Uncategorized
Arte Realizzata Artist Spotlight!!
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
Southwest Surfaces at Tubac Center of the Arts
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!
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!
“I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do”…the story of our life
I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do, 2022, 13 x 71.5″, mixed media
Wending our way…moving through the barriers, the resistance, the refusal, to the
Yes I Can.
YES WE CAN.
We Have To.
BOO: Halloween Tunnel Books at the West Valley Regional Branch Library
In July I started a new Artist Residency in Bookmaking, “We Write the Book” at the West Valley Regional Branch Library of the Los Angeles Public Library, through the Los Angeles City Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Residency is comprised of a series of bookmaking workshops presented at the Library, planned in close coordination with Library Staff.
October 20th, 2022, we had a blast learning to create “TUNNEL BOOKS” in celebration of upcoming Halloween!
See a VIDEO of an engaged mom and her creative son and their experience of the workshop.
BOO!
