UCSD MFA alumni Robin Sanford Roberts is a theatrical scenic designer and artist working in models and mixed media. She has designed for Broadway, Old Globe Theatre, San Diego Rep, Arizona Theatre Company, San Jose's Repertory and Swine Palace Productions. She is a recipient of the prestigious NEA/Theatre Communications Group Grant.

Ms. Roberts has received both San Diego Critics and Patté awards for 'outstanding scenic design'. She was on the theatre arts faculty at University of San Diego for 6 years and now teaches for Bravo School of Art. She holds a degree in architecture from LSU and a MFA in scenic design from UCSD.

Favorite production designs include Allan Havis' RESTLESS SPIRITS, produced and commissioned by the San Diego Repertory Theatre, and the opera SEXTET by Nick Reid at Diversionary Theatre.

Most recently she designed the sets and costumes for QUILTERS at the University of Redlands and is currently designing scenery for LOVE IN AMERICAN TIMES, a new play at San Jose' Repertory Theatre. Ms. Roberts is also working on a group show in 2012 with 6 other women artists. Her work will be based on drawings and paintings of the BOAT/CHAIRS INSTALLATION.

Ms. Roberts holds a degree in Architecture from LSU and a MFA in Scenic Design from UCSD.

Interview with Robin Stanford Roberts
Robin Stanford Roberts
This Week @ UCSD Article

This mural is at first not a mural at all but an optical illusion that transports us to another place entirely. While standing at the entrance to the Thurgood Marshall Administration building, we are comforted by a giant image of a city corner –the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd & an anonymous urban street. The street is still and empty, cast in a quiet light, perhaps for a moment of contemplation. A freeway in the distance transports people through and away from the city, almost up into the gray-blue sky.

A street sign bearing the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. is both a familiar image and a multi-layered symbol. It is an homage to the man himself, to the haunting speeches, the march on Washington, the Dream, to the turbulent 1960's –humanity at its best and worst. The presence of the street sign is evidence of the decades of organizing and lobbying to formalize Martin Luther King memorials, the renaming of city streets, and the establishment of his birthday as a recognized holiday. The sign also evokes the rich history and narrative of Thurgood Marshall College itself, as Martin Luther King was considered a possible name for the college as it sought to form its identity. Today, streets bearing the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. weave through our cities, bearing witness to the tensions, the violence, the vibrancy, the sounds –music, sirens, the stories of our urban America as we struggle to live up to the Dream.