About Us
Fortnight Collective is a women’s art collective in San
Rafael consisting of the following founding members: Lauren Bartone, Hannah
Merriman, Paula Egan, Ellen Litwiller, Liza Yee, and Stephanie Jucker. We are
committed to creating dialogue through the arts in their community around
issues related to the environment, social segregation and urban planning, among
others. We meet every fortnight to
brainstorm ideas and plan group projects that engage and broaden our
community’s experience with visual art. We also joke around a lot, experiment with both good and bad ideas, and eat really well.
Information about current and upcoming events be found on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FortnightSanRafael
Fortnight San Rafael consists of the following members:
Lauren Bartone is an artist and educator based in San Rafael, California. Her work is grounded in an interdisciplinary balance of painting, collective dialogue, and community work. Undergraduate studies at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute of Art, in Florence, Italy and at UCLA (BA in Visual Art 2001), as well as a graduate work in both education (MA in Education, UC Berkeley, 2005) and in the visual arts (MFA in Visual Art, Vermont College of Fine Art, 2012) have allowed her to pursue her passions for both the visual arts and for education. Lauren has worked in various community programs, participated in a residency at the Kala Art Institute, and received several grants including a Marin Arts Council Career Grant, the VCFA Levin/Lutz Award, and the Pirkle Jones Foundation Artist Support Grant. Most recently her work has considered social patterns and divisions as they pertain to education, motherhood and daily life in her community. She has shown work in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Vermont and New York.
http://laurenbartone.com/
Paula Egan is a transplant from the midwest where she began her education in the arts by attending the Kansas City Art Institute. Since moving to the Bay Area over 30 years ago she has lived in both Marin and San Francisco, but has felt most at home in San Rafael for the past 6 years. She has been sharing her passion for visual arts and technology with students at Yick Wo Elementary School in San Francisco for the past 26 years. She currently runs the computer lab and teaches art classes to students from kindergarten to 5th grade. Paula also inspires students with the before-school computer and art clubs she provides five days a week at the school. For 16 summers she has been both a site director and instructor at Aim High which is a free summer academic enrichment program for middle school students in San Francisco, Marin, Oakland, East Palo Alto and Redwood City. In both of these educational settings she has witnessed the power of community and creativity to transform and inspire the lives of students and their families. She knows how necessary the arts are for growing vibrant, healthy and successful communities.
Stephanie Jucker is from London, England where she began her education in the arts at Central School of Art. After receiving her MFA in New York she moved to the Bay Area in 1991. Since that time she has worked as a professional artist and educator. She is currently represented by Room Gallery in Mill Valley, and teaches art at College of Marin. Stephanie has lived in San Rafael for 20 years, and is a founding member of Art Works Downtown, a non-profit art center that provides studios, education, exhibition space and housing for the local community. Since establishing a studio there in 1996 she has been involved in helping realize the non-profit’s mission to broaden the community’s engagement with art by running classes, curating exhibits and making art every free moment she has.
http://www.stephaniejucker.com/
Ellen Litwiller is an artist in residence in San Rafael. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she returned to the Bay Area and worked in the Natural History Museum industry as a muralist for over 10 years. She continues to work freelance for the museum industry as well as showing her paintings throughout the Bay Area. Her interest in combining science and art as a way to inspire children, has given her educational opportunities, such as running the Garden Club at school and teaching astronomy. Ellen and her husband are raising two children with the help of the public school community and her neighbors at large. Although she has family in the bay area, San Rafael is her “village” that provides diversity and a place for family to grow and thrive.
http://www.ellenlitwiller.net/
Hannah Merriman is an artist, advocate, and educator based in San Rafael. Deeply moved by the power of socially engaged art to restore community, stir the soul, and unleash our collective ingenuity, Hannah is inspired to serve creative initiatives that deliver art’s regenerative potential. She earned her BA from Oberlin College and a Masters degree from Harvard Divinity School, where she created an interdisciplinary program in theology, community transformation, and visual art. Hannah has worked as creative director of the Global Oneness Project, and now she teaches in the Art Education department at the Academy of Art University while raising her two young children. Hannah’s current collaborations are as a founding “cultural agent” of the US Department of Arts and Culture, an emerging citizen-powered movement lifting up the arts as the cornerstone of authentic and resilient communities; and as co-founder of Fortnight, a local women’s collective in San Rafael committed to creating dialogue through the arts around local issues of environment, social segregation, and downtown revitalization. Hannah’s drawings and installations have been shown in exhibitions in both the Bay Area and her home state of Massachusetts, and her spontaneous social art happenings draw the public into participatory experiences of beauty and reverence.
http://hannahbee.carbonmade.com/
liza yee is a recently returned San Rafaelite looking for more vibrancy in our community. liza has been a maker all her life. As a child, she would meticulously craft origami scenes, stay up till all hours baking bread or intricate pastry creations with a friend, sew clothes and costumes, and work on letting go of her perfectionist tendencies by doing ceramics and tie-dying with a hippie San Anselmo art teacher. liza earned her BA from UCLA and lived in Italy for a spell, engaging her creative energies towards art and food. She is a recipe editor for the Handstand Kids Cookbook, a cookbook series directed at introducing kids of all ages to different cultures through food. Her dad taught her wood and metalworking skills at a young age which have proven useful as a furniture builder/designer and museum exhibit fabricator. liza has worked on numerous international museum projects that focus on interactive education for children and adults, including the California Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian and Hong Kong Wetland Park. She discovered letterpress printing after a serious hand injury and enjoys the rhythm and precision of the craft. In 2007 she received a residency at Penland School of Crafts and returned in 2008 to assist a course in letterpress printing and bookmaking. She focuses on custom and personal work.
