Iviva Olenick – Brooklyn, NY – ivivaolenick@gmail.com
347-563-6340
TEACHING and PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Artist, BAC SU-CASA Grant, Krakus Senior Center, Brooklyn, NY. 2022
* Re-introduced senior participants to textile arts, including weaving and embroidery.
* Collaborated with seniors and Program Coordinator to identify traditional Polish folk patterns and translate them into embroideries, including a map of Poland with motifs specific to each region.
* Organized a culminating exhibition of framed embroideries with a public reception.
Teaching Artist, Studio in a School, NY, NY. 11/2021-Current.
* Participated in Boot Camp, SIAS intensive portfolio development program for middle schoolers applying to specialized art high schools. This includes collaborating with DOE art teacher and other SIAS Teaching Artists to share updated application guidelines and provide support to individual students developing final drawings using layering and shading with colored pencils.
* Lead hands-on art making for K-5th grade public school students in a range of media through 6-14-week Teaching Artist Residencies. Lessons start with drawing, reviewing different kinds of lines, shapes, pencil use and shading, and scaffold up to media-specific explorations, including oil pastel drawing, collage and more.
Faculty, SVA, TARP (The Artist Residency Program), NY, NY. 8/2020-Current
* Provide one-on-one critiques and studio visits for adult, emerging artists via Zoom. Artists range in age from post-college to senior citizens.
* Lead hands-on fiber arts workshops (natural dyeing, embroidery, paper-making, weaving), contextualizing fiber arts within social practice projects and social history.
Artist, BAC SU-CASA Grant, BCA Senior Center, Brooklyn, NY. 2020
* Awarded a SU-CASA grant from BAC to lead textile arts workshops at BCA (Brooklyn Chinese American Senior Center)
* Before COVID lockdown, led hands-on textile arts workshops in embroidery and weaving, encouraging students to use these crafts to create personally meaningful artworks.
* After lockdown, when I was unable to continue providing hands-on artmaking, I created a digital slideshow celebrating participants’ artwork.
Teaching Artist, BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY. 9/2019-Current
* Collaborate with other Teaching Artists and school classroom teachers to lead after school programs in journalism, mixed media visual arts and stop motion animation for K-5th graders at Brooklyn public schools all over the borough.
* Art making with 2nd graders has included embroidery, quilting, collage, assemblage, book arts and mixed media drawing; art making with 4th and 5th graders has included drawing, painting, collage, mixed media, and writing and research support for school newspaper articles and faculty interviews.
* Developed programming for family, walk-in art making at Industry City, including one-page artist books, collage and weaving.
* Led Zoom after school workshops for K-2nd and 6th-8th graders incorporating drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, assemblage and mixed media.
Faculty, SVA MFA Art Practice Program, NY, NY. 4/2017-Current
* Teach Fibers, introducing 1st-year students to hand and digital embroidery, digital print design, weaving, crochet, soft sculpture, natural dyeing, historic, contemporary and community intersections. Classes have been taught in-person and virtually.
* Mentor 2nd- and 3rd-year students, providing guidance as they develop mature body of work;
* Participate in group critiques, providing guidance to students as they premier and develop new works;
* Conduct individual studio visits, providing feedback and support on works in progress.
Brooklyn Textile Farm, NY, NY. 2/2017-Current
* Propagate colonial textile crops, cotton, flax and indigo from seed
* Collaborate with Brooklyn Botanic Garden Education Greenhouse to sow seeds; GrowNYCs Governors Island Teaching Garden, Wyckoff House Museum, Brooklyn and Old Stone House, Brooklyn to plant crops at public sites and lead public dye and fiber-making workshops for adults, children and seniors
* Secure funding from Puffin Foundation West, Puffin Foundation and BAC to distribute grow kits and dye kits to New York-based participants
PT Lower School Art Teacher, Hannah Senesh Day School, Brooklyn, NY. 9/2016-Current
* Develop curriculum and lead hands-on art-making for K-4th grade students at independent school. Content often integrates with science, social studies and ELA, including students writing poems about weaving; researching Lenape artifacts and contemporary artworks, and creating mixed media drawings, paintings and sculptures in response; planting seeds for dye plants; hand-weaving with yarns dyed with plants grown together at school or found locally
* During covid, re-developed hands-on art curriculum to accommodate students learning from home on Zoom, and incorporated digital tools learning apps (Seesaw and Google Classroom).
Teaching Artist, School Partnerships, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, NY. 8/2014-Current
* Write curricula and lead workshops in drawing, painting, color theory, printmaking, collage, weaving, sculpture, assemblage for 14-21 year old students in special needs high school, M79 Horan School. Classes have been in person and virtually on Google Meets.
* Write lesson plans inspired by works in the permanent collection with instructions for hands-on art making for educators and the public, shared on the Studio Museum website.
* Collaborate with classroom teacher to manage student art making, participation in discussions, acquisition of new vocabulary and reinforcement of social-emotional skills;
* Create media presentations and other learning tools for in-person instruction;
* During quarantine, translated lesson plans into instructional videos, and transitioned from in-person to virtual teaching;
* Lead inquiry-based tours at Museum and partner sites for public schools, adults, college students.
Teaching Artist, New Museum Community Partnerships, NY, NY. 9/2015-Current
* Develop inquiry-based exhibition tours and hands-on art making workshops incorporating drawing, painting, collage, assemblage, textile design, spoken word, mixed media sculpture
* Engage students with wide range of educational backgrounds and prior art experience. Partners include public high schools, LGBTQ youth, homeless adults, seniors, formerly incarcerated adults, adults with chronic illness, special needs children and teens.
