Rita Coolidge at Anthology

We were invited last Saturday to Anthology to listen to Rita Coolidge. It was the first time we were going there, the place is great, and Rita Coolidge was spellbinding!

Cocked! at Seminal Projects

Cocked! the entrance of the gallery


Owen Mundy, Targets (1,2,3), tar par, grease pencil, paint

The moon was big and orange above the town when I took Interstate 5 to go see "Cocked!" at Seminal Project the night of the opening. "Cocked! The possessed male: object and desire, Art and the masculine evolution" (what a title!). It was really crowded. I was greated by the "golden boy"silent and almost motionless, on a high pedestal at the entrance pf the gallery. I recognized right away some students' pieces from MFA 08, which just ended at UCSD gallery. Works on paper by Owen Mundy (the titles changed slightly between MFA 08 and now) and Dean Deane, also the photographs of the young boys in Ocotillo by Scott Horsley.


Seth Augustine, The Man who's arm exploded,
latex rubber, foam, steel, hardware.

I had a great time talking to people there. I had the pleasure to meet Iana Quesnell whose work I really enjoy and Stephen Hepworth, curator of UCSD's gallery. I also talked to Mary-Catherine Ferguson and Olivia Luther, director and curator, respectively, of the Museum of the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, enthousiastic and curious.


Zuri Waters, Untitled, MDF, halftone print, paint, shirt, corduroy. On the paper is written: "Sooner or later everyone will find out what an asshole you really are"

Zuri Waters, as one of the featured artists was there too, and I talked to him while he was standing not far from his untitled piece.


Craig Kane, untitled (Tits), ceramic, felt, gold thread

Craig Kane, who had an exhibition at Spacecraft a few months ago, has two pieces in the exhibition, the smallest of them all: a little opened chest with a female torso inside. His other piece is in the adjacent room, a super tiny man with a giant golden sex.


Seth Augustine, Perfection, digital cibachrome

"Cocked" presents a lot of pieces. It contrasts a lot with the previous one "Lael Corbin: Remodel", which I saw. I did not talk about it in the blog. I guess it was kind of too late. I saw it in the last days. With a title like "Cocked", I was expecting to be surprised and the exhibition is, all in all, rather tame.


"Lael Corbin: Remodel", entrance of the gallery.


"Lael Corbin: Remodel", one of the room inside the gallery.

Recycling Center

I went to the recycling center in Kearny Mesa - it is huge.
So many things. Piles of things.

I am aware of the space I have and I don't want to have too many things. At the same time I paint, I produce images, and I like to paint rather large canvases. Each time I paint one, it takes some space in the garage where I work, and I am wondering where this is going. Sometimes I envy the lightness of the writers. Today they can carry everything they wrote with them and it does not take any space! What a dream!

Things, things, things...
It reminds me Chris McCandless in "Into The Wild".

Studio visit

I had a very interesting studio visit a few days ago. I displayed the last two years of my work - paintings and digital prints - in the larger room in my house and in the garage, where I work.
Very good conversation. Sometimes it happens: the contact is professional yet friendly and everything goes smoothly!

Here it's Peace: talk at the San Diego Art Institute

With Kevin Freitas after the talk

video - part 5
Question about "the appearance of military camouflage".

video - part 6
A question about the process.

video - part 7
"Do you think your work is supposed to be in a gallery?" The question is longer than that and was asked by Kevin Freitas... I don't think I answered it very well. Also I said "which artist does not want to have a gallery?". This is not true of course, some artist are not interested in beeing part of that system.

for part 1/part2/part3/part4, see July 12, 2008.

Play at the summer camp

Some Aliens come from outer space to visit Earth. They look kind of mean (but in fact they are very nice). And when they meet a group of children, they accept right away to play with them.
Short and simple.

Regional Show at the San Diego Art Institute

"Landscape (here and there)", 2008, [36"x36"] x2, acrylic on canvas

Yesterday I took my exhibition down at the San Diego Art Institute and packed everything. It was also jury day, in preparation for the next regional show. The juror was Kinsee Morlan, arts and culture editor at the San Diego City Beat. As usual, a group of artists members came to help. All the paintings, photographs, sculptures which was checked in by the artists for the new regional show had to come out from the stock room and displayed along the wall. Then everything from the previous regional show had to go to the stock room. There are always a lot of pieces to see for the juror.


"Give me truth -2", 2008, 8"x8"
mixed media on wood panel

I am happy Kinsee Morlan selected "Landscape (here and there)" for the regional show and "Give me truth -2" for the one foot show.

On Kinsee's page on the San Diego City Beat, one can read: "Kinsee writes about art, culture and everything in between. Get in touch with her if you're an artist who deserves some recognition, an interesting person with a story to tell or a concerned citizen who wants something to change." I like that!

Kinsee also writes a very interesting blog filled with brightly colored photos she takes: Stairs to Nowhere, Tijuana Tales.

