Meet the 2021-22 Dean's Student Council: Blaze Bautista
This ongoing series of web posts profiles the 2021-2022 UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s Dean’s Student Council.
Blaze Bautista recently graduated from the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance with a B.A. in world arts and cultures and a minor degree in visual and performing arts education.
Blaze Bautista has had a colorful four years at UCLA.
Bautista is a recently graduated undergraduate student in world arts and cultures with a minor degree in visual and performing arts education. Bautista’s mixed-media work strives to raise awareness to topics like social and environmental justice and media literacy. At UCLA, Bautista was involved with the groups UCLA Residential Life Arts Engagement Network, YOUTHphonics A Cappella, HART (Healing Through Art), and the Hammer Museum Art+Activism pilot program. Besides serving on the UCLA Arts Dean’s Student Council, she was also an Office of Enrollment Management Student Ambassador.
UCLA was Bautista’s dream school from the very start. The Southern California-native knew she would be comfortable and secure at UCLA the moment she stepped into the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden on campus.
Like many arts students who have chosen UCLA, she knew that in contrast to traditional art schools, UCLA would be able to give her a limitless and well-rounded education in other fields she was interested in, such as ethnic and gender studies, climate change science, and film. In high school, Bautista already had dreams to pursue a career in arts administration and hoped that UCLA would equip her with that knowledge.
Another reason that Bautista was compelled to attend UCLA was for its one-of-a-kind visual and performing arts education (VAPAE) minor.
While I think VAPAE does a great job using social justice
frameworks and pedagogies, I [also] want to ensure that is reflected
in other areas of the School of the Arts and Architecture.
Blaze Bautista
She chose to serve on the dean’s student council to help represent the mission of VAPAE: bringing culturally equitable and inclusive arts education into schools and communities. “While I think VAPAE does a great job using social justice frameworks and pedagogies, I [also] want to ensure that is reflected in other areas of the School of the Arts and Architecture,” she said.
Her passion for art and community is a throughline that touches all her involvements outside of the classroom.
As an intern for UCLA Residential Life Arts Engagement Network and a programming assistant for HART (Healing Through Art), she assisted with creating and facilitating arts programs and events for students on “The Hill” (UCLA residential housing). Bautista hosted open mic nights, led art workshops, and hosted student arts mixers and art therapy activities. Most recently, this past summer she worked for the Hammer Museum in their Art+Activism pilot program for high school students to learn about arts activism.
Bautista’s interests in community art expanded beyond the visual arts. She honed her skills in arts leadership with YOUTHphonics A Cappella at UCLA. As performance director and site coordinator, she helped coordinate performances and the group-led afterschool program at Fairfax High School, where they taught music education every Friday.
With so much on her plate, mindfulness practices have been helpful for Bautista, especially amid the uncertainty of the past two years. On campus, this looks like finding a quiet corner in the sculpture garden and just taking a few moments to breathe.
The arts are meant to be learned in physical spaces with
hands-on creation and facilitation and I think students lose a
sense of passion without that.
Blaze Bautista
After returning to UCLA in the fall, Bautista appreciated being back in a physical space with professors and classmates. “The arts are meant to be learned in physical spaces with hands-on creation and facilitation and I think students lose a sense of passion without that,” she said.
However, after everyday life shifted dramatically into the digital during the pandemic, she noticed that her artwork also shifted from physical to digital.
Across mediums, she uses vivid colors, expressive detail, and features human subjects to create bold, confrontational works. Her work seeks to “confront and educate my audience with the realities of injustice and social influences,” she said, through themes of racism, the prison industrial complex, and the impacts of social media.
Most recently, eleven of her original digital illustrations are featured in UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance Professor Bryonn Bain’s book REBEL SPEAK: A Justice Movement Mixtape, published in April 2022. The book includes "transformative dialogues on justice with a cast of visionary rebel activists, organizers, artists, culture workers, thought leaders, and movement builders" including Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Dolores Huerta, and Chuck D.
As a recent graduate, she is now a program assistant at RuckusRoots, Inc.—a Los Angeles-based grassroots nonprofit—as well as an executive assistant with LA Commons. She plans to get her certificate in arts management from UC Irvine and will continue to pursue a career in arts education administration and further support LA arts organizations to provide quality arts education for underserved youth.
Bautista encourages any student to join the dean’s student council, especially if they're interested in advocacy work.
I look forward to working with others with the same passion as me
and building a community with the youth we serve.
Blaze Bautista
“I am excited to start working professionally in arts administration so I can start doing what I love on a daily basis,” she said. “I look forward to working with others with the same passion as me and building a community with the youth we serve.”
Story by Maya Lu
Maya Lu is the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture Strategic Communications Story Producer in Residence and a fourth-year undergraduate in Design Media Arts.
Header photo: Courtesy of Blaze Bautista.
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