Debra Disman

Artist

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Debra Disman

Arte Realizzata Artist Spotlight!!

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Many thanks to Uzomah Ugwu for this artist spotlight in her wondrous magazine Arte Realizzata and also for our FRUITFUL CONVERSATION.

Artist Spotlight on Debra Disman

Debra Disman is a Los Angeles-based artist known for her work inspired by the book, which traverses tapestry, installation, and sculpture to push familiar forms into works that arrest and baffle while simultaneously offering places of contemplation and solace. As a maker and teaching artist, she invites altered ways of viewing the world and how we inhabit it.

Disman was the featured artist for the Big Read in LA in 2016; is the recipient of a 2016-17 WORD Artist Grant / Bruce Geller Memorial Prize to create “The Sheltering Book,” a life-sized book structure designed as a catalyst for community creativity; and was commissioned by LA’s Craft Contemporary Museum to create an interactive book for their 2017 exhibition, “Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California.”

She was a 2018 Studio Resident at the Camera Obscura Art Lab in Santa Monica and has served as an Artist-in-Residence for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs since 2017. A Santa Monica Artist Fellow in 2021-22, she continues projects, research, and teaching efforts across Los Angeles County and the world, contributing to 18th Street Arts Center as a local artist-in-residence.

Disman’s recent Santa Monica Artist Fellowship project, “Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse: Genius, Trauma and the Invention of New Forms of Visual Art in Response to the Holocaust,” shown at 18th Street Arts Center in June 2022, in the form of an open studio explored the concurrencies between the two artists and her response to them. Involving three essential components: Research, Artistic Production, and Public Engagement/Exhibition, the year-long project investigated, compared, and linked the lives and the groundbreaking work of Jewish women artists Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse based on their shared experience of trauma and loss; and their invention of new artistic forms through which Disman feels they respond to and attempt to cope with these traumas. Themes of the project include the relationship between internal and external turbulence and the creative act; the transformative power of the creative process: the triumph of the imagination as opposed to the triumph of the will; and how trauma can elicit the creation of new forms, voices, and materials that outlast their makers and continue to reverberate throughout the time, inspiring posterity.

“I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do” encapsulates the resistance we may have to our destiny and our calling and the indomitable spirit that keeps all artists exploring, investigating, experimenting, and achieving.

“I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do”, 2022, 13 x 71.5″, cotton table runner, linen thread

“Excavation of the Interior”, (detail), 2021, 12 x 28 x 12.5″, wood, mulberry and watercolor papers, canvas, muslin, linen thread, hemp cord

“Concurrencies I: Charlotte Salomon Eva Hesse”, 2022, 58 x 19.5″, denim, hemp cord, linen thread, metallic thread

“Finally And Just For A Minute”, 2022, 46 x 58.5”, canvas, burlap, hemp cord, acrylic paint, ribbon

“It’s Not Black and White” (interior/open), 2021, 9 x 22 x 7.5″, book board, mulberry paper, used typewriter ribbon, canvas, hemp cord.

For more information about Debra’s artwork, please visit her site. Also, follow and like her on Instagram and Facebook.

 

Picasso-Inspired Shape Shifting

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In our “Making Art Inspired by Great Artists” CREST Enrichment class,
Students in grades TK- 5th are inspired by Pablo Picasso…learning about Cubism, creating and exploring shapes through line, color and collage, and creating their own Picasso-inspired portraits!

For a different take and to enhance their experience of color relationships and expression, we used black paper as a background!
Students drew their portraits, used colored pencils and crayons to identify and add shapes, and finally cut and added more shapes out of colored paper, taking care not to obscure what they had already done!


Adding a crown


Using a loose line to add color


Abstract and Representational takes on the project


“Hear Me Roar…”


Framing…adding a border



Self-portrait?


Strong, clear shapes

Creativity abounds with these kindergarteners through fifth-graders.
Each created their own vision through the project, as they will continue to do through their lives.

“Yarn/Rope/String” at the New Bedford Art Museum

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I am thrilled to participate in:

YARN/ROPE/STRING:
An exhibition at the New Bedford Museum of Art showing selected work from the Fiber Art Now magazine’s juried exhibitions in 2021 and 2022.

The exhibition opening reception is:
December 8th, 2022 6pm – 8pm

I am showing “PROFUSION”, 2018, 8.5 x 24.5 x 7.75, Book board, mulberry paper, watercolor paper, canvas, hemp cord

Up the Down Road of Surrealism with Dali!

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In our “Making Art Inspired by Great Artists” CREST Enrichment class,
students are inspired by the Surealist Artist Salvador Dalí!

Students in grades TK- 5th learned about Surrealism, and how to use perspective, scale,
horizon lines and vanishing points to show space and distance, then developed their compositions into surrealistic scenes adding images from magazines to create focal points and a sense of layering.

Creativity abounds with these kindergarteners through fifth-graders!
Each travelled their own road through the project, as they will continue to do in Life.

         

Southwest Surfaces at Tubac Center of the Arts

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I was thrilled to be part of:
Surface Design Association’s  Southwest Regional Exhibition at Tubac Center of the Arts!

Annie Lopez, Juror

 

Exhibiting Artists

Elizabeth Abaravich, Amie Adelman, Lisa Jean Allswede, Jim Barry, Keri Bas, Julie Bates, Daiva Bergman Harris, Blair Cahill, Jan Caldwell, Cael Chappell, Claudia Cocco, Vicki Conley, Sue Conner, Beth Cunningham, Debra Disman, Diana Fox, Dellis Frank, Amelia Greco-Welden, Michele Hardy, Jackie Heupel, Stephanie Hilvitz, Dong Kyu Kim, Molly Koehn, Julie Kornblum, Mary-Ellen Latino, Karon Leigh, Nancy Lemke, Christine LoFaso, Viviana Lombrozo, Jeannie Mehl, Christine Miller, Jaya Miller, Kathy Nida, Marty Ornish, Nancy Peterson, Michael Rohde, Connie Rohman, Tamara Scott-Anderson, Danielle Shelley, Asher Sinclaire, Bonnie Smith, Karen Smith, Nancy Jo Smith, Karin Soderholm, Meredith Strauss, Sheila Tymon, Shelly White,Peggy Wiedemann, Emily Yarborough

I showed:
Excavation of the Interior”, 2021, 12 x 28 x 12.5″, wood, mulberry paper, watercolor paper, hemp cord, canvas, muslin

Annie Lopez, Juror
Annie Lopez creates narrative work presenting a dialogue about racism, stereotypes, the local art world, personal relationships and family. Most known for cyanotype work, she’s based in Phoenix, AZ.

Juror’s Statement

I was privileged to see some incredible art and had many “why didn’t I think of that?” moments.

Selecting work was challenging. My approach was for the exhibition to have a personality, not a theme. The final selections resonated with me; made a statement or displayed unusual approaches with words, design, or techniques. These works showcase the artist’s imagination through a variety of technical skills, and each provide insight into the maker

Dancing with Dali: Perspective, Scale and Surrealism!

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In our “Making Art Inspired by Great Artists” CREST Enrichment class,
students are inspired by the Surealist Artist Salvador Dalí!

Students in grades TK- 5th learned about Surrealism, and how to use perspective, scale,
horizon lines and vanishing points to show space and distance, the developed their compositions into surrealistic scenes!

The Dia De Los Muertos OFRENDA provided an inspirational backdrop to their creative endeavors!