Museum School Art Auction @Jett Gallery, this Saturday from 5 to 9pm

Museum School Art Auction atJett Gallery
Saturday, June 18, 2011 from 5 - 9 pm
Contact: Phil • museumschoolphil@gmail.com

"A fun event that brings local and national artists together to help benefit the arts programming at the Museum School. Having raised an average of $12,000 at this event each year, the Museum School reaches out to local and national artists for donation of work to be auctioned off to local patrons and art lovers. We look forward to the support of Jett Gallery in the organizing of this exciting event."

Artists:
Perry Vasquez, Michele Guieu, Jessica McCambly, John Oliver Lewis, Nancy Creech, Lori Lipsman, Ernie Silva, Richard Gleaves, Roots Factory, Kathleen Mitchell, Rich Stewart, Sean Brannan, Rondi Vasquez, Nuvia Crisol Ruland, Alexander Jarman, Kurt Thompson, Heather Martin, Teddy Cruz, Neko, Chris Puzio, Andy Ralph, Jason Sherry, Anthony Levas, Lindy Ivey, Erin Pennell, James Ivey, Phil Beaumont, Josh Higgins, Paul Frank, Gilbert Neri, Siobhan Arnold, Ora Mae, Otis B., Dan Allen, Joey Vaiasuso, Matt Devine, Dutch Perry, Jorge Pina, Jen Jansen.



Territories Series / Connection #26
2011, 24"x24", acrylic on canvas

I donated a piece for the Museum School Art Auction. It is not something I am doing often. I like this cause. 100% of the proceeds benefit the Arts Programs of The Museum School. I made the piece specially for the auction, like I did last year.

Jett Gallery
989 W. Kalmia St.,
San Diego, CA 92101

sixpennypress

photo sixpennypress

It was really nice to open my mail today and find the sets of cards I ordered to sixpennypress a few days ago. Beautifully designed and printed, crisp colors, nice paper and envelopes.
Rondi Vasquez just started sixpennypress and I wish her a lot of success.
I am happy to be her first Etsy customer! Visit her Boutique, she is working on new designs and they look gorgeous. Bravo!

Art Censorship Issues: David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" / screenings at Stanford University (Stanford) and MCASD (San Diego)

David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" has been removed in December from the exhibition "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Censored for the few seconds during which one can see ants crawling on a crucifix.
The result of the censorship: lots of people saw the video, removed from the Smithsonian but not from the internet.

Next Tuesday there will be a panel discussion following the screening at Stanford University. Should be interesting.

Stanford University: Art Censorship Issues: A Screening of David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" and Panel Discussion
January 12, 2011
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Annenberg Auditorium
435 Lasuen Mall
Stanford, CA 94305

MCASD presents David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly
Through February 13, 2011.
1001 Kettner Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92101

Michele Guieu at Project X and Judy Chicago at SDMA by Patricia Frischer

From SDVAN / Peeked Raw Peeled / December 2010

Michele Guieu: Defragmentation comes back early to SD from SF to paint the walls at Project X: Art (320 So. Cedros Avenue, Suite 500, Solana Beach, 92075) for her opening reception: Dec 11, 6-10 PM and show until Jan 14. More info: Chris Martino 858.792.9685

Michele Guieu is now living near San Jose but has returned to Solana Beach for this exhibition. We have watched Ms. Guieu go from strength to strength and this latest show is the best ever and not to be missed. She has managed to balance her strong graphic design skills with the slightly abstracted selection of her intimate memories. Three walls of the gallery have been enhanced directly with her painting and a multitude of rectangular paintings are laid over this mural work. The fourth wall is a more balanced but no less interesting collection of similar works. The color palate is limited adding clarity to this vision. Various video frames have morphing colored images giving added information but still allowing us to make our own interpretation of the work. Or better, yet, just let the imagery wash over us. The large scale of this installation encourages this and I was happy to float in Michele Guieu’s world.

