Tuesday, September 27, 2005

the potholder rises (Armory)

A show! A show!
I live for shows. I love shows. Especially when MY work is on display. I am now in the throes of hanging The Longest Potholder in yet another show, readying a space for its Potholder Lengthening Event.

Ah yes, HANGING the potholder. If my nice Jewish parents saw what I had to do to hang at Armory Northwest, they would probably tie me up and shoot me, preempting an inevitable, undignified fall to paralysis and death.

I was never a terribly sportive little girl. I loved music, books, dolls, making doll clothes and puppets. Geek that I was, I even loved school (academics) and Hebrew school. Did I enjoy sports? No. Soccer? Never. Baseball? Haw. Basketball? HAW haw. I threw like a girl. I ran like a klutz. I caught like a, well, I don't think I ever caught anything. Did I ever even clamber up the monkey bars? I doubt it.

In this show, my lovely long potholder is being hung mostly from the ceiling, which soars up to about 20 feet, and probably more. Do you like that "being hung" phrase? That lovely use of passive voice? "Being hung" by whom? I'll give you three guesses.

Which means I get to have the childhood I never had, climbing up and down, up and down, up and down, and up and down the [monkey bars!] moveable scaffolding. A sight that is (as the hipsters say these days) hiiiiiiiigh-larious.

When the preparator ("show hanger") Mike Hernandez showed me how to climb the scaffolding, he scurried up like a squirrel, all speed and grace. "Get inside and underneath." "Climb up to the first scaffold." "Then all the way to the top." Piece of cake.

It sure is if you are Mike Hernandez. Even an actual squirrel couldn't pull this off.

OK, so I'm short, OK? I can't even get to first base without a step stool. But even though I am short, I'm not short ENOUGH to get underneath without a few lumps on my head. When I try to slip gracefully under the x-shaped metal-tube bracing, I knock my head on it about a third of the time. [Or I get my hair caught.] Each time dragging my 30-lb. little red stepping stool/toolkit.

So, from little red, I grasp a bar above my head and find a lower bar for the first footstep. In this single motion I discover that little red is as still and stable, while the scaffolding is, well, not. Yowza. Once on bar #1, I step up about 16 inches to bar #2. Wobbling. I grab the bar above me to get steady, move the dangling other foot up to rest on the same bar. Wobbling. The bars are not a "ladder. There is no slant. They go straight up. So any "jutting protuberances" have to be accomodated. And, as I go higher, I clasp these bars like the lover I wish I had, hanging on for dear life and hauling myself and whatever I am carrying up, up, up.

When I get to "scaffold #1," merely a way station to the top, I twist to slide my tush over it and sit down, feeling (you guessed it) those lovely splinters you-know-where. I swing my legs up and find myself lying down on this wooden platform, white with plaster dust, paint, wood dust, and dust dust. And I am lying in it. Then kneeling. Then, while standing up, I repeat the earlier procedure (thankfully, no "little red" needed). And find myself, prone, on the top.

Standing up, having nothing to "hold onto," I shuffle around in tiny footsteps (wobble wobble), putting nails into the wooden beams of the ceiling (wobble wobble), trying not to hit my head on the low beams or the large pipes, and trying not to drop my tools accidentally over the edge.

Going v e r y , v e r y s l o w l y .

We open on October 7, from 6 to 10 pm.
Will I be finished?

Saturday, September 24, 2005

the longest potholder at PCC

I am privileged to teach and to have taught art at several colleges and community colleges. And of course, being a faculty member means being invited to participate in the annual "faculty show."

My longest association with any art department is with Pasadena City College's. I started there in January 1990, teaching drawing. Then art appreciation. Printmaking. Digital drawing and painting. Two-dimensional design. Digital photography. And probably more that I can't even remember. Currently I am teaching digital drawing and painting.

I have taught at PCC through most of the major changes in my adult life. Through meeting "the one" and marrying him. Through our painful divorce. Through little art shows and big art shows. Through creative slumps and creative breakthroughs. Throughout I always stayed on as a part-time instructor at PCC.

