A resident of Salinas,
California on the Monterey Bay for almost 30 years, Trish Triumpho
Sullivan has participated in many group shows, and since 1998 has held fifteen solo exhibitions of her ceramic sculpture,
paintings and photographs. She considers herself a community arts activist and mentors teens - also founding the Salinas Alliance for Arts Education. .
A 2000
graduate of Hartnell College with an Associate of Arts Degree in Fine Art, and
in 2002 of California State University Monterey Bay with her B.A. in Visual and
Public Art, and a minor in Spanish language, Sullivan is currently holds a
Masters of Arts in Arts Administration from Goucher College in Baltimore,
Maryland.
Ms Sullivan's curatorial
experience includes an
internship with the Monterey Art and Historical Association, where she worked on the Monterey Presidio Museum, the Smithsonian at the National Steinbeck Center for Woody Guthrie,
the retrospective exhibition for the Monterey Pop Festival, and the Steinbeck
in Hollywood show in 2001. Sullivan curated an exhibition
of traditional Mexican masks at the Hartnell Gallery, worked as a guest curator at the Blackstone Winery Gallery, and curates an annual Day of the Dead exhibition in Salinas. She is the lead curator for the First Fridays Art Walk whers he has been
assisting emerging local artists to exhibit their artworks in non-traditional
venues for the past six years.
Sullivan
was twice the recipient of the coveted Boronda International Art Scholarship,
where she studied the art and culture of Spain, Mexico City and Oaxaca, and as
the curator/organizer of Bailando con la Muerte – Dancing with Death, an
annual multicultural celebration at Hartnell College for El Día de los
Muertos, now in its tenth year, Sullivan was amazed by the overwhelming
community support and encouragement of the participants.
The
artist has traveled extensively in the Yucatan, Western and Central Mexico, as
well as throughout Spain and Greece. She likes back roads travel, and realizing that the journey is often just as important as the destination,
followed the old Route 66 through Arizona and California. She is fascinated with
train travel, wishing to ride the rails around the United States, documenting
the adventure in photos.
Through
these experiences, Sullivan was inspired to create an environment for artists of
various backgrounds to gather on a year round basis. In 2001, she organized Artistas Unidos – Artists United, a multicultural, multi-disciplinary
community arts organization focused in Salinas due to the desire of local
artists, educators, students, and community members to have an inclusive venue
for all artists to create, display, and perform their work.
With AUAU,
Sullivan has encouraged community participation and teen involvement with
programs such as ArtSong Youth Arts Festival, and First Fridays, the monthly art
walk in Oldtown Salinas, and has built on this foundation to found the Salinas
Arts Congress. She is dedicated to making Salinas a better place to live and to
building bridges within and between all communities in the Monterey Bay area.
Sullivan currently teaches at the local community college and is the Executiv eDirector of the Gilroy Arts Alliance. She is pursuing research on arts and cultural tourism to the Central Coast of California.
" I will never cease to
learn from life…it is what makes life so rich, to search for knowledge,
to be open to new experiences, use these in my art, and share what I have
learned through my art."
-Trish Triumpho Sullivan
Favorite Inspirational Quote:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Mead