SUBJECT MATTERS was founded by Deborah Gangwer as a way to personally address her keen and long-standing interest in the intersection between art and culture as social commentary. While developing museum exhibitions Gangwer often met artists whose work made poignant visual statements about topics of cultural concern, and encouraged dialogue and interaction among people. To reach a broader public Gangwer decided to travel the artwork she admired to everyday spaces people inhabit. The result is SUBJECT MATTERS.
DEBORAH GANGWER
DEBORAH GANGWER has over ten years of art exhibition, teaching and curating experience. As associate director of exhibitions at Copia Museum in Napa, CA, she developed more than 80 exhibitions from 2001 to 2006. In planning and curating exhibitions, Gangwer has worked with collectors, artists, guest curators, museums, traveling exhibition services and galleries to select and solicit artworks and artifacts, as well as overseeing exhibition content and graphic design. She began her career in the arts by working in an architectural art design studio for sculpture, glass, mosaic and metal commissions, and has over 20 years combined experience in visual, architectural and interior art design.
As an educator, Gangwer lectured at Pacific Union College Department of Art in Angwin, CA; taught Art History at Napa Valley College; and was a teaching assistant at University of California, Davis. Her lectures about art and contemporary culture include a wide range of topics; among them, the Pop Art Movement and consumer culture; the Feminist Arts Movement; rice cultivation practices and the shaping of personal identity in Asian cultures; artists who use exclusively found objects and recyclable materials in their work; artists' portrayals of sweets to interpret current cultural practices; the transplanted culture of Hmong gardners in America; and how Spanish and Mexican ceramics reflect those cultures.
She holds a MA in Art History from the University of California, Davis, where she received a Humanities Graduate Research Award. She graduated summa cum laude in Liberal Studies from John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, CA, and concurrently attended Pacific Union College, Angwin, CA, where she majored in Art History.
DOREEN SCHMID
DOREEN SCHMID is a freelance editor, curator and writer whose earlier career included marketing director positions in Italian wine for Luce Della Vite and the Consorzio del Gallo Nero, both based in Florence, Italy; and enoteca director for the Italian Trade Commission’s New York Wine & Food Center. Earlier, she was an assistant editor at Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Most recently, she worked as publications manager for Copia Museum. She continues to publish articles on wine, food and travel.
She has curated exhibitions for the Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA, the Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA, and the Napa Valley Museum. She also writes and edits photographers’ interpretive materials. Schmid has edited numerous museum catalogues for Copia, where she served as editor of a literature and arts journal, and for the San Francisco Asian Museum, as well as architectural books. She has received first and second place awards from the Association of American Museums catalogue competitions and the Annual New York Book Show for her editing work. In 2005 she earned a California College of the Arts (CCA) scholarship for her writing and an artist residency at the Anderson Center.
Schmid has a MA in Visual Criticism from CCA and in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University; she attended Emerson College in Boston and graduated with a BA from SUNY Stony Brook. She is a board member of PhotoAlliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the understanding, appreciation and creation of contemporary photography, and the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, and a former board member of the Ansel Adams Center and NY Women’s Culinary Alliance.
JIM GANGWER
JIM GANGWER is principal of Egret Graphics, a full-service media and exhibition graphics service. Gangwer's design career ranges from senior designer and director on large-scale residence projects to lighting design, creation and fabrication of architectural elements for commercial venues. He has owned and operated Gangwer Design Studio since 1972; previously he worked as a designer for Judson Studios in Los Angeles, CA. He has a strong background in collaborative project management, and working with a variety of fabrication techniques and materials. Clients have included Napa Valley Vintners Association, Copia Museum, and Jarvis Vineyards, all in Napa, CA; Flick Residence; Mercedes Benz; Houston family residence, Palm Springs; Joan Kroc's yacht, Netherlands & California residences; the Sultan of Brunai, London; commercial projects in China, Japan and Korea; Hemmeter Corporation and family residences in Hawaii and Aspen, CO.
Gangwer is well versed in historical design styles as well as contemporary and abstract concepts. As a working artist, he has a background and expertise in painting, sculpture, printmaking, metalwork, model building and etching. His experience includes design and fabrication of artworks and artifacts throughout the US, UK and Asia.
