Thoughts on travel

Spent some time this morning reflecting on when I was an Artist-in-Residence in Costa Rica. The image above is a plate I made there, that I brought back to the US with me to print. The colony I was at did not have a press, so I had a hand-printing setup for some of my work, however, some of the collographs I made I realized needed the intense pressure that only a press can apply.

The print is called Los Amantes, Spanish for The Lovers. It's based on a pair of trees on the border of the property where I was staying, that had grown together over a fence of barbed wire. I have a feeling in reality the wire was woven through the narrow opening between the trees, but the imagery made me think of faery tales in which two lovers, who cannot be together for some reason, are transformed at the end of the tale into trees, or stars, or some other form that allows them to be united. 

I realize now what I was doing was mythologizing the landscape. Which is something I rather enjoy doing, and find that it influences my studio practice quite a bit. Stories of place inform site-specific artwork, which is something I am very interested in. As I pursued this string of thought, it provides understanding of the importance of location for indigenous people - it is not only where their ancestors have lived, the landscape encompasses their metaphysic.

If you think about it, it's why religions such as Christianity, which are not site-specific, have been able to spread. Yes, they have a connection to physical places like Jerusalem, but I have a feeling a majority of people who call themselves Christians will never visit. And some of the settings, such as the Garden of Eden, have disputed physical locations, and are really considered more intangible places. But if your stories are connected to place, and you believe as the Ohlone that Mount Diablo was the point of creation, it's more than just a mountain to you.

As a newcomer to California, I wish I knew more of these stories of place. I'm slowly working on it with the help of my local library, however, it's much easier to find information about post-conquest California, and all of the accounts I have found are interpretations by early Californios and colonists. These stories are important to me because they open my eyes to the historic long arc of the land, beyond the colonial visions of Wild West, Gold Rush, Bear Republic, and so on. By living here, I share location with that history, and I can feel its presence, but must self-educate to understand. Knowledge of such history influences me as an artist, and hopefully I can give such history the respect it deserves.

Upcoming installation at the Napa Valley Museum

A barely discernible lighting test for my upcoming installation at the Napa Valley Museum for the exhibition Discrepancy.  See the suggestion of a shadow on the wall that Robert is facing? More to come...

Bookworks at the San Francisco Public Library

Some images of my work in the Pacific Center for Book Arts exhibition in the Skylight Gallery of the San Francisco Public Library. As much as I'm tired of exhibitions of artist books given names like "Bookworks," I'm honored to be in the company of many amazing artists.

The piece I entered was one of my most recently finished artist books, Kasha Katuwe. I'm slowly developing a body of work exploring the intersection of papermaking, book craft and architecture, embroidery, and landscape.

Watermark Experiments!

Some of my current experiments with watermarks and invasive plant species. Above, a freshly pulled wet sheet - a base of unbleached abaca with a top sheet of Andean pampas grass. Below, a detail of a wet watermark. For a larger view, click on the images.

Below, the pressed wet sheets being loaded into the drying box.

Above, not the best photo, but a dried sheet with its watermark! And a detail of the watermark itself below. In this series, the watermarked images are of extinct California animals, birds, and fish (more images to come soon!), in paper made from invasive California plants. I see these papers as beyond substrate, instead, they are embodying content. Or more correctly, embodying history - an abbreviated environmental history of the impact of globalization on California.

Sexuality and Ownership in Art and on the Street

I dug back into my 'ole digital archives today to find these images. They're from a body of work I did years ago, that I thought of under the unsubtle title as the Egg series. They're from my early twenties, when I was exploring the multiplicity of emotions and ideas that come from being a sexual being. For some reason during that period of my life, eggs, with their hard shell and chaotic fluid inside, seemed to embody all the confusion and emotion I was experiencing.

As a woman, my sexuality and safety have always been linked. Rebecca Solnit said it best when she said that in order to be safe, women have to choose to limit their freedoms - what to wear, where to go, with whom, and when, and so forth. But lately I've been thinking about how sexuality and issues of power and powerlessness are also linked. This has come about from many discussions in the media currently, from the New York Post's headline that blamed Dominique Strauss-Kahn's victim for her rape, to Philaelphia's Dan Rottenberg in the Broad Street Review's article "Male Sex Abuse and Female Naviete," which he blames the way women such as Lara Logan dress for their rapes, to Jezebel's discussion of catcalls, to organizations like Hollaback and Slutwalk, to my own current experiences with street harassment.

