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Go behind the scenes in an art museum. Join the crew from the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art as we chat with artists, curators, and everyone else who helps us bring our galleries to life. New episodes will be posted in selected months after the program has aired on KUNV 91.5.
The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is located on the campus of one of the most racially diverse universities in the United States, we strive to create a nourishing environment for those who continue to be neglected by contemporary art museums, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ groups. As the only art museum in the city of Las Vegas, we commit ourselves to leveling barriers that limit access to the arts, especially for first-time visitors. To facilitate access for low-income guests we provide free entry to all our exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community activities. Our collection of artworks offers an opportunity for researchers and scholars to develop a more extensive knowledge of contemporary art in Southern Nevada. The Barrick Museum is part of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).
Announcer 0:00
This is a KUNV studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:05
The following is special programming aired in collaboration with the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the campus of UNLV, and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and More, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Deanne Sole 0:27
Welcome to the Marjorie Barrick of Art radio show. My name is Deanne Sole and I'm here today with Las Vegas artist zinester and activist Jean Munson, hi Jean.
Jean Munson 0:38
Thank you for having me.
Deanne Sole 0:41
Jean was one of our consultants for the Living Here exhibition at the museum. So I'm hoping to talk to her about her life in general, and everything that she does because she's super busy, and also just talk to her a bit about Living Here and how it was working with us--hopefully it was good--and what she thinks of the exhibition. Okay, well, shall we start with your publishing company? Because you have Plot Twist Publishing...
Jean Munson 1:07
Yes, Plot Twist Publishing, which actually was inspired the name itself, buying candy on my dating anniversary with my husband, who is co owner of Plot Twist Publishing, like, what would be a great name, and you know, PNP, so it started in 2016 and there weren't that many opportunities then for young women getting into comics. You know, it was a lot of, you know, male colleagues who already knew each other, who already kind of rubbed elbows in making comics. And I was, you know, a little bit a few years out of graduating in 2009 here at UNLV as an undergrad in History. And if anyone knows anything about 2009 it was the recession. So you know, you either sink or swim, and I try to swim. And so I really thought about if I wasn't going to be a history teacher, what is something I really want to do? And so I absolutely had no experience in comics, but I did look for resources, and one of the main resources is unity, continuing ed's art program at the time, and I started Plot Twist Publishing out of a diner. I don't know if you've ever been to Blueberry Hill.
Deanne Sole 2:15
Oh, once ages ago, yeah, it's one on Flamingo.
Jean Munson 2:19
No, it was a one on Sand Hill, is it? I think they're both on Flamingo, but it's like the further down one, okay? Because that one's near the comic shop. And I just put on Facebook at the time when people were more active on Facebook, like, if anyone wants to start a comics company, meet me at Blueberry Hill, six o'clock on a Sunday, and there were a slew of male colleagues who are open to the idea of creating local comics with me.
Deanne Sole 2:41
Oh, that's awesome. So can you tell us a bit about your comics? What kind of comics do you draw?
Jean Munson 2:47
Yeah, I started doing memoir comics. I was a big fan of anime and Archie Comics, and I wanted to find a middle ground detailing my own Asian American experience, because I didn't think that there were things that really portrayed what it was like. You know, when we think about anime, we think more so the Japanese narrative in Japan, and then when we think of Archie Comics, it's an American narrative. And so I thought I was in the hard middle and so I tried to learn and develop already, kind of like my doodling in class with more formal art education continuing ed, and then I also was accepted into a summer program center for Cartoon Studies. So that was kind of my main base for education when it came to developing comics education,
Deanne Sole 3:32
Got it. And you, I mean, you're Asian American, you're not Japanese American, so you that was so Filipino American. Yes, that's correct. Awesome. Are there a lot of other Philippines? Are there any other Filipino American comics in Las Vegas?
Jean Munson 3:47
No, there. There wasn't at all. And so it was a defining moment of being Filipino and a woman Filipino, right? And so I can't even count on my one hand or two hands even now colleagues who are Filipino American that also do comics in the US. But there's actually a long I learned two years ago that there's a long history of Filipino involvement in comics, especially in Marvel and DC as like background writers and artists or even pushing certain characters. So I mean it. I think it's such a disservice to see the disconnect that I if I knew that there was this legacy, then I could lean on particularly visible other creators. But that wasn't the case, and that's why I try to carry that differently. Living in Nevada, of being a more visible person in the creative fields.
