San Diego artist and educator Siobhán Arnold died on May 19, 2023, following an unexpected late-stage cancer diagnosis in December. She was 53. Arnold is survived by her husband, Gilbert Neri, and their two children.
'Her laugh was infectious'
Neri said that for Arnold, and in their family, art was more than a job or career.
"It was also a way of being in the world. One of her legacies is that she brought that point of view to everything she did, in all capacities. She was a really good friend. She was a really good mom. Her love was immense — her passion. She loved her students so much," said Arnold's husband, Gilbert Neri. "She was an inspiration to a lot of artists, and really helped a lot of young artists believe in themselves and take alternative paths — that they might not have considered as something doable. I think that she really opened up avenues."
One of Arnold's former students, Sarah Bricke, just graduated this week from a low-residency visual art MFA program. Arnold encouraged her to pursue that path to better balance motherhood with her education.
"Now, I really miss her, and I wanted to be able to tell her, you know, 'I did it.' I wouldn't have ended up there if it wasn't for Siobhán," Bricke said. "It was the best thing that could have happened to me, and I never would even have considered it if she hadn't guided me."
Many loved ones spoke of Arnold's laugh, sense of humor and warmth.
"Her laugh was infectious, and she was wickedly smart, an intellectual, a poet, a feminist, and she was articulate about what she wanted to say, and she was also steadfast in what she wanted to say," Neri said.
Arnold was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and grew up in Oregon and Wisconsin, raised by a single mother. She attended the University of Chicago as an undergraduate, studying art and design, and received her MFA in Art Studio from UC Santa Barbara, where she reconnected with her father, Walter Cotton, a professor of photography and printmaking at San Diego State University.
Arnold and artist and professor Gilbert Neri were married in 1998 and lived and worked as artists and educators in Seattle, WA and Monterey, CA before settling with their children in San Diego in 2007.
Locally, Arnold taught at UC San Diego, Southwestern College and MiraCosta College, ultimately landing as faculty in the Arts, Media and Design department at CSU San Marcos.
Imagination and collaboration
When she was an undergrad, she met Meagan Shein, who would become her roommate, studiomate, longtime friend and collaborator. Together they formed Sien Collective in 2014. They frequently worked by mailing art pieces in progress back and forth.
"We knew we had to keep challenging each other. She went through and picked my photos that she responded to or felt were great. And then she printed them on her printer onto fabrics and then sent them back to me, and then I cut them up and collaged them onto my wax paper or paint paper and then sent it back to her, and she sewed on it," Shein said.
This embroidered collage series was ongoing, and Shein said that there are several works that have never been shown before that will be part of an upcoming exhibit. Sien Collective also created several series of large scale, mythology-inspired cyanotypes, in "Euphemisms" and "Wombs," for example.
"It was really fearless, and I think it was because of that sense of trust," Shein said.
Sien Collective have worked in residencies and exhibited around the world, including a stunning recent installation at Sparks Gallery of suspended flowers made from reclaimed plastic film.
"It's really easy to make really beautiful work with, you know, beautiful materials … watercolor paper, all those things. I mean, we almost would swoon by touching it," Shein said. "We also were trying to challenge ourselves and look at what else, and if a lot of it is making things that are unexpected beautiful, then could we use plastic? Could we use these little scraps? Could we just make art out of anything? We believe that conceptually we could."
Arnold's artistic practice — both as collaborator and as an individual — was marked by curiosity and a particular penchant for research. Her art fused feminism with mythology, fairy tales, folklore and social practice, and she was particularly interested in textiles and sewing, and alternative photographic processes like cyanotype (and its historic use by women).
Shein said that Arnold would not dwell in a particular practice or medium for long before seeking a new challenge.
"The fascinating thing with Siobhán as an artist is she never wanted to do the same thing twice. She was always interested in the next thing. It was all about learning and doing it," Shein said.
One powerful body of work in Arnold's individual career was "Cloths of Heaven," a series of Renaissance-style portraits constructed just from the fabric of the clothing and adornments, without a body. These evocative works were flush with movement, texture and meaning.
Arnold's work was also informed by motherhood. Neri said that Arnold deeply felt the intersection of motherhood and both creative practice and working as a teacher.
"She loved being a mom. I think it also terrified her," Neri said. He added that Arnold always thrived in building community, and surrounded herself with other mothers.
When Arnold was just 13 years old, she tragically lost her mother, someone who instilled in Arnold a fondness for music and art as well as a "depth of love," according to Neri. Friend and collaborator Anna O'Cain said that this experience likely shaped Arnold's intense drive to succeed.
"She said, 'I didn't want any sympathy. I wanted to make this life my own,' and I'm like wow, that's heavy. That's amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking," O'Cain said.
Activism and social practice
Activism was an undercurrent in much of her artwork, whether subtle or palpable.
In 2018, Arnold formed To Do: A Mending Project with O'Cain and Michelle Montjoy. The three women built an artistic social practice centered around community building, mending damaged clothing and objects, along with other DIY endeavors. Montjoy, O'Cain and Arnold's work as To Do was radical, inviting, accessible, powerful and — almost as a happenstance— beautiful.
"I really think that in her core she had real convictions and that those showed through through many different lenses, in terms of being a fearless artist — that's definitely something she was," Neri said.
'She loved so many people'
Arnold loved working with students, and was a lecturer at CSU San Marcos. To honor her impact, there are plans in the works for two student scholarships in her memory. The scholarships, to be announced in 2024, will be for students and MiraCosta College and CSUSM.
"And there's a wonderful legacy of her friends. She loved so many people," Shein said.
"She was a really good friend if you were close to her, and there was mutual respect and love. She really treasured all of these friends that she had," said O'Cain. During Arnold's illness, O'Cain said she had countless friends come to be with her, or to take care of her.
Sarah Bricke, Arnold's former student, said that one way Arnold will always be with her is a revelation she had after Arnold's diagnosis.
"I heard this account second-hand, that one of the things (Arnold) said was that she didn't think she would make things anymore. I think about that a lot, because I think that she as an artist is constantly making all the time — if making is the moment where the viewer encounters the work, then meaning-making is happening. The idea of remaking, where when somebody sees it or interprets it, those are all remaking," Bricke said. "Every time someone sees her work, the making is happening again."
A celebration of life for Siobhán Arnold will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 6 at Art Produce, 3139 University Ave., North Park.
