Artist Statement

I am a practitioner of the Bricolage Arts, a folk model of universal creativity utilizing whatever is at hand to fashion, repair, and invent. I have used a “Bricolage Theory of Improvisational Composition” in some form all my life. I learned naive Bricolage by being born into a Mexican American migrant field-working family. We fixed everything with broken parts and pieces of other things. We made tools from discards and scraps. Poverty made us inventive. Naive Bricolage (also called “crude materialism”) always breaks down because life for “the poor” is always breaking down. In their world of constant breakage, repairs are transitory, made only to succeed at the moment. Labor-saving ideas were quickly passed along and copied, anything to make work easier. Since necessity made us see value in everything broken, we could look past and through the wreckage of all broken pieces to find a whole piece, one part intact. It felt like magic, like a conjuration.

I took this orientation to my studies, to my teaching and to my art. I merged my Bricolage Art approach to Education to develop workshops such as “Transformative Diversity with A Focus on Common Experience at The Level of Discontinuity” and “An Experiential Workshop in Creative Metacognition.” These workshops, and others, were residential seminars which, in collaboration with students, employed metacognitive methods of counter-intuitive problem-solving. Frankly, I have taught over a hundred graduate adult students how to think in and use Interdisciplinary concepts that are supported and utilized by the resources arising from a Bricolage approach. These workshops practices have been explicitly presented in my book Riding the Unicorn, Incursions into Visual Intelligence, 2018.

My Bricolage Art, prior and current, are examples and models of this way of using a vibrant ambiguity to access new possibilities. As I have said to many students, “I am at my best teaching when I am most learning.” I present you with my best teaching.

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Artist Bio

Jose Hilario Cedillos received a BA in Studio Art with honors from the University of California in 1971, A Master’s degree in Education and Counseling from California State University in 1979, and a PHD in Humanistic Education in 1984, also from the University of California. The day after he defended his dissertation, he mounted a gallery show in Santa Barbara, California featuring the drawings and paintings he had created as study aids during his 4-year doctoral program.

As a recent professor of Education, Jose followed teaching opportunities in six different states. As he developed his educational experience, he exhibited his artwork in each state as he moved from California to New Mexico (Career ServicesDirector), Colorado (Director of Community-Based Organization, CommunityCollege Instructor), Vermont (Master’s Program Mentor/Advisor), Ohio (AssistantDean) and Pennsylvania (Doctoral mentor/core advisor).

In 1992, he became an Assistant Dean in the Union Institute and University’s PhD program of Interdisciplinary Studies before transferring to full-time faculty after two years. Jose spent 25 years as a dissertation mentor (core advisor) while conducting residential seminars and teaching mid-career adult students pattern recognition, visual thinking, and aesthetic metacognition as tools for understanding and working with doctoral-level inquiry. He emphasized student development of cognitive empathy for and while conducting qualitative research projects.

He mounted a solo art show at the Kol Ami Gallery, Elkins Park, PA in March 2019. He is also the author of the self-published Riding the Unicorn, Incursions into Visual Intelligence (2018), Yellow Dog Dreams, A Mexican American Memoir (2015), and a series of published poetry and haiku in Moonstone Press (PA) publications.

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Education

1984
Ph.D., University of California-Santa Barbara, Humanistic Education

1979
M.A., California State University-San Luis Obispo, Education, Counseling and Guidance

1971
B.A., University of California-Santa Barbara, Fine Arts, Studio (with honors)

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Professional Experience

2012- 2022
Program Thesis Advisor, Online Adjunct Faculty, Humanistic Gerontology Master’s Program, Nova SE University, Davie, FL

2010-2012
Volunteer Project Manager, 50+ Pilot Project, Philadelphia, PA

1992 -2008
Faculty, The Union Institute and University doctoral program, Cincinnati, OH

1990-1992
Assistant Dean, The Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, OH

1989-1990
Core Faculty, Assistant Professor, Graduate Program of Vermont College, Burlington, VT

1986-1989
Executive Director, Amo, Inc., CBO Consortium of Colorado Springs, CO

1985-1986
Director, Career Services, Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell, Roswell, NM

