Nikki Juen is a designer, educator and artist interested in the spaces where these practices overlap. A graduate of RISD’s Graphic Design department, she is a lecturer and critic in RISD’s Graphic Design program as well as in the Division of Experimental and Foundation Studies. Juen is a founding and core faculty member of the MFA in Graphic Design program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

VCFA compañero Ian Lynam sits down with the inestimable Ms. Juen for a chat about design, art, teaching, life, and green liquids!

A Mourning of Great Beauty has Entered my Heart. [2014] 36 x 24 inches, ink on paper

While working with students, she aims to continuously rethink graphic design and the role of design in the larger culture. Her studios and workshops focus on image creation through drawing and repetition and recognize learning as an act of cognition, rather than a transfer of information. She finds delight in applying these methods to both the precise pursuits of graphic design and toward broader applications of design thinking.

Juen has professional experience at leading firms in Providence and Boston as well as an active practice in making and exhibiting drawings and encaustic paintings. Within the discipline of graphic design, rules are followed and bent to create content, structure and meaning. In deliberate contrast to this process, Juen’s personal work in the painting studio explores the absence of rules, relying on repetitive actions and multiples to direct each outcome. Her art and design work inform and filter through one another. As a graphic designer, she is inspired by painters and textiles, while in the painting studio, typography tends to find its way to the surface.

Juen’s award-winning professional practice in graphic design creates relationships on paper, with pixels and between people. Clients include Keen Footwear, the van Beuren Charitable Foundation, Middlebridge School, Mayo Surfboards, RISD, Aquidneck Farms, Tyler Smith and the Roger Williams Museum of Natural History.

ALM, ALM. [2013] 12 inches square, encaustic on panel

So you’re officially founding faculty at VCFA how was it to be a member of a team who founded a graduate program?

This is the stone-cold truth, the founding of the VCFA program in graphic design changed my life.

It was an extraordinary experience to watch my dear friend and mentor, Matthew Monk, leave a tenured position at a world-class design school, a position I aspire[d] to hold, and go up to Vermont and create this radical graphic design graduate program. Better yet, he called on all his beloved employed-elsewhere colleagues, who all said a resounding yes, and in October 2011 [?] we showed up on the VCFA campus in Montpelier. We had five of the founding faculty members in attendance at the time [Bethany Koby and Ziddi Msangi joined us to give lectures via the web] and we worked together in a nervous service of something that was much bigger than any of us as individuals, something we couldn’t yet see. Something that became nothing short of miraculous in terms of graduate education. It became the education we each wished we had experienced as undergraduates and graduates students. We healed wounds created by ourselves in our own educations and by our chosen institutions. I can’t see that happening again in my lifetime, I hope it will but I also can’t imagine how it could be better simply because it was a precious beginning.

I think each of us has been able, in our own ways, to see our disciplines as something new and different, to hold these experiences as singular yet simultaneously woven into a larger fabric of relationships across this country and beyond. When you see what you do as connected to a bigger potential, you can’t help but be bolder and braver in how you practice in your studios and classrooms.

A singular element that made this experience so pronounced was when I asked about the salary. Readily, I had that all-too-familiar lump in my throat. The lump that says there will be inequity and your unique talents and abilities won’t factor-in on the ladder that is academia, this is the pay grade, take it or leave it. Quite surprisingly, Matthew then shared that we were all being paid the same amount for the same work — so, to start the program on those terms — was nothing short of revelatory. There was an immediate equity at start of the program and amongst the faculty. Everyone’s voice mattered, and with a new program naturally needing each individual to be very involved on multiple levels, we all overlapped in seamless and powerful ways. Perhaps this was only my experience? I’ll have to ask my colleagues at the next residency. This enhanced my ability to teach at VCFA and beyond, at RISD. Instead of knowing only the hierarchical power differences that I was familiar with, I had another possibility to exist within and it has since inspired me to be more present about part-time faculty contract negotiations at RISD, the greater national movements towards equity in the gender pay gap and wage inequities in higher-education in general. Without knowing it, I needed to find my tribe and in the founding of this program I was began to see how I could operate in the larger systems of the world. So, life changing.

Ian, I wonder what it was like for you to join us when you did? What did the faculty and the program look like when you arrived? Can you share your experience during your first residency at VCFA?

It was really funny and interesting—Silas had gotten in touch with me about coming to lecture, and we had a Skype conversation where he explained the program. We’d never met before, but were aware of each other and our mutual histories and range of interests. That Skype call was really funny and awesome—it was super-late at night in Tokyo and I was drinking a beer prior to the call. When the call came in, I popped it behind my laptop, and when the ‘official’-seeming part was over, I pulled it out and continued to drink it, which made Silas laugh. We chatted casually for another hour and I really developed an intense liking for him—he’s the fricking best… apparently it was mutual, as he called me back the following day and invited me to become Visiting Faculty, as well.

Joining the program was really amazing (and continues to be)—once I got out of the airport and smelled the air, I was overwhelmed by that most hardcore of visceral impulses: the smell of home. I grew up fairly close to Montpelier, and just the raw smell of the place was welcoming.