* Develop online lesson plans for families to try at home, called Kids Menus
* Develop Educator Guides about current exhibitions for high school teachers, and co-lead PDs for high school and college educators
* Lead virtual tours for public high school students
Instructor, Center for Book Arts, NY, NY. 2010-Current
* Develop new adult workshops intersecting book and textile arts, including teaching soft sculpture, textual embroidery/ embroidery as book arts, paper making, natural dyeing with yard and kitchen waste. Classes are both virtual and in-person.
* Work with students to develop meaningful individual projects incorporating new hands-on skills
* Participate in artist talks for exhibits Interdisciplinary Collaborations (2014), and Opulence: All that Glitters Is Not Gold (2018)
SOLO and 2-PERSON EXHIBITS
2021
Threads. Continuum Fine Art and Photography. Greenwood Lake, NY. 2-person exhibit with Melanie Fischer.
Borders Are Meant to Be Crossed. Center for Book Arts. NY, NY
2020
States of Emergenc(y)e. Society for Domestic Museology. NY, NY
2019
Embroidered Love Notes. Muriel Guepin Gallery. NY, NY}
2018
(Im)Migration Lines. Wyckoff House Museum. Brooklyn, NY culmination of 15-month residency
2017
Past and Present. 2-person exhibit. Muriel Guepin Gallery, NY, NY
2015
Native/Immigrant City. Solo window residency. Workshop Gallery Artists Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
Reach Out and Touch Me. Solo exhibit for Co-Create Residency. IMC Lab & Gallery, NY, NY
2014
Embroidered/Woven Poetry Bridge. Solo exhibit. Weaving Hand Residency, Brooklyn, NY
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITS
2022
Acid Garden. Charles Moffett Gallery. NY, NY
Cats & Dogs. ABC No Rio Gallery in Exile (Chashama). NY, NY
Brooklyn Utopias: Along the Canal. OSH & Washington Park. Brooklyn, NY
Among Friends. Equity Gallery. NY, NY
Thread in Motion. East Village Art View. NY, NY
Atlantic Avenue Art Walk. Belarusian Church. Brooklyn, NY
2021
Unartisanal. ABC No Rio. NY, NY
Altered Grain. Stay Home Gallery. Paris, TN
2020
Americans Looking In. Center for Book Arts. NY, NY
Window Shopping. Kastan Art Space. Greenburg, NY
Making a Way. South Bend Museum of Art. South Bend, IN
Spring Flash. New York Artist Equity Association. NY, NY
Reflections. St. Joseph’s College. Brooklyn, NY
2019
Race and Revolution: Still Separate – Still Unequal. Penn State, State College, PA and
August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Politics of Place. Center for Book Arts. NY, NY
2018
Freedom of the Presses. Booklyn. Brooklyn, NY
Race and Revolution: Still Separate – Still Unequal. Pingry School. Basking Ridge, NJ
For Which It Stands. Commissioned to make activist flag. Old Stone House. Brooklyn, NY
Arts First. Bucknell University. Lewisburg, PA
Opulence. The Center for Book Arts, NY, NY
Nou La – We Reach! Wyckoff House Museum. Brooklyn, NY
Making Change: The Art and Craft of Activism. Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), Atlanta, GA
2017
Intimate Lines. Hunterdon Art Museum. Clinton, NJ
Race & Revolution: Still Separate – Still Unequal. Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
Juan Rulfo Cumple Cien/Juan Rulfo Turns 100. AAA3A, Bronx, NY
Reverberation, Inauguration Day. Brooklyn Workshop Gallery, Brooklyn
Readings on Peace for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Queens Museum, Queens, NY
2016
The more things change, the more they stay the same. St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn, NY
Maximum Craft. Signature Craft, Atlanta, GA
Partners, Parents, Pets: Contemporary Portraiture. The Old Stone House, Brooklyn, NY
TXT: art, language, media. Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, NY, NY
2014
TXTED. Salisbury University Gallery, Electronic Gallery & Downtown Campus, Salisbury, MD
Livre d’Artiste d’Aujourd’hui. Center for Book Arts, NY, NY
Stitched: An Invitational Small Works Show. Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY
AWARDS & COMMISSIONS
2021 Community Arts Fund Grant from BAC for Brooklyn Textile Farm
2019 Community Arts Fund Grant for Plant(n)ation: Brooklyn as Farm
2018 Community Arts Fund Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for (Im)migration Lines Wyckoff House Artist Residency
2017 Megina Shlain Textile Award, Workshop Gallery Artists Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
2017 Puffin Foundation West grant for Reap What You Sew
2015 Commissioned to make artwork honoring Karen Brooks Hopkins’ retirement from BAM, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Community Arts Fund Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for Native/Immigrant City
2013 Community Arts Fund Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for @EmbroideryPoems #BrooklynTweets
2011 Community Arts Fund Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for The Brooklyn Love Exchange
FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES and AFFILIATIONS
2023 NYCAIER Teaching Artist Mentorship Award
2021 Awarded NEH-Schomburg Center Fellowship to study Harlem’s Education Movements, education-specific advocacy and activism during the Civil Rights Movement in Harlem
8/2017-7/2018 Artist in Residence, (Im)migration Lines project, Wyckoff House, Brooklyn, NY
10/26-11/1/2015 Artist in Residence, Brooklyn Workshop Gallery/Workshop Gallery Artists, Brooklyn, NY
Fall 2015 Bead Project, Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY
5/2014-2/2015, Co-Create Artist Residency at IMC Lab and Gallery, New York, NY
2/2014-2016, Curator in Residence at The Brooklyn Cottage, Brooklyn, NY
9/2013-1/2014, Resident Teaching Artist at Weaving Hand Studio, Brooklyn, NY
2011 BRIC Media Arts Fellowship
EDUCATION
BA Psychology/French Language & Literature, SUNY Binghamton
AAS Textile/Surface Design, Fashion Institute of Technology