3 Dykes Walk into a Bar: Artist Talk with dani lopez 2/28/26

dani lopez is a textile artist working within weaving, embroidery, and textile sculpture to explore lesbian desire, non-linear narratives, disidentifications, and femme identity. She has been featured in many publications including; Hyperallergic, Surface Design Journal, Warp and Weft, and Other People’s Pixels. lopez has shown at Bedford Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, Bass & Reiner, 120710 Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, and the Frank Ratchye Project Space. Her work was exhibited in Queer Threads, curated by John Chaich, at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. In 2022, she received the Money For Women Grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and a Puffin Grant for her project “3 Dykes Walk Into a Bar…”. lopez has received several CERF+ grants to support her practice professionally. She has taught at San Francisco State University and currently teaches at Richmond Art Center. lopez has been the recipient of artist residencies at Montalvo Art Center (2023-26) and Real Time and Space (2025). She lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received her MFA in Textiles from CCA.

Elena Gross (she/they) is the Director of Exhibitions & Public Programs at the GLBT Historical Society and an independent writer and curator living in Oakland, CA. She received an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from the California College of the Arts in 2016, and her BA in Art History and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2012. She specializes in representations of identity in fine art, photography, and popular media. Elena was formerly the creator and co-host of the arts & visual culture podcast what are you looking at? published by Art Practical. Her research has been centered around conceptual and material abstractions of the body in the work of Black modern and contemporary artists and most recently in queer artistic and literary histories of the late 20th century. She has presented her writing and research at institutions and conferences across the U.S. Her most recent writing can be found in the publication Blood Sweat & Time: Emerging Perspectives on Mildred Howard and Adrian Burrell (Sming Sming Books). Elena is the co-editor, along with Julie R. Enszer, of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (Rutgers University Press), winner of the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Anthologies.