I was just floored by the whole experience of my first residency—I, Dave Peacock, and Geoff Halber all arrived there for our first residencies as faculty together, and I feel the strongest affinity for both of them. The founding faculty were so welcoming, and so utterly devoid of the petty bullshit that inevitably crops up on some level in every educational institution I’ve ever experienced. I walked into a group of some of my best friends in the world, which was kind of insane, if you think about it. The students were exactly the same—I spent pretty much every night hanging out with all the peeps in Dewey Lounge after the days’ and nights’ activities.

It’s something I stated when we were wrapping up residency—you remember, most likely, as I bawled my eyes out—my life in Tokyo is filled primarily with designer-types who may be really jazzed about design, but the emotional connection is missing for most, not to mention the desire to do something bigger, further and more conceptually involved than just ‘be cool’/‘make cool stuff’.

I had a boatload of takeaways from that first residency—my experiences ‘de-fanged’ my jerk-critic aspect and my fellow faculty (you primarily, Nikki) pushed me to learn true criticality—going deeper, and really questioning our surroundings in ways that are resonant and healthy in terms of outcomes. I was able to shed unhealthy stereotypes and unrealistic expectations about what I really want out of my life and my career like a snake sheds its skin. I got a ton of new perspectives on how folks can look at design, and how people can relate to each other in really healthy ways.

I came home to Tokyo a changed man. My relationship with my wife deepened immensely thanks to being exposed to how my colleagues and friends lived their lives. I became a better friend to my friends. I became a more thoughtful, inquisitive, caring teacher because I was able to unpack and throw out a ton of my own pedagogical damage. I think I may have become a better member of the families I am a part of, as well. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it was kind of like finding God or something, but without the God part.

Oh Ian-chan. I love you more at every word. I am really thankful that you travel so far to be with us and maintain the ultimate jazz-hands for our program. VCFA hit the jackpot.

You know I feel exactly the same way about you, my dear friend.

Various logo and logotype designs, Happymatter Inc. happymatter.com
(Half of these fell on the proverbial cutting room floor—which ones do you think only live on my hard drive?)

You’re currently attending VCFA as an MFA candidate in the visual art program how does it feel to be both getting an MFA while simultaneously teaching in the graphic design program in the same school?

EXCITING! Which might also be occasionally spelled, o-v-e-r-w-h-e-l-m-i-n-g. Hahaha. Honestly, what I am learning is simply extraordinary, I’m one year in, I’m not sure how reflective I can be yet, I’m still in-it. I do know that I am not sure I would’ve dared to do this again [approach grad school as I had some 20-odd years ago] had VCFA not shown up in my life.

VCFA is a place that values the individual as the locus of an education. The idea of an education that’s specific to each person is really exciting because, at this point in my life, I don’t think I could see myself thriving within a more traditional graduate education. Plus, on the other side I’ve been able to witness the positive effects of this type of education on our graduating students, their own students and their families. There is nothing like throwing yourself into your own student-fire to be able to be reflective in your own teaching.

Another way to answer this question is to tell you how I got here. About 18 months ago I sat with Erica Hare [Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Administration of VCFA] in her darkened office. The re-pointing of the tens of thousands of bricks on the outside of VCFA’s College Hall had her windows covered from the outside. I requested a meeting with Erica to pursue the possibility of a college-wide tuition waiver for the VCFA faculty. Staff already received a 90% tuition waiver, and since the college espoused life-long learning, I wondered why faculty were not included in the staff waiver? Erica didn’t take notes, she didn’t hum and sigh at the appropriate moments. Erica stood up and e-mailed the executive board, while I was mid-sentence, adding my request as an agenda item to next executive meeting.

Within 14 days, and with an unanimous executive vote, VCFA had instituted a 70% tuition waiver allowing all VCFA faculty [we are all part-time] to pursue an accredited MFA in any discipline besides their own.

How many more colleges will be founded in this country? Hopefully none. How many times will any of us as educators be able to create sites of human-centric education? Hopefully many to challenge the systems of higher education that don’t support living in the world through exorbitant costs and latent pedogogies. At our next graphic design residency I am excited to be on a panel that will explore how we bring what we have located as educators at VCFA into the greater worlds that we teach in. Now THAT’s exciting.

BTW, ask me this question again in August of 2016 when I am holding my freshly minted degree, ok, homey?

Word. I will do that!

Pain, Thank You. [2014] 24 x 36 inches, stickers on paper

You teach at RISD as well as at VCFA. Why do you teach?

I teach to be in an incredible conversation, one that you don’t want to end, one that goes on all night at times. To teach design is to be involved in the greater conversations that consider society, industry, trade and technology, to name a few nodes. Practicing teaching is to be at an place of flow between people and the objects they produce and consume. I teach because, at it’s best, I hope I am guiding students to deeper understanding of the relationships that we are already a part of, in as much as we have been trained to think we are separate. At it’s worst, I always have something to learn and even when that is super-challenging, I find it very satisfying. I teach because I have incredible colleagues at VCFA and RISD that are right there alongside me willing to be working at an edge of current knowledge and practice.

