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Debra Disman

“Building Networks of Empathy”

October 23, 2020 By Debra Disman

I am honored to participate in:

“Building Networks of Empathy”

at the Airport Gallery of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA

October 26  – December 15, 2020 

The exhibition Building Networks of Empathy is the second of a two-part show that asks us to consider the ways in which art empowers not only the artist, but its viewers to transform their most difficult experiences into enlightened outcomes. The first part of the show is an ongoing online-only exhibition entitled Facing Darkness, which encouraged artists in our community to reflect internally on our current moment of pandemic, isolation, and structural inequity laid bare.

For this second part, which will be physically installed in 18th Street Arts Center’s spacious Airport campus hangar galleries, artists were asked to respond to how they have changed as a result of their inner reflections on darkness, and to imagine new futures and societal structures as we see our way out of crisis. Each artist grapples as well with the role that art can play in social reflection, expression, and cultural paradigm shifts as a result of a deeper understanding of each other, and the empathy that follows. The exhibition sees empathy not only as a way to share and understand what others are going through, but also as a natural and endless resource that we can all rely on when crisis and emergency hit, with hopes that we can turn this moment of collective fear into a sublime experience.

Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches. Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.
Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches.
Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.

“I was commissioned to create an interactive book for Craft Contemporary’s 2017 exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, which opened shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Visitors could choose file cards in an array of colors, draw and write on them, and insert them into the pocketed pages of the book. A range of feelings, responses, and concerns were expressed through the cards, which the Museum Staff saved and gave to me at the end of the show. I stitched them together grouped loosely by theme, to express the network of empathy they depicted, held together by golden thread.”

This exhibition may be viewed by appointment only. Please visit here to sign up to visit the exhibition!

Participating artists include: Alexandra Dillon, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Rebecca Setareh, M Susan Broussard, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Ameeta Nanji, Siru Wen, Elham Sagharchi, Debra Disman, Luciana Abait, Sheila Karbassian, Daniela Schweitzer, Joan Wulf, Loren Harris-Heller, Nung-Hsin Hu, and Susie McKay Krieser.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a live Zoom panel featuring Alma Ruiz and Karen Sherman, moderated by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, on November 12, 2020 at 12pm. For this panel discussion, curators, artists, activists, advocates, and scholars are invited to meet virtually  to reflect on the public opening of Facing Darkness, and consider how the show renders a public crisis and artists’ circumstances evident and knowable. Moderated by artist-scholar Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, with talks by curator Alma Ruiz and dancemaker Karen Sherman, (Inter)facing Darkness will frame a dialogue on how artists are operating as second responders, as thought leaders, and resource gatherers at this time. Participants will be invited to speak on their experience of the show at this moment. Register here.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Exhibitions, New Work, Presentations, Work Tagged With: "Building Networks of Empathy", 18th Street Airport Gallery, 18th Street Arts Center, Alexandra Dillon, Alma Ruiz, Ameeta Nanji, and Susie McKay Krieser., Art and Empathy, Art in the time of Covid, Artists, Artists Respond, Artists Respond to Pandemic, Daniela Schweitzer, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Debra Disman, Elham Sagharchi, Frida Cano, Group Show, Joan Wulf, Julia Michelle Dawson, Karen Sherman, Lionel Popkin, Loren Harris-Heller, Luciana Abait, Luigia Gio Martelloni, M Susan Broussard, Nung-Hsin Hu, Online Exhibition, Paul Bonon-Rodriguez, Rebecca Setareh, Response to Pandemic, Sheila Karbassian, Siru Wen

The Book As Art, vol. 8: Infinity – ARTIST TALK!

October 9, 2020 By Debra Disman

The Book As Art, vol.8: Infinity- Artist Talks

by Georgia Center for the Book
Free
October 28, 2020
7:00PM EST
4:00PM PST
Join us for an artist talk every Wednesday in October with artists featured in the 2020 Book As Art, vol.8: Infinity Exhibition.

