Heide Solbrig, M.F.A., Ph.D.

Whatever Floats Your Boat Productions

Education:

Ph.D., Communication, University of California, San Diego

M.F.A., Conceptual Design and Information Arts, San Francisco State University,

B.A., Bard College

Current Academic and Community Work: Teaching and Organizing

NuVu Design Innovation High School (Full-Time, 2023—Ongoing): Independent Design school for students in grades 8-12. “A maker space for kids who are eager to apply creative thinking to meaningful problems.”

Program Director of MassArt Comics Certificate: Visual Storytelling and Comic Arts, Continuing Education.

BLR (BIJAN Legal Resources) Pro-Se Asylum Project: (Spring 2022)

New Hampshire Institute of Art, Foundations

(2015-2018) Boston Comics Workspace Director/Owner, Somerville, MA

My own studio space in Somerville, Ma. In collaboration with Boston Comics Roundtable, I taught courses and provided space for other artists to teach & hold events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKHnUJtl2Y

Art, Comics, Writing Work (selected work)

The Heide Gobbin Project: (In Progress, 2024)

Nixon & Bicycles 1 & 2, Fall 2022

I AM NOT A DOG: by Frances, 2021: Winner, 2021 MICE Mini-Grant

https://www.radiatorcomics.com/shop/uncategorized/iamnotadog/

The Story of Suny Rodriquez, 2021-2023 (writer/project manager)

Featured on The Asylum Seekers Advocacy Project website, fas part of a digital archive about the Trump administration's family separation policy, along with other materials that document the advocacy efforts of ASAP members on the topic, and preserved as a historical record by the University of Arizona as part of the Reclaiming the Border Narrative initiative.

TheLine (2018-2019)

• This comics journalism project tells stories about the border, immigration and beyond through visual and comics essay. https://www.heidesolbrigtheline.com/

The Dandelion King: Love and Loss in the Gas Line: Book, released 2015,

The Thorazine Shuffle (and other short films associated with The Dandelion King, combining original animation linking archival footage from with a graphic mind’s eye) http://vimeopro.com/user8217007/the-dandelion-king-love-andlosswhile-waiting-in-the-gasline
Selections from The Dandelion King, reproduced and discussed along with Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware in “House, Comics, Fish: Graphic Narrative Ecologies of the Suburban Home” in Literature of Suburban Change, by Martin Dines, ‘University of Edinburough, 2020.
Reviewed in Filmmaker Magazine, Scott MacCauley, Nov. 18th: http://filmmakermagazine.com/88317-encounter-groupsghoststoriesand-rapid-prototyping-at-the-seventh-pov-hackathon/#.VG9gh-fXOdO

Documentary Projects:

Water Tower Place (2014, short film) Portrait of a low-income housing community in St. Louis that examines how of a handful of leasing agents, maintenance workers, apartment managers, community activists and local church leaders struggle to provide livable structure to overburdened residents. Funded Alpha films and Paul Corrigan. https://vimeo.com/90708453
Sex Myths (2014, online short film series for Partners in Sex Education) Shown in conjunction with keynote presentation for Partners in Sex Education. (Reviewed in The New Yorker, “Heavy Petting” by Larissa Macfarquhar http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/heavy-petting
Sex Myth #1 My Blue Waffle, with Elizabeth Boskey. Playfully explodes the Internet’s mythical Blue Waffle Disease meme, promoted to sell hits, fear, and porn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkG44FiebY
Sex Myth #2 What’s an Unprepared Oral Sex Aficionado to Do? Megara Bell and Brian Flaherty illustrate through witty dialogue, animation and science what does and doesn’t protect sexual partners from sexually transmitted infections. https://vimeo.com/113052151

Man and the Middle Class: The Work and Vision of Henry Strauss, (2013, 51 min). Experimental documentary focusing on industrial filmmaker Henry Strauss and his influential 1947-1971 oeuvre. Strauss narrates his experiences in the Great Depression and WWII and how they inspired the production of workplace films aimed at returning soldiers, newly promoted managers, and executives confronted by transforming authority relations and work identities. The film’s soundtrack is designed and performed by Roger Miller of the Alloy Orchestra. https://vimeo.com/71693033

