Debra Disman

Artist

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Mulberry paper

Collaboration, Call and Response, Shoebox Arts and the Start Up Art Fair: Process 2

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CALL AND RESPONSE COMES TO STARTUP ART FAIR!

I am thrilled to participate in Shoebox Arts Call and Response Collaborative Book initiative to be presented at the Start Up LA Art Fair
February 27 – March 1, 2026
The Kinney Venice Beach | 737 Washington Blvd, Venice, CA 90292 | Room 202

After five years of digital exchanges connecting artists across six continents, Call and Response is going physical for the first time.

In October 2025, Shoebox Arts helmed by the extraordinary Kristine Schomocker   paired 190 artists to create collaborative books together. Four months later, we have approximately 90 unique collaborative works—oracle decks, teabag weavings, painted photographs, sculptural volumes, accordion books, visual puzzles.

Each book represents a creative conversation between two artists/humans/makers. Participating artists have navigated time zones, shipping logistics, language barriers, and completely different creative approaches to make something neither could have conceived alone.

This is Call and Response at its core: connection, radical trust, real collaboration.

This is collaboration without permission. Connection without barriers. Artists proving quality work doesn’t require institutional blessing—just willingness to make something with another.
A project of @shoeboxarts.la
Exhibition: @callandresponseart

The intimate hotel suite setting allows visitors to interact closely with each work—books displayed throughout the space on beds, tables, and dressers. This is a selling exhibition with works split equally between the two collaborating artists and Shoebox Arts.
Hours:

  • Friday, February 27: VIP Early Access 5-7pm | All Access 7-10pm

  • Saturday, February 28: 12pm – 9pm

  • Sunday, March 1: 12pm – 7pm

To attend this fun and wild event:
Get Tickets: www.startup-art.com/los-angeles

Here is part 2 of the process of my collaboration with artist Michelle Robinson:
Transform to Black

Black is the unifying color for the piece, titled, “Into the Wood”, setting off the colors in Michelle’s prints, reflecting the darkness of the Wood,
and setting the tone for the viewers’ journey into it.
The piece goes upright, with accordion folded corners held in place by clips to deepen the folds, the (relatively) 2-d becomes 3-d.

The mulberry-covered accordion-folded book repair cloth-covered black-painted corners are thus “trained” to fold and unfold easily.
The textures work together to support the forest (Woods) theme.
It takes some time. The piece has to fold easily to both stand up and travel.
And here we go…Into the Woods.

Collaboration, Call and Response, Shoebox Arts and the Start Up Art Fair: Process 1

By

CALL AND RESPONSE COMES TO STARTUP ART FAIR!

I am thrilled to participate in Shoebox Arts Call and Response Collaborative Book initiative to be presented at the Start Up LA Art Fair
February 27 – March 1, 2026
The Kinney Venice Beach | 737 Washington Blvd, Venice, CA 90292 | Room 202

After five years of digital exchanges connecting artists across six continents, Call and Response is going physical for the first time.

In October 2025, Shoebox Arts helmed by the extraordinary Kristine Schomocker   paired 190 artists to create collaborative books together. Four months later, we have approximately 90 unique collaborative works—oracle decks, teabag weavings, painted photographs, sculptural volumes, accordion books, visual puzzles.

Each book represents a creative conversation between two artists/humans/makers. Participating artists have navigated time zones, shipping logistics, language barriers, and completely different creative approaches to make something neither could have conceived alone.

This is Call and Response at its core: connection, radical trust, real collaboration.