Judy Chicago lecture on Frida Kahlo on Wed. Dec 8, 7 pm at the San Diego Museum of Art (1450 El Prado, Balboa Park, SD 82101) More info: programs@sdmart.org 619.232.7931

The world of Frida Kahlo according to Judy Chicago is, of course, a study in feminism. Judy always delivers an education and what was wonderful to me was the audience for this lecture at the SDMA was way ahead of that game. In fact, the questions from the audience were stimulating and impressive and even Ms.Chicago commented on their quality. They were probing and brought a balance to the evening. We heard how history had viewed Kahlo through the eyes of her famous husband Diego Rivera until recently. Of course, San Diego’s cognoscenti has long been aware of the value of Kahlo’s art even it if it took the rest of the world time to catch up. There was lots of comparisons between Chicago’s own work and Kahlo as one would expect. But the interesting idea of how this in-depth study of Kahlo has influenced Chicago’s work is still unclear.

The Last Four Weeks

I did not post anything for four weeks. I've been working a lot on my upcoming show at Project X: Art. And also on assignments for my video class.

Because we moved so recently and I do not know many people, I guess in a way it helps me to concentrate a lot on what I have to do for the show. I have, luckily, a lot of hours to work on my projects before approximately 2:00pm during the week days, which is the time to switch to mom mode.
Often, I can work at night too.



I am taking a video art and editing class at Foothill College which I am really interested in. I am taking the class online: the timing for the class on site at the college was not fitting with my kids' schedule and that's OK. There is a forum online, questions are posted by the students, tutorials and assignments are posted by the teacher, it is really well organized. From what I can see, it seems that the teacher is always online, available to answer any question, which is quite amazing. Of course, I would prefer to share the discussions for real, may be next semester it will be possible.





I divide my time between working in the studio (the garage) on my paintings and working on Photoshop and Vegas on the computer. Also I am still taking lots of photos. And lots of video footage. I do with the video footage what I do with my photos. I kind of create my own image/film bank. And of course, I work with the material which amazes me the most: the kids. But although they are available almost any afternoon or week-ends, they are not always ready to participate! I am very patient with that, I videotape what I can, a few minutes here and there.
A few months ago I bought a bag where I can fit both cameras (photo and video) and I take "notes" with both very often.



Even if I do not stop thinking about my projects and even if I have an opening soon, I cannot be all the time in the studio or on the computer.
The family still need to take some time to visit around!



We had the pleasure to go to a magic house at friends' in San Francisco.





We enjoy the market every week-end, marveling at all the wonders it offers. Mostly organic, super yummy and affordable.







We had some great time hiking in Big Basin.







Milo and I won a pumpkin-carving contest at friend's. I used my Dremel for the first time, to get the transparency and "floating elements" (otherwise impossible to do). I never thought about that before, and the idea came when watching a "Halloween" video on YouTube.



We spent another day in San Francisco, at the Fall Opening Studio / Hunter Point Shipyard, and visited the building 101. It took us hours and we did not even visited all the studios. More than 300 studios were open to the public in total, including Islais Creek Studios.
Incredible old industrial place which apparently -and not surprisingly - inspire a lot of the works of the artists working there.









I attended the "ClimateClock 100 Year Iconic Landmark" talk, presented by the artists who are working on the project and are in residency for a few months at the Montalvo Center for the Arts, a stunningly beautiful estate nested in the forested hills of Saratoga. A quiet world apart, minutes away from San Jose. The project is Titanesque (longevity "required": 100 years) but the artists are putting together a smart response: it will be like a relay race. Rather than to envision something sturdy and unique, the idea is to give the baby to other artists after a while to nurture the project further and make it richer and more diverse as the years pass.



We had the pleasure to spend a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.



The room with the jellyfish, with different types and morphologies, is absolutely fascinating and I could have spent hours just marveling at those animals.



Outside the aquarium, miles and miles of beautiful shore offer attractive tide pools.
Big Sur's wilderness is not far from there.





I read the powerful, chilling and riveting "Into Thin Air, a Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster". I found it at the school fair, along with two books I did not read since I went to art school: "the Story of Art" and "Art and Illusion" by E. H. Gombrich. Both brought back nice memories.

Lucy, Darwin and Me / video

A 12 mn video part of my solo exhibition, "Lucy, Darwin and Me", at Art Produce Gallery in San Diego, December 2009 - January 2010.
It was videotaped in Anza Borrego State Park, Southern California, in 2009.