Float:a love story (2003, 30 min). Personal documentary of a young homeless man during the 1980s. (“An insightful portrait of the director’s late boyfriend, a talented but troubled young man, using much of his own words and images. Fond of memory yet always completely honest,” CineVegas 2003 program; “Eugene O’Neill or Cassavetes in Super 8”—Dee Dee Halleck.) https://vimeo.com/32239867

Courses Designed/Taught:

NuVu Design Innovation High School

Identity Vessels: Introduction to Design/Making

Main Street/Side Street: Public/Street Art for Cambridge

Hidden Histories: Introduction to Research Methods

Collaborative Futures: Explorations in AI

Local Agents of Change

Off-the-Grid Systems

Environmental Art

Massachusetts College of Art Continuing Education,

Program in Visual Storytelling and Comic Arts:

Illustration for the Graphic Novel (Fall, 2022- Fall, 2024)

Introduction to Comic Arts

Memoir and Non-Fiction Comics

Comics Journalism

New Hampshire Institute of Art: (2016- 2018)

Foundations of Art

Comics and The Global Media

World Building with Creative Cloud; including Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Illustrator.

Comic Analysis and Practice

DIY Film

Boston Comics Workspace Education (September 2015- 2018)

Introduction to Comics’ Storytelling: Comics, Graphic Novels and More.

Comics Autobiography & Non-fiction Storytelling: Comics, Graphic Novels & More.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Selections from The Dandelion King: Love and Loss in the Gas Line, Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ), 2015.

“Orphans No More: Definitions, Disciplines, and Institutions,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 37 (3), Fall, 2009 (pp.98-105).

“Henry Strauss and the Human Relations Film: Social Science Media and Interactivity in the Workplace” The Moving Image:  The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 7 (1), Spring 2007 (pp.27-50).

Book Chapters

“Reginald Hudland: Black Panther”, Encyclopedia of Black Comics, 2016

“Dr. ERPI finds his Voice: Electrical Research Products, Inc. and the Educational Film Market,

1927-1937” in Learning with the Lights Off: A Reader in Educational Film (Dan Streible, Marsha Orgeron, Devon Orgeron, eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 (pp.193-214).

“The Personnel is Political: Voice and Citizenship in Affirmative Action Videos in the Bell System, 1970 to 1984”, Films that Work: Studies in Visual Practices of the Industrial Film (Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau, eds.) Amsterdam Press, 2009 (pp.259-282).

Selected Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

Mini-MICE grant, 2021

Somerville Arts Council, Project Grant (Women and Comics Speaking Series, 2017) Invited to Submit,

Creative Capital, 2015 Final Round, Creative Capital Grant, 2014.

References: Artists & Filmmakers

Joel Christian Gill: Associate Professor of Art; Chair, Department of Visual Narrative, Boston University, jcgill@bu.edu 603-854-0106

Julia Halperin: Independent Director and Producer (Barracuda, 2017, Now, Forager, 2013) Emerson College, halperin@antiquirk.com , 512-478-4741

Dan Mazur: Independent Comics Artist, Independent Publisher, Cambridge, MA, daniel.i.mazur@gmail.com, 857-998-2631

Mary Gray: Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, MA mlg@microsoft.com 812-369-2133

Miguel Arteta: Director-The Morning Show (2021), Beatriz at Dinner (2017) 323-574-1445, (2013-2015), Grace & Frankie (2015), Nurse Jackie (2012), House of Lies (2011), Enlightened (2012), American Horror Story (2011), Star Maps (1997), Chuck & Buck (2000). jmarteta@gmail.com 323-574-1445, 1-323-463-5662

Hamra Abbas: Conceptual Fine Artist, Lahore, Pakistan hamraabbas@yahoo.com

Roger Miller: Mission of Burma, Alloy Orchestra, Guilford, Vermont rogermiller@mindspring.com 718-982-2557

DeeDee Halleck, Filmmaker

Willow, New York DeeDeeHalleck@gmail.com http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org/