This guide is a place to START your research into diverse artists and designers.
This is not a comprehensive guide. Instead, we include links to quality lists and databases. Please send us your suggestions and comments.
Eventually, we hope to expand this guide to document the rich diversity of Otis Alumnx.
There are many ways to find diverse artists and designers.
We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World. by
Profiles and portraits of 50 artists and art entrepreneurs challenging the status quo in the art world. Confidently curated by Jasmin Hernandez, the dynamic founder of Gallery Gurls, We Are Here presents the bold and nuanced work of Black and Brown visionaries transforming the art world. Centering BIPOC, with a particular focus on queer, trans, nonbinary, and BIWOC, this collection features fifty of the most influential voices in New York, Los Angeles, and beyond.
Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art by
The result of years of careful preparation, this two-volume work covers the artistic production and biographies of nearly 200 individual artists from across the United States as well as Chicano/a artists residing in Mexico and elsewhere. This unique work was published as a full-color coffee-table-quality set of books (featuring over 600 artworks in full color) with an accompanying Web site that provides bibliography, artists? statements, and other updated information. Produced with the support of the Center for Latino Initiatives of The Smithsonian Institution, the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, and numerous art organizations around the nation, this book represents a major advance in understanding, appreciation, and dissemination of Chicano/a art.
Asian American Art: a history, 1850-1970 by
Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 is the first comprehensive study of the lives and artistic production of artists of Asian ancestry active in the United States before 1970. The publication features original essays by ten leading scholars, biographies of more than 150 artists, and over 400 reproductions of artwork, ephemera, and images of the artists. Aside from a few artists such as Dong Kingman, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Isamu Noguchi, and Yun Gee, artists of Asian ancestry have received inadequate historical attention, even though many of them received wide critical acclaim during their productive years. This pioneering work recovers the extraordinarily impressive artistic production of numerous Asian Americans, and offers richly informed interpretations of a long-neglected art history. To unravel the complexity of Asian American art expression and its vital place in American art, the texts consider aesthetics, the social structures of art production and criticism, and national and international historical contexts. Without a doubt, Asian American Art will profoundly influence our understanding of the history of art in America and the Asian American experience for years to come.
Black Designers in American Fashion by
From Elizabeth Keckly's designs as a freewoman for Abraham Lincoln's wife to flamboyant clothing showcased by Patrick Kelly in Paris, Black designers have made major contributions to American fashion. However, many of their achievements have gone unrecognized. This book, inspired by the award-winning exhibition at the Museum at FIT, uncovers hidden histories of Black designers at a time when conversations about representation and racialized experiences in the fashion industry have reached all-time highs. In chapters from leading and up-and-coming authors and curators, Black Designers in American Fashion uses previously unexplored sources to show how Black designers helped build America's global fashion reputation. From enslaved 18th-century dressmakers to 20th-century "star" designers, via independent modistes and Seventh Avenue workers, the book traces the changing experiences of Black designers under conditions such as slavery, segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Black Designers in American Fashion shows that within these contexts Black designers maintained multifaceted practices which continue to influence American and global style today. Interweaving fashion design and American cultural history, this book fills critical gaps in the history of fashion and offers insights and context to students of fashion, design, and American and African American history and culture.
Native Fashion Now by
Celebrating Native American design as an important force in the world of contemporary fashion, this book features beautiful, innovative, and surprising looks from Native American artists. Mainstream American fashion has always been influenced by Native American design, and that's because Native artists have always created exquisite clothing, jewelry, and accessories of their own. But it's only recently that Native designers themselves have started to break into the fashion industry in a big way. Current Native fashion is both wearable and beautiful and, as this volume reveals, increasingly fashion-forward. Divided into sections according to the designers' personal styles, the book showcases the work of dozens of fashion designers, from Virgil Ortiz to Patricia Michaels to Jamie Okuma. The book even includes a few Native-influenced pieces by non-Native designers like Isaac Mizrahi and Ralph Lauren. Native Fashion Now designers have dressed presidents' wives and been finalists on Project Runway, sold their work around the world, and seen it acquired by museums and private collectors. With examples that range from haute couture to casual streetwear, from evening gowns to beaded boots, and from skateboards to umbrellas, Native Fashion Now demonstrates the extraordinary range and talent of designers who honor important cultural traditions while creating breathtaking of-the-moment fashion.
Rebel Girls Level Up by
TRUE STORIES OF CREATORS AND COMMUNITY! Meet 25 inspiring women in the world of gaming and the metaverse. Read about how they've created innovative technology, designed the video games you play, and broken barriers whenever their industry put up walls. Dive into gamer communities with popular streamers like Imane Anys, better known as Pokimane. Learn to lead with Aya Kyogoku, who directed several Animal Crossing games. Design digital clothing with Roblox creators like cSapphire. And compete in the wild world of esports with pro gamers Sasha Hostyn and Sylvia Gathoni. This book pairs inspiring, easy-to-read text with colorful full-page portraits created by female and nonbinary artists from all around the world. Plus, scannable codes let you listen to longer stories on the Rebel Girls app!
Queer X Design by
The first-ever illustrated history of the iconic designs, symbols, and graphic art representing more than 5 decades of LGBTQ pride and activism. Beginning with pre-liberation and the years before the Stonewall uprising, spanning across the 1970s and 1980s and through to the new millennium, Queer X Design celebrates the inventive and subversive designs that have powered the resilient and ever-evolving LGBTQ movement. The diversity and inclusivity of these pages is as inspiring as it is important, both in terms of the objects represented as well as in the array of creators; from buttons worn to protest Anita Bryant, to the original 'The Future is Female' and 'Lavender Menace' t-shirt; from the logos of Pleasure Chest and GLAAD, to the poster for Cheryl Dunye's queer classic The Watermelon Woman; from Gilbert Baker's iconic rainbow flag, to the quite laments of the AIDS quilt and the impassioned rage conveyed in ACT-UP and Gran Fury ephemera. More than just an accessible history book, Queer X Design tells the story of queerness as something intangible, uplifting, and indestructible. Found among these pages is sorrow, loss, and struggle; an affective selection that queer designers and artists harnessed to bring about political and societal change. But here is also: joy, hope, love, and the enduring fight for free expression and representation. Queer X Design is the potent, inspiring, and colorful visual history of activism and pride.
Find a person you like in Wikipedia? Search their categories, which can become very specific, to find more people like them. Here are some pages to get your started:
Athough the scope of these resources is not limited to diversity, they do collect materials by marginalized groups.
Otis College of Art and Design | 9045 Lincoln Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90045 | MyOtis
Millard Sheets Library | MyOtis | 310-665-6930 | Ask a Librarian