Alumni Success Stories!

Sara Sumpter, B.A. 2006

Sara's research focuses on the visual, literary, and material arts of Japan and how those arts reveal sociological developments through history. She is interested in the role of tradition in the evolution of Japanese art through time, as well as in the world of contemporary Japanese diaspora artists, and specifically in how the continued implementation of iconographical imagery reveals the persistence of custom, the dominance of indigenous beliefs, and the anxiety of social interaction according to gender. For the honors component of the art history degree she completed a thesis on the role of ghost imagery from Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) period woodblock prints in contemporary Japanese horror films that was selected for publication in the UCDavis annual Undergraduate Research Journal. Recently, Sara was offered admission and a two-year fellowship in the MA/PhD program the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. She intends to focus on Japanese art of the medieval period.

Tirza True Latimer , M.A. 1997

After earning her M.A. at Davis, where she focused on the gay-cultural dimensions of the Paris-based Russian Ballet and Swedish Ballet, Tirza went on to earn a Ph.D. at Stanford University. Since her graduation from Stanford in 2003, she has published work from a lesbian feminist perspective on a range of topics in the fields of visual culture and criticism. She co-edited, with Whitney Chadwick, the anthology The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris Between the Wars (Rutgers University Press, 2003) and revised her dissertation into the book Women Together/Women Apart: Portraits of Lesbian Paris (Rutgers University Press, 2005). In the interim, she has also served as visiting lecturer in art history, visual criticism, and feminist studies at Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Davis; and San Francisco Art Institute and has enjoyed visiting assistant professor status at Willamette University, Mills College, California College for the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her teaching, like her research, continues to explore the intersection of visual and sexual cultures. As an independent curator, she has organized and collaborated on a number of exhibitions--most recently the 2005-2006 shows Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore and Unexpected Developments (which focused on queer photography). She is currently a visiting faculty member in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the History of Art at Yale University as well as being the Co-Chair of the Queer Caucus for Art, a College Art Association affiliated society.

Ramona Meyer-Piagentini, B.A. 2001

Ramona graduated from UC Davis in 2001 with a degree in Art history and a minor in political science. She has interned in two Italian museums, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. She has also worked as a curatorial assistant at Independent Curators International, a contemporary arts non-profit in New York City. Ramona holds a Masters degree from Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies where she concentrated in art criticism. Her master's thesis, titled Curating Crossings in the San Diego/Tijuana Border Region: inSITE 1992 to the Present, focused on the impact of funding changes on community based artistic practices by exploring the history and structure of inSITE, a 14 year old cross border public art organization. Currently, she is working as an analyst for Creative Good, a customer experience consulting firm in New York City.

Elizabeth Gerber , M.A. 2003

Elizabeth earned her M.A. focusing on contemporary art.  In 2002 Elizabeth participated in Documenta 11’s Education Project in Kassel, Germany and since 2003 has been an educator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  This year she has been extremely busy launching a multi-year partnership with Los Angeles public schools and their surrounding community organizations.  When not teaching, writing, or developing other educational programs, Elizabeth can be found rock climbing in Joshua Tree or kayaking among the Channel Islands. And keep your eyes peeled along the Southern California coast as Elizabeth took up surfing this year.

Anneke Koblik, M.A. 2001

Upon completing her Master’s in 2001, Anneke worked in the Interactive Educational Technologies Department at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where she researched and wrote content for award-winning multimedia programs. She has since held the position of Curatorial Assistant at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University. Her responsibilities included selecting, researching, and interpreting exhibitions of modern and contemporary works in the permanent collection. Currently, Anneke is Assistant Curator of New Art Trust, a foundation established by Pamela and Richard Kramlich, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, and Tate Gallery, London, to facilitate the exhibition of its collection and promote projects of new media art. Anneke’s publications include an excerpt from her Master’s thesis, “Under Siege: Mona Hatoum’s Art of Displacement” in Visual Worlds (Routledge 2005) and entries on works in the exhibition catalogue Picasso to Thiebaud: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Collections of Stanford University Alumni and Friends (Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University 2004). When not working, Anneke is busy raising her two-year-old daughter and is expecting a second child in March 2007.

Nicole Berry , M.A. 2004

After earning her M.A. Nicole moved to London for a three-month internship at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Department. She was offered a job at the Gagosian Gallery in London but was not able to obtain work papers and so returned to New York and took a part-time job at Vivian Horan Fine Art. She spent her weekends combing the city’s galleries, reporting her findings in a monthly newsletter, and began her own art consulting business under the name Accessible Art. She eventually took a position with the James Goodman Gallery as Associate Director, a position she continues to hold today. Her consulting business is on hold while working at Goodman but she is learning a tremendous amount, enjoying her work, building her professional network, and looking forward to returning to the project of building her business, Accessible Art, someday soon.