SOLD: CCA's Closure with Melissa Leventon and Elizabeth Travelslight

SOLD: CCA's Closure with Melissa Leventon and Elizabeth Travelslight

CCA — California College of the Arts — is closing. Vanderbilt University is buying the campuses. And decades of art education, community, and institutional memory are being sold off with them. In this episode, recorded at Goat Hall in San Francisco's Potrero Hill, I sit down with two people who lived it from the inside: Elizabeth Travelslight, who taught in CCA's Critical Studies program and was also present for the closure of SFAI, and Melissa Leventon, who has taught fashion history and theory at CCA for 27 years. Together they trace the risky financial decisions and leadership failures that brought the institution to this point, the history that gave rise to both CCA and SFAI, and what it means — for students, for faculty, for the Bay Area — when places like this disappear. We didn't plan it this way, but the conversation took on a shape of its own: part mass, part confession, part hail mary, and somewhere at the end, something like a benediction. SFAI is already gone. Now CCA. The question is what we're willing to lose next.

Dreamers & Lovers Valentine's Day

The night before Valentine’s Day, artists gathered at SOMA Arts to talk about saving the San Francisco art scene. It felt less like a policy meeting and more like couples therapy. In this special Art Yap episode, Shawna asks three simple questions:  When did you fall in love with the SF arts ecosystem?  What broke your heart?  And why are you still here? From naked violinists in backyard performances to the grief of losing beloved venues and institutions, Dreamers & Lovers captures a city mid-reckoning. Artists reflect on open studios, weirdo energy, long-distance devotion, peanut butter budgets, and the stubborn belief that art is not ornamental — it’s essential. At the center of the night is a reminder: grief is a clearing. And if we hold our anger too tightly, our hands aren’t free to build. This episode is a love letter to the Bay Area arts community — flawed, fickle, resilient, and still here. Happy Valentine’s Day.

14 - Lauren Frankel, From Musicology to Cultural Futures

Today on Art Yap, I’m talking with someone whose mind seems to run on two beautifully interwoven tracks — sharp, crystalline analysis and expansive creative instinct. Lauren Frankel is a musicologist-turned-nonprofit-arts-worker-turned-data-nerd-turned-cultural-strategist, and honestly? She’s one of the most interesting arts workers I’ve talked to in a long time. She loves spreadsheets and opera with equal devotion. She brings order to artistic chaos without ever dulling it. She’s a systems thinker who never forgets the humans inside the system.  I first encountered Lauren’s work live at a San Francisco Arts Commission community meeting and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became: her path moves from a scrappy performing-arts high school to studying music history at Yale, to working with the Kronos Quartet, to leading audience insights and impact evaluation at YBCA — all the way to her current role at AMS Planning, where she helps arts organizations and cities think about their cultural futures with intention and clarity. Her doctoral research dives into how nonprofit structures literally shape the music we hear today — not metaphorically, but structurally, financially, artistically. And her consulting work now lets her zoom all the way out again, looking at systems, communities, buildings, behaviors, and possibilities. In this episode, we talk about growing up creative; discovering musicology through a Women in Music class her piano teacher encouraged her to take; finding herself inside the very nonprofit structures she once studied; doing on-the-ground impact work during the pandemic; and what it feels like to help organizations design futures that give creativity room to thrive. Let’s get into it.

13 - RMK, Painting with Ghosts

In this episode of Art Yap, I sit down with Richard Koscher (RMK)--artist, filmmaker, creative director, and bold experimenter--whose newest project GHOSTS OF THE ICE asks us to look directly at what's disappearing. Using thermochromatic paint and custom-engineered frames, RMK creates artwork that literally vanishes with heat--mirroring the way climate change is quietly erasing the world around us.  We talk about lost masterpieces, AI in art, raising creative kids, and why sometimes, making something vanish is the most powerful statement an artist can make. This episode is for anyone using creativity to navigate complexity--where imagination isn't an escape, but a strategy.

12 - Connie Wurz (formerly Connie Wood), at SFO Museum design is everywhere

Today’s guest is Connie Wurz (formerly Connie Wood), Curator in Charge of Graphic Design at the SFO Museum—and someone whose work quietly shapes how millions of people experience art and information every day. Connie’s design work isn’t just beautiful—it’s empathetic. It meets people where they are: in motion, in stress, in transit. Whether it’s a traveler sprinting to a gate or someone pausing for a quiet moment in an airport terminal, her contributions to exhibitions make space for curiosity and reflection. In this conversation, we talk about storytelling through design, how to build for diverse audiences, and how all the details matter and design is EVERYWHERE. Connie’s path—from her early love of photography, typography and wallpaper, to designing for one of the most unique museums in the world—is a masterclass in care, clarity, and creative leadership. Let’s get into it.