Deanne Sole 4:38
That's fantastic. What artists inspired you then, and who, apart from Archie comics and manga, what, who inspires you now?
Jean Munson 4:48
You know, coincidentally enough, other Asian Americans. I'm a big fan of Lynda Barry, because she really touts like, whatever resources you have. It doesn't matter what your art skill. A famous quote she says is, there's no such thing as bad art, because other art is being made. And I tell that all the time when I'm in teaching spaces. Another, he's Korean American, Derek Kirk Kim, he wrote this anthology, Same Difference, and it's kind of transforming what would be considered very depressing Korean narratives into like, really quirky. And there was a comic shop across the street, Alternate Reality Comics that I would go and I would have access to Asian American comics. And that's what really inspired me, like the Lynda Barry and Derek Kim and most recently, Cheung Linh Nguyen, who's introducing more queer narratives into Asian American comics as well. So it's it's been really great to just be so close, not too far, from where that they're at in producing their work.
Deanne Sole 5:50
That's awesome. And how would you characterize your own comics? You call them, I think memoir comics a moment ago. Are they? Are they depressing? Are they quirky? How would you describe them?
Jean Munson 6:03
I think they're a little bit of everything in that they are. They can be depressing because my first four part comic series, Pushover, which started as a comic zine, I didn't even know what zines were, but when another colleague told me, Well, you're producing them on your own, in more black and white, they're zines. And I was like, I felt like it was an insult at first, and I realized zines are a great way of archiving stories and history and movements, and so I wear that with a lot more pride. But the reason I started doing memoir comics is because of my history degree, my Bachelor's that I got here because I as I was reading history, there are only I would always get so excited at the sliver of talking about Asian Americans or Filipinos, because it was always like this one or two lines in a textbook. And so I thought, as a liberal arts degree, you know, and they always tell you, there's no jobs. There's no jobs. And I was like, well, when do I take hold of my life and my agency and to start telling my stories and to show their relevance, to fill the gap. When am I going to start creating a job for myself as a liberal arts major? So ultimately, I used to ask myself in my 20s, isn't it my job to liberate the arts, right? And so that's kind of my mantra, and so that's kind of where I landed in doing memoir comics, and then I transitioned to doing comic anthologies so I could help others develop having a comics experience on their resumes by working with me and learning the different parts of doing comics, Like inking and, you know, lettering and so forth. Wow.
Deanne Sole 7:43
So when you when you make a comic, either your own or somebody else's, and you publish it, how do you get it out to the audience?
Jean Munson 7:51
You know, this is such a great question, because so many people are like, I need somebody else to do it for me. And because I did my own self publishing in the first five years of my career, I learned how to formally put letters and contracts and invoices or to hold meetings. And I would attribute that a lot to the work that I was trained under in the Women's Research Institute of Nevada, here on campus, because it was a lot of like manager work, and no one wants to do that. Everyone's when you when you make art, you're like: somebody else, please promote it. And I started to think of myself. I'm not only an artist, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an activist, I'm an advocate, right? I can wear those other hats. And as I mastered doing that for myself, I was able to master to do that for others. I've also taught when I was teaching in the art department, I've also taught my students how to do that for themselves as as a form of protection, right? It's, it's really easy, especially in this advent of age, to get your work exploited or used or stolen, and so that's why it's so important to create those receipts, the invoice and whatnot. Yeah?
Deanne Sole 8:56
Agreed. No, it that whole part of it can be really difficult, and I agree it's really under taught. Yeah, you know, even basic things like how to put a CV together, how to present your credentials, that kind of thing. Oh, that's, that's fabulous, okay? And I'm thinking now also of the work that you had in Two Cultures, One Family in 2022 because that that was a an exhibition that was at the museum, and that, from my perspective, anyway, sort of sprung out of the work that you had done as a as a, somebody who made memoirs, somebody who talked about themselves in comics, in a very vulnerable way. Yeah, because the work that you did for that show, it was text and image. You had some comics in there too. And I remember Erika Abad was really keen on having you in the show. She was the curator, but you... We arranged them differently because it was in an installation, right? Than on a page we had, what was it the text on the wall, yes, and then actual physical objects on the floor in front of it that sort of illustrated that text, yes, and hinted out what was going on there. What was that movement like between drawing on a page and taking a similar kind of idea and making it three dimensional.