The image above is a print I did called Armless, based on the faery tale of "The Armless Maiden." It wasn't part of the Egg series, but it was related in concept.I was thinking about my own powerlessness as a woman, and how sometimes my own sexuality could feel like a threat. I realize now I was blaming myself for not feeling safe in my own skin when on the street.

Part of me has been thinking about how so many efforts lately to end street harassment are reactionary, and wonders if is there a proactive solution? I also can't help wondering - who teaches men to catcall and bother strange women they don't know? Is that what the boys learned in fourth grade when we had to watch the video about our periods? Do fathers sit down with sons and have this discussion?

I'm currently teaching in a juvenile hall, with youth who are segregated by gender. For the boys, at least, it has created what feels like a hypersexualized environment, where I'm asked every week I go there about my personal relationships, and despite dressing rather conservatively, still find some youth not-so-subtly checking out my ass. I think at times it's meant as a compliment, other times because they haven't had the experience of relating to women in any other way. I should note here that I don't know if gender desegregation is the answer, and that it might also put some incarcerated young women at risk.

But I'm also starting to wonder how much of it is about power. By ogling me and other women, by making comments, how much is about asserting power over women, particular women who are perceived as sexually attractive. I'm proud of discussions lately about how women who own their sexuality, those who dress provocatively because it makes them feel good about themselves, rather than to attract a man. As I struggle with owning my own sexual identity, and every catcall chips away at my fragile ownership. It's a threat because its about claiming me, claiming women, still as property.  

New artist book and musing on papercutting...

A preview of my most recent work - which I finished editioning this weekend! Only an edition of five, but considering I made the paper, printed each sheet individually (twice!), bound the structure, hand-cut the pages, and built a clamshell for each book, I'd say that's still a fair amount of work. 

The book is called Chacaltaya, and is about the Bolivian glacier that disappeared in 2009 (read more about it here.) It also contains a poem written in Spanish (with translation provided) about the idea of the loss of a glacier, and the loss of the water it represents.

I've been thinking a great deal about my interest in the human-nature interrelationship, and how it is explored in my work. As I've stated before, I see paper, particular plant-made paper, as representative of nature. Whatever I do to it - cutting, shaping, casting, printing, sewing - as the mark of the hand, and therefore the mark of the human. As I was cutting, I started thinking about some of my "human marks" involving piercing or cutting the paper in some way - a means of destroying or altering the paper to get my desired result.

I also started thinking about how piercing the paper, with its pretty obvious sexual connotations, is seen as essentially a "male" action. Which led me to think - is the mark of the human synonymous in our greater society with the mark of the man? If so, what is the mark of the woman? Or is woman the antithesis of this idea, and leaves no mark, therefore invisible? Could I make woman-marks in my work that do not evoke men at all? Or is this all hogwash, and my works are gender neutral?  (According to the Battle of the Sexes tally, I was more male than female, so maybe not). Is the mark of the human gender neutral? We certainly are all, men and women, to blame for the damage we've done to the planet.

Life Voyages, my 2010 New Courtland Fellowship

Last year, before my move to California, I was awarded a New Courtland Fellowship from the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia. This involved orchestrating a project with residents of New Courtland, Inc., and kids from a local school.  

Boats are carriers of human beings as they transition from one point to another. Because of this, the boat—or vessels—becomes symbolic of the journey that is life itself.  This project, Life Voyages, began with interviews of New Courtland residents by school-age children. 
 

  These interviews focused on ideas of movement, important objects that must be carried when on an excursion, and the concept of life as travel. These interviews were the basis of stencils that were later applied with pulp paint to wet sheets of handmade paper by both children and New Courtland residents.  

Upon completion, the handmade paper was stretched over reed armatures, to form a series of handmade paper boats. Through the processes of handmade paper and collaboration, the final result is a visual narrative exploring the metaphor of life as a journey, installed here in the lobby space of New Courtland Education building.

 

 Many of the New Courtland residents were dealing with challenges such as dementia or were recovering from strokes. Several had lost the ability to speak, and were now communicating through a series of grunts. What was surprising to me what how sophisticated these grunts could become, and how much, and on how many levels, they could convey information.

 This display was only a temporary one, however, many residents and workers at New Courtland seemed to have fallen in love with it, and there was talk of moving it to a permanent location. Fingers crossed...

It was an amazing experience, and I want to thank the folks at New Courtland who made it possible, as well as Genevieve Coutroubis of CFEVA, for all her work and organization.