This is collaboration without permission. Connection without barriers. Artists proving quality work doesn’t require institutional blessing—just willingness to make something with another.
A project of @shoeboxarts.la
Exhibition: @callandresponseart

The intimate hotel suite setting allows visitors to interact closely with each work—books displayed throughout the space on beds, tables, and dressers. This is a selling exhibition with works split equally between the two collaborating artists and Shoebox Arts.
Hours:

  • Friday, February 27: VIP Early Access 5-7pm | All Access 7-10pm

  • Saturday, February 28: 12pm – 9pm

  • Sunday, March 1: 12pm – 7pm

To attend this fun and wild event:
Get Tickets: www.startup-art.com/los-angeles

Here is part 1 of the process of my collaboration with artist Michelle Robinson:
Creating the Structure:


Five sections of archival book board are attached with acid-free watercolor paper folded accordion “corner” strips. Michelle will provide three printed images to be mounted on the back and sides of the “box” structure, and two sections will comprise the front “doors”.
The piece is completely resurfaced with strips of mulberry paper, which conjure up the texture of tree bark, reflecting the trees and dark woods depicted in her images.


The piece is then placed upright assuming is rectangular box form.


The folds are held in place by clips. The doors open and close, and the accordion-folded corners expand.


The texture is beautiful in white, but will transform with layers of black acrylic paint.


The structure will adapt to its standing form and the resilient mulberry and watercolor paper become ready to absorb the paint and transform to black.
In the next post….PROCESS 2…Transform to BLACK

EXHIBITIONISTA:  Brand 51 Annual National Exhibition of Works on Paper!

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I am thrilled to be a part of the  Brand 51 Annual National Exhibition of Works on Paper at the  Brand Library and Art Center, Glendale, CA, juried by  Ara Oshagan

The Associates of Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, announces its 51st Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper. This year’s juror is internationally known photographer, curator, author, and speaker, Ara Oshagan. A resident of Glendale, Ara is the co-curator of ReflectSpace Gallery at Glendale Central Library. Since 2017, ReflectSpace Gallery has installed nearly forty exhibitions focused on current and historical social issues that have local, national and international impact. As co-curator, Ara exhibits contemporary art as well as archives, employing a vast range of media from drawing to photography, to painting, projection, sound, installation, public art, technology-based and interactive media. His artistic practice demonstrates a keen eye and appreciation for conceptual as well as representational art.

Catalog: A printed catalog of the exhibition will be available for purchase and will be accessible online.

Sales: Unless specified not for sale (NFS), all artworks will be offered for sale. A portion of all sales will benefit the Associates of Brand Library & Art Center.

The Associates of Brand Library & Art Center is an all-volunteer non-profit that raises funds to support the extensive free and public events offered at Brand including gallery exhibitions, classical and popular music performances, film screenings, dance performances, and activities for people of all ages. Entry fees and commissions from the sale of artworks from Brand 51 will be used to continue the important cultural programming that Brand Library & Art Center brings to the community.

Contact Debra Thompson, Brand 51 Exhibition Chair: debra@associatesofbrand.org

EXHIBITIONISTA: BRAND 51!!! Third Time’s a Charm….

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I am honored to be in the Brand 51 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper which will be on view at Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale, California, from July 8 through September 1, 2023. I had the pleasure of participating in 2019; as well as in 2021 in collaboration with artist Luciana Abait.

The Associates of Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, announces its 51st Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper. This year’s juror is internationally known photographer, curator, author, and speaker, Ara Oshagan. A resident of Glendale, Ara is the co-curator of ReflectSpace Gallery  at Glendale Central Library. Since 2017, ReflectSpace Gallery has installed nearly forty exhibitions focused on current and historical social issues that have local, national and international impact. As co-curator, Ara exhibits contemporary art as well as archives, employing a vast range of media from drawing to photography, to painting, projection, sound, installation, public art, technology-based and interactive media. His artistic practice demonstrates a keen eye and appreciation for conceptual as well as representational art.

A printed catalog of the exhibition will be available for purchase and will be accessible online.

The Associates of Brand Library & Art Center is an all-volunteer non-profit that raises funds to support the extensive free and public events offered at Brand including gallery exhibitions, classical and popular music performances, film screenings, dance performances, and activities for people of all ages. Entry fees and commissions from the sale of artworks from Brand 51 will be used to continue the important cultural programming that Brand Library & Art Center brings to the community.