Jean Munson 10:22
You know, you just talking about this right now, just makes me really emotional. I've always been a big fan of the Barrick Museum, and that was my first time, you know, getting the chance to be on the walls, and it's, it's still emotionally like heart wrenching. And so that's why, when we had living here, my heart just really blossomed and healed from that moment. Because it was like, wow, everyone else gets a chance to be and telling about the diaspora, right? And so, having been part of Two Cultures, One Family, like the essay itself, was part of, initially, a newsletter that was threaded through a podcast that I had, which was Bruha Baddies, which is a comedic Pinay podcast, which we were just trying to reclaim all the shame that is pressed upon Filipinas in our culture. And so we had fandom on and off campus, and we started newsletter, because we're like, we should start archiving these stories. And so Dr Erika Abad, listen or listened in and read the newsletter, and then also pulled that essay. And so at the time, what a great collaboration with the the museum staff, because you were all trying to help me articulate what objects would represent my grandmother in her story. And I guess I'm also emotional, because my Lola did just pass this year, but I have that memory of sharing her story, and it's real. It's in text. It was shared, and it opened up the possibilities of talking to other or other museum patrons, to talk to their mothers and grandmothers about trauma that isn't talked about. So the it was a coconut husk and a little plastic stool. And when people would turn the corner, because it was in like a corner with the wall, they also got emotional, because these were everyday objects that see, it didn't seem like art at first, but they reminded them of their own relatives. And, you know, we were fortunate enough to have index card reactions also in different dialects in the Filipino language that articulated that same kind of relationship with their the females in their families. And so we also had this comic scene that was an homage to my mom. And I think we had, I'm trying to remember the number, I think was about 350 that were passed because they were something you could take from the museum that you helped specifically make sure that that little basket was filled. I've also had people either instant message me or call me or see me in passing and tell me that they've circulated those zines to other women and their families. So I am always really grateful for that moment, because it it operates outside of just viewing art, it started to take action on its own. And I'm just really grateful for the staff, for my family for letting me share, and just grateful that I was boosted with enough confidence from Dr Abad for that.
Deanne Sole 13:33
Yeah, did you bring a class in as well? I have this memory of... Yeah. Were they elementary school students...
Jean Munson 13:41
Middle, yes, we brought in a middle school that was middle by all, all, thank you for that reminder. Yeah, it was gals, the girls athletic leadership school nearby, and majority of them are POC girls, Latinas and Asians and black girls. And they came in, and they started to have conversations, healthy conversations, about the depictions of women in their family on the walls, and that made them feel like they could also do art, which is why I love collaboration with the museum.
Deanne Sole 14:18
That's awesome. Oh, I'm glad that was so positive. I remember that wall of reaction cards and how fantastic it was for me as someone at the museum to go and look at it and to be able to see what people were thinking about what they'd seen. And I did love that storytelling, the directness of the storytelling in yours, I mean, storytelling in the visual arts is often visual obviously, you know, it's, it's the objects that represent something or hint towards something or suggest something, and to have your voice on the wall being a very open you know, this is about this person, and this is what happened to them, and so on and so on. Yeah, I think it really did help a lot of people see that ability, their own ability to tell stories with real directness. That was wonderful. No, I remember that visit with those middle schoolers being a very positive experience. Again, I have this memory of you standing and I think they were sitting, or they were something and they were listening. It was great. I also remember, I think Chloe was arranging the stool and the other object, how precise she was. Oh, it needs, you know, this needs to be here. This needs to shift a little bit.
Jean Munson 15:44
Shout out to Chloe. Shout out to Chloe and how bright the objects were, because they were, they were not. It was not just any old stool, yeah, it was not just any old basket that we had the zine. Yeah, they mirrored the color of the zine, so they were in the purple, pink palette, and yeah, miraculously they came together.
Deanne Sole 15:52
Yeah, no, that whole thing looked great. Okay, well, does that lead us to living here the current exhibition?
