Meet Alicia Gorecki

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alicia Gorecki.

So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story begins when fresh off earning my BFA in painting and printmaking from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I jumped in an old camper van stacked with my paintings on top, two friends, a dog named Chaos, 800 dollars between us and we moved from the midwest to San Francisco. We arrived and secured jobs as house painters. In San Francisco that meant doing everything but a typical house paint job. 20 plus colors while hanging off of fall sets, gold leaf, molds of architectural details, and trompe l’oeil where all skills and materials that started on the Victorians and made their way into my personal artwork. At the same time, my friends and I managed to convince a landlord to rent us space in a live/work loft in the south of market area of San Francisco. We worked on meeting and exhibiting emerging artists while building up the recycled rubber clothing company we launched. Our neighbors in the building were a new web design firm with lots of connections which lead to my first big sale as an artist.

After two years in the space, we grew restless and were ready for a change. We wanted more space and LA was calling, so we packed up the gallery we had just gotten off the ground and moved it to downtown Los Angeles. We doubled our space and began representing more young artists, I learned web design and produced all the marketing materials for our recycled rubber clothing brand along with the gallery. We dressed local Los Angeles musicians, premiered independent films, hosted performance artists, produced emerging art exhibitions, all while I was continually producing and selling my personal artwork through our gallery. It was during this time taking on interns and training our employees that I realized creating artwork was not my only passion. I discovered here that teaching was in my blood, having been raised by two teachers might have been a clue earlier, but I didn’t feel the calling until I was in the middle of doing it. I set out to find a way to do more. We moved the gallery completely online and I got my first teaching job at a college. I was adjunct at first, teaching life drawing, perspective, digital painting, and graphic design courses. I worked with my students to get them out in the community, launched student exhibitions, a collaborative mural which earned me a community service award, and was promoted to assistant program chair. I was able to balance my own exhibitions, in and out of state, participate in art walks and keep a small list of clients who I created commissioned work for.

All of this was very rewarding, I had small cohorts of students I worked closely with throughout their entire bachelors program, I was able to keep up with my studio work, win some local awards with my own work and help my students launch their careers, but I was working for a for profit college and after ten years at the school, I wanted to step into public education. As I had been a very involved parent of a public school child in Pasadena, I knew the struggles that existed and I also was aware of the strengths. I followed the advice of then Assistant Superintendent of Pasadena High Schools, who was familiar with my volunteerism and my art practice, to look into the Visual Arts and Design Academy (VADA) at Pasadena High School. I was impressed and quickly accepted the lead teacher position, which is where I currently teach. VADA has a long history in Pasadena, having launched in 1995 as the first academy in the district. It set a standard for real-world experience in the arts, community and business partnerships, and project-based/integrated learning. I want to honor the legacy of VADA with my contribution to where it is going now. I have worked with the incredible team of academy faculty and district support to build on the relationships VADA enjoys. We partner with Jackalope Art Fair each fall to provide students the chance to exhibit and sell their work in the community. Every grade level produces two integrated projects each year which focus on topics of technology integration, social and political work, human rights, genocide awareness, and personal histories. We work closely with our business partners LightBringer Projects and Art Center mentors for support and critique along the way. At the end of the year, students curate and install an exhibit at Art Center College. I have also been proud to host interns from VADA and other local Public high schools to create murals on and off campus over the last three summers.

Has it been a smooth road?
There have of course been struggles, most of them stem from my desire to do so much and my inability to say no to creative projects. I am a single mother of a now teenager and have been since he was 2. Finding a balance that allowed me to support my son and keep creating has not been easy, but it has been the everything in keeping me going and keeping me happy.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am an artist and a teacher. I am of course proud of the various awards I have won for each, my exhibition history, my volunteerism, the collaborations I have participated in, and the public art I have been able to produce for my city, but I am most proud of the balance I have struck between volunteering in the arts, keeping my own professional artistic practice active, and helping students find their path in the arts. As a high school art teacher, my professional practice sets me and our VADA program apart from other high school arts programs, I am honored to bring that experience into my classroom. I am also proud to say that my students have included my likeness in three of their murals on the Pasadena High School Campus, as a zombie, riding a pegasus charging into an art battle, and most recently as the base of support in a tribute to education at Pasadena High School.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Pasadena is a great city for the arts and it just keeps getting better. There are a number of arts institutions, city wide art nights, art fairs, small and large galleries and the people of Pasadena love the arts. We are close to many commercial and entertainment arts opportunities as well in the surrounding cities. And we have the arts in our public schools!

Contact Info:

• Website: aliciagorecki.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @aliciagorecki @phs.camad.vada
• Facebook: facebook.com/phsvada
• Other: https://www.pusd.us/Page/3022

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