Artist
Para ajustes razonables según la ley de ADA, llama al (213) 228-7430 al menos 72 horas antes del evento.
Para ajustes razonables según la ley de ADA, llama al (213) 228-7430 al menos 72 horas antes del evento.
Unfolding Possibilities, (front cover) 2021, 6+ x 78″ x 6+”, mixed media artists’ book
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.
In celebration of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), I led a bookmaking workshop that featured Papel Picado (The art and craft of decorative cut paper) as part of my artist residency in bookmaking at the the Panorama City Branch Library, supported by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Participants learned the Accordion Fold technique, and used it to create 11″ high Accordion Fold Books.
They then created simple Papel Picado designs, exploring paper cutting techniques using tissue paper sheets, and added these colorful (or black-) works to our books in various ways.
All of the techniques and materials demonstrated online, through Zoom.
The participants were adventurous, good-humored, and supportive of each other as they moved through the process, and created the beautiful works pictured below.
This is truly teaching artistry, and learning, for the 21st Century!
Using the simplest techniques, participants used color and cutting to create wondrous designs, which they layered onto to and into their Accordion Fold Books.
Paper cutting using the thin sheets of tissue paper can be demanding under the best of circumstances,. I marveled at what our participants were able to accomplish guided by an online workshop!
Here, black tissue paper is employed to magical and mysterious effect.
Participants also used origami paper to create their Papel Picado designs.
Participants joined the workshop from Arizona, Montreal, and across Los Angeles County, some with grandchildren, demonstrating the potential of the internet and its global reach.
Photographing through a computer screen can be challenging, but the brilliance of these colors and repeated cut-out designs cannot be denied!