Jean Munson 16:03
I love living here. What do you love about it? You know, I wish it would never go away. It just so good. It feels at home. And when I go with friends, or they visit it, and then they hit me up on LinkedIn and talk about it, it's just the fascination still hasn't died from when it has like, been put on. I, you know, I think we talked about a certain favorite, and it was just so hard. It's so hard. I love the Rough Riders piece. I love the tinikling sneakers. I love the woman with the pigeon, because doves and pigeons could mirror the, you know, religious imagery, just the amount of brilliance that is in that show just makes me so geeked. I just can't get enough of it. And so I really couldn't and even the pink boxes, the pink box, you know, for donuts being very iconic in two of other representations of two of the artists, you just have to go, yeah, it's up till December 20. I can't stress it enough. It stresses me out that you're not there yet.
Deanne Sole 17:13
No, the pink, the pink donut box thing, I did love it that we found two completely different artists, you know, who weren't working together, and they were both using the pink donut box, and they in both cases, those donut boxes had historical relevance and memory relevance, all those kinds of things. That was fantastic. So because you were a consultant, that meant we were coming to you before the exhibition actually existed when it was an idea. It was on, you know, files on a computer in our drive. It was, I think maybe a sketch on the whiteboard in our office. And we kind of brought you in there and went, so, what do you think of this? Oh my gosh. How did it feel?
Jean Munson 17:56
Then the initial email from Chloe, I think I like screamed at my computer, like how excited I was. And then when we had the meeting with the rest of the Asian American faculty, Dr Mark Padoongpatt and Dr Constancio Arnaldo, I just remember holding the papers with the potential artists, and we were just kind of floored in a great way. Like we're like, these people are really going to submit their work. You have their context. These are, these are the meanings behind their work. It was just, we were just so excited. And I remember getting the long threads of sometimes the artists or the museum staff and the communications, and just it was always generally good vibes. You know, it was just everyone was very excited. And so the launch day for the exhibit, while it was crowded of students and staff, you know, I think my favorite part, aside from really geeking out to like Emmanuel and, you know, or whatnot, but was seeing elder Asian Americans, either they were family or they were from the local organizations walking around because on the next day, I saw on their Facebook, because of mutual friends, them talking about the need to go to this exhibit and how proud they were to see such creative work apparent on our campus, and it just really was full circle then, because I really think it's hard to reach the older audiences about how important art is, because it is a field, culturally that is very discouraged, and so having that Visual on campus, of course, since academic setting and celebrated what it's so moving, it's still, I always get really, really excited thinking about the work.
Deanne Sole 19:51
Yeah, amazing, fantastic. And when you say Emmanuel, that was Emmanuel, David.
Jean Munson 19:57
Yes, yes, yes, yeah. I remember when he came up for me. I just, like, screamed, OH. Like, you know, like rockstar screamed, excited.
Deanne Sole 20:04
No, that piece is so great him. And I love, I love talking about that piece to groups who come in, because there is so much history behind it that, you know, referring to the Rough Riders, to Buffalo Bills Wild West Show, to the presence of Filipino cowboy performers in that Wild West show at the very end of the 1800s how long ago that was? And just the the sheer amount of research and serendipity as well, I mean, the fact that they were just looking through the archives, oh my God, and found this photograph that had faces in it, and realized, okay, there was this history there that had never been talked about and that we get to show part of part of them talking about it.
Jean Munson 20:50
It's just so exciting, so beautifully done that, you know, how vivid have the, you know, how they hand lettered. It's just so beautifully done on so many fronts, or even this ceramics that are throughout the the work, and I just can't even fathom how they built it, you know,
Deanne Sole 21:07
Yeah, the ceramics are great. Stephanie Shih that very those very chunky... I love the fact that when you look at those ceramics, you can almost feel her hands on them exactly that she's not trying to make them, you know, absolutely sleek and perfect. I love yes, that they have that that chunk, and that's so satisfying to look at. I love it. Okay. And so you mentioned a little bit ago that we were or I was asking you about a favorite piece, and that was for your Dry Heat comic, wasn't it? Yes, yes. So in the next issue of Dry Heat, which will be issue seven, yes, we're going to feature one of your comics. It's going to be, what about one of the works in living here? Yes, it's four glorious pages. Yes, tell us about it. Yes.
