Famed OC Illustrator Larissa Marantz helps Show LCAD the Path to redemption

13 Jul Famed OC Illustrator Larissa Marantz helps Show LCAD the Path to redemption

On the first day of June, while the entire country was still heartbroken and mourning the cruel torture and murder of George Floyd in the hands of police, Larissa Marantz, a multitalented published book illustrator, cartoonist, gallery artist, educator, and owner of OC Art Studios, was hit by yet another institutional betrayal, this time coming from Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD), the school she has taught at for years:

“The moment I heard about the LCAD “All Lives Matter” Instagram post, I instinctively knew that my life was going to be turned upside down. It felt like a complete betrayal to my existence. I was in total disbelief. Knowing and being good friends with the social media account manager, I felt like it had to have been a mistake. I immediately got on the phone with him and he admitted it was a grievous error . . . That error eventually cost him his job and lifted the lid on dozens of stories involving discrimination at the school. I spoke with the President of the school the next day and shared with him how much pain it caused. I felt like he heard me as he vowed to do what he could to make sure LCAD was a place that I could be proud of.”

Larissa, originally inspired as a little girl by a charcoal portrait that her uncle did of her and her sister, earned her BFA in Fine Arts at California State University Fullerton, and continued her education at the Animation Guild and The Animation Academy. That first memorable experience with artwork inspired her beyond comprehension. She said, “having a real piece of art on my bedroom wall that I could look at every day was amazing to me. I marveled at it. I studied it. I couldn’t figure out how it was done, but I knew I wanted to know how to do it.”

“When people who hold positions of power are able to see clearly that they are holding implicit biases that have contributed to the system of racism, walls can be knocked down, bridges can be built, and we can start seeing a world that is more equitable and just.”

Larissa began her professional career as a Character Designer for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Rocket Poweranimated television series. However, working full-time got difficult as she started a family and became a mother, so she decided to adjust her career to her new life and became an educator—a transition that would help her discover a new passion. “I worked extremely hard to break into the animation industry and was worried that all my knowledge would be for nothing if I just decided to leave the industry and stay at home,” she explained. “So, I made the transition to teaching at The Animation Academy in Burbank with my mentor Charles Zembillas. I had always wanted to teach and that was really the first place I started teaching.”

Soon after that, Larissa started teaching art to elementary school students and joined the Animation department at Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD), where she is one of less than a handful of women of color faculty members as of today. Eventually, she formed OC Art Studios, her own after school art, enrichment and portfolio development program for children of all ages, where she teaches along with some of her own talented LCAD students. What started as after school art classes for her son and his friends, rapidly evolved to her own art program where she applies her traditional art and animation training to teach drawing and painting from observation, cartooning, and even character design. Her mentoring and recommendation letters have helped students get into prestigious colleges such as Dartmouth, Art Center, Chapman, Otis, Parsons, School of Visual Arts in NYC, Ringling College of Art and Design, and of course, LCAD.

During her transition away from working in the animation industry, Larissa also started illustrating Rugratsbooks, as well as a dozen other titles from Nickelodeon’s licensed properties that include The Thornberrys, Lazy Town, and Avatar the Last Airbender. She recently published her own book series,  Clyde the Hippo, in collaboration with her husband, Keith Marantz. 

“[Clyde] is an adorably anxious and imaginative little hippo who experiences the world with a lot of worry,” she said. “CLYDE GOES TO SCHOOL is about the nervousness about going to preschool for the very first time. In CLYDE LIKES TO SLIDE, Clyde worries about going down the big kid slide at the playground, and in CLYDE LIED, Clyde has to navigate the aftereffects of telling a lie to his friends at school. In CLYDE LIKES TO RIDE, out in October 2020, Clyde worries about switching from a tricycle to a big kid bicycle.”

Additionally, in between her time teaching, she works on her upcoming graphic novel project.

Both the pandemic and the outrage sparked by the police murders of black men and women in the country have affected Larissa’s work and inspiration. She started offering an online Drawing for Animators & Illustrators class that focuses on fundamental drawing skills that are integral to the animation and illustration industries, which was received with full enrollment and multiple sessions, one of them entirely funded by donors who wanted to support her business and were willing to sponsor the education of a Black artist. Larissa has directed her artistic abilities towards activism and educating people about systemic racism and inequalities via social media, picture book projects with her husband, and zines. She has also become the voice of marginalized minority students and alumni, primarily BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, at Laguna College of Art and Design, 

“As one of the only [women of color] faculty members, I am innately protective of all the students at the school, in particular the BIPOC and LGBTQ students who are marginalized like myself. I made many demands at a faculty meeting shortly after the incident that the school has been quick to take action on,” Larissa said. 

The college has since formed an Equity and Inclusion council, they began planning need-based scholarships to BIPOC students, and they have promised that there will be Diversity and Inclusion training for the staff, faculty, administration and the board of trustees. “I am, however, waiting to see some of these actions implemented. There has been a record of unaccountability at the school and many of the past grievances that were brought to light are very damaging to the reputation of the school,” Larissa said. “The school used to have posters up all over the campus that said ‘LCAD is a Safe Space.’ They need to back up those words with action by instituting policies that will prevent students from being harmed by insensitive faculty and administrators who hold implicitly racist beliefs.”

Larissa explained to us that it is important for these institutions to take a hard, self-reflective look at how they are promulgating racist policies from within. 

“By only hiring cis-gendered white men in the faculty and administration, they are missing out on the richness in diversity of experiences from people of different races, cultures and ethnicities,” Larissa said. “By having a more diverse Board of Trustees that is representative of the student body, the students and faculty will know that their voice has value to those in the board room. There needs to be equity and inclusion councils that can advise the senior staff as to how to represent the needs of the diverse population. And the people that hold the power in these institutions need to look at their own inherent biases that prevent them from seeing the needs of their Black students. More diverse people need to be in places of power.”

It is monumentally important that white people educate themselves on the history of Black Americans and all the injustice that has occurred and continues to occur to the black population. 

“[With that knowledge], hopefully they’ll see why there is no such thing as a ’level playing field’ when it comes to Black Americans. We’ve been fighting oppression and systemic racial injustices for too long. We’re in a movement now. When people who hold positions of power are able to see clearly that they are holding implicit biases that have contributed to the system of racism, walls can be knocked down, bridges can be built, and we can start seeing a world that is more equitable and just.”

larissamarantz.com