When PCC's new gallery director Brian Tucker named our most recent faculty show "Where we have put our labor we have put our love," it seemed like a natural space for The Longest Potholder. So I asked him if we could include it (giving him a much smaller alternative piece, just in case the Potholder was way too overwhelming). And he was up for it.

Thus PCC hosted not only The Longest Potholder, but a Potholder Lengthening Event for the PCC community—two days ago, Thursday the 22nd, from noon to 4 pm. Thank God for the fabulous gallery folks (Charles, Jeremy, June), for the students and former students who stepped forward to volunteer, and for the lineup of creative, playful potholder participants.

Now it is Saturday morning, and I am completely exhausted, and grateful, and moved.

Sorry to have "NOTBLOGGED" for such a long time. I'll be back with more words when I have recovered a bit.

Friday, September 16, 2005

the longest potholder

Single, lonely socks.
How I relate to them, as a single woman.
If the blues singer can sing "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child...,"
I can certainly say "Sometimes I feel like a single sock."

Being unattached in a culture filled with couples and families sometimes feels like being that single sock in the sock drawer, never to be worn again. It has lost its mate to the maw of the clothes drier. It has not been used in years. But it is too lovely to throw away.

This is one of the many thoughts that led me to lead a never-ending series of communal, participatory performance events called The Longest Potholder. The Longest Potholder is simultaneously the silliest and the most profound artwork I have ever [not] made.

Why "not made"? Because I create these events so that OTHERS bring THEIR lonely and unwanted socks and hose (CLEAN!!!) to the gallery. OTHERS sit down in a group, at tables. OTHERS cut the socks crosswise into loops, and weave them into potholders. And OTHERS mesh them onto The Longest Potholder, which is now 114 feet long.


Part ONE of The Longest Potholder
THE WALL OF SOCKS
When was the last time you went to an art museum, brought ANYTHING (let alone an old sock), and pinned it directly to the wall? Imagine an enormous wall (or several) filled with socks. And imagine anyone who wishes to, getting up with pins to move, add, or take down socks?

Part TWO of The Longest Potholder
POTHOLDER LENGTHENING EVENTS
Tables with scissors and looms are brought into the gallery. People take socks off the wall, cut them crosswise into loops, and then weave them into potholders, finishing two parallel sides, and leaving two parallel sides raw. The raw sides then get meshed onto The Longest Potholder. Thus it lengthens.

Part THREE of The Longest Potholder
LIST OF POTHOLDER PARTICIPANTS
Each individual who participates at any level in The Longest Potholder adds her/his name to the list of Potholder Participants. The pages and pages of names are laminated and always exhibited with the piece.

October 7, from 6 to 10 pm, brings The Longest Potholder to the Armory Northwest. This is an enormous honor and acknowledgment.

Start saving those single socks (clean, please!).

Monday, September 12, 2005

art art art

Yesterday I ran from art opening to art opening—both shows including my work. Thank God for my car (despite current gasoline prices). I'm in three shows right now, with another one coming up in quick succession. If you'd like to see my work.....

Nature is a show at the Finegood Art Gallery in Woodland Hills. Despite my concerns to the contrary, the show is actually interesting and lovely. Work by Eugene Yelchin, Carol Goldmark, and Josh Abarbanel (and me, of course) were real standouts. The work I showed was from an ongoing series called Nature Morte ("still life," better translated as "dead nature"). The three pieces I showed were very lyrical, spare, and linear, using drawing & painting media and pigment on raw canvas (that one is 32 inches high and 88 inches wide) or mattress ticking (36 inches square or 42 inches square).