Jean Munson 21:54
So in the last two years I was able to go to the Philippines. I was going through a transitional time, and I really thought, I really want to get back to my roots. I haven't been there in over 21 years, so I went to go. And every time I left the Philippines, I got really sad. It was a sad that I couldn't trace. You know, I got help for it. And they're like, it's grief and like, how do you, how do you reconcile this particular grief, and so living here, when we spoke about it, I was about to embark on my second year of going in the Philippines, and when I walked through the exhibit, as I returned in July, I just felt like all of it was so healing. I went at a time where it was quiet, wasn't the opening night, and I think something that's understated about the exhibit are the sounds. There were sounds in Emmanuel's piece, like the street sounds, which sound just like the Philippines, which really made me feel like healed, nothing short of that. And then I saw Quindo Miller's and that--big fan Quindo like I can't, I can't state enough how brilliant it is, right? Karaoke is such a huge piece of our culture, and to have made an interactive piece with also an homage to how typhoons happen, especially in the Pacific, and framed in a way that is a reminder of the things that survive these very terrible weather moments. And so kindof spoke to me on so many different levels. And it as, as I said before, I'm a huge geek for the exhibit, but Quindo's was the one I had to filter that I felt moved me the most, that tied being a Filipino from Guam, which is so nuanced, right? I don't a lot of great artists produced in Guam, but we rarely see it in our in our city. And so I think the museum on giving Quindo such a platform, and it really informed how karaoke and storms feed into my own story, with my with people that I really love, which is my mother and grandmother that I call my Lola. And so in the next Dry Heat, we see how the exhibit has helped me, personally, in my perception of family, in my perception of my culture, and so I am excited for you to read it.
Deanne Sole 24:28
No, it's gonna be fantastic. I do. I do. I am always ready to give space to Quindo. Yes, they are so good, and I'd love to see more of their work out there in the rest of the city in more galleries, it tends to be installation work, which can be a little bit more tricky for galleries to show. You know, it's not something you can hang easily on the wall. I mean, that piece is a working karaoke machine, a television, a fake palm tree, which is taller than I am with coconut-shaped lamps on it and and the the wall pieces that are bits of her grandmother's house that, like you say, was ripped apart by a typhoon. And they've framed them, and they've hung them on the wall, and that was a late addition to the piece. I remember when they originally proposed it to us that wasn't included. It was just the karaoke machine and the TV, and the fact that they had the flexibility as an artist to incorporate that, that when this came along, they could, they could bring it in. And it does, I think, really emphasize that idea of survival, of family being not only people who are close to you, but also a kind of raft that helps you survive, yes, and that. And now I think of the rug that's underneath the karaoke machine. It like a raft. It's a raft-shaped rug. So every family that everything, it's such a complicated and it's such a complicated piece, and at the same time, you can interact with it so directly, because it is a karaoke machine. It's genius. It's genius. You've got all these parts that you can think about independently. You know, there's the fact the palm tree is is not real. You know, how does that talk about the artist's distance from the place where real palm trees were all around them, you know? Or you can just say, oh, there's a karaoke machine playing Cher right? I am gonna sing, yeah.
Jean Munson 26:36
Shout out to Quindo's playlist, like those minus ones that they used and to give context to that particular typhoon, war like that typhoon was so harsh on Guam it shut down the airport. It created a waterfall in the airport. It devastated the schools, like so for Quindo to build that as a memory of that and still make it genius. I blow it away, yeah, blow it away.
Deanne Sole 27:03
And the fragments are beautiful too. I mean, they're kind of a pinkish Yeah, they're fragments of wood. They came from a piece of furniture that had had pictures collaged onto it. So you have this very pink surface. It looks fragmented and rough. It has little hints of picture on it. It's framed against a dark green background. It just looks gorgeous. So amazing. Okay, I think we're almost out of time. Thank you so much for being my guest here. Is there anything else that you'd like to add before we wind up?
Jean Munson 27:34
It is, you know, a free space for art and education. I look forward to any of the future exhibits, you know, and I just want to say thank you and celebrate the staff for always being mindful and trying their best to be cultural, culturally empathetic for these narratives that have been rooted in the diaspora. Because, you know, when you think about diaspora, it's just like it seems fluid and airy, but the Barrick Museum has given it a place to land and a place to speak for those who come.
Deanne Sole 28:09
Thanks and living here is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. I should add that, thank you. Thank you again, and we'll see you later. Yay.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai