“We Right The Book” V

“We Right The Book” V

I was honored to serve as Artist in Residence at Verdugo Hill High School in Tujunga,  CA (Los Angeles) for a group of 41 Senior English class Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) students.

Our project ,  “We Right the Book” was supported by an Artist in Residence grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.  I worked with the students on a series of bookmaking projects during weekly workshops held right in the classroom from September – December, 2017. Students also assisted with bookmaking workshops held for the community at-large in the Sunland-Tujunga Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.

In our Library Program on November 29, 2017, five wonderful student artist teacher assistants helped to teach the Flag Book structure, to a group of children ranging in age  from 5 – 12, accompanied by parents, grandparents and other family members.

The students demonstrated how to fold the accordion spines from “bright tagboard”, add railroad board covers, and finally, attach the flag pages.

The students shone at showing techniques, then moved through the crowd, assisting participants one-on-one.

Once the books were assembled, participants could experience the joy of developing them….

adding color, collage, drawing, stickers,

and Titles!

Mothers worked side by side with their children…

Upon completion, participants proudly shared their books with the group.

It was beautiful to see and hear! 

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library I

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library I
We Write The Book

In October 2017 we had a blast making Flag Books at the Valley Plaza Branch Library, in North Hollywood (NoHo).

The stars of the program were mothers, daughters, girls and women.
YEAH! Girl Power! 

…and a beautiful couple too…both artists.

Pink Power.

A fitting conclusion!

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library II

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library II
We Write The Book

In December 2017 we had a blast making Tunnel Books at the Valley Plaza Branch Library, in North Hollywood (NoHo).

I was honored to serve as a teaching artist for LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to lead this program.

The stars of the program were mothers, daughters, SISTERS, girls and women.
YEAH! Girl Power! 

“Raw” tunnel book, all in black, ready to have content added to the frames and create a story, scene, drama or all three!

Fun use of stamping in different ways on the frame and backdrop if the book. What is the coyote howling at?

Sisters working side by side.

Smiling mom with her two daughters must be enjoying the creative break, and the opportunity to create side by side with them.

Animals parade through flora under celestial bodies, all in primary technicolors!

Wonderful use of trim….spanning on end of the “stage” to the other, with a butterfly attached!

These four beauties created gorgeous pieces, with attention to detail, and total concentration!

Older sis…

and younger (the middle child!).

Great use of zig zags to create a sea life theme!

A line-up of works in from of Mom.

Pink continues to rule…

Let’s celebrate….Girl Power! 

André Derain at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

André Derain at the 

On a recent visit to Paris, we visited the  Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and saw an amazing show of titans Andre Derain, Alberto Giacometti, and Balthus.

My husband Mark, an actor, and quite sensitive to all of the arts, was very struck by Derain, French artist, painter, sculptor, co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse, and it seemed to us, outsized personality.  I.e.- ballzout!

Let’s take a look at some of his work that was shown in the show at the MAM in June – October 2017.

Strong paintings…

Muscular portraits…

Intriguing carvings…

and reliefs…

Whimsical work for the stage…

Even his stamp is arresting…the insignia of the man and the artist…HimSelf.

 

 

“We Right The Book” II

“We Right The Book” II

I am honored to serve as Artist in Residence at Verdugo Hill High School in Tujunga,  CA (Los Angeles) for a group of 42 Senior English class Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) students.

Our project is entitled, “We Right the Book“, and is supported by an Artist in residence grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.  I am working with the students on a series of bookmaking projects during weekly workshops held right in the classroom from September – December, 2017. The students are also assisting with bookmaking workshops held for the community at-large in the Sunland-Tujunga Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.

The project is designed to offer participating students an outlet for feelings, thoughts, hopes and dreams related to their upcoming transition out of high school, and into the next epoch of their lives.

We started with the basics: Accordion Fold Books, created from folding equidistant sections of material. We used “bright tagboard” for the folded pages, and assorted posterboard and railroad board for the covers.   We moved from their to the fun, kinetic and versatile Flag Book Structure, invented by renowned book artist Hedi Kyle.

 

“Ascend Descend”

“Do The Impossible”

The “ascent” of “Ascend Descend”

FOCUS

Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Magnet English teacher Amy Leserman joins in the flag bookmaking.

Stay tuned to learn how students from our bookmaking program took their knowledge to the community, assisting in a well-attended bookmaking class for children and youth held at the nearby Sunland-Tujunga Branch Library.

It was beautiful to see.

On-Site: Neighborhood Partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

On-Site: Neighborhood Partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Please enjoy reading a wonderful post written by Karen Satzman, Director of Youth & Family Programs at LACMA, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art…

I was honored to serve as teaching artist for a series of onsite LACMA art making workshops on “People Street“, in North Hollywood, in the NoHo Arts District.

Upcoming NoHo LACMA art workshops include:

Make a Flag Book 2 pm
2 pm | Sat, October 14, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

Make a Tunnel Book
2 pm | Sat, November 18, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

Make an Accordion Book
2 pm | Sat, December 9, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

 JOIN US!

 

LACMA in NoHo I

LACMA in NoHo I
Making Accordion Fold Books

On-Site: Neighborhood partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) began its partnership with North Hollywood in August 2016 with Summer Nights, free art workshops for the community at the NoHo Plaza in the Arts District.  This year in August 2017, we continue the tradition!