Being involved with students in my classroom means I get to continually have these conversations that deploy art and design in an ever-changing relationship to how the world is. Working with students and watching them make their work as a part of that conversation is really incredibly fascinating and stimulating.

Closeted. [2014] 24 x 36 inches, Conté pastel on paper

You also run a successful design studio and have two kids—how do you do it all?

Oh that fucking question, ‘how do I do it all?’ How do I do it all? Nike ‘just does it’, I don’t try to do anything. I. Oh. Okay. It’s you, Ian — so I will try to answer it.

I’m really organized, I think that’s one way I manage all that I’m choosing to do. I think I go a little bat-crazy sometimes that’s another way I do it all and, like I said, I don’t think I do it all. I’m not really interested in what people do, I am interested in how they are, what motivates them in their lives and work and what they have experienced. That’s more fascinating than what one does. I think I’m actually pretty precise about what I want in the world and I think I’ve made some good choices, and been lucky, and that helps me recognize again and again that I do not do anything alone.

I have a wonderful partner that is supportive and shares a lot of his stability with me so I can move around a lot. I’ve got two healthy teenagers about to leave home, a French bulldog that is funny as hell and my parents and extended family are well. I think I try to see and experience the world in a way that that lets me see how full it is, that fullness can also feel overwhelming at times so, I always try to focus presently. I think that’s one way that I ‘do it all’; I really can’t do much about tomorrow and I certainly can’t do anything about yesterday so I just try to stay really focused on the present. Whether that’s work or tasks or being present with my family or my own making. Teaching is a really wonderful way to locate that idea as a practice, when I’m in a classroom with twenty students for a 7-hour studio, you really can’t do anything else, it’s a singular effort. Each week almost feels like a reset button. So that brings me right back to the idea that I don’t do anything alone. Everything is done in teams of people, in layers of feeling, in collaboration, with support and sometimes even antagonism. That’s a really rich motivator too!

Ecotone NATURAL. [2014] 12 inches square, encaustic of panel

The word on the street is that you bring a delicious nonalcoholic liquid concoction to VCFA’s residencies to keep your energy levels up and not get sick? What’s the story and more importantly what’s the recipe?

Yes, I do! I started this about a year ago when I entered the grad program at VCFA and I’ve been doing it ever since. I go up with a dozen green fruit and vegetable juices. I make them a couple days before and freeze them so I can bring them up to Vermont in my car. There’s lots of good stuff in recipe below: it’s any type of greens that you have on hand or in season in your area and wonderful anti-inflammatory roots like ginger and turmeric. I prefer live roots [they can also be powdered] I add wheatgrass juice for the energy and pineapple because the enzymes help you metabolize some of the vitamins in the greens. I’ve use filtered water, wheat germ and some berries if I’ve got them, I just go with what’s in the fridge that needs to be either processed or eaten. It definitely helps my residency experience and stamina.

Traveling can be hard on the body, especially when the diet is not the same as what you normally eat, or there’s a fair amount of stress, stimulation or sleeplessness — like at a residency — having a green juice is a way that I know I’m putting something good, supportive and nourishing into my body. That way I can get the work done and be present for my fellow faculty and our students. There are also lots of powdered versions that have really excellent nutrients and are something that you can travel with a lot easier than the liquid version.

PMS 357 VCFA Green Juice!!!

PMS 357 VCFA Green Juice Recipe

• 1 banana
• 5 strawberries
• 6 frozen pineapple chunks
• 1 shot frozen wheatgrass juice [pre-made and purchased]
• 5 leafs lacinato kale, thick veins removed
• 2 inches of fresh ginger root, chopped
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1/2 cup orange juice [purchased or made, fresh-squeezed]
• 1-2 cups filtered water
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper [to taste]
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder or 2 inches of fresh turmeric root, chopped
• 1 large pinch ground cinnamon

Put all ingredients in high-speed blender for two minutes. Pour and share, makes enough for two people. Seal tight in glass jars and freeze if you are making in advance.

Use any type of organic greens that you prefer or that are locally available. Naturally, each time I make a green juice it tastes and looks different. If you prefer more sweetness and thickness, add pitted dates. If you would like to add protein a small handful of cashews and almonds are easy to throw in.

ENJOY, with love.

Thanks Ian, this was an opportunity I will not forget. It’s really formative to become who I already am through sharing these words. Life’s like that.

Love you!

I love you, too, Nikki. Thank you so much for being such an awesome friend, colleague, teacher, and fellow traveler to all of us at VCFA!

One other thing, folks—the photo at the top is by the amazing Robin Ivy, photographer extraordinaire.

And with that, friends, we’re off like a prom dress! Stay tuned for the next installment of “Huh?”, coming soon!!!Nike Sneakers | Nike Air Force 1’07 Essential blanche et or femme – Chaussures Baskets femme – Gov