San Diego Art Institute
Regional Show: July 17 - August 24, 2008
opening reception: Friday, July 25, from 6 to 8pm
1439 El Prado,
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 236-0011

Here it’s Peace: my talk at the SDAI

Tuesday night at the SDAI

I arrive at the San Diego Art Institute around 5:30. I am a bit nervous: it is the first time I am talking in English in front of a group of people. Also I know the time is short and I would like to say a lot of things! I am happy to see my friends. There are also people I don’t know. Kevin Freitas arrives. He told me he would come and he did, I appreciate that. People take some time to look at the paintings and the digital prints and then we start. Dan Adams, who has a solo show at the same time at the SDAI, talks first. It gives me some time to relax! Then I am on.

video – part 1 I start talking about the release of Ingrid Betancourt. I cannot believe it happens now, during the show, while this large portrait of her is on the wall here! I talk about the portrait, why I did it after reading excerpts of the letter she wrote to her mother last November. I talk about the title of the exhibition, I explained the timeline between 2000 and 2008 and also what happened before, in Paris. The monotypes in Santa Fe, my work inspired by archeology and geology.

video – part 2 I moved a lot with my family. I stopped painting for a few years when my children were very little. We finally moved to San Diego which is a place I love. Then I talk about new beginning of my work, with a different content, the desire to put more of my life and the world around me in my paintings and images. The complicated question of how to mix what happens in my daily life with things happening in the larger world. What I tried to do in this painting is really to reduce the distance between those events and me. For example the painting with Gandhi [“life at the Border”]. “Here it’s Peace, there it’s War”: of course some things happen which are not so far, and for me the situation at the border is very complicated, I have a hard time understanding what is going on and I wanted to express that. It’s here. I put a self portrait in it and it is smiley, but there is nothing to smile about with the situation at the border. It is because we live our daily lives anyway. Things happen at the border, people die and I still live my daily life."

video – part 3 About the painting: “march 17, 2008”, a day of news in the world. I reached a point where I was ready to put everything I learned together. I have no shame about it. Yes, I work my images on a computer. No, I don’t paint with strokes and that’s fine. It took time for me to say “why not flat, I like flat”. And I also like strokes, of course, but not for me, not now. And that’s why the shift was interesting because suddenly something happened, I used my photos through Photoshop and it is like a washing machine, I try everything.

video – part 4 Being aware of what is going on in contemporary art today. Why do I paint?

More videos of the talk to come (see July 17, 2008).

Garage Gallery

Garage Gallery in Alabama Street

Drawings from across the country by: Tony Bradley, DeDe Harter, Richard Reyes, Janet Marie, Alex Rheault, Maura Vazakas, Karen Akamine, Jodie Hays, Sean Smuda.

In pitch black Alabama Street, off Adams Avenue, I find Garage Gallery, the only spot of light in the neighborhood. The image of the open garage on the street is like a small theatrical scene. It is the first time I come here. I found the event in Art as Authority’s blog.

All the drawings are push pinned on the walls, and they are all made on white paper. So the feeling is very white indeed. After a tour (we are in a garage, it is short!), I go back to see the nine pencil drawings by Tony A. Bradley, and next to them, the large drawing of a bear in a suit partially hidden behind the trunk of a thin tree, by Richard T. Reyes. Both works go well together although they have nothing in common as far as content.


GMN Projects

On the opposite wall I find the series of drawings intriguing, and then I read the label:
“GMN Projects
GMN projects are an anonymous collective of citizens that work in a collaborative of form to intervene social suppressed situations. This installation is based on an intervention that happen at the St Vincent’s shelter in San Diego. The drawings (figure studies and children drawings) were left behind by the residents due to various reasons, one namely of having minimum storage space for personal items. The story on the six panels (second from bottom) narrative is a true outcome of the intervention.”

I meet Larry Caveney and his wife, the owners of the Garage and of the house above, very enthusiastic people!

Garage Gallery
4141 Alabama Street
San Diego, California 92104
deepseal6@yahoo.com

Dave Miles at the Art of Framing

Dave Miles

Saturday night, I am going to see “Trompe l’Oeil, Trompe le Monde”, a solo show by Dave Miles. Dave Miles is well known in San Diego. His paintings, full of references to science and history symbols and figures with an apocalyptic side and a lot of humor, are often exhibited here. There are two walls to show the work in the gallery. On the main one, there is a series of small paintings. The first things I notice are the frames. There are about ten paintings, they are all in different formats, and the frames are all very different from each other. It looks as if it was a statement. On the back wall, there are three paintings, very different from the others.
A woman next to me buys “Deep blue OR The Bends”, a small painting representing two people sitting at a table in a room (of a submarine?) next to a window where a giant blue eye is looking at them from the ocean. Everybody cheers. The woman, very enthusiastic: “I love the blue!”.



I tell Dave Miles I am intrigued by the frames. He seems surprised by the question but tells me that he finds frames at a low cost and it’s nice when they fit the paintings he makes. He needs to frame his work because, he says, a lot of the surfaces he uses are not very nice on the sides. I ask about the paintings on the back wall, they are so different. He says he likes to change the style he uses as a function of the subject.


Dave Miles, “Mr Klein of Flatland”, 2008

For example, the very flat looking painting suits the subject of “Mr Klein of Flatland”, which is the third very different painting shown here. He explains that the exhibition is a retrospective of his work and the three paintings on this wall are the new work, the new directions.

“Darwin”, 2008, in collaboration with Angela Miles

The two portraits “Darwin” and “Goodall”, acrylic on raw canvas, are collaborations with his wife Angela Miles, who is also an artist. They wanted to make a series of portraits of naturalists. He says they went to an exhibition of Morris Luis and figured out a way to interpret the technique Luis used on raw canvases. His wife paints the raw canvases very intuitively first. Then, through the chance of the lines and drippings, with the portraits of the naturalists he wants to paint at hand, he chooses which naturalist’s face fits the best the space. The series was created that way. The result is certainly interesting. Collaborative work is such a challenge!

- So how long did you paint in the “realistic” style?
- Three years.
- And “Mr Klein of Flatland” is the newest painting, right?
- I painted it yesterday!

I could not do that! Just doing something like that without asking too many questions. Hanging an almost “not yet dry” painting without even waiting to see how it feels after a few days…
The head full of questions regarding freedom in art and how to have a fresh attitude, I head to Garage, a gallery which is a garage, in Alabama street, not very far from here.

The Art of Framing
3333 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116