Monthly Archives: May 2016

In Honor of Memorial Day

In honor of Memorial Day…The Exodus installation, from 2010, three feet high by 30 feet wide.
A ten-panel painting, organized like a free-form graphic novel, exploring the emotional connections between ordinary people and historic events, inspired by the Cuban Missile crisis, The Bay of Pigs, and the US Service men and women who served at the Larson Airfare base.

“I Paint My Own Reality”

‘I paint my own reality.’ – Frida Kahlo

Inspiring me today…okay, MOST every day. And not just because I LOVE parrots, monkeys, flowers, skeletons, idols or jungles, either….

FRIDA!!! Not only was she the most amazing confessional painter of her day, but she lived life on her own terms. Righteous chick!

Self-Portraits…The More Things Change

Tomorrow, I’ll instruct my students on the tradition of self-portraiture.

One of the really cool things about the practice is being able to compare how you change both physically and in your thinking. For example, in my self-portraits from the Epic series, Regarding Parabellum, I hold a gun in one hand and give my audience stink-eye. That’s 2009.

Fast forward to Splashdown, from the Migration series, finished this year. Both are highly political. But in Regarding Parabellum I was considering historic/philosophic positions to war. Now my work is much more personal. The new self-portrait commemorates Toni, who entertained the kids interned in La Trampa by dancing with a skeleton. This very personal story is conflated with the larger story of Mariel and the subsequent ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ policies which resulted in countless of Cuban refugees being denied entry into the US.

Untitled-1

Splashdown

Remembering Salvador Dali

Last week it was Salvador Dali’s birthdate. No question, where-ever his spirit is, it is raising cane!

Are you a fan like me or into surrealism too? Then check these vids out!

Dali on What’s My Line?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A

Dali in a chocolate commercial” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3xvcn-gDNM

Dali On a TV talk-show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AozSUIICbPc

Collecting Art & Divine Providence

Today I mentioned to a student that Davidson Galleries is a little dangerous for my pocketbook. It’s no wonder my husband holds on to my wallet whenever I take students there on field trip! Here’s another of the romantic prints that I collected at Davidson’s. This is a lithograph by Ben Shahn–I love how the two lovers merge into one field– is that a profile of one or the 3/4 view of the other? Do they share a single torso? And then, there’s the fact the genders aren’t exactly clear. I collected the print when my heart and soul were so battered it seemed love would never enter my life again. That’s why I HAD to have it. As a reminder that love is real. If life couldn’t show it to me, great art could!

My trust in art and divine providence eventually brought me the love of my life.
But it’s thanks to Davidson Galleries ( https://www.facebook.com/davidsongalleries/ ) that I get to wake up to this treasure every morning.

Immortal Longings

In Shakespeare’s play Anthony & Cleopatra, the great queen tells her lover, “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.”
Today, the bravest of my students bared their immortal longings during their Midterm Critique…some were for acceptance of their physical or erotic selves, yet others bared their longing for integration after traumas, both physical and emotional.
Listening to their stories, those they shared, and those their art disclosed, I was reminded of Eva Hesse’s poetic and delicately sprawling piece, Right After, 1969. Such a metaphor for our journey!
Yes…How poignant and beautiful the messiness of life is– the ecstasies, the longings, the hardships, all of it, it is beautiful!