http://www.lizayee.com/
Information about current and upcoming events be found on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FortnightSanRafael
Fortnight San Rafael consists of the following members:
Lauren Bartone is an artist and educator based in San Rafael, California. Her work is grounded in an interdisciplinary balance of painting, collective dialogue, and community work. Undergraduate studies at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute of Art, in Florence, Italy and at UCLA (BA in Visual Art 2001), as well as a graduate work in both education (MA in Education, UC Berkeley, 2005) and in the visual arts (MFA in Visual Art, Vermont College of Fine Art, 2012) have allowed her to pursue her passions for both the visual arts and for education. Lauren has worked in various community programs, participated in a residency at the Kala Art Institute, and received several grants including a Marin Arts Council Career Grant, the VCFA Levin/Lutz Award, and the Pirkle Jones Foundation Artist Support Grant. Most recently her work has considered social patterns and divisions as they pertain to education, motherhood and daily life in her community. She has shown work in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Vermont and New York.
http://laurenbartone.com/
Paula Egan is a transplant from the midwest where she began her education in the arts by attending the Kansas City Art Institute. Since moving to the Bay Area over 30 years ago she has lived in both Marin and San Francisco, but has felt most at home in San Rafael for the past 6 years. She has been sharing her passion for visual arts and technology with students at Yick Wo Elementary School in San Francisco for the past 26 years. She currently runs the computer lab and teaches art classes to students from kindergarten to 5th grade. Paula also inspires students with the before-school computer and art clubs she provides five days a week at the school. For 16 summers she has been both a site director and instructor at Aim High which is a free summer academic enrichment program for middle school students in San Francisco, Marin, Oakland, East Palo Alto and Redwood City. In both of these educational settings she has witnessed the power of community and creativity to transform and inspire the lives of students and their families. She knows how necessary the arts are for growing vibrant, healthy and successful communities.
Stephanie Jucker is from London, England where she began her education in the arts at Central School of Art. After receiving her MFA in New York she moved to the Bay Area in 1991. Since that time she has worked as a professional artist and educator. She is currently represented by Room Gallery in Mill Valley, and teaches art at College of Marin. Stephanie has lived in San Rafael for 20 years, and is a founding member of Art Works Downtown, a non-profit art center that provides studios, education, exhibition space and housing for the local community. Since establishing a studio there in 1996 she has been involved in helping realize the non-profit’s mission to broaden the community’s engagement with art by running classes, curating exhibits and making art every free moment she has.
http://www.stephaniejucker.com/
Ellen Litwiller is an artist in residence in San Rafael. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she returned to the Bay Area and worked in the Natural History Museum industry as a muralist for over 10 years. She continues to work freelance for the museum industry as well as showing her paintings throughout the Bay Area. Her interest in combining science and art as a way to inspire children, has given her educational opportunities, such as running the Garden Club at school and teaching astronomy. Ellen and her husband are raising two children with the help of the public school community and her neighbors at large. Although she has family in the bay area, San Rafael is her “village” that provides diversity and a place for family to grow and thrive.
http://www.ellenlitwiller.net/
Hannah Merriman is an artist, advocate, and educator based in San Rafael. Deeply moved by the power of socially engaged art to restore community, stir the soul, and unleash our collective ingenuity, Hannah is inspired to serve creative initiatives that deliver art’s regenerative potential. She earned her BA from Oberlin College and a Masters degree from Harvard Divinity School, where she created an interdisciplinary program in theology, community transformation, and visual art. Hannah has worked as creative director of the Global Oneness Project, and now she teaches in the Art Education department at the Academy of Art University while raising her two young children. Hannah’s current collaborations are as a founding “cultural agent” of the US Department of Arts and Culture, an emerging citizen-powered movement lifting up the arts as the cornerstone of authentic and resilient communities; and as co-founder of Fortnight, a local women’s collective in San Rafael committed to creating dialogue through the arts around local issues of environment, social segregation, and downtown revitalization. Hannah’s drawings and installations have been shown in exhibitions in both the Bay Area and her home state of Massachusetts, and her spontaneous social art happenings draw the public into participatory experiences of beauty and reverence.
http://hannahbee.carbonmade.com/
liza yee is a recently returned San Rafaelite looking for more vibrancy in our community. liza has been a maker all her life. As a child, she would meticulously craft origami scenes, stay up till all hours baking bread or intricate pastry creations with a friend, sew clothes and costumes, and work on letting go of her perfectionist tendencies by doing ceramics and tie-dying with a hippie San Anselmo art teacher. liza earned her BA from UCLA and lived in Italy for a spell, engaging her creative energies towards art and food. She is a recipe editor for the Handstand Kids Cookbook, a cookbook series directed at introducing kids of all ages to different cultures through food. Her dad taught her wood and metalworking skills at a young age which have proven useful as a furniture builder/designer and museum exhibit fabricator. liza has worked on numerous international museum projects that focus on interactive education for children and adults, including the California Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian and Hong Kong Wetland Park. She discovered letterpress printing after a serious hand injury and enjoys the rhythm and precision of the craft. In 2007 she received a residency at Penland School of Crafts and returned in 2008 to assist a course in letterpress printing and bookmaking. She focuses on custom and personal work.
http://www.lizayee.com/