Update 04/22/08

Christa Donner: Extra Sensory
The International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N. Lakeshore Drive (inner drive), Chicago, IL
May 2 - July 18, 2008
Hey hey Chicagoans, I'm finally bringin' the art back home, showing a selection of recent work amidst the giant kidney stones and antique forceps of the International Museum of Surgical Science! There will be zines, there will be photographs, there will be drawings, and maybe there'll even be some anatomically-themed cupcakes (we'll see). I'll be showing work from my collaborative project with teens in rural Illinois, along with a new drawing-based installation and several new works on paper. Show opens Friday, May 2 from 5-7pm. Can't wait to see you there!

Zines, Comics, and other Hip Lit Fair
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E. Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL
May 17th, 12 noon - 4 pm
Explore scads of amazing self-published materials at this year's Hip Lit Fair at the Museum of Contemporary Art and featuring everyone from Paul Hornshchemeier to Sally Ranchhouse Publishing to the fantabulous Lilli Carre. I'll be there, hawking all 10 issues of Ladyfriend Zine along with my new publishing projects, Re:Production, the Demedicalization Manifesto, and Translucent Transformation zine, along with offerings from the Small Science Collective! Stop by my table and say hi!

Update 01/20/08

Outlaw Printmakers
Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, MO
Feb 23 - March 2, 2008
This February, the Project Room at the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis will be overtaken by edgy multiples, thanks to badass printer Tom Huck, who has turned his solo show into a curatorial project. The exhibition includes several works by yours truly alongside much inky amazingness by Sue Coe, Tony Fitzpatrick, Cannonball Press, and Huck's press, Evil Prints. I'm honored to be counted among their ranks.

Re(Re)Production
SPACES Gallery
2220 Superior Viaduct, Cleveland, OH
Jan 18 - March 7, 2008
Those of you in or near Ohio, mark this Friday on your calendar! I'll be in Cleveland to debut Re(Re)Production, a new body of work examining diverse approaches to fertility, biology, and identity through a series of drawings, a wall installation, a brand new interview-based zine, and an animated film made in collaboration with biologist/artist extraordinaire Andrew Yang. The show represents the culmination of my residency through the SPACES World Artist Program, and is presented as part of the larger group exhibition Phenomena(l), an exhibition exploring the interface between artistic practice and scientific research. I'll be giving a free public lecture at SPACES at 6pm this Friday, so stop by and say hello! More info's at: www.spacesgallery.org

INTERVIEW on NPR's 'AROUND NOON'
I'll be on Cleveland's WVIZ 90.3FM January 15th, talkin' all about the new work I'm debuting at SPACES this Friday. You can hear my interview on Tuesday's Around Noon show at around, well, noon if you're in Cleveland. If you're not in Ohio/missed the show, tune in on the Around Noon Archive while it's still up for a while.

RE:PRODUCTIVE Zine
I've been intensively exploring the complexities of human reproduction by doing a little reproduction of my own -- zine style, that is. Re:Productive debuted as part of my exhibition in Cleveland this Friday, and copies are now available for the ordering. The zine includes a selection of interviews I conducted with more than thirty women this past summer on the combined topics of identity and fertility. You'll find a diverse range of perspectives inside, from women who never, ever want to bear young to those who've gone through a decade of treatments to do just that. Single mamas, egg donors, lesbian couples, and doulas-in-training all give their perspectives on everything from abortions to epidurals. It's pretty interesting stuff.

Interested? Skeptical? Curious? Order your copy by sending $5 in well-concealed cash to me at
PO Box 6571
Chicago, IL 60680-6571

MADE MAGAZINE
If you're in Chicago, keep your eyes peeled for the glossy new MADE Magazine, produced by Columbia College. The current issue is edited by Terence Hannum and features a four-page article on my work by Alison Rhoades, along with great full-color spreads on cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, artist Chris Johanson, curator/critic Lane Relyea, artist-book/comics printmakers Buenaventura Press, and much much more.

Update 07/11/07

Drawing Show
Lisa Boyle Gallery,
1821 W. Hubbard, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL
July 14 - September 8, 2007
Chicagoans can come check out the new incarnation of my modular "Epidemic" wall piece and another rather elaborate standalone drawing at Lisa Boyle's summer Drawing Show, which features an eclectic mix of inky, papery goodness by a slew of hotshot Chicago artists. Stop by and say hello at the opening reception, which runs from 6-9pm on Saturday, July 14th, or catch the show on a quieter day through September 8th.