About this Event

Join us for an artist showcase, featuring 5 artists’ who have pieces in the 2020 The Book as Art v.8: Infinity exhibition: Debra Disman (“Maximum Security”; “Prairie”), Christian Feneck (“The Unmade Room”), Julie Fordham (“The Dream”), Nicole Polonsky (“32xF”), and Chris Revelle (“Living Monuments”). For more information about their work, visit the catalogue for the exhibition here: Book As Art, vol.8: Infinity Catalogue

Debra Disman is a Los Angeles-based artist working primarily in the form of the book, both as a solo practitioner and in the public sphere of community engagement. As a maker and teaching artist she creates work and projects which push the boundaries of the book into new forms and materials. Her work is shown in museums, galleries, universities and libraries across the US including The Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale, CA, Craft Contemporary in LA, The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Disman was the featured artist for the Big Read in LA in 2016; is the recipient of a WORD: Artist Grant / Bruce Geller Memorial Prize in 2016 to create “The Sheltering Book”, a life-sized book structure; 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 Studio Resident at the Camera Obscura Art Lab in 2018, and was awarded five Artist-in-Residence grants from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs since 2017 to work with the diverse Valley communities of LA.

Artist Christian Feneck combines his architectural training with painting, print, and installation art to create visual experiences of space using color. Feneck’s paintings explore the relationship of vision and the understanding of space by using architectural perspective conventions in combination with a layered series of translucent color fields.. Born in Massachusetts but raised primarily in Hawaii, California, and Florida, Feneck has resided in Fort Lauderdale since 2004. Feneck was a Visiting Professor of Architectural Design and Theory at Florida Atlantic University and participated in the FATVillage Artist Incubator Residency and the IS Projects Existent Books Residency programs. Feneck contributed to numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout South Florida as well as curated several installation art exhibitions.

Julie Fordham is a mixed media artist working in Atlanta, Ga. She attended Rhode Island School of Design where she studied Illustration. Julie’s work is a personal narrative. She uses plants, animals, and insects along with her figures to interpret the world and the people around her. She creates intuitively and enjoys experimenting with new materials. She loves tedium and contrast. The combination of rough texture with feminine details. Tons of miniscule stitches and lace. Bright colors with dark heavy feeling imagery. Words are added as a source of texture. Her work explores the symbolism tied to animals and plants and reframes them in a way that establishes her own visual vocabulary. She has shown around the city of Atlanta and Nashville, and participated in many shows at the Tannery Row Artist Colony in Buford.

Nicole Polonsky is a visual artist whose practice encompasses limited-edition prints, bookworks and multiples; drawing and unique object-making; writing; film, installations and performance. She also devises and produces group projects and exhibitions, and collaborates with other artists to realize cross-disciplinary ventures. Nicole gained her bachelor’s degree at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford, and master’s in Print at the Royal College of Art, London UK. She has shown extensively throughout her career. Recent exhibitions include lapse:re:lapse, MOCA London WE UK; Lighting Up Time, Northern Print and Side Cinema, Newcastle UK; A Pollock’s Gallimaufry, and The Contemporary Print, Flatbed Press and Gallery, Texas USA. In 2019 Nicole received an Arts Council England Project Grant for Lighting Up Time; she was shortlisted for the 2018 Flourish Award for Excellence in Printmaking and the 2016 Neo:Printprize .Nicole’s artworks are held in private collections internationally and public collections at Museum of Modern Art and Lafayette College; Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art,and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others. Her work was featured in a number of publications including Creative Review, Art Monthly and Printmaking Today, as well as The Word is Art. Nicole lives and works in London, UK.

Chris Revelle is an interdisciplinary artist with a socially-engaged and research- based studio practice. Through the examination of history, language, and visual culture, Revelle’s work confronts the failures and abuses of social, political, and economic systems. The goal of his practice is to challenge public memory while inspiring discourse and empathy. Revelle has exhibited in the United States, Hong Kong, London, South Korea, and India. He was the recipient of the 2018 Idea Capital Grant and a finalist for the 2017 Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize. Revelle has created work for United Nations organizations, and was formerly the Chair of Fine Arts at Savannah College of Art and Design, Hong Kong, and a Faculty Instructor of Painting and Drawing at Arizona State University. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the School of Art at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) in Valencia, CA.

