• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Debra Disman

Artist

  • Work
  • About
    • CV
    • Media
  • News
  • Contact
  • Blog

Judy Disman

Story Time

June 6, 2018 By Debra Disman

 

Story Time: BedTime Story I

I am repeating a bit in this post, lingering in my Studio Residency and show of work at Camera Obscura Art Lab at 1450 Ocean in Santa Monica.

I showed a work titled “BedTime Story I“, featuring, or shall I say employing tiny masks; faces of clay, made by my Mother, the ceramicist  Judy Disman.

My Mom had made these tiny faces of clay expressly for me to use in and on my artists’ books, even making tiny holes in them so they could be sewed  into and onto the book structures and become integral to them.

The faces were a natural for a piece about “bed”,  and made the book into a more literal narrative then I had originally intended. I work fairly abstractly, though still in a loose book format, and the addition of representational elements changed the feeling of the piece. It could then be “read” more literally.

The faces even became interactive, with two of them contemplating each other.

Others became sentinels, gazing benevolently out from their “beds”.

Far from creating an image of sleep, the faces express the experience of being wide awake, perhaps listening to, creating, or becoming a story. A bed time story.

The faces become the actors in the story, played out through the pages of the book. Each viewer will read the story in their own way, and reach their own conclusions about it.

We may wonder what the beings or characters expressed or indicated by the faces are thinking, and if they are having sleepless nights. Perhaps they are worried under their smiling visages. Perhaps they are presenting to us a mask, and there are dreams and roiling emotions, even nightmares, underneath.

Perhaps formal, textural,  decorative, haptic or totemic qualities of the work will prevail for some. In any event, BedTime Story I was a pleasure to make.

Again, Mom, thank you for the collaboration, and for creating these tiny pieces for me.
It was great to work with you. Sweet dreams.

 

Filed Under: Artist in Residence, Artists' Books, New Work, Work Tagged With: Accordion Fold, Art Work, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Artists' oo, Book Form, Books made by Hand, Ceramic Faces, Ceramics, Clay, Clay Masks, Cloth, Collaboration, Fabric, Handmade Books, HEMP CORD, Judy Disman, Mask, Sewing, Stitiching, Textiles

NEW WORKS Show at 1450 Ocean

May 31, 2018 By Debra Disman

NEW WORKS Show at 1450 Ocean

April 14, 2018.

Textile artist Huong Nguyen and I shared our work with the Public at the Camera Obscura Art Lab at 1450 Ocean in Santa Monica.

It was a wonderful round-up of our Studio Residency activities which took place January through April, 2018.

This post is a “send-off” of sorts to the Residency, which had a profound impact upon me, my work, and Life. Thank you, 1450 Ocean….

A tour around the Studio, as we prepare for our Show.

The spaciousness of space…tables for materials, and visual reminders, inspirations and cues.


The “spinning book” moved around.


Beautiful light off the Ocean flooded the glassed-in Studio.


I finished, if there is such a thing, filling my “sketch” book here.


“Rapunzel“, Book board,  mulberry paper, linen thread, gold thread, untreated canvas; “Window Treatment“, Book board,  file folders, hemp cord, watercolor paper, mulberry paper, acrylic paint, waxes.


“The Fall“, Board, untreated canvas, hemp cord, watercolor paper, mulberry paper.


“Throes of the Body“, Book board, untreated canvas, hemp cord, watercolor paper, mulberry paper.


“In the Profusion“, Book board, untreated canvas, hemp cord, watercolor paper, mulberry paper.


“Burning Bush“, Board, thread, linen thread, dental floss, mulberry paper.


“BedTime Story I”, Book board, wood, fabric, hemp cord, watercolor paper, incorporating tiny ceramic “masks, made by my Mom, the ceramicist Judy Disman.
Mom, it was great to work with you.

Pathways to the next Thing.
We are Travelers.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Artist in Residence, Artists' Books, New Work, Teaching Artist, Work Tagged With: 1450 Ocean, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Artst in residence, EXHBITION, Huong Nguyen, Judy Disman, Residency Show, SANTA MONICA, Sculptural Books, Show, Studio Residency, The Camera Obscura Art lab at 1450 Ocean

Primary Sidebar

Recent Blog Posts