 

Unfolding Possibilities: Something to Ponder for the New Year

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What do we seek, yearn for, want, crave, need, are motivated to strive for, for this New Year coming up?

What is Possible?
And

How do we Achieve it?

What are the Possibilities, and how do we Realize them, in this day and age, in this present moment, under our current circumstances, confronted by challenges seemingly too numerous to count, much less take in?


Unfolding Possibilities, (front cover) 2021, 6+ x 78″ x 6+”, mixed media artists’ book

We have to somehow move forward in a positive way, keep on truckin’, keep on trying, keep at it, continue, keep on keeping on.
We have to try, each in our own way. Hopefully, something will line up.


Unfolding Possibilities, (closed) 2021, 6+ x 78″ x 6+”, mixed media artists’ book

An initiative of the Los Angeles Count Department of Mental Health, Why We Rise LA took place in May 2021, supporting hundreds of Community Arts & Culture Projects which took place across all Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in partnership with more than 100 community groups, artists, grassroots leaders, healers and other LA County Departments. These projects and collaborations included mural making, ancestral healing workshops, a Countywide public literary art project, a Countywide chalk art program and more to celebrate the remarkable resources and communities in LA County and used arts-based strategies for healing and wellbeing.

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’sArts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.
See the workshop HERE!
Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

The range of words submitted was wide-ranging, thought-provoking and evocative….including opposite emotions and experiences and bits of truth-telling, realizations and wisdom participants seemed eager to pass on to others in other words, humanness in its multiplicity.

I took the words generated by this workshop, and requested from the community at large, and stitched them into an Artists’ Book I made as a community collaboration, entitled, “Unfolding Possibilities“.  (“Unfolding Possibilities – Possibilities Unfolding”).  Videographer Jeny Amaya created a video of the project which was screened during the 18th Street Art Center event, “Left/Right/Here“

Unfolding Possibilities, Possibilities Unfolding: the making of above.

Unfolding Possibilities, (interior) 2021, 6+ x 78″ x 6+”, mixed media artists’ book
Unfolding Possibilities, (interior detail) 2021, 6+ x 78″ x 6+”, mixed media artists’ book

When confronted with what seems like overwhelming odds, and not in your/our, favor, try making something, try creating. Here is a workshop to show you how to do it, just one of countless, infinite ways you can make something (out of almost nothing-), create something, experience working with your hands and heart and imagination, craft something, fashion something, and perhaps share this with others. Relax your heart and soul and play. Just see, if you do not emerge, like the butterfly, stronger for the effort. Enjoy. See what happens.

Wishing You the absolute best, healthiest, most creative, most supportive, safest, and imaginative, New Year, now and ever.

Here. We . Go.

“Unfolding Possibilities” for RECOVERY JUSTICE: BEING WELL

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An initiative of the Los Angeles Count Department of Mental Health, Why We Rise LA took place in May 2021, supporting hundreds of Community Arts & Culture Projects which took place across all Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in partnership with more than 100 community groups, artists, grassroots leaders, healers and other LA County Departments. These projects and collaborations included mural making, ancestral healing workshops, a Countywide public literary art project, a Countywide chalk art program and more to celebrate the remarkable resources and communities in LA County and used arts-based strategies for healing and wellbeing.

I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.
See the workshop HERE!
Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, their hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, expressing the full gamut of human emotions.

The range of words submitted was wide-ranging, thought-provoking and evocative….including opposite emotions and experiences and bits of truth-telling, realizations and wisdom participants seemed eager to pass on to others in other words, humanness in its multiplicity.

I took the words generated by this workshop, and requested from the community at large, and stitched them into an Artists’ Book I made as a community collaboration, entitled, “Unfolding Possibilities“.  (“Unfolding Possibilities – Possibilities Unfolding”).  Videographer Jeny Amaya created a video of the project which was screened during the 18th Street Art Center event, “Left/Right/Here“

“Unfolding Possibilities” is on view  in the Recovery Justice: Being Well exhibition, at 18th Street Art Center‘s Airport Campus Gallery, through September 10, 2021.