Tagged With: 2020 The Book as Art v.8: Infinity exhibition:, artist showcase, Artist Talk, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Book, BOOK ART, Chris Revelle, Christian Feneck, Debra Disman, Decatur Arts Alliance, Dekalb Public library, Georgia Center for the Book, Handmade Books, Julie Fordham, Nicole Polonsky, The Book Art Art v.8: Infinity

In TRANSITION

September 29, 2020 By Debra Disman

I was thrilled to be part of the exhibition “TRANSITION“, presented by Tarfest 2020, produced by Launch LA, and juried by the wonderful Holly Jerger, curator for Craft Contemporary.

Tour the show with Founder/Executive Director of Launch LA James Panozzo here.


I showed “Torrent and Tangle: Keep your House in Order“,  2019, 10.5 x 25 x 18”, made of book board, hemp cord, ribbon, lace, mulberry paper, acrylic paint, and neutral PH adhesive.


The piece was created in a bottomless box format,


with two accordion folded joins, or back corners,


and two “front doors” hinged with cloth and surfaced with strips of ribbon, that can be opened,


or kept closed,


with any amount of the hanging internal strings kept in, or emerging, flowing or falling out of the structure,


depending on how the those designing the show wish it to appear.


Hemp cords knotted on one end were threaded through awl-punched holes on three sides,


after the inside surfaces were lined with lace,


tumbling down in a torrent into a tangled heap onto the surface where the piece is placed.


How will we get this all sorted out?

Nobody really knows, but this much is clear, we are in this together. Endemic of contemporary life, torrent and tangle is taken to the extreme by the current pandemic. We will get through this. We have to.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Exhibitions, New Work, Work Tagged With: Art Exhbition, Art in the pandemic, Art in the time of COVID 19, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Contemporary Art, Contemporary Life, Debra Disman, Endemic, Group Shows, Holly Jerger, James Panozzo, June Kim, Launch LA, Lorraine Bubar, Los Angeles Art Exhibition, Los Angeles Artists, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Exhbitions, Materiality, Pandemic, Socially Distanced Art Exhbitions, Tarfest, TARFEST 2020, Transition

Preparing for: Crafting our Stories By Hand Online

August 5, 2020 By Debra Disman

I am thrilled to be preparing to teach:
The Art of the Book: Crafting Our Stories By Hand  ONLINE!


Visual Feast…Eye Candy…Material World

Crafting Histories: Bookmaking with Debra Disman –  an Online Workshop Series


Colorful packets of bookmaking materials

The Art of the Book: Crafting Our Stories By Hand is an online workshop series specifically designed by Craft Contemporary and artist Debra Disman for adults over the age of 55. This program is made possible by funding from Aroha Philanthropies and is part of a nationwide campaign to bring thoughtful and specialized programs to a valuable population that is often undeserved by arts institutions.We invite you to register for this cycle’s participant cohort. This 8-session bookmaking series taught by artist Debra Disman will meet through the online platform Zoom, every Friday at 11am – 1pm. Starting August 7 through September 18, 2020. The program will conclude with a final presentation and discussion of works and experiences, participants will also be provided a group document and online presence to share their work with friends and family.


Hemp cord and prepped book pages and covers for sewn book structures, bright tagboard for folded and glued book forms.

Objective: Learn how to create folded, glued and sewn book structures. Learn how to use bookmaking as an expressive vehicle for communication. Learn to share stories through the medium of bookmaking

Participants will be introduced to ideas of storytelling through materials and the handmade. We will explore what the term book means, why books are important, and how they have functioned through time and culture.


Andres‘s helping hands and design eye

Orientation: Friday, August 7
Session 1: Friday, August 14
Session 2: Friday, August 21
Session 3: Friday, August 28
Session 4: Friday, September 4
Session 5: Friday, September 11
Critique & Wrap-up: Friday, September 18
Culminating Event: Friday, September 25

Andres Payan Estrada, Curator of Public Engagement at Craft Contemporary in action, prepping materials packets for participants.

Filed Under: Artists' Books, BOOKS, Student Work, Teaching Artist Tagged With: Andres Payan, Andres Payan Estradfa, Aroha Philanthropies, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Book Arts, Bookmaking, Community Artmaking, Craft Contemporary, Craft Contemporary Museum, Crafting Our Stories By Hand, Debra Disman, Handmade Books, HEMP CORD, Older Adyults, ONE-OF-A-KIND HANDMADE BOOKS, Online Art programs, Online Art Workshops for Seniors, Online Bookmaking, Online learning, Seniors, Seniors making Books, Story, Story making, The Art of the Book, The Art of the Book: Crafting Our Stories By Hand, TTagboard

FORMATION at UCLA: Hang Out (4)

June 2, 2019 By Debra Disman

“FORMATION”: The Guild of Book Workers 2018-2019 Traveling Juried Exhibition just closed at UCLA.

University of California, Los Angeles
Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
March 15–May 30, 2019

“Simply defined by Merriam Webster as “an act of giving form or shape to something,” ‘formation‘ can insinuate process, history, creation, change, beginnings, an arrangement, botany and landscape, personal narratives and impersonal storytelling. As artists, designers and craftspeople with our own histories that form us, we also play a vital role in the formation of objects and experiences; pulp molded into paper, paper folded into books, books shelved into a library.

What is the final product, if not for the methods used to create it? What makes us into the artists we are? What pushes us to continue to create?” –FORMATION

I am extremely honored to have two pieces in FORMATION, The Guild of Book Workers 2018-2019 traveling juried exhibition, with a theme evoking a wide array of interpretations. In this post, I share my work included in the show; “Hang Out”, and “Black Hang Out”.


“Hang Out” was initially displayed laying down. I asked for it to be standing, and the wonderful staff followed suit.


Interior detail


Both books standing

I did my best to capture the feel of these pieces when they showed in the Library Lobby Gallery alongside a myriad of varied, extraordinary, exemplary, breathtaking works created by other artists and makers in whose company I am moved and proud to be.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Artists' Books, BOOKS, Exhibitions, Work Tagged With: ARTIST'S BOOKS, Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery, Debra Disman, Exhibition, FORMATION, FORMATION TRAVELLING SHOW, Group Exhibition, Group Show, Handmade Books, Los Angeles, Mixed media, Sculptural Books, Show, The Guild of Book Workers, Travelling Exhibition, UCLA, University of California

FORMATION at UCLA: The Artists (4)

May 9, 2019 By Debra Disman

“FORMATION”: The Guild of Book Workers 2018-2019 Traveling Juried Exhibition is currently showing at UCLA!

University of California, Los Angeles
Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
March 15–May 25, 2019

“Simply defined by Merriam Webster as “an act of giving form or shape to something,” ‘formation‘ can insinuate process, history, creation, change, beginnings, an arrangement, botany and landscape, personal narratives and impersonal storytelling. As artists, designers and craftspeople with our own histories that form us, we also play a vital role in the formation of objects and experiences; pulp molded into paper, paper folded into books, books shelved into a library.

What is the final product, if not for the methods used to create it? What makes us into the artists we are? What pushes us to continue to create?” –FORMATION

I am extremely honored to have two pieces in FORMATION, The Guild of Book Workers 2018-2019 traveling juried exhibition, with a theme evoking a wide array of interpretations.

In this post, I share my contribution, “Hang Out”, and “Black Hang Out” to the show.

I leave it to you to interpret the titles. One knowledgable artist upon seeing my work asked  if it was “Hedi Kyle meets Eva Hesse?” She may be right. Hedi and Eva, born 1937 and 1936 respectively, in Germany, with vastly different life trajectories., both unforgettable and profoundly impactful during their time, and for future generations. It is a fascinating supposition, and bravo, Karen Schiff for the insight and intuition.

Thank you for taking a look, and please check back soon as I share the work of many other talented artists who grace this Show!

 

 

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Artists' Books, Exhibitions, Work Tagged With: ARTIST'S BOOKS, Books as Art, Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery, Debra Disman, Eva Hesse, Exhibition, FORMATION, FORMATION TRAVELLING SHOW, FORMATION: Guild of Bookworkers Traveling Exhibition, Group Exhibition, Group Show, Handmade Books, Hedi Kyle, Karen Schiff, Los Angeles, Mixed media, Sculptural Books, Show, The Guild of Book Workers, The Guild of Bookworkers Travelling Juried Show, UCLA

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