More information:
Photos of the exhibition
Photos of the Exhibition 2
In the San Diego Union Tribune
In the San Diego City Beat
Essais by Katherine Sweetman (SDVAN)
Essais by Jane LaMotte
In Archaeoikon

CoMa @ Edgeware Gallery

"Behind the Iron Curtain"
One of the pieces shown at Mission Cafe, March 2010


Conrad Mecheski and Maura Vazakas
"Insider / Outsider" group show, The Garage, September 2009
in front of one of their collaborative pieces

I had the pleasure to see the collaborative work of Maura Vazakas and Conrad Mecheski on three occasions: at the Garage (group show "Insider/Outsider") in the fall 2009, at the Garage and at Mission Cafe downtown San Diego last spring.

I regret not to be able to see this new show at Edgeware Gallery, but the video is really nice to understand how the two artists collaborate and to see some of their new pieces.
I have always been fascinated by collaborative art work and I am following this work with a lot of interest!



From the press release
Edgeware Gallery is proud to present:
CoMa - A collaboration of Conrad Mecheski and Maura Vazakas
Show Runs Until Nov. 14, 2010

CoMa is a collaboration of Conrad Mecheski and Maura Vazakas. They paint simultaneously, sometimes adding, some-times deleting. They have explored text, figure and abstraction in a poetic form both verbally and visually as line and shape. Conrad and Maura learn to accept the process as something that has no formulated or contrived idea of end result. It is a mystery. They must agree when the work is finished. It puts them in the present moment when the joyous creativity is truly happening.
In conclusion, their work has always been about the relationship of two individuals joining together on one surface.

A portion of the sale of their artwork is donated to the Autism Research Institute (www.autism.com) in San Diego, California.

Edgeware Gallery
4186 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116
info@EdgewareGallery.com
Phone: 619.534.8120

Gallery Hours
Friday: 5pm-9pm
Saturday and Sunday: 2pm-7pm

artists' contacts
mauravazakas@hotmail.com
conradmecheski@gmail.com

Distillations [Meditation on the Japanese American Experience] : Four Sansei Women Artists @ John F. Kennedy University / Berkeley

JFK University, Berkeley

"Reiko Fujii, Lucien Kubo, Shizue Seigel, and Judy Shintani: four Sensei women artists draw from personal, family, and collective narratives to explore the complex legacies of the Japanese American experience through collage, assemblage, glass, painting, photography, word, found objects, installation, video and performance."

First visit to the JFK University Art Gallery in Berkeley. All the works in the show are very detailed, many of them are rather small. This is a rich show - but there may be too many pieces for the size of the space. Most of the content is heavily loaded, an although some works are physically fairly light, they talk about citizenship and human rights, regrets, loss, painful memories and open wounds. The show is not only about that, but that aspect struck me and that is what I remember.

I took the journey, reading the labels, trying to understand the different paths of the four artists of American-Japanese heritage. ["Sensei": third generation Japanese American]. Here is a selection of the pieces I was particularly interested in.


Lucien Kubo, Ode to the Civil Rights Movement, 2004
20x10x2 in, assemblage, plaster, glass figurine, photos.


Lucien Kubo, Are you American?, 2005
15x28x4 in., assemblage, found objects, Van Dyke photographs.

"There have been many debates around immigration. At time, the tone becomes "mean-spirited". Let's remember that many of our ancestors were immigrants who came to this country looking for freedom and a better life." Lucien Kubo


Judy Shintani, Mary's Power, 2004
Ironing board, sharpened dole.

"This is a portrait of my grandmother who supported her family by ironing. She was a devout Christian and very proper and strong woman. The sharpness of the doles reflects her strength and her prickliness." Judy Shintani


Reiko Fujii, My Daughter's glass Kimono, 2009
48x42x7 in., glass, fused photo transfers, copper wire, muslin.

"The continuity of the past, present and future is symbolized by My Daughter's Glass Kimono, which included images of both her Japanese and Czechoslovakian ancestors. Thousands of pieces of glass were cut by hand and fused together to make up two hundred thirty-eight frames, each displaying a picture of one or more of her ancestors." Reiko Fujii

Reiko Fujii is there, showing to some visitors the kimono. She moves it and it makes chimes-like sounds. So beautiful.




