As the Founder of Bader + Simon, I would like to share the Three Dot Collection for our first online exhibition. This is my personal art collection that I have been building over the past several years. Three Dot is a nod to my three children and is marked upon my inner left wrist. They are the center of almost everything I do, including collecting art.

I grew up in a small Northern California town void of arts and culture. The only museum I was familiar with until my twenties was the local historical museum that shared a space with the small and sparsely stocked library. Furthermore, I attended the same high school my parents attended, with many of the same teachers still employed by the time I made my way to the 7th – 12th-grade establishment. I think that circumstance has fed an internal interest in constant learning. I love to travel, experience different cultures, and expose my children to situations not offered to me in my youth. My lack of exposure in my early years has created a vast interest in seeing the world through art and culture.

Several years ago, I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, hoping to finalize my elusive dissertation topic. One of the places I visited would change the trajectory of my graduate studies and my life. As I walked through the doors of The Legacy Museum, my research topic came to me almost immediately. The museum provides a multi-sensory experience through images, sounds, videos, and holographic interactions. I experienced a visceral reaction to the mixed media exhibition that presented incarceration through an artistic lens. This experience led me to create a finished paper that followed the standard guidelines while also bringing forth the visual elements of a creative dissertation. I would go on to write a dissertation that used art to present the realities of living with diabetes while incarcerated.

But I would also go on to begin collecting art that is thought-provoking and activist-based. The majority of my collection is by artists who are currently and formerly incarcerated, in addition to artists who provide insight on race and gender issues. I buy art that informs, agitates, and questions the status quo. My goal is that my collection informs, inspires, and provides context and perspective in a way that might otherwise get overlooked.

One of my favorite pieces in my collection is Jerome XXXIII by Titus Kaphar. This piece is from his series, The Jerome Project. Measuring a mere 10" x 7", this piece is powerful within its small size. The series began in 2011 when the artist researched his father's prison records. As he surveyed his father Jerome's prison history, he also found 99 men who were also incarcerated and shared his father's first and last name.

The series consists of oil portraits of various Jerome's mug shots on a gold leaf background, a reference to Byzantine paintings. Each face is partially submerged in tar, with the mouths silenced by the tar and the eyes looking ahead, piercing the viewer with intensity. Kaphar initially intended for the black substance to represent each individual's time in prison. Yet, he abandoned that formula after realizing that incarceration impacts an individual long after being released.

Art holds an incredible power to transcend words, and Kaphar is one of many artists who exemplifies this practice. No two of us are the same. We think differently, and we see differently. We learn differently. Art has the potential to provide this inclusivity. By combining art, education, and the examination of society through my collection, I hope to provide a landscape for community engagement and interaction. Leaving space for the current day and historical events to be told, questioned, researched, and preserved.

Collecting Art With a Purpose

The Genesis of Bader + Simon

A Blog is Born