Dear Artists Presents
Dear Artists With Anxiety (DAWA)’s First Virtual Conference
Saturday April 30, 2022
Noon-6pm Central Standard Time
What is DAWA Conference?
Dear Artists With Anxiety (DAWA) Virtual Conference is a gathering for artists with mental emotional challenges.
It is a half-day conference where artists come together to share their struggles with mental health, share resources and stories of hope and recovery.
The conference will be conducted entirely on Zoom so that participants from all geographical locations can join.
What do I get if I register?
Conference attendees can pick and choose to join any or all activities listed below. All sessions will be recorded. Attendees will receive a replay of every session after the conference has ended.
DAWA Artist Mental Health Panel, with A’Driane Nieves, Jean Nagai
DAWA Deep Listening Circle (sharing mental health challenges and victories), facilitated by Benz Amatayakul
Special Workshop: End-of-life Education for artists by Brianna Lynn Hernández Baurichter
Special Workshop: The beauty and the mental load of artist-run organizations by Alex Paik
Please note that our conference is not a replacement for therapy. Our speakers and teachers are artists and professionals in their fields, but they are not mental health professionals. If you have a mental health condition that needs special care, please consult a mental health professional before you attend.
Who can participate?
All artists 18 years and older are welcome to register for the conference.
How much does it cost? Why are you charging a fee?
There are different levels of fees to meet participants’ financial circumstances.
Reduced fee : $35 (USD)
Regular fee : $45 (USD)
Donor fee: $55 (USD)
Dear Artists is charging a fee for this conference because we are an independent artist-run organization with no external sources of funding. The registration fees will go towards paying our speakers as well as covering the administration fees of the event. We thank you for supporting our organization.
Tentative Conference Schedule
noon-1.30pm CST DAWA Deep Listening Circle
1.30-2pm Rest period
2-3.15pm Artist Mental Health Panel with A’Diane Nieves and Jean Nagai
3.15-4pm Rest period
4-5pm “Gentle approaches to grief and end-of-life care” workshop
5-6pm “The beauty and the mental load of running artist-run organizations” workshop
Panelists and speakers bios:
A’Driane Nieves
Beauty, power, transformation: These things sit at the heart of A’Driane Nieves’s multidisciplinary work. Nieves is an award-winning artist, activist, speaker, U.S. Air Force veteran, and mental-health advocate. A survivor of abuse who lives with bipolar disorder, she channels the lessons of her multifaceted life experience into creativity for the sake of justice and healing.
Through her own painting, Nieves excavates everything that she hid for so long, in both body and mind, to endure. Her work focuses on the impact of trauma—inherited, historical, personal—exposing how it shapes, alters, and redefines identity over the course of our lives. Through abstract forms and composition, she gives visible shape to the internal biological and emotional processes of adaptation, recovery, and transformation.
Nieves also leads Tessera Arts Collective, a not-for-profit she founded in 2018 to serve womxn and non-binary abstract artists of color. She believes that creating and viewing visual art that addresses difficult topics can serve as a catalyst for personal growth & social change. She uses both storytelling and visual art to amplify the voices, visions, and experiences of those marked as Other in society. She’s particularly passionate about empowering BIPOC artists to speak their truths, celebrate their resiliency, and find their joy.
An acclaimed writer and speaker, she has been named BlogHer Voice of the Year, won an Iris Award for Most Thought-Provoking Content at the Mom 2.0 Summit, and appeared next to Bono in Glamour Magazine’s 2016 “Woman of the Year” issue as part of the ONE Campaign.
Nieves' paintings are on view at public institutions and in private collections in the United States, Canada, Asia, and Australia.
Jean Nagai
Jean Nagai’s intricate abstract landscapes present a singular vision of the natural world. He is revered for his mixed-media canvases, which feature a Pointillist style of dotted painting augmented with such unconventional materials as correction fluid, pumice, smog, sand, and P. cyanescens spores. Nagai draws inspiration from the natural landscapeof his native Pacific Northwest. His process-oriented practice involves marking countless dots to form swirls and clouds of color. While hypnotic and contemplative, these compositions also brim with dynamic movement.
Alex Paik
Alex Paik is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. His modular, paper-based wall installations explore perception, interdependence, and improvisation within structure while engaging with the complexities of social dynamics. He has exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, with notable solo projects at Praxis New York, Art on Paper 2016, and Gallery Joe. His work has also been featured in group exhibitions at BravinLee Projects, Ruschman Gallery, and MONO Practice, among others.
Brianna L. Hernández Baurichter
Brianna Lynn Hernández Baurichter is a Chicana artist, curator, educator, and death doula guided by socially-engaged practices. Her background includes experience working in community organizations, gallery, museum, and higher education settings, and as a consultant with public health researchers. In developing as an artist and creative professional Brianna credits her late mother, Sylvia D. Hernández, as her most significant mentor and inspiration for the creativity, resilience, and compassion she demonstrated throughout her life. Brianna’s creative practice and world-view is also influenced by her mixed heritage from Mexican and German parents, embodying a hybrid spirit, eager to build connections and new realities.
In the studio, Brianna creates installations through several mediums including large-scale charcoal drawings, video art, sculpture, and performances, each incorporating a high level of physicality and movement to reveal knowledge held within the body. Brianna’s ongoing artwork focuses on the experience of providing end-of-life care, grieving processes, and mourning rituals based on her lived experiences, cultural research, and collaborations with others in the field. In addition to formal artworks, her practice offers workshops and takeaway resources for viewers to self-educate through the safety of the creative process.
As a curator, Brianna works with artists to make socially-charged topics publicly accessible in order to create opportunities for education and empathy. This focus on empathy building is also embedded into her education philosophy whether in the classroom, workshops, or as a consultant, enabling deeper connections to the purpose and potential of the content. As an extension of this socially-conscious approach, Brianna frequently collaborates with community health researchers to incorporate the arts into collection and dissemination of public health project data.
Brianna proudly serves as Board Treasurer at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Committee Member for the Gente Chicana/SOYmos Chicanos Arts Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and as Board Secretary at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton, New York.
Benz Amatayakul
Sirimas Benz Amatayakul (b. Bangkok, Thailand) is a painter, mindfulness meditation teacher, and community builder currently based in Oak Park, IL.
Benz received a Master’s Degree in Integrated Communications from Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University in 2007 and a Certification in Expressive Art Facilitation from Open Studio Project in 2015. She received Mindfulness Training from Magnolia Grove Monastery, in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh in 2020. She is currently exploring interfaith and non-religious practices that can help humans move through life with more calm and peace.
Benz is a founder of Dear Artists Project, a platform with a mission to create more dialogues around mental health in the art community and provide mental health resources and support for artists. Dear Artists Project facilitates online artist residency called Dear Artists With Anxiety and offers online classes throughout the year to help artists become mentally healthy and holistically well.