjuco.
Ciglia and Farsi write: “To whisper is to hold words in the mouth, away from the vocal cords, letting them rumble, mutter, whistle or hiss out into the world, often into the ear of another, intent on receiving. This act is sometimes seen as clandestine; a private form of communication intended to incite and arouse rebellion. In this exhibition, we see its potential for arousal as a means of creation: to establish networks of tangential affinities, to parallel multiple modes of artistic and curatorial practice that can expand the potential for historical recovery, and to acknowledge longstanding systems of oppression by engaging practices that assert their own terms of representing subjecthood and empowering sovereignty.”
Whispering holds special meaning for City of Incurable Women. In the book, I imagined conversations between the women who resided at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, these circuits of knowledge and support within the institution. The hospital housed over 2000 women at any given time during Jean Martin Charcot’s tenure as hospital director when he conducted his research on hysteria. The history of the hospital is remembered through the case histories, privileging the relationships between doctor and patient, photographer and photographed subject. The life of this community of women, however, remained undocumented.
I produced a new suite of photograms where I worked with writing from the book—echoing whispers conspiring escape. I thought of these prints as notes passed back and forth between the women of Salpêtrière, an insistent, material trace of their resistance.
And I Realize There’s a Theme To This Newsletter
I worked with Elisa Smith and Tannaz Farsi when I was a professor at Ohio University. Tannaz graduated in 2007 with an MFA in Ceramics and Elisa earned her BFA in Photography in 2009. Beloved students then, dear friends and collaborators now.
Happiness Postscript
I’m taking a fantastic workshop, finding a way, somehow, through The New Art School Modality. It’s been a source of light and inspiration and I’ve heard incredible artists, activists, and scholars talk about their work. Highlights include Yasmin El-Rifae on Opantish (Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault) and Big Chief Demond Melancon on Black Masking Culture in New Orleans.
I’ll have a report on All the Women I Know in my next newsletter.
Finally, a favorite ritual of spring is welcoming baby owls to the Walhalla Ravine. I heard some hooting a couple weeks ago and had my first sighting yesterday. I’ll have to start packing my binoculars.
Thanks for reading. I’ll write again soon. xxLL
