CURRENT PROJECTS & COLLABORATIONS

I am honored to be working with Adrian Arias' on his breathtaking Tarot in Pandemic and Revolution project which was created with an incredible community of 62 visual artists, poets, and performers. Multi-disciplinary artist Adrian Arias' dreamt about creating a Tarot Deck when the pandemic hit and when the revolution for social justice was illuminated after the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Armery, Elijah McClain and countless other Black people.  

 

Tarot in Pandemic and Revolution, inspired by Adrian Arias’ lucid dream of a fortune teller and cards embellished with images of viruses, masks, Black Lives Matter, marches, and protests, is a unique 81-card Tarot deck. It is accompanied by an exquisite book of poetry, created by 62 internationally-recognized artists and poets with deep ties to the San Francisco Bay Area, who span three generations. These award-winning poet laureates, novelists, authors, muralists, painters, graphic artists, performance artists, composers, musicians, and dancers are each committed to social, environmental, food, public health, and climate justice, and have used their powerful talents to create tarot images and poems in response to the critical times we are living in. This deck is a bold expression of hope, resilience, resistance, and the courage to continue forging a path to justice and love.

 

For more information

https://www.nomadicpress.org/store/p/tarot

 

Upcoming events are updated on this site.  We are busy preparing for an exhibition of the original artworks which will open to the public on March 25, 2023 at Community Arts Stabilization Fund's new space at 447 Minna Street.  

Photo of René Yañez (1942-2018) at the de Young Museum, courtesy of FAMSF Public Programs.

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I met René Yañez while working as the Director of Public Programs in 2006. He was Cheech Marin’s curator of Cheech Marin’s acclaimed exhibitions Chicano Visions:  American Painters on the Verge and Chicano Now.  René curated many of the programs for that exhibition which made a tremendous impact on the museum and how it related to community.  The response was so successful that the museum director, John Buchanan, III decided to focus on pursuing massive funding for the museum’s Friday Nights at the de Young and the Artist Studio projects.  I was one of Rene’s  mentees as he taught me how to be fearless with programming the events.  Rene is well known for mentoring many young artists and curators to utilize their skills to be change-makers and activists. He taught me and myriad others how to get into good trouble. SOMARTS has launched a fund in his honor and I am honored to be on the advisory committee.  The René Yañez Legacy Fund aims to provide support for emerging artists and curators and the community garden at SOMArts he lovingly created and tended