Faculty
Shay Mirk
Sarah “Shay” Mirk (she/they) is a graphic journalist, editor, and teacher. She is the author of Guantanamo Voices (Abrams, 2020), an illustrated oral history of Guantanamo Bay prison, which Kirkus called “extraordinary… an eye-opening, damning indictment of one of America’s worst trespasses.” She is also a zine-maker and illustrator whose comics have been featured in The Nib, The New Yorker, Bitch, and NPR. Her book on the craft of making nonfiction comics, Drawn from the Margins: The Power of Graphic Journalism (co-written with Eleri Harris), will debut from Abrams ComicsArts in 2024.
She is the author several books, including You Do You: Figuring Out Your Body, Dating, and Sexuality (Lerner, 2019), Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules (Microcosm, 2014), the graphic novel Open Earth (Limerence Press, 2018), and the self-published collection Year of Zines (2020).
Mirk is an adjunct professor in Portland State University’s MFA program in Art and Social Practice, where she teaches a graduate seminar on writing and research.
Mirk holds a degree in history, with honors, from Grinnell College. She identifies as white, nonbinary, and queer. In her free time, she befriends strangers’ dogs.
Ariana Jacob
Ariana Jacob (she/her) makes artwork that uses conversation to explore political and personal interdependence and disconnection. Prior to working as an artist and academic Ariana managed a farmers market, worked in a cabinet shop, co-ran a secret cafe out of her apartment, and fished for salmon commercially. While being an artist and academic Ariana also does union organizing and group facilitation, alongside being a partner, friend, family member and wonderer. Ariana currently teaches in the Social Practice MFA Program at Portland State University and is the Chair of Bargaining for PSUFA Adjunct Faculty Union. Her work has been included in the NW Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, Disjecta’s Portland 2012 Biennial, the Open Engagement Conference, the Discourse and Discord Symposium at the Walker Art Center. She has exhibited work and organized events at apexart and Smack Mellon in New York City, Betonsalon in Paris, France, Broken City Lab in Windsor, ON, Canada, PICA’s TBA Festival, The Portland Art Museum, The Department of Safety in Anacortes, WA, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA; and in many public places.