Debra Disman

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Deborah Lynn Irmas

“Swept Away: Love Letter To A Surrogate”

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I was thrilled to participate in:
“Swept Away: Love Letter To A Surrogate
organized by:
Warren Neidich, Christina Mossaides Strassfield, Anuradha Vikram and Rene Petropoulos  in 2022 to include performances in October 2022 on Long island, NY, and Santa Monica, CA in April 2023.

Swept Away began in September 2022, when 65 Los Angeles County artists sent “love letters” to 65 artists on the East End of Long Island who responded with live performances on East Hampton’s Main Beach in September and October. In April 2023, the reverse took place with 65 West Coast artists creating performances inspired by and in response to their East Coast counterparts’ letters. On April 22 and 23, 2023,  up to five simultaneous performances took place during the hours of 8 am-12 pm and 4-10 pm on Santa Monica State Beach in front of Annenberg Community Beach House.

Participating artists included 18th Street Art Center local artists-in-residence Melissa Altshuler, Debra Disman, Lionel Popkin, Susan Kleinberg, Yrneh Gabon, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario and Dan Kwong.

My work, “The Center Will Not Hold” was performed with Deborah Lynn Irmas and Frida Cano on Santa Monica Beach at the Annenberg Beach House. 

“Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate/s” is a community oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. It is hoped that through its combined gestures and performances, a sense of solidarity, so desperately missing today, will emerge with which to confront the ecological catastrophe at our doorstep.”

65 Los Angeles County artists presented live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean.
“The Center Will Not Hold” was one of them.

A compilation video of the Santa Monica performances can be seen HERE.
https://youtu.be/hJUOFMVXHE0
Video by Matias Munoz-Rodriguez, Fu the Dog Productions

As Warren said: “I hope we created a transcontinental heartbeat.”

HERE is a video of the East Hampton event.
and links to the 4 videos of the nights of performances:

9/10 – https://youtu.be/Z0pnmpt7P2g (Edited by Joe Brondo)
9/17 – https://youtu.be/Dt3WuqcP7Bg (Footage by Anzhelika Tolstikhina, John Driver, Sutton Lynch, and Joe Brondo. Edited by Joe Brondo.)
9/24 – https://youtu.be/2vxMXWWiJio (Footage by Anzhelika Tolstikhina, John Driver, Bronte Zunis, and Joe Brondo. Edited by Joe Brondo.)The list of East End and West Coast artist pairings was as follows:

EAST END ARTISTS  >>  LOS ANGELES ARTISTS:
Suzanne Anker > > Margarethe Drexel
Elena Bajo > > Jasmine Orpilla
Lillian Ball > > Dana Berman Duff
Monica Banks > > Jamie Ross
Dianne Blell > > Lisa Anne Auerbach
Scott Bluedorn > > Robby Herbst
Megan Chaskey > > Lionel Popkin
Scott Chaskey > > Kathryn Andrews
Philippe Cheng > > David Horvitz
Andrea Cote > > Nina Waisman
Ivana Dama > > Rodrigo Arruda
Peter Dayton > > Anita Pace
Katrina Del Mar + Chris Jones > > Taisha Paggett + Meital Yaniv
Jeremy Dennis + Beau Bree Rhee > > Debra Disman
Sabra Moon Elliot > > Rochelle Fabb
Carol Edwards > > Pamela Hudson
Eva Faye > > Patty Chang + David Kelley
Saskia Friedrich > > Fran Siegel
Margaret Garrett > > Susan Kleinberg
Veronica Gonzalez Peña > > Cassandra Marketo
Kimberly Goff > > Cheri Gaulke + Xochi Maberry-Gaulke
Jeremy Grosvenor > > Vincent Johnson
Jerelyn Hanrahan + Laura Ross White > > Andrew Berardini
Candace Hill Montgomery > > Anna Joy Springer
Virva Hinnemo > > Sam Shoemaker
Alice Hope > > Krysten Cunningham
Erica-Lynn Huberty > > Sandeep Mukherjee
Terri Hyland > > Joseph Mosconi
Ruby Jackson > > Alice Könit
No Partner > > Carolyn Castano
Nishan Kazazian > > Beatriz Cortez
Carlos Lama >> No Partner
No Partner > > Badly Licked Bear
Christine Lidrbauch > > Sterling Wells
Donald Lipski > > Raul Baltazar
Sutton Lynch > > Yrneh Gabon Brown
No Partner > > Jiayun Chen
Tanya Minhas > > Allison Wyper
Richard Mothes > > Kristin Calabrese
Michelle Murphy > > Sarah Beadle
Jill Musnicki > > Victoria Vesna
Lois Nesbitt > > Lucia Santini Ribisi
Eileen O’Kane Kornreich > > Iman Person
Jaanika Peerna > > Marcus Kuiland Nazario
Dalton Portella > > Ryat Yezbick
Toni Ross > > Sharon Barnes
David Rothenberg > > May Sun
Will Ryan > > Jody Zellen
Sara Salaway > > Melinda Altshuler
Matthew Satz > > Katie Grinnan
Bastienne Schmidt > > Jisoo Chung
Barry Schwabsky > > David Schafer
Christine Sciulli > > Karen Lofgren
Arlene Slavin > > Jenny Yurshansky
Janice Stanton > > Kearra Gopee
Christina Sun > > Catherine Scott
Carol Szymanski with David Adewomi  > > Xiouping (Whitworth)
Sara VanDerBeek > > Alicia Serling
Ryan Wallace > > Joshua Aster
Ross Watts > > Justine Harari
Allan Wexler > > Dan Kwong
Nina Yankowitz > > Francesca Gabbiani
Darius Yektai > > Barbara McCarren + Jud Fine
Almond Zigmund > > Marissa Mandler

