I was interviewed for an episode of the have company podcast, a podcast that talks about artist's best practices in creativity, business, and self-care. You can listen on the website or subscribe to the whole series on iTunes.
​http://have-company.com/podcast/2016/9/15/episode-forty-six-in-conversation-with-eliza-fernand

Instead of running the artist residency at Shared Space this summer, my co-facilitator Mary Rothlisberger and I have curated a group exhibition at the Fed Galleries of KCAD in downtown Grand Rapids.
Established in 2011, the residency at Shared Space Studio offered visiting artists and artists-in- residence facilities and support in a secluded and beautiful setting of rural west Michigan. During the summers, 34 artists from across the US and Canada have lived in Pentwater and produced work in collaboration with the community. During their stay, they made new work inspired by the environment and fostered by the facility, while engaging the local community and offering fresh ideas.
The range of artistic discipline and experience has been broad and inclusive; musicians, performers, writers, zinesters, painters, choreographers, ceramicists, designers, filmmakers, quilters, illustrators, animators, and photographers have all worked together at Shared Space Studio. As a collection, the body of work formed and performed within this space is complex and unique. This exhibition brings together this diverse group and showcases the spirit of collaboration and creative placemaking. Honoring the studio itself, and the town of Pentwater, The Land of Here and Now pairs documentation of the artists’ process and play with a group show of new work by 27 of the past residents. In the tradition of including the public in our process, there will be performance and interactive programming for the run of the show, from early June to late July, 2016.
Check the gallery website for a full list of events.

The Land of Here and Now is a title borrowed from our favorite local folk hero, Swift Lathers. Lathers (1889-1970) wrote and published the worlds smallest weekly newspaper for 40 years, homesteaded in the Silver Lake Dunes, and was famous for hitchhiking everywhere he went and wearing a peculiar outfit every day. 

I am spending two weeks in LA, gathering discarded materials from the garment district and building a small sculpture park in the courtyard of Now Space LA. 

Now Space LA is located at 5390 Alhambra Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90032
Opening reception April 22nd 6-9pm  / Work on view 1-5pm April 23rd + 24th

I was commissioned to draw a vinyl window wrap mural for the LA Little Tokyo pop-up location of the Harmony Murphy Gallery. It was fun to play with drawing in colored pencil and dropping in scanned fabric, and I designed the doorway to reflect the architecture of the Historic Brunswig Drug Company building that it is installed on.
Take a look at it in person at 358 E 2nd St Los Angeles, CA 90012

As a resident artist at RTS from December 3rd to December 28th, I had the opportunity to collaborate with New Mexico quilt artist, Violette Alby. We shared a studio in Oakland's Chinatown and worked together with 250 lbs of fabric from Violette's collection, as well as fabric we scrounged from the area. We visited the improvisational quilts on view at the Oakland Museum of California and the home of quilt collector Eli Leon. Friends joined in at our workshop to create large patchwork banners that will be on display for the 2016 Open Engagement conference in April. I also created a patchwork curtain for my host's bath house out of his discarded clothing.

I have finished my largest mural project to date. Located in downtown Grand Rapids, the mural is 80 by 22 feet, flanked by two other murals by artists George Eberhart and Nick Nortier. Completed in August 2015, the murals were commissioned by the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art.
Photography by Hannah Elmore

I have a new solo exhibition at the Art League Gallery in the South Bend Museum of Art:
Collecting Scraps
July 11—September 13, 2015 | Art League Gallery
Reception: September 4, 2015 | 5:00 – 9:00 p.m
South Bend Museum of Art | 120 S. St. Joseph Street, South Bend, IN 46601

I am leaving behind a lot of content that was on my old site, letting go of things that had collected there over the last seven years, including an archive of photos and a long list of news updates. I have a short list of links that showcase the residencies I have been a part of that are of particular importance to me:
Frontier Fellowship
Attic 19
The Quilt Studio of Violette Alby
Elsewhere Artist Collaborative