Jjenna Hupp Andrews

ABOUT ME

I PLAY . . . I LEARN . . . I TEACH . . . I MAKE ART . . .

I APPROPRIATE . . . I SUBVERT . . . I ENGAGE . . .

. . . CREATIVELY.

Artist

Professor of MAKING Stuff

Doctor of Thinking STUFF

Discipline NON-Conformist

Practitioner of PLAY

UNreliable Narrator

Potato of DEFIANCE

Explorer of student CREATIVITY

Facilitator of LEARNING, & critical THINKING

Instigator of DIScomfort, RISK-taking & ENGAGEMENT with the world.

art, students, teaching/learning, disability/accessibility, social justice, dr who, & coffee…ALWAYS!
Students have the power to make a difference in this world.
Community Colleges ROCK!

"An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing."
--Louise Bourgeois

"I do not want to show things but
to give people the desire to see." ---Agnes Varda

"Cry out as if you have a million voices!
It is silence that kills the world." -- Catherine of Siena

To be playful and serious at the same time is possible,
and it defines the ideal mental condition. -
John Dewey

Art is a not pre-prescribed;

it is a dangerous world full of possibilities.

- Cate Blanchett, actor

Bio

I am a Professor of Studio Art at Mott Community College in Flint Michigan, where I teach Sculpture, Studio Art Foundations, & Art History courses.

I earned a BFA in Metalsmithing/3D and MFA in Sculpture from Central Michigan University. A Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a concentration Humanities and Society, focus on the social efficacy of art and critical visual literacy was earned from Union Institute & University.

As a mixed media, sculptor, and installation artist, I work mostly with varieties of fibers, recycled, discarded, and found materials.

SOCIAL EFFICACY and ENGAGEMENT are at the foundation of my work, primarily using the figural form to explore EMPATHY and encouraging CONNECTIONS between the viewer’s Self and the Other.

Art provides the vehicle through which I can engage with social, cultural, environmental, and political issues. Current work explores the inattention to and/or ignoring of issues affecting our world today. My specific focus are the INVISIBLE people that walk among us, ignored, passed by, unacknowledged, marginalized, misunderstood and/or oppressed.

CARDBOARD has been the primary media of these figures because of its commonness and its perceived worthlessness when it is no longer needed. Cardboard is TEMPORARY; Cardboard is TRANSIENT. Cardboard is used and discarded without thought. Cardboard is not “seen” unless it interferes with our actions. It is detritus, unless it has purpose. Cardboard become the bodies discarded by our social and political systems.

Interdisciplinary visual and scholarly research focus on the SOCIAL EFFICACY of visual and performance art; Art as ACTIVISM. The INTERSECTIONS & INTRUSIONS between visual art and the world we live in are where EFFICACY lives. Exploring the where and the how visual arts can EXPOSE, ENGAGE with, and open up SPACES for the understanding of diversity, difference, equity, accessibility, and most importantly, with issues of social justice.

As a scholar-educator the focus is always on how to facilitate student LEARNING, critical THINKING, practice of PLAY, CREATIVITY, &
ENGAGEMENT with the world around us. Students have the power make a difference in this world.

"If you are comfortable, I'm not doing my job." - Brene` Brown (on teaching & learning)