Artist in Residence
“Drawing Connections” draws to a close
The exhibition, “Drawing Connections” February 10, 2020 – August 7, 2020 at the 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus has drawn (pun intended) to a close. But it lives on in documentation, the video of the show below, the works of the artists who participated, and the words of those who organized and responded to it.
It has been a joy to participate!
Thank you curator Frida Cano, and the incomparable 18th Street Arts Center!
See the show!
“Drawing Connections aims to trace the invisible networks between a selection of current artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, both from our 18th Street campus and our Airport hangar. The show highlights how artists from different backgrounds and whose practices range from traditional to experimental art can dialogue through one of the earliest and most fundamental tools for human expression, drawing. This process of mark-making reveals the initial creative impulse that may later take the form of a video, a performance, a piece of music, an art installation, a painting, or a drawing itself. This curatorial exercise intends to delve into the essence of the multivalent creative practices of the artistic community of 18th Street Arts Center.”
Art historian Susan Power writes:
“Defined in art historical terms by its materials— works on paper in pencil, charcoal, chalk, ink, watercolor, and so on—drawing encompasses a broad spectrum of human activity across time and culture. Ubiquitous and perennial, drawing crosses the boundaries delimiting disciplines and geographies. Drawing connects us over the ages to our earliest human ancestors and our childhood selves. Even the etymology of the word, related to the verb “to draw” and deriving from Old English “to pull,” can have a plethora of meanings—drawing arms and drawing blood are two, which tragically jump to mind during these incredibly challenging times. Within the context of our current crises, the very premise of the 18th Street Art Center exhibition “Drawing Connections” takes on unanticipated significance, as do so many other activities often take for granted in our daily lives.
The first open-call cross-campus exhibition since 18th Street Art Center expanded its residency program to the Santa Monica Airport locale in 2019, “Drawing Connections” sought (seeks?) not only to showcase the fertile dialogues between work by all their artists in residence, whose practices cover a myriad of approaches, but also to encourage encounters and conversations among the artists and outside communities. Occupying the two wide corridors running the length of the former airplane hangar, the exhibition space invites circulation and exchange, luring artists out of their adjacent studios to mingle with fellow artists, art world professionals and enthusiasts, friends, neighbors and visitors from afar. But the ways we now connect have also undergone a radical shift with the existential threat of the pandemic. The participatory, experiential dimension of “Drawing Connections” was thus short-lived due to the sheltering-at-home orders in effect since mid-March.
The practice of drawing involves making connections—between the physical and the mental, hand or body and mind, concept and form, observation and imagination, perception and thought, interior and exterior. Reflecting on the conceptual underpinnings of the show, the exhibiting artists contributed work that engages with the medium in all its diversity, representing an astounding array of concerns. Together, the multi-generational group of twenty-five artists offers a remarkable cross-section of approaches running the gamut from traditional to experimental, from intimate and personal to interactive and collective. Together, the artworks converse across materials and techniques, complicating any notion of media-specificity, exploding any sense of unity inherent to drawing, and opening it up to endless possibility.”
Featured artists: Deborah Lynn Irmas, Dan S. Wang, Luciana Abait, Debra Disman, Judith Gandel-Golden, Gwen Samuels, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lola del Fresno, Loren H. Harris-Heller, Joan Wulf, Doni Silver Simons, Pamela Simon-Jensen, Crystal Michaelson, Daniela Schweitzer, M Susan Broussard, Yvette Gellis, Encounter, Rebecca Youssef, Alexandra Dillon, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Nellie King Solomon, Rebecca Setareh, Ameeta Nanji, and Claudia Concha.
Learning Online: Making a Rainbow
I have been honored to serve as Artist in Residence at the Granada Hills Branch Library, supported by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
In concert with the Library Staff I created several online bookmaking workshop presentations, including, below:
Learn a colorful technique and create a Rainbow Book Ball, Rainbow Arm Band and Rainbow Collage
In Honor of LGBTQ Pride Month: June
Explore, learn, play, enjoy All Things Rainbow!
Learning Online: Storybook Theater
I have been honored to serve as Artist in Residence at the Granada Hills Branch Library, supported by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
In concert with the Library Staff I created several online bookmaking workshop presentations, including, below:
Learn How To Make A “Storybook Theater”!
Combine books, stories and theater into one really fun project, and learn folding, cutting, gluing and collaging skills along the way!
Celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month, the month of May, by creating stories and plays drawn from richness of these cultures!
Explore, learn, play, enjoy!
Exhbitionista: “Drawing Connections” at 18th Street Arts Center
DRAWING CONNECTIONS:
Tour the Show!
It has been an honor to participate in “Drawing Connections” held at the Airport Campus of 18th Street Art Center
in the North and South Galleries | 3026 Airport Avenue
February 10 – May 1, 2020
“Drawing Connections aims to trace the invisible networks between a selection of current artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, both from our 18th Street campus and our Airport hangar. The show highlights how artists from different backgrounds and whose practices range from traditional to experimental art can dialogue through one of the earliest and most fundamental tools for human expression, drawing. This process of mark-making reveals the initial creative impulse that may later take the form of a video, a performance, a piece of music, an art installation, a painting, or a drawing itself. This curatorial exercise intends to delve into the essence of the multivalent creative practices of the artistic community of 18th Street Arts Center.”
See the show!
Two of my works are included. Due to size and camera (cell) restrictions, it was challenging to get images, but here are a few…
There will be an virtual tour coming up in the near future, so please, stay tuned!
Making Journals at the Granada Hills Branch Library
It was a pleasure to lead a “journal-making” workshop/program at the Granada Hills Branch Library as part of my Artist Residency there, supported by the wonderful Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Who knew creating a journal, traditionally a place to record daily thoughts, ideas, activities, fears, concerns, dreams and wishes would be so salient?
Families joined together to learn how to fold a “signature” (gathering of folded pages),
glue cover and spine boards to white-prepped canvas to create the book structure and “house” the pages,
then sew the signature into the book through the spine using durable, earthy hemp cord.
Having exerted this labor to create their book structure, participants had the glorious pleasure of developing and embellishing their journals with decorative papers, washi tape, markers, beads, and other collage materials. The canvas book covering, functioning as a book cloth is a wonderful surface for painting, stamping, printmaking, stenciling and any other wet or dry media.
May journaling help all and any through this very difficult time we are in.
Journal on!