Conversations with Blanca Herrada

Today we’d like to introduce you to Blanca Herrada

Hi Blanca, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started as a kid from a working class family in a rural Kansas town in the Flint Hills. I had always loved art class and craft projects, but coming from a working class family, my original desire was to become a surgeon. Ha! Once I entered high school, I became enamored with the arts. I was fortunate that my small-town high school had a robust arts program that included drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry and metals, and even glassblowing. I became incredibly close to my metals teacher, Mrs. Spade. She was my mentor and my main advocate for pursuing the arts. With her encouragement, I enrolled in an Art Therapy program at ESU as a compromise to my parents. After my first semester of college and looking further into the Art Therapy program, I decided it was not for me and switched to majoring in Painting and Art History. After college, I moved to Lawrence, where I immersed myself in the thriving arts community. I started working with an arts and culture organization in Topeka, The Tonantzin Society, where I gained valuable experience in having a community arts practice and curated my first exhibition, Artemio Rodriguez | Tradición y Modernidad En El Grabado (Artemio Rodriguez | Tradition and Modernity in Printmaking). After that, I just kept taking any opportunity that came my way, and eventually, I started my current job as the Exhibitions Coordinator at the Lawrence Arts Center. Since then, I’ve curated more exhibitions, participated in nationally recognized fellowships, and continued to grow as an artist, curator, activist, and educator.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth is not a word I would ever use to describe any facet of my life. Coming from a working class family, access, self-doubt, and cultural norms were difficult to overcome through the course of my artistic journey. To this day, I find myself questioning if I am making the right choices, doing the right things. But when I see the fruits of all my labor, whether it is the opening of a new exhibition, finishing a painting, or teaching a class, I know it was worth it. If it weren’t for the community of people I have built around me, the journey would have been a lot harder. I am here today and continue doing the work I am doing because I believe that art can change lives. It changed mine in ways I never thought possible.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My artistic practice spans numerous facets but is ultimately rooted in community building. My visual work highlights BIPOC people across intersections. My models are almost exclusively BIPOC folks and usually people I know personally. By producing representation, I am creating more welcoming and accessible spaces for all. My work as a curator is rooted in uplifting marginalized voices and providing space for real, educational, and collaborative conversations across intersections to build relationships and understanding between people. My professional work at the Lawrence Arts Center allows me to facilitate dynamic and engaging art exhibitions while our galleries and their associated programming are 100% free and accessible to all. In addition to everything I just spoke about, I am also a teaching artist and have enjoyed teaching classes across age ranges, physical and cognitive ability, and mediums. My students inspire and bring me joy in ways that I often don’t expect and give me confirmation that I am on the right path.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I’ve been a vegetarian for half my life and want to learn to play an instrument! I’ve always wanted to be musically inclined. Saxophone, piano, and accordion are the three I’m most interested in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.blancaherrada.com
• Instagram: @_casualdreamer

Image Credits
Headshot | Nathan Kramer
Artwork | Aaron Paden
Hands Curating | Mariah Seifert
Class Photo | Myself