Jjenna Hupp Andrews

ABOUT ME

I PLAY . . . I LEARN . . . I TEACH . . . I MAKE ART . . . I STAND FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

Artist
Professor of Making Stuff
Discipline Non-Conformist
Potato of Defiance
Unreliable Narrator
Always - teaching, art, disability, social justice, Dr Who, & coffee
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 my BFA in Metalsmithing/3D and MFA in Sculpture from Central Michigan University. My Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a concentration Humanities and Society, focus on visual/media culture and critical visual literacy was earned from Union Institute & University.

I was a Lecturer II in the Department of Fine Arts & Art History at The University of Michigan - Flint, for 14 years, and adjunct faculty at Delta College for over 13+ years, both where I taught a variety of Studio Art, Art History, and Art Appreciation courses.

In addition to trying to keep up with my three kids (well, not really kids any more) and husband, I am a mixed media , and installation artist working mostly with a variety of fibers, recycled, discarded, and found materials.

SOCIAL EFFICACY and ENGAGEMENT are always the foundation of my work. My sculptural and installation work uses the figural form to explore EMPATHY, encouraging varying intensities of CONNECTIONS and empathy between the self and the Other. This focus has manifested through sculptural and installation work that addresses social, cultural, environmental, and political issues. My current work explores the inattention to and/or ignoring of issues affecting our world today, specifically the INVISIBLE people that walk among us, ignored, passed by, unacknowledged, marginalized, and/or misunderstood.

Lately I find myself using CARDBOARD as the primary media because of its commonness and its perceived worthlessness after use. Cardboard is TEMPORARY; cardboard is TRANSIANT. It is used and discarded. Cardboard is not “seen” unless it is our way or not where it should be, such as detritus in the streets. important is the act of REUSING and REPURPOSING a material that would end up forgotten in landfills. These embedded aspects of cardboard become powerful METAPHORS for the issues I wish to make visible.

My interdisciplinary visual and scholarly research interests focus on the SOCIAL EFFICACY of visual and performance art, as well as visual/media LITERACY in higher education. The INTERSECTIONS & INTRUSIONS between visual art and the world we live in are where EFFICACY lives. I explore 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.

My focus as a scholar-educator is always on how we can best facilitate student LEARNING, critical THINKING, practice of PLAY, CREATIVITY, & ENGAGEMENT with the world around them. They have the power make a difference in this world.