Faculty and Staff Directory

Introduction

Beverly Naidus is retired, but can be reached at bnaidus@uw.edu.

Beverly Naidus, artist, author, community bridge maker, networker, storyteller, and facilitator of a pioneering interdisciplinary studio arts curriculum, has been creating interactive installations, digital projects, artist books and narrative works on paper for over four decades. Her work straddles the socially engaged margins of the art world, artful activism collaborations, and community-based art projects. Many of her most provocative installations evoked stories from visitors, so explicitly soliciting stories and images from the community became her part of her process. Much of her work deals with ecological and social issues that have adversely affected her and those around her. She is particularly engaged in how we are individually and collectively affected by racism, climate change and multiple forms of systemic oppression. She often works with others to develop strategies that might heal those challenges. Remediation and reconstructive visions are key concepts that guide her work. She has shared her work in city streets, in alternative spaces, university galleries and major museums. Her work has been written about in many books and journals and has developed an international audience. Significant writers who have discussed her work include Lucy R. Lippard, Suzi Gablik, Paul Von Blum and Lisa Bloom. She is the author of Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame, numerous essays on socially engaged art and eco-art pedagogy (recent releases are Art as Social Action and and some recent pieces of speculative fiction. Her unique courses at UWT emerge from her own projects and include: Art in a Time of War, Cultural Identity and Art, Body Image and Art, Eco-art, Labor, Global Justice and Art and the Artist as Visionary and Dreamer. She has guest lectured and led workshops all over North America and in Europe. She facilitated and designed the permaculture design-inspired, eco-art project, Eden Reframed, on Vashon Island, WA, funded by the Royalty Research Foundation. \She has taught at several NYC museums, Carleton College, Cal State Long Beach, Hampshire College, Goddard College and the Institute for Social Ecology. After successful chapters in the artworlds of NYC and Los Angeles, she has made a home in the Pacific Northwest since 2003. Her most recent project, Extreme Makeover: Reimagining the Port of Tacoma Free of Fossil Fuels, is a collaboration between 350 Tacoma and Arts Bridging Communities (funded by UWT’s Strategic Initiative Fund). Her website is http://www.beverlynaidus.net

Recent interviews:
“Let’s Talk about the Weather,” Ep. 34 “Beverly Naidus: Superwoman Remediating Superfund Sites” https://www.ecoartsfoundation.org/post/beverly-naidus-superwoman-remedia..., 2019 and Carey, Brainard, Interview with Beverly Naidus on Yale Radio, April 2017 http://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/beverly-naidus/

Recently published:
We Almost Didn’t Make It: A Creative Practice Inspired by the Work that Reconnects,” A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time, edited by Stephanie Kaza, Shambala Press, 2020
“Graphic Responses to the NW Detention Center: Work by Art & Global Justice Students,” ART AS SOCIAL ACTION: An Introduction to the Principles & Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, edited by Greg Sholette, Allworth Press, NY, NY 2018
“The ZAD Becomes Compost: LONG LIVE THE ZAD,” EcoartScotland: A Platform for Research and Practice,” www.ecoartscotland.net, 4/12/2018
“Holding On,” M/E/A/N/I/N/G: The Final Issue on A Year of Positive Thinking (edited by Mira Schor and Susan Bee), 2016, http://ayearofpositivethinking.com/page/3/
“So You Want to Be an Eco-Artist: Lessons in Grief and Gratitude,” Elemental: An Arts and Ecology Reader, edited by James Brady, England: Gaia Project, 2016
“Beverly Naidus,” Conversations with Artists Who Teach, edited by Raphael Vella, Malta: Sense Publishers, 2016
“Curtain Call: Portable Altars for Grief and Gratitude,” Dark Matter Women Witnessing, issue #3 on Extinction/Devotion, Lise Weil (ed.), 2015 http://www.darkmatterwomenwitnessing.com/issues/Dec2015/articles/Extinct...

