Debra Disman

Artist

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Work

Unfolding the Possibilities: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion 2

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I was honored to have led “Bookmaking with Self-Compassion” on
Saturday, May 15, 2021, a workshop which invited participants to:

“Make an artist book celebrating their own creative growth”.

This program was presented through 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab, with support from the County of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health‘s campaign We Rise LA. WE RISE encourages wellbeing and healing through art, connection, community engagement and creative expression and takes/took place during May: Mental Health Awareness Month.  It is part of artist Sara Daleiden’s artist project  RECOVERY JUSTICE: BEING WELL. 

Participants discovered how to create the beautiful, fun and versatile Flower Fold book into which they could add wishes, hopes, prayers and dreams. This post celebrates our MATERIALS!

Participants received “art kits” containing origami papers, ribbon, railroad board, stickers, markers, and glue sticks.

The beautiful origami papers were folded into smaller shapes containing “hidden” folds…

then glued together to create a longer book that could be folded up into a square, unfolded into a sculptural shape,

or hung as a chain!

“Found” words and images were added to the “pages”, as well as stickers drawing, collage and more…

and a whole now expressive artwork was created!

Turmoil, and…Transformation?

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“Turmoil and Transformation” is  an exhibition showing at the Hera Gallery and Educational Foundation, a non-profit, artist-run organization that  has continued to stimulate discussion and challenge perceptions for over 40 years. This creative space has allowed countless artists a place for transformation, exploration, and community with one another which has been BRINGING CREATIVITY TO THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1974

“2020 was a year that was filled with worldwide turmoil. The Pandemic. Another reckoning with racism and police brutality. Climate Change, wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts.  The undermining and politicization of science. The widening political divide. An election with voting rights, healthcare, immigration, paid sick leave, income inequality, living wages, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, our environment and the future of democracy at stake.

Is this turmoil leading to transformation? And what kind of transformation is it going to be?”

Hera Gallery/ Hera Educational Foundation presents work that addresses the current turmoil and visions of our future. What are the emotional, physical and spiritual effects of the turmoil and how might they manifest into the transformation? What does our world look like and what might it look like post-2020. Will transformation reflect the multiplicity of voices of America? How will our future be transformed by the current chaos?

The juror,  Francine Weiss is the Senior Curator at the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island where she curates exhibitions of contemporary art, photography, and American art. Her recent exhibitions include “Andy Warhol: Big Shot,”  “The Shapes of Birds: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa,” and “Domestic Affairs” among others. Her past positions include Curator at the Photographic Resource Center (Boston, MA), Acting Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), Curatorial Fellow at the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, and Curatorial Fellow of American art at Harvard University Art Museums (both in MA) among others. She has taught art history at Wellesley College, Simmons College, and Boston University (all in MA) and has taught and advised students in the MFA program at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College. Dr. Weiss has a Ph.D. in American studies, specializing in art and photography, from Boston University and a B.A. from Wellesley College in English. She has received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC), Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Research Center (NM), Center for Creative Photography (AZ), The Huntington (CA), and Harry Ransom Center (TX). She has published widely on photography and American art.

Sharing my own version of well, turmoil at least: Torrent and Tangle: Keep Your House in Order, (Haven’t we all been there-here)
2019, 10.5 x 25 x 18”, mixed media (book board, lace, ribbon, mulberry paper, hemp cord, watercolor paper

Here hoping that Your Turmoil, Torrent and Tangle work as positive forces to help You reach Your desired transformation, in 2021

CULMINATING OUR ARTIST RESIDENCY: Panorama City Branch Library

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My 2020-21 artist residency supported by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs at the Panorama City Branch Library has drawn to a close!

We had wonderful CULMINATION event of  bookmaking, sharing, art and poetry to celebrate our Residency program, and honor National Poetry Month (April)!

Please see video slide show of the Residency projects,  during the CULMINATION event and online on the Panorama City Branch Library’s  Facebook and Instagram pages!


The wonderful Beth, Children’s Librarian and tech manager extraordinaire for our program!

FLAG BOOK FUN!

Placing the flag pages and setting up the structure… Far Out Tatiana’s Flip Book

Tatiana and her Flip Book!

Best Friends Forever!