Pedagogical Factory
Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
July 22 - September 23, 2007
I'm proud to have my zine, "Free Advice" included in Pedagogical Factory, a fascinating exhibition "exploring strategies for an educated city" and organized by the brilliant folks of the Stockyard Institute. Those of you who missed the chance to read the advice of 60 random strangers I polled and published some time ago will have the chance to peruse the zine thisaway, alongside all sorts of other interesting artist publications, workshops, performances, and other horizon-expanding art.


TACTILE: High Touch Visuals
Die Gestalten Verlag Publishing
I'm excited to have my work included in Tactile, a rather gorgeous new book of 2D-meets-3D visual culture, produced by the Berlin-based folks who published the recent Hidden track: How Visual Culture is Going Places. Tactile hits the streets this September 07.

Update 12/20/06

The Girl’s Room
Jan Bekman Gallery, New York, NY
Dec 20, 2006 – Jan 13, 2007
If you're in New York this month, stop by Jan Bekman Gallery at 6 Spring Street (between Elizabeth and Bowery) to see The Girl’s Room, an exhibition of small works on paper by amazing young women artists including Swoon, Maya Hayuk, Elizabeth Huey, Esther Pearl Watson, and, you know… me. The show’s curated by badass independent curator and artist Chloe Derderian, as part of her new organization, the Dreier Project, which will soon include a digital zine archive and plenty more interesting events to come.

Joined at the Hip
Country Club Chicago, IL
Jan 19 – February 9th, 2007
Next up is a show at Country Club Chicago, an occasional artspace run by graphic designers at 1100 N. Damen. Stevie Greco curates this exhibition on artistic accessibility and DIY culture, making connections between drawings, zines, silkscreened posters, and independent rock music. The show’s set up like a living room, with artist-made publications splayed out on a coffee table, drawings and screenprinted posters on the walls, a coloring book (made by me) to color creatively, and live music by good bands to ensure the collapse of any lingering art-world pretensions in the room. The party’s on from 7-11pm, and also features work by Mat Daly, Terrence Hannum, Jonathan Krohn, and Marissa Yelnick, with live performances by local bands Male and Sharks & Seals starting at 8.

Animal House
Chicago, IL
February, 2007
I don’t know the exact dates for this one yet, but at some point this February I’ll be half of a two-person show at Animal House, a brand new artspace in Pilsen run by experimental filmmaker and curator Ben Russell, who is best explained further at ww.dimeshow.com. My work will accompany a screening by an as-yet-undisclosed filmmaker selected by Ben’s expert eye. More on this event as it develops!

FEMINIST COMICS IN A TIN HOUSE
Not too long ago, I teamed up with fantabulous writer and comics critic Anne Elizabeth Moore to create a three-page duotone comic entitled “Why Are There No Great Women Comics Artists?” Now you can check out our sixteen-part response to this ridiculous question in the gorgeous, thick 29th issue of the fancy literary magazine “Tin House,” available in finer independent bookstores everywhere and also on the internet. A black and white version of the comic will appear in Ariel Bordeaux's fantastic zine, Grace Comics Showcase this month. You can find a small version of it here if you scroll down, but unfortunately it's a little hard to read.

PARTICIPATORY AUTONOMY
You can also find some new drawings by yours truly in the forthcoming book put together by smart artist and friend-o-mine Rick Gribenas, due out this January. It’ll be a solid and interesting publication, featuring essays and artwork by contemporary artists, architects, scientists, musicians, and other makers of culture, all focusing on the concept of “participatory autonomy,” with a CD of collaborative sound to go with.

TRANSLUCENT TRANSFORMATION ZINES
One reason I’ve been so incredibly delinquent in getting out the 10th issue of Ladyfriend zine is that I spent the summer putting together a totally different but also amazing publication project called Translucent Transformation. The zine was a collaborative project created by myself and a team of seven teenagers based in McHenry County, IL, where we interviewed community members about their bodily experiences and translated their stories into 55 pages of text and original artwork, topped off with silkscreened covers and a rubber-band binding. The result is hilarious, moving, fascinating, and something I’m incredibly proud of.

It’s a very limited-edition thing, but for the time being I can still send you a copy for $5 plus $2 for postage (that’s $7 for you mathophobics), with all the proceeds going to Blue Sky Project to fund future artist-teen collaborations. You can also find copies in a number of small bookstores and public zine archives, including the Salt Lake City public Library (UT), Charm City Art Space (MD), Community Arts & Media Project and the homeless literacy project Books for Bums (MO), the Wisconsin Historical Society Zine Archive (WI), Napartheid’s Fanzinoteka (Spain), Misfit Theatre Zine Library (New Zealand), Clovis Press (NY), Reading Frenzy (OR), Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago (IL), and lawdy - you can even download a PDF version of it (minus the silkscreened covers) here!

Update 10/11/06
A WHOLE SLEW OF ARTIST LECTURES:
Think you’d enjoy seeing me blather on about images of my recent artwork? If for some unexplainable reason the answer is “yes,” then you’ll have several opportunities to do so in the coming months. Here are some of the places you can catch me in the act:

Chicago 10/06
Tuesday, October 24th, Harold Washington College
I’ll be doing a workshop for students and public lecture at Harold Washington College in downtown Chicago on Tuesday the 24th. The talk is open to anyone interested, and begins at 5:45pm. For more info, e-mail Alberto Aguilar at aaguilar@ccc.edu.

It looks like I’ll also be giving a lecture and workshop to a class of art students exploring biological visualization at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this month, and a few visiting artist lectures for colleagues' classes at the U of Illinois at Chicago. which should be kind of exciting as well.

Massachusetts & Connecticut 11/06
November 15th, and 16th
If you’re on the East Coast, feel free to stop by one of the two lectures I’ll be doing at colleges in the area. I’ll be doing graduate studio visits and a lecture at the University of Masachussetts at Amherst starting at 7pm on Wednesday the 15th, and on
Thursday, November 16th, you can catch me at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, CT, where I’ll be doing a talk co-sponsored by the studio arts and women’s studies departments there at 3:30. If you think you might actually make it out to one of these, let me know!

Indiana Zine Workshops 3/07
I'll be returning to my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana to present two multigenerational workshops on body image + self-publishing at the brand new, zine-friendly downtown Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana during Women's History Month on March 9th and 10th.

POLVO MINI-EXHIBITION Oct 13 - Nov 4th, 2006
Oct 13th from 6-10 PM, Polvo gallery debuts a small taste of the much larger body of work I began this summer in collaboration with a team of rural teenagers, who helped me to interview strangers on the street about their experiences with health and illness, injury and disability, beauty and body image. These stories were then translated into a zine, an audio CD, a set of wearable collage-drawings, and a series of photographs documenting the teenagers wearing the alternate body systems they created, set against the backdrop of the school gymnasiums, county fairs, and cornfields of their native McHenry County. The show's on at Polvo, located at Laflin and 18th Street in Chicago.

My mini-exhibition accompanies “Propagation,” an exhibition curated by artist Sabrina Raaf focusing on cultural makers who bypass traditional exhibition systems (eg. galleries, museums, magazines, etc.) by creating their own methods and systems for distributing their art or message. Stop by and say hello if you're in the neighborhood! Both shows are open on Saturdays and by appointment through November 4th.

Update 5/11/06
DOGMATIC COMICS / OPEN STUDIO (Chicago)
Saturday, May 13th 2006, I’ll exhibit a multi-part wall installation exploring physical and psychological epidemics, along with my big silkscreened artist’s book on demedicalization as part of this great group show at the Dogmatic/Butchershop space called “Narratives, Sequences, Characters”. As if that weren’t enough, I’ll be opening my studio doors to anyone who’s curious to take a peek inside… since the gallery and studio are right nearby.

The exhibition will run ONE WEEK ONLY (May 13th through May 20th) with a public opening reception from 6-10pm on May 13th. Dogmatic Gallery is located in the Butcher Shop artist's space at 1319 Lake St, 3rd Floor. General gallery hours are from noon - 6pm on Saturdays or by appointment: dogmatic@msn.com. Evening and weekend street parking is available on Lake Street, and CTA access is provided by the Green Line Train, its Ashland stop being just a couple blocks West of the gallery.

BLUE SKY PROJECT RESIDENCY
This summer I’ve been invited as a visiting artist at a great artist residency project in rural IL, working collaboratively with a team of 7-8 teenagers to produce a new body of work including health-related zines, wearable body systems, and a performative photography project I've been wanting to try out. There should be plenty of pictures and updates to add as the project progresses.

