Please bear with us — IT is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
eTrieve Forms Unavailable
placeholder
Heather Gray
Art History Program Coordinator and Instructor
Art History

Thank you for coming to my page!

For Spring 2024

On Campus Classes

If you are enrolled in my AH 10: Art Appreciation/Introduction to Visual Culture, AH 11: Ancient Art or AH 13H: Renaissance Art courses, you will be attending class on the Aptos campus in VAPA 1001.

Online Classes

If you are enrolled in my AH 19: Art of the Americas course, you will be engaging with the class using Canvas (Cabrillo's online educational platform). This class is asynchronous, meaning that you will NOT be logging in at specific times to interact in real-time with me or your classmates via Zoom or other online conference tools. Instead, you will be participating in the class by watching pre-recorded lectures, reading provided articles, and contributing to group discussion boards. However! If you like having live interactions with your instructors or classmates, I hold completely OPTIONAL Zoom Student Support hours every week. These are not lectures. I do not deliver any instruction at them. Instead, they are like study sessions where you can ask questions of or get clarification from me, or get advice from other Art History students. Days, times, and Zoom links are provided within the Canvas course. Alternatively, or in addition to, you are welcome to attend an on-campus, in-person student support hour. The days, times, and location are also provided within the Canvas course.

Students registered for one or more of my classes will be able to find my class(es) on their Canvas dashboard by the first day of the semester (Spring 2024: January 29th). To access the course content, go to Cabrillo's Canvas page (locate at the top of Cabrillo's homepage). Log in using your Cabrillo Student ID and password.

If you have any questions about how I will be conducting my classes this semester please message me.

And if you would like to know a little about me, here is a short bio:

I was a first generation college student. I went to Cabrillo and then transferred to UC Santa Cruz as a Financial Aid student where I received my Bachelor's Degree in the History of Art and Visual Culture and studied abroad in Rome, Italy. I went on to obtained my Master's Degree in Art History and Visual Culture from San Jose State University.

I love Art History because I am the type of person who wants to know everything about everything and Art History allows me to do that. No matter your interests, Art History has you covered! You can look at art (or the term I like to use, visual culture) from any angle: Biology, Anthropology, Mathematics, Chemistry, Businesses, Health Sciences, Agriculture, and more. Yes! All of it!

While my specialty is in Renaissance architecture and urban planning of Rome, I have a wide variety of interests across time, media, and geography. I am particularly obsessed with hydraulic infrastructure like aqueducts and FOUNTAINS! However, my current work is on the historiography of Art History and its contribution to the centering of whiteness in the mythology of "essentialism." As such, I start each of my classes with a conversation on the white-centric foundations of Art History. From there, I continue to weave the topic of whiteness, as well as heteronormativity, misogyny, and colonialism, throughout my courses, pointing out and analyzing the ways in which visual culture upholds or denies the existing hegemonic narrative of the time/location. I do this with the goal of reshaping Art History to be something that truly reflects the diversity of human experiences that are expressed throughout the totality of visual culture made across time and space.

But, as I am only one person, with one kind of lived experience, I can only do this with you: your voice, your perspective, your experience. So, I invite you to join me in creating an Art History that reflects humanity as a whole. Your perspective, your voice matters. You are needed.