COOS BAY, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College is happy to announce that our Guest Artist in Residence for 2026-27 is Ciara Rubí. The Guest Artist in Residence program is a partnership between the College, SWOCC Foundation, private donors, and the Coos Art Museum. It’s designed to provide a nearly year-long opportunity for an artist to focus on their work, inspire artistic exploration, and drive collaboration between the college and community.
Rubí is a multidisciplinary artist who works in collage, autofiction, photography, drawing, and printmaking. She is a 2025 Yale College graduate from New Haven, Connecticut, who earned a B.A. with distinction in Art and a B.A. with distinction in History of Art.
At Yale, her work was shown at the Yale School of Art, Maya’s Room, The Study Hotel, and in DOWN Magazine, and she earned the Anderson Ranch Workshop Scholarship, the Gary Stein Fellowship, and the Lewis Curtis Fellowship.
During the 2025-26 academic year, she served as one of Trinity College’s two Studio Arts Postbaccalaureate Fellows through the Deborah Buck ‘78 Fellowship, where she had her first solo exhibition, titled Frank:Sally, at The Poon Family Art Gallery. At present, her work is on display in a group show titled Fellows: Work by Select Alumni of the Studio Arts Postbaccalaureate Fellowship Program at the Widener Gallery at Trinity College.
ARTIST RECEPTION:
October 15, 2026, 5:00-7:00pm
Please join Southwestern in welcoming Ciara Rubí, our 2026-27 Guest Artist in Residence, at an informal reception on the Coos Campus (1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay) at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute. Meet the artist, learn more about her work and creative practice, and hear about her upcoming workshops.
Light refreshments will be provided. The event is free and open to the public. Community members, students, faculty, staff, and local artists are encouraged to attend.
WORKSHOPS:
There is a $30 fee per person for each workshop. All materials will be provided. Must be 16 years or older to participate. All workshops are held in Eden Hall on the Coos Campus.
(ART 0810 65) The Riot Image: Intro to Photomontage
Thursday, October 22, 2026 from 6:00 to 9:00pm
Collage sits at the intersection of sculpture, drawing, painting and photography. It is a medium built on the radical act of cutting and reassembling, and photomontage is a distinct subcategory of collage. Photomontage works specifically with photographic imagery to construct an image that breaks from the indexical nature of photography and lays bare the orchestrating discourses, institutions, technologies, practices, and administrative mechanisms that structure our visual field. For example, artists such as Hannah Höch, Linder Sterling, Martha Rosler, and Wangechi Mutu have used photomontage to interrogate gender, media, and power. This workshop begins with a brief introduction to photomontage and its key practitioners, then moves quickly into making. Working with magazines and other provided materials, participants will experiment with cutting, layering, and basic image transfer techniques to create their own photomontages. All materials will be provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own imagery to cut and reassemble.
(ART 0812 65) The Xerox Underground: Intro to Art Zines
Thursday, November 5, 2026 from 6:00 to 9:00pm
Zines resist easy definition. Ranging from newsstand magazines to singular book art objects, they are most often self-published booklets, cheaply produced and traded hand to hand. Art zines are a distinct subcategory of zines, and materialize as varied as mini zines, flip-books, flip-flop zines, newsprint editions, and posters. Their content is equally diverse: conceptual, narrative, diaristic, illustrative, or comic. While zines may appear seemingly uncontrollable, they are all commitment to independent, unmediated production outside the traditional establishment.
This workshop opens with a brief introduction to art zine culture, past and present, including its role in subcultures and movements such as the riot grrrl scene of the early 1990s. A demonstration of a few zine forms follows, after which participants will produce a complete, single-edition zine using a demonstrated template. All materials will be provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own. Coming with a story or idea in mind is encouraged.
(ART 0811 65) The Dreamlie: Intro to Short Form Autofiction
Thursday, November 12, 2026 from 6:00 to 9:00pm
Short form autofiction unsettles the boundary between imagination and lived experience, invented characters and real relationships, dreams and lies. Writers such as Cris Kraus, Sheila Heti, and Constance Debré have shaped the form’s contemporary resurgence, blurring the line between memoir and invention. This workshop begins with a brief introduction to that lineage, filled by a series of timed writing prompts designed to generate short pieces that inhabit this liminal territory where fiction and diary converge. The session concludes with small-group workshopping: participants will be divided into groups of 3-5, each member reading a peer’s piece and offering feedback on the writing itself.
To register:
You must have an active SWOCC Student ID number. If you have taken classes at SWOCC within the last year, you will have an active SWOCC Student ID number.
If you have not taken a class at SWOCC within the last year, you’ll need to complete the Community Education & Personal Enrichment application. Go to www.socc.edu/community for instructions and a link to the form.
This will get you an active SWOCC Student ID number. Skip this step only if you have taken classes at Southwestern within the past year.
When you have an active SWOCC Student ID number, call 541-888-7352 or email onestop@socc.edu.
For more information about Ciara Rubí visit https://www.ciararubi.com/.
For questions regarding Southwestern’s Guest Artist in Residence program please contact Doug Goodwin at dgoodwin@socc.edu or by phone at 541-888-7292.