Update 3/7/06
ENDLESS AND EVOLVING (Michigan)
If you’re in Ann Arbor this month you can be one of the first to see my new artists book project, a sort of wacky homage to biologist/artist Ernst Haeckel. It’s part of the exhibition “Endess Forms: Engaging Evolution,” on view at the University’s “Work” Gallery (306 State Street) from February 24 – March 24. The show gives new (and improved) meaning to the term “intelligent design,” full of awesome nerdy beauty by artists and scientists from all over the world. If you’re in town, come and say hello during the free opening reception on Friday, March 10.

ART + SCIENCE, TOGETHER AT LAST!
I'm all giddy about this new web project called ArtSci Chicago, which I helped launch with brilliant biologist/artist Andy Yang this week. The site is a resource and networking space for those interested in the intersection between art and science, and features a growing list of links to art-sciencey people, events, and projects going on in the vicinity of Chicago. Read all about an artist trip to Fermilab, see pictures of fluorescent human chromosomes, find out what events are happening this month, and so much more!

VERSIONFEST ART BATTLE (Chicago)
This April I'll be participating in another action-packed art battle, a public drawing duel in which two teams of amazing comics artists vie for audience approval using only their imaginations, mad drawing skills, and a couple of markers. Come on down to support my team!

The battle takes place at 9pm on Saturday, April 22nd, at the Version Kunsthalle at Iron Studios: 3636 S Iron St. 4th Floor. Tickets to this event (and the rest of the festival's Urban Gardening and Exterior Decorating Event) are $8 general/$5 students for a whole evening’s worth of fun.

MEDIA BOMB
Tint, a great new magazine for women of all colors and sizes, just interviewed me for its third issue. I’m not sure when the magazine will hit the stands, but if you’re interested in what they do be sure to visit their website.

The Summer issue of Venus will be out soon, featuring an article on ladies in comics. You'll find artwork and plenty of quotes on the topic from yours truly as well as many other fabulous artists.

You can also find nice reproductions of my work in the Spring 2006 issue of Polvo, published by the fantastic Chicago artspace of the same name.

In case some of you were wondering, my own zine Ladyfriend, is still in production for it’s amazing and extra-special 10th issue. It’s gonna be the biggest, baddest issue so far, focusing on female friendships of all kinds. Biological tree-wasp bonding, friendship breakups, grade school note-passing, and lady-centric outreach are just a few of the topics we’ll explore. I’m currently seeking funding to print LF10 up properly, so if you know of anyone interested in donating a lil’ something to support such a project, please let me know!

Update 10/8/05
DRAWIN' IT UP IN NYC
If you get your hustle on, you can still catch a look at my latest sculptural corner drawing in the group show Drawn at Kravets-Wehby Gallery in NYC. The show also features cool works on paper by Wendell Gladstone, Aya Uekawa, Gajin Fujita, and others. Drawn is up from September 10 - October 15th.

SWEDISH ART PARTY
My recent trip to Sweden sparked some impromptu artmaking, which in turn led to an exhibition at Galerie Wuthering Heights in Malmo, Sweden with fabulous sound-artists Rick Gribenas and Mathias Kristersson. Rick and Mathias performed a collaborative piece involving laptops, sound vibrations, and stickless drums while visitors viewed my work and read copies of Ladyfriend zine. Pictures of the new Swedish drawings will be up on this site soon!

CONNECTING AT THE U of CONNECTICUT
Good news CT-ers, in mid-January I'll be heading out to the University of Connecticut at Storrs to spend five days making a brand new site-specific wall work for the Contemporary Art Galleries there, as well as doing a public lecture and meeting with students. If you're in the area, stop by! I'll be sharing the galleries with fellow badass drawer Deborah Grant, and there'll be a nice brochure to show the folks back home.


Update 6/10/05
"DRAWN OUT" IN CHICAGO
Hey hey, Chicagoans, it looks like I'll have several three-dimensional drawings in the upcoming exhibition "Drawn Out," at Gallery 400, located at 1240 West Harrison. The exhibition opens with a free reception on Thursday, June 23rd from 5-8pm. I'll be there, so come say hi! The show's up 'til August 8th, so if you miss the opening there's plenty of time to go check it out. More info on the exhibition and images of everybody's work can be found on the
Gallery 400: Drawn Out Exhibition site. The show's getting great press in Art on Paper, Time Out Chicago, and New City, too.