Corinne Whittemore is an artist, single mother, graphic designer and educator. She grew up in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), received her MFA in Visual Communications from the University of Arizona and has been teaching at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for the past five years in graphic design. Corinne has worked in the field of graphic design for over fifteen years as a Production Artist, Graphic Designer, Marketing Coordinator and Freelancer on both the East and West Coasts. She lived, most recently, in Virginia Beach, VA before moving back to the RGV in 2014. Corinne has and continues to freelance, consult and exhibits her artwork locally, nationally and internationally.
Having grown up in the RGV, Corinne has first-hand experience with its unique border culture and, claiming it as her own, has focused her research and artwork around the hybridity of her borderland identity. Collaboration is integral to both her art and graphic design and Corinne is currently collaborating with two other women poets, Katherine Hoerth and Julieta Corpus, to produce a book of art and poetry called ‘Borderland Mujeres,’ scheduled to be published Fall 2020
Borderland Mujeres is a collaborative, bilingual conversation in poetry and art depicting the multifaceted experiences of women living in the borderlands of deep south Texas. In this fraught political climate, much has been written ABOUT the Rio Grande Valley and U.S/Mexico border, but what about the people who call this place home? Three women, each with a different relationship to the borderlands, come together to offer their vision of the cultural, linguistic, and ecological landscape of a region that is multifaceted, complex, and full of both majestic beauty and stark reality. The resulting poems and images explore what it means to be a woman living in this contested space from different perspectives, angles, and voices. This project challenges the masculinized narrative of the region, the images of a militarized and dangerous space, and the idea of a centered, singular identity of the peoples of the borderlands. This project hopes to spark questions and conversation about identity, feminisms, and the idea of collaboration/ekphrasis in art and poetry.
—Katie Hoerth