CHANGE FOR

Her bright, colorful work features endangered salmon, birds, and other marine species indigenous to the San Francisco Bay. “I was really excited to meet Steffi,” Underwood says. “She has a huge following on Instagram [@haveanicedayy_] and is an amazing typography artist—she makes it look easy.”

Another muralist whose work focuses on endangered species is the British/South African artist Sonny Behan. (His work appears at 5400 Hollis Street.) Behan creates hyperrealistic images that can appear to leap off the wall. “I remember being on Instagram looking at Sea Walls artists all through school, just aiming to be a Sonny Behan. He’s done many Sea Walls activations,” says Rose.

Talented local artists were also instrumental in bringing their unique lens to Emeryville’s murals. Oakland and Santa Fe–based artist Felicia Gabaldon responds to the erasure of Indigenous history in the city’s past in her mural at 1460 Park Avenue. “Felicia worked with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Ohlone Indigenous-run, women-run organization working to protect Indigenous land here,” says Underwood. “And Felicia, who is Indigenous as well, added to her mural from that collaboration, which made a very impactful connection.”

Rose and Underwood hope that the work the local community and visitors to Emeryville see on the walls of the city will inspire people to pause and think. “Hopefully this inspires some people to dig deeper into the history of the places they live,” says Rose. “We’re not separate from the ecosystem. I hope these murals inspire people to look into their community’s history, to educate themselves.”

Jasmin Darznik grew up in a world full of stories through books she eagerly read as a child. Her family left Iran for the United States when she was five years old, eventually settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Reading, she discovered, offered a safe haven for a child in a family on the move. One day, she would write her own stories.

“I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE BRAVE. AND I WAS ABLE TO BE BRAVE BECAUSE I HAD DEVOURED SO MANY MEMOIRS THAT DID THE VERY HARD WORK OF TELLING THE TRUTH.”

JASMIN DARZNIK Chair, MFA Writing

Going away to college is a rite of passage for many young adults. It’s a time when they head out into the world to explore their lives and chart their careers. Many college campuses, including CCA, offer housing and programming to ease students into this new chapter. CCA recently expanded its on-campus offerings to serve a fully residential community with the opening of Blattner Hall in 2018 and Founders Hall in 2020. The college’s return to fully in-person instruction for fall 2022 offered a peek into how students are building community and taking advantage of a centralized urban campus.

Two students—Sidney Turner and Robin Parks—offer a glimpse of how they make a home on campus, opportunities to expand their practice by living at CCA, and why there is nowhere quite like San Francisco.

With different roommates over the years, she notes the importance of having open communication and adjusting to different lifestyles. “It taught me how to understand someone else’s perspective,” she says.

Turner also found joy in making memories that will last a lifetime. Because of CCA’s location in San Francisco, Turner takes time between her films and classes to spend time with friends, from going to the beach to a night out dancing. “We do spend a lot of time at the beach,” she says, “When we have the time, we try to make some really, really fun memories.” The campus hotspot, however, is CCA’s dining hall, Makers Cafe. “It’s the most popular hangout hub for everyone to come together,” she says.

LOCATION, LOCATION

Sidney Turner came to CCA from Houston to study filmmaking and has found many opportunities to make new friends, take on student leadership roles, and use the city as a backdrop for her work. She lives in Founders Hall right in the heart of campus, which has taught her how to have brave conversations.

Living on campus also provides Turner with the resources and equipment she needs right at her fingertips. Between the Media Center and the Film Cage, she says, “It has everything you need whether you’re just starting out or you’re getting your practice to the next level.” And then there’s the added bonus: location. In San Francisco she can choose from any number of diverse places to set her film. “There’s so much to explore in the Bay Area and different neighborhoods can look totally different from the next,” she says. “Those things create the aesthetic of the film; it creates more opportunities, possibilities, and ways to take the direction of your work.”

Like most CCA residents, Turner says that one of the most important things about living on campus is the extra time it gives her to focus on her studies. “Everything you need is right next to you.”

Boosting Connections

Robin Parks is an Illustration major and Bay Area native who grew up in Castro Valley and went to high school in Oakland. A natural self-starter, she has taken on many student leadership roles at CCA including as a residental assistant (RA) in Blattner Hall and a program assistant/senior coach for the Learning Resource Center. In her spare time she enjoys the vibe of San Francisco and taking advantage of the many free museum weekends the city offers. Parks transitioned from high school to college with relative ease, noting that, “it was the shift in independence that I had to think about the most.”

Set to graduate in 2023, Parks is focused on what comes next and is diligently working with feedback to develop her work. She can often be found working in the Illustration homeroom, sometimes in the early hours to get a jump on her day. “The Illustration homeroom is just one of those places that’s always open, and it’s right here,” she says. For students in Illustration and other programs, the

Risograph and the Flat Lab are other convenient on-campus resources important to getting the work done, just steps away from home.

Parks also takes time to enjoy her neighborhood in San Francisco. One of the popular after-school activities for her fellow Chimeras are hangouts at SPARK Social, a food truck park with an adjacent mini-golf course in Mission Bay.

“SPARK Social became the spot among my group of friends,” she says. “I also take myself out to museums, visit the many shops in Union Square, or even just hang out in Makers Cafe or one of the classrooms.” She recalls the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during the shelter-in-place orders and says, “I realized that I want to make the most of my time here before I go on to the next thing.”

The CCA campus serves as a hub of activities for professionals in the industry or social events, which is important to Parks. “I feel more involved by living on campus,” she says. “And I’ve actually connected with really wonderful professionals in the working world just through hearing them speak at campus events or in the classroom.”