“Contemplating Boundaries” at the Korean Culture Center with Launch LA

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I am thrilled to be a part of “Contemplating Boundaries”, a group exhibition presented at the Korean Culture Center of Los Angeles in conjunction with Launch LA, a Los Angeles Institution and brainchild of James Panozzo.

JULY 27 – AUGUST 18, 2023

Boundaries exist in all cultures-often as social constructs serving to regulate our actions, norms, taboos, and space. They may be codified laws, common societal traditions, or even self-imposed rules. 

“Contemplating Boundaries” brings together artists from across Southern California whose practices contemplate and reflect barriers, labels and limits- whatever their origin or purpose. These artists and their works- define our times, providing an authentic lens to view contemporary culture.

JURORS

TeaYoun Kim-Kassor (Professor, Department Chair, Otis College of Art and Design)  TeaYoun Kim-Kassor (Phonetically, TaeYun: “Tea” as in “Taylor” & “Youn” as in “Sun”) is originally from South Korea and has a varied background in education; she received academic degrees in S. Korea, Japan, and the U.S.  As an artist, educator, and cultural ambassador, she has been developing her artistic path, teaching pedagogy, leadership, and management skills to embark on transnational education and emphasize the importance of understanding global perspectives. She is currently a Professor and Department Chair of the Foundation Program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA.

Mika Cho (Professor, ART/Director, Cal State LA Fine Arts Gallery) Dr. Mika Cho was appointed as Special Assistant to the President for Arts and the director of the Cal State LA Fine Arts Gallery in 2017. Prior to her appointment as the director of the Fine Arts Gallery she served as the chair of the Art Department. She is art educator, researcher, educational consultant, curator and visual artist, the last comprising numerous exhibitions at museums and galleries. Her research interests are in art-related and educational issues, which she shares through publications and extensive conference presentations nationally and internationally.


I am showing:

“Profusion”, 8.75″ x 24.5″ x 7.75″, book board, mulberry paper, paint, canvas, watercolor paper, hemp cord

and


“The Gates”, 7.5″ x 20″ x 10.25″, book board, canvas, cheese cloth, jute cord, string

Swept Away: “The Center Will Not Hold” II

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My work, “The Center Will Not Hold” was  PERFORMED ON SITE AT THE ANNENBERG COMMUNITY BEACH HOUSE as part of:  Swept Way: Love Letters to a Surrogate, organized by
Warren Neidich, Christina Mossaides Strassfield, Anuradha Vikram and Rene Petropoulos  2022-23
“Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate/s” is a community oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. It is hoped that through its combined gestures and performances, a sense of solidarity, so desperately missing today, will emerge with which to confront the ecological catastrophe at our doorstep.”

65 Los Angeles County artists presented live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean. “The Center Will Not Hold” was one of them.

Videos from “The Center Will Not Hold” tell our story:  gathering the water, stitching the sand, healing the earth, even if The Center Does Not Hold.
Collaborators: Deborah Lynn Irmas and Frida Cano.

All Video Credits: Mick Lorusso April 2023

Our Work is Never Done on This Earth and in This Life

Swept Away: “The Center Will Not Hold” I

By

My work, “The Center Will Not Hold” was  PERFORMED ON SITE AT THE ANNENBERG COMMUNITY BEACH HOUSE as part of:  Swept Way: Love Letters to a Surrogate, organized by
Warren Neidich, Christina Mossaides Strassfield, Anuradha Vikram and Rene Petropoulos  2022-23
“Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate/s” is a community oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. It is hoped that through its combined gestures and performances, a sense of solidarity, so desperately missing today, will emerge with which to confront the ecological catastrophe at our doorstep.”

65 Los Angeles County artists presented live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean. “The Center Will Not Hold” was one of them.

Stills from “The Center Will Not Hold”: gathering the water, stitching the sand.
Collaborators: Deborah Lynn Irmas and Frida Cano.


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023    Three Women Gather Water Working Silently Together


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023   Carrying Water to the Blanket of the Four Directions


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023   Making Their Way to the Blanket of the Fuur Directions Site


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023   Water is Used to Dampen The Sand To Create Mounds


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023   Needles Threaded With Hemp Cord Are Used To Stitch 


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023      Through the Sand  Mounds Creating Lines of Connection


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023     Hemp Cords Are Threaded Across the Open Circle


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023     The Center Is Stitched as is the Sand Around the Blanket


Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023     The Work of Mending is Completed for the Moment

Image Credit: Mick Lorusso April 2023     The Work is Never Done on This Earth and in This Life

More to come.

