California College of the Arts announces 2023 Honorary Doctorate recipient Mildred Howard
San Francisco, CA—April 24, 2023—California College of the Arts (CCA) is proud to award an honorary doctorate degree to inspirational artists, designers, and thinkers each year at its Commencement Ceremony.
Portrait of Mildred Howard. Photo by Raymond Holbert.
This year, CCA is thrilled to announce Mildred Howard as the degree recipient at the 116th Commencement Ceremony held Saturday, May 13, 2023 at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. Howard, an award-winning artist, will deliver remarks at the undergraduate ceremony and will also be honored at a private reception. Nastaran Mousavi and Dane Bunton from Studio BANAA will speak at the master’s ceremony.
A key figure in the Bay Area art scene for over 50 years, Howard is known for her large-scale sculptural installations, public artworks, and assemblages. Howard’s work has been celebrated globally at international venues as well as local museums, including the Town House Gallery, Cairo; Walcot Chapel, Bath, England; ICA’s Vita Brevis, Boston; SFMOMA, and the Museum of African Diaspora, among others.
Over the span of her career, Howard’s artwork has focused on themes of home and belonging, as well as race, gender, and culture. She has said that one common theme in her work is the use of “everyday material” such as glass bottles, frying pans, and silverware, which evoke issues of cultural identity and memory. Influenced by social activism and community, Howard is also an educator, having taught at major universities and art institutions including CCA, Stanford University, San Francisco Art Institute, and Exploratorium Institute.
“Mildred is undoubtedly one of the most revered artists of the Bay Area. Her sustained impact locally and nationally represents the bold innovation and creative thinking that we champion at CCA. Her words of encouragement will be a great inspiration to the next generation of artists and designers.”
CCA President
“We are honored that Mildred Howard will be speaking to our graduating class at CCA’s 116th Commencement Ceremony,” said Stephen Beal, president of CCA. “Mildred is undoubtedly one of the most revered artists of the Bay Area. Her sustained impact locally and nationally represents the bold innovation and creative thinking that we champion at CCA. Her words of encouragement will be a great inspiration to the next generation of artists and designers.”
About Mildred Howard
Mildred Howard has worked in the community in numerous ways, including teaching the integration of art and science in the Institute for Inquiry at San Francisco’s Exploratorium and as Executive Director of the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California. Her work is included in major collections including: The Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation; Tweed Museum, University of Minnesota; Hampton University, Hampton, VA; de Young Museum, San Francisco; and The San Francisco Arts Commission. Howard is represented by Anglim/Trimble (San Francisco), Parrasch Heijnen (Los Angeles), and Turner Carroll (Santa Fe) Galleries.
Howard has been awarded prestigious honors from 500 Capp Street, the San José Museum of Art, the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Nancy Graves Foundation, the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame, the California State Senate, the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, among many others. She has also received the Joan Mitchell Award and the Lee Krasner Award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, as well as the Master Artist Award from several institutions including the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley and the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. Benefitting from its San Francisco Bay Area location, the college prepares students for lifelong creative work by cultivating innovation, community engagement, and social and environmental responsibility.
CCA offers a rich curriculum of 22 undergraduate and 10 graduate programs in art, design, architecture, and writing taught by a faculty of expert practitioners. Attracting promising students from across the nation and around the world, CCA is among the 25 most diverse colleges in the U.S. Last year, U.S. News & World Report ranked CCA as one of the top 10 graduate schools for fine arts in the country.
Graduates are highly sought after by companies such as Pixar/Disney, Apple, Intel, Facebook, Gensler, Google, IDEO, Autodesk, Mattel, and Nike, and many have launched their own successful businesses. Alumni and faculty are often recognized with the highest honors in their fields, including Academy Awards, AIGA Medals, Fulbright Scholarships, Guggenheim Fellowships, MacArthur Fellowships, National Medal of Arts, and the Rome Prize, among others.
CCA is creating a new, expanded college campus at its current site in San Francisco, spearheaded by the architectural firm Studio Gang. The new campus design will be a model of sustainable construction and practice; will unite the college’s programs in art, crafts, design, architecture, and writing in one location to create new adjacencies and interactions; and will provide more student housing than ever before.