Ann Schnake, an East Bay artist and the co-founder of the Oakland project space Dream Farm Commons, talks about:

Her background as a nurse practitioner before she more formally became an artist, working in very intense environments (emergency rooms in communities with turmoil) and how those experiences affected her generally and left her yearning to become involved in the ‘poetics’ of art; why she continues to choose to live in the Bay Area after living there the majority of her life (she’s proud of its diversity, for one: Alameda County is 2nd only to Queens, NY for having the most diversity in its population), and how Oakland has such a vital history as well as present by way of the people who were pushed out of the area financially but come back to visit; starting to organize art in the county health centers via a program called Arts Change; how going back to school – for an MFA at California College of the Arts – at an older-than-usual age informed her experience, which was very positive as far as what she was able to get out of it, though she couldn’t avoid ageism from many of the younger students, and which she’s experienced in the art world at large, which she theorizes is connected to younger artists’ m.o.’s to stake out formidable peer groups for most effective impact; how she came to found her space Dream Farm Commons, largely because she “always preferred starting my own things…as opposed to applying to somebody else’s,” and the intentions and trials of running the space, which include finding ways to keep the doors open and adapting to walk-in computer thieves.