1984-1985
Director, Group Life, U.S. Job Corps Center, Roswell, NM

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Other Experience

1980-1982
Production Supervisor, Reynolds Aluminum, Torrance California

1977-1978
Production Planner, Teledyne Corp., Wah Chang Facilities, Albany, OR

1970-1972
Marketing Specialist, Kaiser Industries, SW Regional Marketing, Los Angeles, CA

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

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Professional Activities

2008-present
Independent Writer, Lecturer and Visual Artist, Philadelphia, PA

2022
Poem, Anthology of Hope, Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, PA

2019
Poem, Philadelphia Says: Struggle For Freedom, Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, PA

Poem, Yearning to Breathe Free, Poetry from the Immigrant Community, Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, PA

Solo Bricolage Art Show, Kol Ami Gallery, Cherry Hill, NJ

2018
Riding the Unicorn, Incursions into Visual Intelligence, Amazon

8 haiku in Philadelphia says HAIKU (Moonstone Press), Philadelphia, PA

Birthday Day, Moonstone Arts Center, Poetry Chapbook, Philadelphia, PA

2015
Yellow Dog Dreams, A Mexican American Memoir, Amazon

2011
Celebrate Arts and Aging Annual Art Show, Exhibitor, Philadelphia Corporation For Aging

The Haverford Free Library Annual Art Show, Exhibitor, Haverford, PA

Whole Foods Black History Month Art Show, Exhibitor

Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Story of Art, Latino Artists, Presenter, Philadelphia, PA

2010
The Philadelphia Art Salon on The Main Line, Exhibitor, Philadelhphia, PA

Celebrate Arts and Aging Annual Art Show, Exhibitor, Philadelphia Corp. For Aging, The Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and PECO

Senior Law Center NGO Art Show and Fundraiser, Exhibitor, Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia Salon Art Show, Exhibitor

The Darwin Music and Poetry Project, American Philosophical Society, PA

My original poem, The Monogamous Man performed in concert by the Network For New Music

2009
Cheltenham Art Center Annual Show, Exhibitor, Cheltenham, PA

First Person Arts Salon, University of the Arts, memoir reading and art exhibit, Philadelphia, PA

2007
Interdisciplinary research grant in doctoral studies with an emphasis on creativity based on A Typology of Interdisciplinary Design (Cedillos 2003)

2005
Consultant, General Mills Inc., New Product Development, Minneapolis, MN

2002
“Bricolage, Jazz and Improvisation,” Union Graduate College Residential Seminar

2001
“Designed Time: A Demonstration Project” Sabbatical Report, Interior Design, original Bricolage artwork

1999-2002
Consultant/Evaluator, W.K.Kellog Foundation, program development, Battle Creek, MI

1999
Consultant, Westheimer Enterprises, innovation review, Cincinnati, OH

1998
“What is Art?” Union Graduate College Residential Seminar in Darwinian creativity and perceptual innovation

1997
Consultant, New World Foundation, Board innovation review, New York, NY

“Evaluation Within Cultural Contexts”, The Initiative For Culturally Responsive Evaluation, Team Monograph, Western Michigan University Office of Research, non-traditional criteria and creative methods of program evaluation

1996
“Beyond Multiculturalism", Building Bridges between African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos, 3rd Conference, keynote speaker, conference proceedings

1993-1996
Grassroots Leadership Development Qualitative MetaAnalysis, Team Monograph, W.K.Kellogg Foundation. Creative grassroots leadership development projects

1992
“Lifeboat Education: Cautions for a Diverse Society,” paper, National Association for Multicultural Education, key note speaker

“Interdisciplinary and the Pedagogical Sketchbook,” Union Graduate College Residential Seminar in visual analogy and ecological thinking

1990
“The External Degree: Schooling without Socialization?” paper, 8th Annual Conference on Alternative and Non-Traditional Education, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

“Job Corps—A Socialization Perspective: A Case Study of Student Organization in A Federal Training Program for Adolescents,” Journal of Vocational Education Research

1988
Business of Arts Center, Opening Exhibition, Juried Show (4 pieces), Manitou, Colorado Springs, CO

1984
“Worked Surfaces/Ceramic Visions,” 2-Artist Show, Eaton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA