Dear beautiful people: Welcome!
I am Ema Harris Sintamarian, please call me "Ema", and I will be your instructor for this class. I cannot wait to start collaborating with each and all of you!
I am originally from Romania, but I currently live in Oakland CA, USA. Before moving to the US, I have lived and studied in Romania, Italy, and France. I also traveled, gave lectures and had residencies throughout Europe and the Caribbeans. I taught art, art history and art appreciation for the past 16 years at San Jose City College and SJSU.
My past experiences which has included cultural unrest and revolution, have given me the privilege to work with children, adolescents and adults from many different political and economic backgrounds: from the diverse students within US universities and colleges to the children of Sioux Falls Reservation; from HIV Positive kids in the Saint Elisabeth’s, Romanian orphanage, to the talented and yet economically challenged students from the Abramowitz Program in East Palo Alto.
As an artist myself, I like to share with my students the downs and ups, faster solutions or ideas which I get directly from my work in the studio. As someone who has been in college, I am aware that money can be tight and art materials can be expensive-that is why I would like to share with you, based on my own studio practice, different ways to bypass this problem and to keep on making art!I love spending time in the studio and working simultaneously on different projects, as well collaborating with other artists.
also love traveling, learning new things about other people, cultures, languages. I myself speak couple, which makes me understand better the possible language barriers and how we could solve them.
As an artist, my work has been shown in solo and group shows nationally and internationally in venues such as Museum of Modern Art, Arad, Romania; Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA; Niklas Beleniue Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden; ICA-San Jose, CA to name just a few.
I am the recipient of the Leigh Weimer Fellowship for the Arts, the Eureka Fleishaaker Fellowship, the New York Artist Grant, the Silicon Valley Arts Council Award and has participated in numerous residencies programs such as Air Krems, Austria; WARP, Belgium, Garina, Romania; the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Vermont Studio Center. I received my MFA in Printmaking from the University of Delaware and her MFA in Painting from San Jose State University.
