DUENDE. Leap of Faith. Painting ~

I was a self taught painter, impoverished and in rural Virginia, and Painted my way back to California.

When I took my leap of faith to commit to being myself, an artist, my jump led me to create my first series of paintings, inspired by and channeling duende. I was a self taught painter, impoverished and in rural Virginia. Those action paintings became my ticket back to my native California, in the form of scholarships to art college. 1996, back in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was so fortunate to find and become a part of the long standing community of flamenco artists. I would attend shows and make gestural drawings. As a way to give back, to collaborate, and keep in mind this was before the days of social media, I created a monthly website magazine.

With roots in North Beach alongside the Beatniks and still going strong today, the artistry of flamenco is rich here in Northern California.

View the SF FLAMENCO Interviews Archive here.

Arts and Social Justice
Art Addressing Real World Needs

Arts and Social Justice Programs Engelund is a founding member of the California College of the Arts Center for Art and Public Life where he worked for eleven years developing programs for artists to collaborate with communities locally and across the globe to address real world issues. He transformed the work study program putting art college students to work directly with schools, community organizations, and hospitals providing over 9,000 hours of arts based expertise supporting our communities every year. This program’s success paved the way for Engelund to create the Center’s grant program in which art college students and their community based partners collaborated to create projects that directly address in a real world needs. These grant funded projects have now taken place across the globe giving artists and their community partners opportunities for projects such as creating a entrepreneurial start up fashion business designing affordable shoes from repurposed materials in Africa, to arts education resources being delivered and taught in rural areas of South America, to public school arts projects in Oakland and more.

CCA Center for Art and Public Life Student in Action booklet 2005

FOREWORD

The CCA Center for Art and Public Life develops innovative applications of the arts to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, community development, and education. Artists' inherent talents and skills-developed from exploring personal and cultural landscapes-can be utilized to transform society. The blank canvas becomes a challenge to vitalize public life. Aesthetics are nomadic, applicable in different cultural and social contexts. Composition is a gestalt of community-defined needs and is, at its best, sustainable. The technique is collaboration. Its shape is partnership. Its color is positive transformative change. And the result is vitality for all the people involved.

This book showcases Students in Action projects from 2000 to 2005 made possible by the generous support of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and other funders and partners. The Students in Action programs are based on a combination of community arts practice and a service learning framework. Learning by the act of serving: through developing partnerships, these programs have succeeded in simultaneously serving the public's needs and student learning at CCA. Community service federal work-study funds are a stable resource available to almost any college or university interested in beginning their own programs. Collaborations emerge through dialogue, giving participants the chance to articulate their needs as well as their resources. Through sharing and working together, projects were created.

The students in the Center's Students in Action programs have the opportunity to advance through the curriculum, eventually graduating to become professional artist-citizens. After graduation many students have been hired to continue their work with their community partners. Another focus of the programs is to encourage transformative change through dialogue between the public and the college. Art projects were designed, solutions were created, classes were developed, and lasting partnerships were formed. During the Center's formative years, this set of extracurricular programs helped create the foundation of the BFA in Community Arts at CCA, the first art college to offer this degree.

I've been very fortunate to have the opportunity to help develop these programs at the Center. I'd like to bring attention and gratitude to the folks who have worked together to make these programs possible-the Center for Art and Public Life staff, past and present; all at CCA; our partners, funders, and, of course, all the artists, from kindergartners to the professionals, espe- cially the CCA students who worked on all the Center projects. For more information, please visit our website at www.cca.edu/center.

-Jason Engelund
April 2005
Click on an image below, excerpts from the booklet, to see examples of our past projects.

“…pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible in the medium of photography… It is leading a global dialogue on the redefinition of the medium.”

— Deborah Klochko, Executive Director, Museum of Photographic Arts at the San Diego Museum of Art, Boundless group exhibition 2017.

France ~ Artist Residency & Exhibition

Engelund’s exhibition in France Esprit sur la Route / Spirit on the Highway celebrated the paintings he made while there, which marked a transition in his studio practice shifting further into painting. View the artworks in the series Transcendental Road.

Video DOCUMENTARY ON JASON ENGELUND

Art.By.Artists in depth interview with artist Jason Engelund focuses on inspirations, philosophies and studio practices that compose Jason’s art practice. From early childhood to exhibiting at the Museum of Photographic Arts at the San Diego Museum of Art. From witnessing injustices to developing arts programs addressing social justice. From postmodernism to metamodernism. From memory to metaphor. Get a personal view inside the artist’s life, career and studio practices in abstracting film photography, poetry and painting.

Crayola Arts Education Grant
A.R.T.s ~ Arts Resources for Teachers

Contemporary Voices in Arts Education and the A.R.T.s: Arts Resources for Teachers
In 2017 Jason Engelund received a grant from Crayola for his three year project “Contemporary Voices in Arts Education” and gave a year of monthly professional development seminars to public school teachers. Working in collaboration with the teachers as a part of the seminars Engelund developed a website of arts education resources for teachers and anyone on the internet to use.

Visit the A.R.T.s Arts Resources for Teachers

A website for links to lesson plans, tutorials, and free resources.