Nature
Finegood Art Gallery, Valley Alliance/Jewish Federation
22622 Vanowen Street, West Hills, CA 91307
September 11 - October 23, 2005

Artists Hang Themselves at Mount St. Mary's College's excellent Jose Drudis-Biada Gallery is a big free-for-all blowout fundraiser for the perpetually strapped yet fantastic gallery. Many of us who have shown up at the Mount were happy to have the opportunity to "give back," by showing up to three of our pieces and by paying a fee per piece. I was happy to include three of my large charcoal-on-canvas pieces from a series called "Bite." VERY icky and disturbing mutated gums, jaws, teeth, etc. I am really proud of this series. It really expresses my anger, bitterness, sorrow, and disgust at the behavior of our nation. I also loved Jackie Nach's prints. Yay Jackie! Glad you are back in L.A.!

Artists Hang Themselves
(charming name, don't you think?)

Mt. St. Mary's College, Jose Drudis-Biada Art Gallery
12001 Chalon Road, Los Angeles, CA 90049
September 13 - October 7, 2005
T-Sat noon-5 pm

And I am in the annual faculty show at Pasadena City College, one of the places where I currently teach. I am showing The Longest Potholder, which I will write more about a bit later. It will also be traveling and lengthening soon, at the Armory Center for the Arts Northwest. [Opening there on October 7.] But for right now it is on campus at PCC.....


We put our love where we have put our labor
Pasadena City College Art Gallery
1570 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91106
August 29 - September 23, 2005
M-F noon - 4 pm and
M-Th 6 - 8 pm
Parking in student lots for $1.00

Potholder Lengthening Event on September 22 from noon to 5 pm
Donate those old lonely single socks (clean, please!), old unwanted hose, etc....
and come make them into potholders, to be meshed onto The Longest Potholder.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

high school at 47

Oy. Online dating.

I recently posted a profile on JDate, an online Jewish dating service. Yes, I am single (and Jewish). As wonderful as I am (or at least as wonderful as I *think* I am), somehow there is no lineup of equally wonderful men flinging themselves at me. [Gee. I guess my "social capital" has gone down some since my thirties.] So I have rejoined the site of oh-so-many spoiled, disappointed, trying-to-seem-uppercrust, middle-aged unattached Jews, scowling at one another's profiles, scoping one another out, reading between the lines, and asking themselves the inevitable:

"Is s/he good enough for me?"

And, how very "high school" we become inside the anonymity of the internet!!!! Indirect, inchoate, incomprehensible, and just plain rude. People do or say things they would NEVER NEVER NEVER do or say to another human being face to face. In only several weeks I have had numerous little "non-run-ins." I'll describe several:

THE AUTHOR
One author (whom I met way back in the '80s) contacted me within days of my posting "profile.01." This version had no photographs yet. Said author (whom I really SHOULD out, although "lashon ha-ra" [gossip] is a very bad thing among Jews) and I exchanged several pleasant "J-mails" until he suddenly realized he maybe knew me already. He carefully asked me "didn't I once teach at USC?" "didn't I have a studio downtown?" [etc.] When he asked me my last name and I replied, he stopped contacting me completely. [Plus, he pulled nearly exactly the same stunt three years beforehand, when I had put myself on JDate the first time.]

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT
One man and I had a truly amazing telephone call, which ended with his saying "Will you be around tomorrow night?" That is the last we spoke. Of course, he has my phone number, and I don't have his. Hmmmmmm.

THE MANAGER
One man sent several impatient "J-mails," the first one hours after I posted my unfinished profile. He REALLY wanted to speak on the phone. I was busy each night that week, so I J-mailed that I would like to speak on the phone, but not until AFTER the intense week-and-weekend were over. Once they WERE over, I J-mailed him to thank him for his patience and to let him know I was more available now. He blocked that [plus future] J-mails. [???]


The most "high school" of all, however, is me.

I am the one allowing these non-encounters to get to me. I am the one who knows how imprecise and fraught with disaster any online communication is—very nearly no communication at all. The best communication is in person, face to face. Period. Things get misinterpreted even on the phone. One needs body language. Visual, physical, aural, verbal..... Even though I "understand" all this, I become like a little see-saw. Someone J-mails me? I'm HAPPY!!!! Someone "dumps" me? I'm UPSET!!!!!

HAPPY!!!!! UPSET!!!!!
HAPPY!!!!! UPSET!!!!!
HAPPY!!!!! UPSET!!!!!
HAPPY!!!!! UPSET!!!!!

