they/he jwmyeates@gmail.com jacobyeatesart.com Comic Arts, Drawing/Painting, Illustration In-person, Hybrid mentor (in-person and online)BIOI am an artist and educator residing in Minneapolis, where I have lived since moving from Iowa in 2015. Through modes of visual storytelling in the traditions of drawing and illustrated journalism processes, my work looks to provide new access points to more comprehensive understandings of the sociopolitical environments I and my audiences may inhabit, influence, and are subject to. Frequently focusing on the histories and current conditions present within the violent structures of empire, supremacist ideologies and global capital – particularly within the context of the U.S. and other colonial powers’ continual sponsorships of violence, and by extension, my and others’ subtle or overt culpability in these conditions – and understanding storytelling as a longstanding component of community growth and empathy-building, through the drawing series, zines, chapbooks, comics and essays I share, I ultimately seek to assist in whatever steps can be taken, individually and collectively, towards reflection, accountability, and redress.My solo and collaborative work has received grant funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Freedom and Captivity, and MPD150, has been featured by Cartoonists for Palestine, Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, Creative Quarterly, Paper Darts, Illozine, IH8 WAR and Little Village Magazine, and has appeared in a variety of exhibitions, discussions, publications and other community events throughout the Midwest and beyond.TEACHING PHILOSOPHY & MENTORSHIPI believe all educational roles and actions (whether as a student, a mentor, or faculty) must be viewed—and ultimately embodied—through the lenses of collective responsibility and communication. Just as no creative works exist outside of the context of their viewers, their makers, their content and their conditions of origin, so too is it critical to recognize my roles as an educator and artist are only successful when I approach every learning environment and opportunity from a pedagogical standpoint of facilitation and collaboration. In doing so, I prioritize meeting learners where they are at to foster a sense of agency for them during their time within an institution and, in arming them with the critical-thinking tools necessary to do so via constant studio production and ongoing discussions on narrative, form and technique, ensure this creative drive and authorship can continue to flourish in all other aspects of their lives, independent of an external “market need” for it. More-so than anything, I view a successful artistic practice to be one that is both personally sustainable/enriching and that does not disregard the artist's relationship to the worlds they find and place themselves in. In these modes of “learning through doing,” integrating components both physical and conceptual, learners are all the while participating in part of something larger than the course itself: an ongoing, creative process of coming into consciousness.PAST/CURRENT MENTEESMalini Basu ’24 Devin Gallucci ’25 Michayla Grbich ‘25