Current Research

Much of my work has focused on the challenges of living in the world today, from the struggle to heal racism and fear of difference to the damage of the environment caused by rampant consumerism. I also create art about dreams, nightmares and visions for the future. I work in many mediums (from drawing & painting to digital photography and audio installations), sometimes doing "contact improvisation" with scavenged materials. The content often determines the form. Much of my work is interactive, inviting the audience to share a story about a similar topic. I'm currently working on a series of mixed media works about the radioactivity coming from Fukushima and some projects focusing on climate change.

Teaching

I teach art for social change and healing. My curriculum is adventurous, offering non-majors insights into and practical experience with the creative process of contemporary artists, while introducing them to a wide array of social problems from the ecological crisis to racism.

• TARTS 200 introduces students to art as meditation, mapping, storytelling, intervention and synthesis.
   
• TARTS 203, Body Image and Art introduces students to drawing (self-portraiture, contour, gesture and value drawing) and photo/text work. The students discuss issues related to body image and the fashion & diet industries. We do media literacy and draw a nude model who subverts the norm by talking about her own history with her body while the students are drawing her. Students also collaborate on a community based project that may involve installation, performance and interactivity.
   
• TARTS 266 The Artist as Visionary and Dreamer introduces students to painting (water-based) and drawing, while students make art about their dreams and visions of the future. We read about the history of looking at dreams, and look at art inspired by dreams and nightmares.
   
• TARTS 402 Eco-art: Art in Response to the Environmental Crisis exposes students to the Eco-art movement, and how artists create works to restore remediate damaged sites or heal "nature deficit disorder." After learning more about the ways the environmental crisis is affecting their lives, students create their own projects based on the elements air, energy, earth & water and create community collaborate project.
   
• TARTS 404 Art in a Time of War introduces students to the topics of war & peace and art that addresses those issues. Students make their own art that focuses on their concerns and learn about non-violent conflict resolution and communication skills.
   
• TARTS 405 Cultural Identity and Art - Students make work about their cultural heritage, fear of difference, racism and privilege and see the work of contemporary and historical artists who examine those issues.
   
• TARTS 406  Labor, Globalization and Art offers students insights in the economic moment we are living, and how artists make work about their jobs, being in debt, class issues, globalization and more. Students make art work about how those topics interface with their lives. 

Affiliations

• Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School
• College Art Association
• Arts for Change
• People of Color and their Allies Meditation Group
• Ecstatic Dance Seattle
• Eden Reframed: A Community and Ecological Art Project
• Seattle People of Color Salon
• Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life
• Emeritus member of the VALISE Artist Collective

Academic Service

• Reviewer for Verso and SUNY Press
• Board of Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School
• Advisory Board for the Backbone Campaign, Vashon
• Moderator for Arts for Change Facebook discussion page
• Member of the international Ecoart Network
• Member of the Mayworks Committee for the WA State Labor Council

Honors and Awards

• Royalty Research Foundation Grant (U of Washington) for Eden Reframed, (Eco-art Project) 2010
• Finalist, Andy Warhol Foundation and Creative Capital’s Art Writers Grant Program, 2007
• Founder’s Endowment Grant, UW Tacoma, 2005
• Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist's Grant in Photography, 2001
• CSULB Creative and Scholarly Awards (two), 1994 – to create CANARY NOTES
• CSULB Affirmative Action Grant - for bookwork But You Don't Look American, 1993
• CSULB Innovations-in-Teaching Grant, 1993
• CSU Chancellor's Mini-Grant, 1991 – To fund video on REMOTE CONTROL
• Public Art Proposal Commission for the Metro Blue Line Station at Pico & Flower, Downtown L.A., 1991; Outstanding Young Woman of the Year Award, 1989
• California Lottery Funds, Calif. State University, Bakersfield, CA, 1988 – YOU’RE SO NEGATIVE
• Professional Opportunities Program grant, CSULB, 1988 – to create video of THIS IS NOT A TEST
• Dayton-Hudson Distinguished Visiting Artist, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, 1985-86
• Artist's Fellowship, Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, Fall 1983
• LINE grant to self-publish bookwork (Stick - It: Ra-decals for the Angry Consumer), 1982
• Materials grant from the Committee for the Visual Arts, Artists' Space, New York City, 1979 for installation: Daily Reminder
• Teaching fellowship, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1976-78

Scholarly Interests

View Beverly Naidus' content in our Experts Gallery