School Visit – UC Davis w/ Booki Vivat

School Visit – UC Davis w/ Booki Vivat

Ok, recently I was invited to speak at UC Davis by the homie Dr. Katlin Marisol Sweeney. The talk was awesome and was a joint collab with me and author/illustrator Booki Vivat! BIG shout out to my good friend NJ Mvondo of Multiculturalism Rocks who linked me with photographer, artist, and farmer Jorge Antonio Espinosa who took the majority of the photos of us in the classroom.

You can Jorge Antonio Espinosa who took most of the photos you see here

I took the Amtrak train from Oakland to Davis and I highly recommend taking the train if you’re a creative. With all the traffic and having only one car in our family it was so much more relaxing. I drew, thought, and got myself ready for the journey up there.

These are some of the things and people I saw while going up to Davis and during the workshop. Wanna see more sketchbook?

These are a few photos of us getting set up. Katlin had a huge class room and already had tons of materials ready to go for the students who not only listened by did some storytelling too.

Booki Vivat is a Thai American artist and writer from Southern California who works in the publishing industry. Her most recent books are The Frazzled Series and Meet Me On Mercer Street. You can read her bio here. Book is one of the nicest creators I know and I have very much enjoyed getting to know her a little bit and seeing her GO! She’s funny, suuuuper talented, and a veteran of the creative life. Her presentation about her journey, her books, and storytelling were incredible and inspired me to step up my game!

Dr Katlin Marisol Sweeney-Romero is a bad ass professor, author, event organizer, and scholar from Cali who spent time in the midwest where I met her and is now a professor in Cinema and Digital Media at UC Davis. You can see some of the events she’s helped to organize such as the Sol Con (Columbus, OH) or the Latinx Comics & Arts Festival (Modesto, CA), the publications she’s edited or written for, and what she teaches! Learn about her work.

Here are some photos of Booki talking about her journey and then giving the students some exercises to work on storytelling craft.

So, I have a history as an arts teacher. I taught art for a decade across the Bay and NYC. I have been visiting schools and libraries for 14 years now and its only been in the last 3 years or so that I have been invited to speak to college students and I am really enjoying it. In fact I’m working on how to improve it.

In my talk I talked about my journey, career, and then we got into a bit of picture book structure. I try to be very honest, no BS about what its like to be a working artist, about my politics, etc. But, I think I spoke more than I thought I would because my workshop part was too quick. I didn’t give them enough time to draw and write. But over all the students were so cool, so supportive, attentive, engaged, and ready with questions and skills. So much skills! Matter of fact…….

Much credit goes to Katlin for curating an environment where students felt held and supported because I really enjoyed their spirit, questions, and effort, They were in it with us.

After it was done we tried our best to linger and answer some questions but again I think I took too long so we didnt get enough of that. But I think I mentioned the students could reach out anytime for questions about career, jobs, and life plans!