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California Institute of the Arts

Ellen Birrel

Pronouns: School of Art

Faculty Emeritus

Ellen Birrell Headshot
Office address:
California Institute of the Arts
24700 McBean Parkway
Valencia, California 91355
Degrees:

Ellen Birrell is an artist, lemon farmer and writer. She is a Co-founder, Publisher and editor of X-TRA, a Contemporary Art Quarterly, published in Los Angeles since 1997. X-TRA is supported in part by the Warhol Foundation and the generous support of its communities of readers around the world who are passionate about in-depth critical engagement in the Visual Arts.

You can find selections from the magazine and subscription information online at www.x-traonline.org.  Since moving to a lemon farm in 2005, Birrell has been photographing and casting the extraordinary lemons she grows and writing about farming.  She served on the Art School faculty at CalArts from 1991 to 2020.