Lucien Kubo, In Silence, 2009
11x11x8 in., assemblage, book covers, ribbon, tag.

"After WWII, many of the Sensei, third generation Japanese Americans, never learned how to speak Japanese. My mother told me she went to Japanese School on Saturdays (before the war) and of course her parents both spoke Japanese. After the internment, English was the main language. This breakdown in language made it difficult for the Sensei, the grandchildren to communicate or even understand their grandparents, the Issei. Language is very important, and in this "silencing", many stories were lost forever." Lucien Kubo


Judy Shintani, Pearls left Behind, 2010
10x10x2 ft, cardboard pizza flats, paint, wood, barbed wire.

"Over 3 years and 7 exhibitions, 133 viewers wrote responses to Japanese American internees and hung them on the bottom of the Remembrance Shrine. I selected 41 responses to highlight on this installation. The pieces is a conversation about war, peace, imprisonment, democracy, and responses to the Japanese American Internment. It is my wish that those who were imprisoned be able to read the many apologies and thoughts that usually never spoken or heard." Judy Shintani








Reiko Fujii, Tags
participative piece

This piece by Reiko Fujii is particularly moving. Japanese American who experienced internment in camps in the spring of 1942 (the last camp closed in 1945), are invited to write a note on a tag and to attach it to one of the poles of the installation. Between the poles a clothe line displays clothing used by the deported families.




Some of the tags








Judy Shintani, Bottom Drawer, 2009
24x10x5 in., roots, photos, drawer.

"There are so many questions I am not able to ask my grandparents. They left this world before I knew what I wanted to know. How was it for them to leave their birth country? What was their internment experience? Unknown history, stuffed in the dark tangles of the bottom drawer. " Judy Shintani

Some past events of the American history are still difficult to talk about today (true for any country I guess, including France where I come from: the Algerian war is still a very sensitive subject for example). Bad decisions are made and the consequences are huge for the following generations. The hope is to be able to share, to discuss and finally to heal. That's why a show like this is very important.

Distillations: Meditations on the Japanese American Experience
Reiko Fujii, Lucien Kubo, Shizue Seigel, and Judy Shintani
John F. Kennedy University
2956 San Pablo Avenue, 2nd Floor
Berkeley, CA 94702
admission: free

From the Summer Salon Series at the San Diego Museum of Art

I made this 3mn video on the occasion of the "Summer Salon Series", which takes place at The San Diego Museum of Art every Thursday night during the summer 2010.
The video is based on the pieces constituting the museum's permanent collection. It was projected at the museum Thursday, July 8, 2010.

more info about that evening here.
more info about the Summer Salon Series here.

The Summer Salon Series
The San Diego Museum of Art
Every Thursday during the summer, from 5 to 9pm.
1450 El Prado
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
(619) 232-7931

Canyon Shadow Play: an installation by Lori Lipsman @ Art Produce Gallery

Canyon Shadow Play: an installation by Lori Lipsman
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 14, from 7:00 to 9:00pm.
Show runs through August 27, 2010.

Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave.
San Diego, CA 92104
(619) 584 4448
Gallery open daily 7:00am - 4:00pm - through Cafe Carpe Diem next door.

Leveled: An Interactive Experiment in Art @ The California Center for the Arts, Escondido

"This groundbreaking exhibition will shift expected boundaries and conventions within the Museum system between artist, patron and curator as artists Wes Bruce, Ingram Ober and Marisol Rendon and Doris Bittar (in collaboration with poet Diane Gage and musician Jonathan Glasier) present large-scale interactive installations based on different connotations of the word green." more here.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Sneak Preview 6:00 - 7:00pm
Free for Center members, $10 for general public
RSVP (760) 839 4112
Sneak Preview attendees will be treated to a meet and greet with the artists, a private tour with Leveled Curator, Tara Smith and enjoy complimentary cocktails.

Public reception
7:00 - 9:00pm
Free admission

California Center for the Arts
340 North Escondido Blvd.
Escondido, CA 92025
(760) 839-4120