First as students, then as teachers, Caitlin Cherry and Nicole Maloof witnessed how art schools promote an MFA-to-gallery pipeline that prioritizes homogeneity and leaves too many behind, burdened with student debt.
The absurd cost of a graduate education in art deters entire demographic groups from even applying. After the onset of the coronavirus, in-person learning halted and an already precarious job market for adjunct instructors collapsed.
It became clear to Cherry and Maloof that something other than the status quo was needed to imbue the new online learning environment with care, to mitigate the new stresses of pandemic life.