As director of the Graphic Design Research Initiative at the University of Houston-Downtown (2014-2017), my student team and I collaborated with Writers in the Schools (WITS), a 30+ year old non-profit organization that helps cultivate reading and writing among minority school children, in the design and production of a public concrete poetry/expressive typography design exhibition based on poems collected from students who have participated in WITS’ writing workshops. In May 2016, the first series of poems were exhibited at MOCA, the Houston City Hall Underground Gallery. The collection was then acquired by the University of Houston-Downtown and added to its permanent collection.
A second series was produced in the Spring of 2017. The artwork is sold at WITS fundraising events to support the continuation of their reading and writing workshops and education programs in low-income communities in Houston, Texas.
Exhibition tunnel area under the Houston City Hall
I designed and produced the exhibition alongside three students from my GDRI team: Faith Pruneda, Gabe Morales, and Grace Sivils (not in picture)
Selection of some of my compositions from the first series
Sample compositions from the second series
