Hello! My name is Mika and I’m a writer, artist, and arts organizer living in Albuquerque, NM. 

My creative work is grounded in a devotion to tender attention to all and a belief in attention as ‘the beginning of devotion’ (with thanks to Mary Oliver). 

Weaving through my varied creative practices are the connective threads of curiosity, care, physicality, and playfulness. I write, I weave, I paint. I teach, I foster space, and gather together. Above all, I’m committed to cultivating curiosity, connection, and permission to play in myself and others. 

Supporting others in their own creative practices invigorates me. The art I make and the writing I do are the playful practices that ground me. 

I was lucky to grow up in a family that assumed and celebrated creativity and making, setting me up for a lifetime of creative exploration across modes and materials. 

Throughout and after college, I did what many artists and writers do: I worked in food service. Eventually starting a bakery of my own, a business I ran for 8 years - first baking wholesale for coffee shops and making cakes and desserts for weddings, and later having my own storefront bakeshop. 

Although baking and having a business required a lot of creative energy it did not fulfill my creative desires or leave time to pursue other creative projects. The financial stress of running a business started to make having a “job” more appealing - 

I began working for an arts organization, and then another, which eventually, surprisingly, delightfully, 

led me to OffCenter Community Arts Project where I currently work as the executive director. OffCenter is a free-to-use art space dedicated to providing access to art making and social interaction for all, centering first the needs of the most vulnerable and underserved artists including those experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities, elders, and members of our queer community. 

Through radical hospitality and a commitment to seeing the artistry and inherent dignity of all, OffCenter fosters creativity and connection. OffCenter Arts is a collaborative, living, creative project sustained by and sustaining many. My work at OffCenter Arts takes most of my creative energy and time…but unlike the bakery, it also fuels me. Although my current capacity for my personal artistic work is limited, by working in small batches I’m able to continue to cultivate the creative practices that I love. 

My visual art practice includes painting, collage, and fiber art: punch needle, tufting, quilting and weaving. Much of my visual inspiration comes from the rich history of quilting, knotting, and the many ways decorative arts have brought beauty to utilitarian objects through human history.

Playing with color and staying focused on materials and texture are my most consistent practices. Attending to the details and patterns around me, I follow tactile sensory inputs, seeking balance between thoughtful intention and intuitive flow. 

Not unlike my visual art practice, there is a playfulness and physicality to my writing practice. My creative practice as a writer is as a poet, a reader, a teacher, and a student endlessly curious about language and communication. I attend to word choice, to the subtle reactions of ear and tongue and hand in shaping a poem.

I’ve created several zines and written two chapbooks of poetry. Writing is the first step, editing, refining, and crafting the object of a book are equally delightful parts of the process. From layout to printing to binding, every step contributes to how both I as a creator and a future reader connect to a piece of writing. 

My current writing project is a prose poem hybrid experiment exploring themes of home, money, home buying, home making, debt, marriage, partnership, and community; drawing from historical lending practices, the current housing crisis, and pretty much every movie Julia Roberts has been in.

My writing practice also consists of supporting others in their writing, including hosting writing workshops, and (for one year) through hosting an online radio poetry show. I write a newsletter, with a focus on interpreting tarot through poetry, as well as being a place to share creative prompts and other writing that follows my curiosities.

In order to be creative - I can’t hold anything too tightly except my attention on the world around me. 

Learn more about OffCenter Arts at OffCenterarts.org