That's what high school felt like.
What a complete waste of time.

I vastly prefer being an adult, meeting adults, working with adults, and conversing with adults.

serious | un-serious

It has been a long time since I wrote seriously. I have written "un-seriously" for years. The last serious writing I did? Was it in graduate school? Art reviews I wrote? Essays I wrote in college? I know that my radio spots about art were a lot of fun to do, and they brought lots of art and artists to the attention of the general public. But I also know that I am articulate & speak easily. Was I rigorous? No. Did I contradict myself? Probably.

Then again, why is a stream of consciousness "unserious" and rigorously structured, considered, and crafted prose "serious?" (Yeah, who am I kidding here?) Duh.

It is funny. My art straddles representation and abstraction (or/and non-representation). In material, I straddle hands-on and digital. In "painting," I actually straddle drawing and painting. In teaching, I straddle design and fine art. In my life, I feel like I straddle several worlds—the Los Angeles art world, the Jewish art community, the world of my family and friends, the world of Landmark friends.

Straddle straddle.
Straddle straddle.

I never want to pin myself down. I insist on having the freedom to play on both sides of every fence—or perhaps to expose the fence as having a lot of holes and being completely permeable. Where does the fence come from? Who put the fence up?

Two sides of a fence.
Interesting metaphor causing our societal thought processes here.
Hmmmmmm.
(I am reading "Metaphors We Live By," by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Google this baby. It's worth it.)

I guess my writing will straddle "serious and un-serious."

Monday, September 05, 2005

avoiding

What have I avoided writing about?
What am I afraid to write about?

Hurricane Katrina
Tao Soup (the play itself, not the director)
George W. Bush
my upcoming art shows
the Feisty Bitches
bellydancing
my miles of piles
the new watercolor class I'm teaching

Why am I not writing about these things?

I guess I am afraid of what you will think of me. You probably will have some sort of judgment of me. I am afraid of sounding stupid, sounding like a cliché, and sounding like a fraud. I guess it is time for me to start writing a bit more often, and start covering the things that would be more of a risk. After all, the title of this blog is "create REVEAL redeem"— not "create HIDE redeem."

Saturday, September 03, 2005

newbie | BabyGirl Reid

I was back at Good Samaritan Hospital today.

My dad worked at Good Sam for years. Years and years. YEARS and years and years. And my sister's first husband had a series of surgeries there (before he finally succumbed to his cancer). I rarely see Good Sam any more, unless I spot it as I drive by. But I was back in the 'hood today.

The seedy neighborhood.
The Latino fruit vendor across the street.
The wide, long lobby.
The gift store that always closed too early.
The slow, slow elevators.

On the seventh floor, on the south side, are the newborns. In all the years I would pop in and out of Good Sam, did I ever know anyone who had a baby there? I don't think so. It was either that place where my dad went to work, or that place where Greg got diagnosed. Either an everyday workaday place, or a place of worry and sorrow.

But this time was different. Seven South! Chris and Shannon, my dear buddies, were there with their brand-new daughter, BabyGirl Reid.

BabyGirl Reid was fifteen hours old. Soft whorls of brown were barely there, arching over her dark-blue eyes. Open. Then at half-mast. Half-moon slits. Then open again.

BabyGirl Reid performed her teensy miracle sneezes, and her teensy yawns. She looked around, looked at me. Swaddled and hatted, BabyGirl Reid was only a tiny, fascinating face. Calm. Inquisitive. She liked having her cheek stroked. She blinked oddly when I touched her nose. And she was perturbed when I put her back into her bed (oh that tiny, bright red, screwed-up little pout, and her teensy little upset, barely a cough!). "How DARE you mess with my comfort!?"

Chris, Shannon, PLEASE hurry up and name the baby. I am really liking BabyGirl Reid WAY too much. Or I will give her a name myself. *I* know.....

Newbie!
Little Newbie!

Naw...... I'm sticking with BabyGirl Reid.