Artists' Books

Eye Opening: The 2021 California Open at TAG Gallery

August 18, 2021 By Debra Disman

I am thrilled to participate in the The 2021 California Open at TAG Gallery!

ABOUT THE SHOW

The 16th Annual 2021 California Open is a national juried competition celebrating contemporary and modern art by US Residents over the age of 18. All medias of fine art were considered by our juror, Gronk Nicandro. Accepted work displays at TAG Gallery from August 4–21, 2021. An opening reception celebrating the selected artists will occur on August 7, from 7-10pm. All awards will be announced at the public opening. (Masks may be required).

Juror Gronk Nicandro

Gronk is the moniker of artist Glugio Nicandro. Along with vast and never-ending self- education, he studied visual art at the East Los Angeles College and California State University, Los Angeles in the 1970s. Gronk is an enduring and influential figure in the Los Angeles and international art scenes — maintaining an active studio in downtown Los Angeles that functions as his live-work space and an epicenter for other artists and community members. Along with a core group of artists, Gronk helped establish Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) in 1978. In 1993, a traveling retrospective of his work, Gronkl: A Living Survey, 1972 – 1993, was organized by the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and traveled to several institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Gronk exhibited at LACMA again in 2011 for the exhibition ASCO: Elite of the Obscure. Gronk’s work is represented in numerous private and museum collections across the country, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of modern Art (SFMoMa); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. Gronk’s Theater of Paint marks the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles in more than two decades.

I am pleased to be showing “Prairie”,10.25″ x 47″ x 15.25″, mixed media (book board, watercolor paper, jute cord, paper board, and tissue paper)

“Unfolding Possibilities” for RECOVERY JUSTICE: BEING WELL

August 16, 2021 By Debra Disman

An initiative of the Los Angeles Count Department of Mental Health, Why We Rise LA took place in May 2021, supporting hundreds of Community Arts & Culture Projects which took place across all Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in partnership with more than 100 community groups, artists, grassroots leaders, healers and other LA County Departments. These projects and collaborations included mural making, ancestral healing workshops, a Countywide public literary art project, a Countywide chalk art program and more to celebrate the remarkable resources and communities in LA County and used arts-based strategies for healing and wellbeing.

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.
See the workshop HERE!
Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

The range of words submitted was wide-ranging, thought-provoking and evocative….including opposite emotions and experiences and bits of truth-telling, realizations and wisdom participants seemed eager to pass on to others in other words, humanness in its multiplicity.

I took the words generated by this workshop, and requested from the community at large, and stitched them into an Artists’ Book I made as a community collaboration, entitled, “Unfolding Possibilities“. (“Unfolding Possibilities – Possibilities Unfolding”). Videographer Jeny Amaya created a video of the project which was screened during the 18th Street Art Center event, “Left/Right/Here“

“Unfolding Possibilities” is on view in the Recovery Justice: Being Well exhibition, at 18th Street Art Center‘s Airport Campus Gallery, through September 10, 2021.

“Unfolding Possibilities”: The Video

August 8, 2021 By Debra Disman

Sharing the video,
“Debra Disman: Unfolding Possibilities”

Jeny Amaya – filmmaker

18th Street Arts Center– host

Why We Rise: supporter

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.

See the “Bookmaking with Self-Compassion workshop HERE!

Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

Jeny Amaya of 18th Street Arts Center created a video sharing about the workshop and the making of “Unfolding Possibilities” and it was screened at
LEFT/RIGHT/HERE: An Outdoor Art Experience
a one-night only interactive outdoor and indoor art experience as part of the exhibition Recovery Justice: Being Well.
on
July 10, 2021 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm.

View the film!
“Debra Disman: Unfolding Possibilities”

Thank you, Jeny Amaya, 18th Street Arts Center, and Why We Rise LA for the opportunity to participate in all of these activities, and in collaboration with you and the community at-large, make a collective contribution.

“Unfolding Possibilities”: The Screening

August 2, 2021 By Debra Disman

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion. See the workshop HERE! Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

Jeny Amaya of 18th Street Arts Center created a video sharing about the workshop and the making of “Unfolding Possibilities” and it was screened at
LEFT/RIGHT/HERE: An Outdoor Art Experience
a one-night only interactive outdoor and indoor art experience as part of the exhibition Recovery Justice: Being Well.
on
July 10, 2021 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm.

Here are some stills from that screening. Such a wonderful experience!

Screened on the side of the Santa Monica Airport Hanger housing the 18th Street Art Center’s Airport Campus, the video came to life as the skies darkened. “Unfolding Possibilities” the artists’ book, was also on view.

A multitude of threads were used to stitch the words into the book.

Jeny did a beautiful job of documenting the process of creating the book,

highlighting the idea of possibility,

and capturing how the flower fold book structure was created.

She showed my 18th Street Arts Center studio,

and the book as a whole, possibilities unfolding.

Always, Possibilities.

Watch the video in full!

“Unfolding Possibilities – Possibilities Unfolding”: The Artists’ Book

July 28, 2021 By Debra Disman

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion. See the workshop HERE! Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

I had already constructed the flower fold book, comprised of 12 x 12 x 12″ sheets of thick ivory colored mulberry paper, folded and glued together to create a sequence of repeating unfolding forms.

I began with sketching and jotting down ideas, and my own emotions, as part of my morning writing practice, then developed a petal-like schemata for the words, reflecting the flower fold book structure.

I played around with fonts, settled on one, determined the sizing for the words, and printed them all out, then cut them into strips, so each could be easily seen. Laid out on my work tables, they seemed to call out for attention and consideration. I placed my Mom’s amazing half-century old (at least) sewing box on the table as an inspirational centrifuge, and set to work.

I put together words in a four point petal formation on each section, both front and back, of the structure, using the folds as a guide, and paired some words that related to each other, and others that were opposed, to express the wide range of human emotions and experiences brought forth by the pandemic.
I chose sewing thread from my Mom’s box to reflect the everyday-ness of the activity of sewing and the healing function of stitching, and mending through sewing.
Using a soft, low-tack tape, I gently adhered each word to the structure, then gave it my awl, to punch the sewing holes for each word.
Soon realizing I would be using up all my Mom’s remaining sewing thread, I invested in a set of brilliantly colored cotton threads, and combined tones and hues of each chosen color to give each word brilliance, depth and complexity, using my study, experience and practice of color associations. It was amazing to see a virtual garden of words, generated by the community, come to life and bloom on the pages of the flower fold book.
Some would find the sewing process tedious, but it is my joy…to see the words unfold and blossom, a colorful array of possibilities.
The front and back covers were stitched in gold to express the golden thread of empathy and humanity that connects us all, in spite of and perhaps amplified by the shared experience of pandemic. A golden thread expressing the silver lining of a crisis. The covers are made of several sheets of mulberry paper glued together to create a pasted paper protector, with a yellow sheet sandwiched within to subtly reflect the gold thread.
Unfolding Possibilities, Possibilities Unfolding, blooming like a flower, and framed in gold.

Unfolding the Possibilities: Bookmaking With Self-Compassion 3

July 21, 2021 By Debra Disman

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.
An initiative of the Los Angeles Count Department of Mental Health, Why We Rise LA took place in May 2021, supporting hundreds of Community Arts & Culture Projects which took place across all Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in partnership with more than 100 community groups, artists, grassroots leaders, healers and other LA County Departments. These projects and collaborations included mural making, ancestral healing workshops, a Countywide public literary art project, a Countywide chalk art program and more to celebrate the remarkable resources and communities in LA County and used arts-based strategies for healing and wellbeing.

Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, and the full gamut of human emotions.