EXHIBITIONISTA: “(Re)imagining Home: On Care for Our Common Home”

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18th Street Arts Center is pleased to present the exhibition (Re)imagining Home: On Care for Our Common Home, curated by Emma Balda and Venus Tung-yan Lau, on view in the Kitchen Lab at 18th Street Arts Center’s Airport Campus (3026 Airport Ave. in Santa Monica) from August 22, 2022 – July 31, 2023.

What is home? 

Over the last two years, our notions of home have been challenged, transformed, and clarified. The pandemic has simultaneously forced us to shrink our physical home, while also asking us to expand our sense of home to now include people, food, rituals, and ideas. We have also seen our relationship with and to the Earth change. We have seen that our sense of home must expand to include the Earth and the way we care for it.

As we attempt to create a shared home, the first step in that is defining what home means to us. This project asked the 18th Street community to examine the idea of home outside of the domestic sense. They were asked to identify people, memories, materials, places, movements, or concepts that resonate as home to them. These ideas, in combination with art that reflects on this concept, will then be displayed on the monitor in the Kitchen Lab at the Airport Campus. This project relied heavily on 18th Street’s theme “Our Shared Home,” while also deconstructing and defining what that sense of home means so that we can better understand what it means to share this space with one another. 

This exhibition highlights the artworks of Alexandra Dillon, Christopher Tin, Dan Kwong, Dan S Wang, David McDonald, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Debra Disman, Edi Dai, Elham Sagharchi, Gwen Samuels, Jeff Beale, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Luciana Abait, M Susan Broussard, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Michael Masucci, Po-Hao Chi, Rebecca Youssef, and Yvette Gellis, all artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center.

Explore a 360 view of the virtual exhibition HERE.

RECOVERY JUSTICE: Being Well

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I am thrilled to participate in:

RECOVERY JUSTICE: Being Well

March 8, 2021 – September 11, 2021
at
18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)

“Being Well” is what we seek together as neighbors, and recalls one of the central guiding principles of the City of Santa Monica, the notion of “wellbeing” as key to civic health. Recovery Justice: Being Well, aims to highlight the recent circumstances that have evolved during the pandemic (racial justice demonstrations and destruction, as well as social discontent and general disconnection) into a series of self-organized artist projects that merges the exterior and interior public spaces of City of Santa Monica property. 18th Street Airport Campus at Santa Monica Municipal Airport will be the site where artists reimagine the city and beyond in the midst of complex social unrest globally. Recovery Justice will recuperate through various means the digital and physical footprints left in a city that struggles to reclaim the seemingly peaceful environment it once had. Artists will develop a palette for making and sharing artworks responding to the street experience in safe, healing and expressive modes. This porous series is a point of departure to reconcile and redefine the concept of justice.

This collage of self-organized artist projects was organized around the common theme of Recovery Justice, facilitated as part of Sara Daleiden’s artist project and ongoing conversations nurtured through a series of online conversations with 18th Street’s artist community called “Creative Roundtables” over the past 8 months. These projects will manifest in outdoor presentations on the side of the building; sculptural, photographic, painting and video work in the galleries; and a series of online and drive-in events in Spring of 2021. The artists’ presentations will also be represented online and via a 360 tour for virtual viewing.”

Participating artists include: Sara Daleiden, Nicola Goode, Susie McKay Krieser, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, M Susan Broussard, Lionel Popkin, Yrneh Gabon Brown, Lola del Fresno, Debra Disman, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Gregg Chadwick, Luciana Abait, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Rebecca Youssef, and Dan S. Wang.

Sara Daleiden’s residency and facilitation work on these projects is generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Bailiwik is also a supporting partner on this exhibition.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR
(such a joy working with Sara)
Sara Daleiden is a Los Angeles-based artist who facilitates civic engagement within developing landscapes, exercising arts and cultural exchange strategies. She encourages local cultures to value neighborhoods, public space, civic art, land and racial and gender equity. Sara has an expertise in working with artists and other cultural entrepreneurs for civic engagement, creative placemaking, network development and small business development.

Her project at 18th Street Arts Center grows out of the placekeeping work that 18th Street has been engaged in over the past six years through our cultural asset mapping project (culturemapping90404.org) and the Commons Lab, which involves community voices to define, center, and connect cultural practices within their own neighborhoods. Her practice investigates the influence of location, scale, market, values and other regional factors on the production of the arts and cultural identity. Through methodologies involving partnership mapping, network building, and the facilitation of self-organizing and advocacy, Sara aims to enhance the advocacy power of artists in influencing neighborhood development in the city. Her durational engagement with 18th Street will spin off land-based activations with opportunities for neighbors, artists, city staff, and the broader public to participate. Sara has been collaborating with arts workers Nicola Goode, Susannah Laramee Kidd, Dorit Cypis and Kimberli Meyer for this artist project.

Pictured is  “Womb”, 2021, (plastic, canvas, jute cord) and “I Smile At You With My Eyes”, 2021, cardboard, magazine pages, acrylic paint,