Who is Katherine Kwong? Hailing from Thousand Oaks, CA, she is a senior English and Education major at Westmont College. Next year Katherine will pursue a secondary teaching credential in English at her Alma Mater. She has a variety of gifts she looks forward to developing in her time as an intern including but not limited to: writing for various audiences (especially teachers) understanding interviews, promoting the project on social media and thinking about how technology is influencing the current zeitgeist.

Though Katherine is not an artist in the formal training sense, she is delighted to be working with Portraits of the Central Coast. She believes Holli’s art gives our Central Coast residents a unique reflection of our multicultural community a. History, environmentalism, culture and identity are woven into every person: why not express it all in our art? As an aspiring educator, Katherine will be developing resources for teachers to integrate the Portraits of the Central Coast Project across all subjects. We want these fascinating stories shared in every class from art to social studies!

While English and Education are Katherine’s focus majors, she has a diverse array of other interests. When not reading books or conversing over tea, Katherine can be found rock climbing at the SB Rock Gym, cooking for her housemates and listening to podcasts. On Being, The Moth and Wait, Wait, n…Don’t Tell Me are her favorites for their well crafted stories, witty moments and insights on the world. She’s been a tutor in her college’s writing center and recently, over the summer, she worked for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in their Butterfly Pavilion. Museums, bookshops, libraries and centers of learning are her home. She has a deep love for words in all forms: written, read or spoken. As one of her friends noted, “Your love language is in articles.”

Katherine brings a sense of curiosity to her work on the project as well as a greater posture of learning as she seeks to understand the needs of teachers, the demands of the public art field and her own understanding of creative work. As a paper in Holli Harmon’s studio fondly pointed out: ‘I Have No Idea What is Going to Happen, But I Love It!” Fully adoptive of that motto, Katherine is excited to share, connect and converse with you. You can follow her on instagram @kkwongcuriosities and follow her posted content @portraitsofthecentralcoast