Stickers galore! Sticker heaven PARACHUTE…hmmm…
Sneak peak of work surface while conducting the program!

Such a wonderful experience, and now, ever onwards to our Artist Residency of 2021-22!

Thank you to the LA DCA!!

CULMINATING OUR ARTIST RESIDENCY: West Valley Regional Branch Library

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My 2020-21 artist residency supported by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs at the West Valley Regional Branch Library has drawn to a close!

We had wonderful CULMINATION event of  bookmaking, sharing, art and poetry to celebrate our Residency program, and honor National Poetry Month (April)!
Please see video slide show of the Residency projects,  during the CULMINATION event and online on the West Valley Regional Branch Library‘s Facebook and Instagram pages!


Librarian Daryl shares a poem by Theodora Goss.

FLAG BOOK FUN!

Mothers and Daughters

Such a wonderful experience, and now, ever onwards to our Artist Residency of 2021-22!

Thank you to the LA DCA!!

Insight into Insight

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The Cape Cod Museum of Art presents:  INSIGHT.

“When spoken, this word can be broadly understood as – Insight, In Sight and Incite. What is Your interpretation?”
I am thrilled to be part of this evocative exhibition, taking place in CCMA’s expansive Hope / McClennen exhibition hall. The show is available virtually on the Museum website .

I thank Mark Chester of  Mark Chester Photography and fellow exhibitor in the show (please see his marvelous, iconic portrait image introducing the exhibition) for gifting me with photos of my work MAXIMUM SECURITY (15 x 18 x 10.25″, mixed media (book board, canvas, watercolor paper, acrylic paint, hemp cord, wood) in the show.

 All of the following photographs are by Mark Chester of  Mark Chester Photography.
Thank you Mark for sharing my work.  I am honored to share yours!

 

The juror is Grace Hopkins, gallery director at the Berta Walker Galleries in Provincetown, and Wellfleet, MA,  and an international guidance counselor for the arts. In a 2014 review of her own artwork in The Banner, Susan Rand Brown called Hopkins: “A photographer with the eye and soul of a painter,” and said “The images she shoots suggest the sharply angled details of a Franz Kline, geometric shapes and flat colors of her father (Budd Hopkins) or a sudden burst of translucent layers, which could have been – but definitely are not – details from a collage by Robert Motherwell. Suddenly a viewer feels surrounded by the freshness of expressionist imagery and motion, each piece different, each piece allusive yet quite original.”

523 artworks were submitted by 272 artists from 30 states across the country for INSIGHT. Only 65 artworks have been selected from 60 artists in 16 states.

Says Grace Hopkins of selecting the work for this show: 
“Narrowing down the artwork for this exhibition was challenging. I first had to digest all 500+ submissions as a whole before any threads of meaning could be drawn between the works, and a final cohesive subset could be chosen. As a gallery director I am regularly confronted with an aesthetic puzzle. But, when you throw in the added thematic complexity of INSIGHT and the sheer number of works submitted, making a final selection was both a demanding and rewarding exercise in distillation. I want to thank everyone who came forward and placed their artwork into this pool. Another juror, with different values and sensibilities would have solved this very differently. Your collective vision, ability and insight moved me.”

INSIGHT runs through June 20, 2021

Turmoil, Transition and conVERGEnce: What’s in a Name?

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What is in a name?

“A rose is a rose is a rose“, poetically stated the writer Gertrude Stein.
The line is from Stein’s poem Sacred Emily, written in 1913 and published in 1922, in Geography and Plays. The verbatim line is actually, ‘Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose’.

But, is it?

What do names, titles, words, actually mean? What do they tell us about the current moment, about the times we are living in? Living through?

Fascinating are the titles of exhibitions I have taken part in, since the beginning of 2021, nearly a year after the Corona Virus/COVID 19/Pandemic transformed  the world into an altered…world.

Titles including:
Home Sick
Recovery Justice: Being Well
Insight
Content
A Thousand Words
Turmoil and Transformation
conVERGEnce

and during 2020:
Transition
Building Networks of Empathy
Chasing Ghosts V: Art that Pierces the Veil through Remembrance, Legacy, & Beyond
Facing Darkness
Illuminate
Identity

To get a sign of the times, read the signs.
Literally.

To Your Health!