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PERSPECTIVE

PERSPECTIVE

Labor of Care

Art alumna’s portraits of Black women, including a new work at the Dallas Museum of Art, are drawing acclaim.

Ari Brielle (’16) captures women in all facets of life. It could be a simple portrait of a woman cradling a baby fresh from a bath. Or it could be an installation about Marsha Jackson, depicting her environmental activism. Brielle’s artwork has been featured in the 2021 Texas Biennial and the Dallas Museum of Art.

“I’m excited to see what that artistic journey looks like,” she says. “I want to grow deeper in my practice and continue to make work that feels successful.”

Now Brielle is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington and is considering teaching. Even though she’s been successful in making art her career, she says it doesn’t entirely feel like work.

“It’s both therapeutic and a release — cathartic, and there’s a lot of problem-solving during painting and thinking. What is this work about?” she says. “I don’t look at work as a bad thing. I think we need work. People need something to put their energy toward. It’s like a labor of care.” Read more about how Brielle’s time at UNT transformed her art. northtexan.unt.edu/ari-brielle

... PLAYING OUR FIGHT SONG IN IRELAND MAY NOT SOLVE PROBLEMS THAT WE’RE WITNESSING IN THE NEWS, BUT IF WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO BRING JOY TO SOMEBODY’S LIFE, IT’S A RESPONSIBILITY, WE SHOULD BE PROUD TO FULFILL.” — UNT Director of Athletic Bands Daniel Cook on the Green Brigade Marching Band’s performance in Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day parade as cited on NBC 5.

Read more about Hankins’ job at the Smithsonian. northtexan.unt. edu/michael-hankins

Books

Flying Camelot

In Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16 and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia,

Michael W. Hankins (’07, ’13 M.S.) explores the culture behind fighter pilots from the 1970s and 1980s and how they inspired the design of the F-15 and F-16 airplanes.

“Thinking about history helps us understand each other better, understand our world better and make the world better as we move forward,” says Hankins, who is curator for U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. “Aviation stories show us all of that, as humans learned to literally lift themselves up into the skies.”

Wild Kingdom Jehanne Dubrow

The English professor takes on academia with poems about national and university politics. Dubrow, who has written 11 books, draws from 14 years of teaching, including six at UNT.

The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands Patrick Strickland (’10)

Residents of communities on the U.S.Mexican border fight against anti-immigrant forces in this book by the Dallas-based journalist and general studies alum.

From Servant to Savant: Musical Privilege, Property and the French Revolution Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden

The associate professor of music history explores how 18th-century Parisian musicians negotiated the era’s new laws and constituted modern professional musicianship.

Living Life Off-Script

Vocal performance alumna finds her way as a Hollywood actress.

Dallas-based Giovannie Cruz (’09) recently served in supporting roles in back-to-back Warner Bros releases The Suicide Squad and Reminiscence, where she acted in a scene face-to-face with Hugh Jackman. She also has acted in Queen Sugar, Queen of the South and more.

But her life wasn’t originally planned out this way.

Since she was a child, Cruz dreamed of becoming a Broadway star. However, while a student in UNT’s vocal performance program focusing on opera, Cruz thought to herself, “Yeah, I’m going to go become an actor.”

She began auditioning for various acting roles during the day and taught voice lessons at night. Then, while a reader for Queen of the South during the show’s Dallas filming, she nailed an acting role.

Cruz already has landed some big roles in films that will be released in the next few years.

“I may not be a household name, I may not have made it yet, but that little girl who dreamed of being in movies would be really proud of where I am now,” shares Cruz.

Read more about Cruz’s career. northtexan.unt.edu/giovannie-cruz

MUSE

NORAH JONES, MAREN MORRIS AND THE LATE LYLE MAYS EARNED NOMINATIONS FOR THE 64TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS, WHICH AIRED APRIL 3. MORE THAN A DOZEN OTHER ALUMNI AND FACULTY COLLABORATED ON PROJECTS THAT RECEIVED NODS. NORTHTEXAN.UNT.EDU/ONLINE

Big Dreams

Alumna has gone from doodling to illustrating books.

In high school, Kristen Barnhart Peers (’18) was an avid doodler, drawing on the back of tests. “I always had a creative spark, always making things,” she says.

Now she’s reached one her biggest goals — illustrating a children’s book. Peers illustrated the Little People Big Dreams book about Iris Apfel, the 100-year-old flamboyant fashionista. She credits her professors in UNT’s communication design program, who each had their own way of pushing and helping her. In her senior year, the portfolio class required her to create her own campaign for a company, inspiring her to open an online shop with T-shirts and art prints.

The store and book complement Peers’ work, as does her popular Instagram account that features quirky, colorful artwork with positive messages. “I think my Instagram is my back-of-my-test-sheet doodling now,” she says. “It’s a place you can upload anything really. It’s a safe place for my doodles. I enjoy when people can laugh or relate to my drawings because we’re all weird humans, and we can all relate to the weird things we do in life.”

Read more about Peers’ rising career. northtexan.unt.edu/big-dreams

A Historic Note

Natalie Manning (’16) has been named the first female Vicar Choral

in Wells Cathedral Choir’s more than 1,100-year history. The choir — at the Anglican cathedral in Somerset, England — is considered one of Europe’s most prestigious cathedral choirs. She’ll move from Cambridge, where she finished a master’s degree and stayed on as choir administrator for The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge.

Manning found her love for early music at UNT.

“You could choose to study something so specific from a certain century, a certain part of the world, a certain style and technique,” she says, “and UNT would be able to provide you with the highest level of teaching for that specific thing.”

Joining the choir at Wells means Manning can serve as a role model for young girl choristers.

“For years, when they looked behind them, all they saw were men,” Manning says. “Now, these girls can realize that there is a place for them to continue a career singing in the cathedral because this woman standing behind them is doing it.”

Designing a Career

Through her fashion and lifestyle

brand, LLULO, Michelle Olomojobi (’11) wanted to make the shape of Africa wearable for people and celebrate her Nigerian culture.

“I want Africa to be seen for its beauty. Africa in itself is enough,” she says of her product designs.

The seeds of LLULO, which sells clothing, accessories and home decor online, took root at UNT while Olomojobi was pursuing her bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising. Through her classes, and the support of former College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism professor Jessica Strubel, Olomojobi gained assurance to let herself dream and let her Nigerian heritage shine through her work.

LLULO recently received a $25,000 NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant. Daymond John, celebrity entrepreneur and investor on Shark Tank, surprised her with news of the grant on Black Entrepreneurs Day. The NAACP grant will help her scale up production by working with a local manufacturer and possibly hiring more to assist with other parts of the business.

Learn more. northtexan.unt.edu/ designing-career

Behind the Camera

Cinematographer has a vision for some of TV’s most cutting-edge shows.

Abe Martinez’s (’96) camera has been his passport. It has taken the media arts alum to 50 countries. He’s covered the Olympics, NBA Championships and even photographed President Bill Clinton while he was in the White House. He has worked on movies such as Ali and Spider-Man 3.

Martinez (pictured, below right) went from rental house worker to film loader to camera assistant to camera operator. Now he’s fulfilling his biggest dreams as a cinematographer, where his work can be seen on TV programs like Queen of the South, The Chi and 61st Street, as well as the upcoming Disney+ series National Treasure.

As cinematographer, he is responsible for all the photography of the show, working with the director to translate the script for its theme, style and all things technical.

“You’re responsible for the camera, and the camera is the character,” he says.

With so many streaming platforms, he says Hollywood is just craving to tell more stories.

“It’s been 20 years in the process, and I feel like I’m living in the moment — the golden age of storytelling,” he says. “I worked hard to get here. It’s exciting to see what’s ahead.”

Learn how Martinez’s classes at UNT paved the way to his career. northtexan.unt.edu/behind-camera

Bloom and Create

Alumni spearhead organization to make opera accessible.

Agostina Migoni (’15 M.M.) and Bethany Mamola (’19

D.M.A.) were auditioning in Berlin when they began talking about how burned out they felt from the travels and struggles of classical musicians.

They wanted an organization that broke down barriers — such as underrepresentation and foreign languages — and worked in intimate settings and collaborated with a range of artists. So they created the Das Blümelein Project. “Das blümelein” means “flower bud” in German.

The project has presented nine productions over the last three years, including A Lily Among Thorns at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Winspear Opera House in Dallas last year. In the Texas Project, a string quartet and a trio of dancers performed in front of the works of textile and visual artists as Migoni and Mamola sang. For the Marfa Project, they rolled a piano into the only theater in town, and then the piano traveled to a table filled with a chef’s dinner of foraged ingredients.

And they’ve achieved this while fundraising in a competitive field and handling restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That is the beauty of the project — to see all of these artists step up and create and put themselves all into the project. We get to watch them bloom and create,” Mamola says.

Read more about the project. northtexan.unt.edu/bloom-create

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