Setting up. Team member arrive at 4pm to make the “People Street” of NoHo Plaza ready for our accordion bookmaking workshop.

About 90 artmakers attend during the course of the evening, from 6 – 9 pm.

The range of the participants” creativity, and imaginative use of materials was breathtaking.

Whole families got into the act (of artmaking)

and fathers and sons worked together.

Some innovative artists took the materials at hand and created something entirely new, as
our wonderful DJ played accordion music, to work with the accordion-book-making event of the evening!

Friends shared…

Mothers and daughters spent hours…

Young artists played with stickers…

while others worked hard on collage.

Stories were told, and

the completed books exceeded the sum of their parts…

Which is what great art does, and always will do.
We need the art, and people need to make it. 

An ever unfolding cycle.

\

 

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember” III

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember” III

If You Remember, I’ll Remember”  an innovative group exhibition about cultural/historical memory  is currently at The Block Museum of Art At Northwestern University .

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember is an invitation to reflect on the past while contemplating the present through works of art exploring themes of love, mourning, war, relocation, internment, resistance, and civil rights in 19th and 20th century North America. This exhibition includes works by artists Kristine Aono (b. 1960), Shan Goshorn (b. 1957), Samantha Hill (b. 1974), McCallum & Tarry (active 1998-2013), Dario Robleto (b. 1972), and Marie Watt (b. 1967). By engaging with historic documents, photographs, sound recordings, oral histories and objects of material culture drawn from institutional and informal archives, these artists highlight individuals’ stories or make connections to the their own histories. Some make explicit links to events across time periods, while in others these associations are implicit.”

The work of transdisciplinary artist Samantha Hill:

‘Since 2009, Chicago artist Samantha Hill has been developing the Kinship Project Archive, a repository comprised of oral histories and more than 3,000 objects, including vintage photographs and scrapbooks mostly from African-American families. The items are obtained primarily through Hill’s in-depth engagement with various U.S. communities, particularly in Anchorage, Alaska, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Chicago. Her installation “Herbarium”(2015 to 2017) was first presented at the Hyde Park Art Center in 2015 and has been revised and expanded for this exhibition. The work was inspired by a gift of artifacts from a Hyde Park family dating from 1839 to 1940 and includes newspaper clippings, letters and other documents related to family history and political events in the South. Hill’s work also features items related to the early of history of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, which became a nationally charged site in 1963 when members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the building, killing four little girls.” —https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2017/01/if-you-remember-ill-remember-poses-timely-questions/

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember” II

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember”

If You Remember, I’ll Remember”  an innovative group exhibition about cultural/historical memory  is currently at The Block Museum of Art At Northwestern University .

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember is an invitation to reflect on the past while contemplating the present through works of art exploring themes of love, mourning, war, relocation, internment, resistance, and civil rights in 19th and 20th century North America. This exhibition includes works by artists Kristine Aono (b. 1960), Shan Goshorn (b. 1957), Samantha Hill (b. 1974), McCallum & Tarry (active 1998-2013), Dario Robleto (b. 1972), and Marie Watt (b. 1967). By engaging with historic documents, photographs, sound recordings, oral histories and objects of material culture drawn from institutional and informal archives, these artists highlight individuals’ stories or make connections to the their own histories. Some make explicit links to events across time periods, while in others these associations are implicit.”

Marie Watt, recently featured in American Craft magazine and an artist I am fascinated with for her use of used textiles and stitching,  is showing stitched blanket pieces, some of which are collaborative such as Companion Species: Ferocious Mother and Canis Familiaris, (2017) below.

 Witness, (2015) below, is “drawn from a 1913 photo …of a First Nations, Quamichan, Potlatch, off Vancouver Island.” — Marie Watt

PowerFUL.

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember” I

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember” I

If You Remember, I’ll Remember”  an innovative group exhibition about cultural/historical memory  is currently at The Block Museum of Art At Northwestern University .

“If You Remember, I’ll Remember is an invitation to reflect on the past while contemplating the present through works of art exploring themes of love, mourning, war, relocation, internment, resistance, and civil rights in 19th and 20th century North America. This exhibition includes works by artists Kristine Aono (b. 1960), Shan Goshorn (b. 1957), Samantha Hill (b. 1974), McCallum & Tarry (active 1998-2013), Dario Robleto (b. 1972), and Marie Watt (b. 1967). By engaging with historic documents, photographs, sound recordings, oral histories and objects of material culture drawn from institutional and informal archives, these artists highlight individuals’ stories or make connections to the their own histories. Some make explicit links to events across time periods, while in others these associations are implicit.”

I was struck (no pun intended…the piece features nails)

by Kristine Aono‘s stunning installation:

The Nail That Sticks Up the Farthest…

Nails, documents, wood, styrofoam, burlap sacks

11 x 47 feet

Installation at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois
February 4 – June 18, 2017
curated by Janet Dees

“Deru Kugi Wa Utareru is a Japanese proverb which can be translated as “The nail that sticks up the farthest takes the most pounding.” When I came across this saying, it helped to explain how 120,313 people of Japanese ancestry, 2/3 of whom were American citizens, could so obediently submit to being incarcerated during WWII. The proverb and its translation wrap around the room. The walls are wallpapered with copies of letters from my maternal grandfather and documents of testimony by former internees given before congress. Stippled into the walls is a grid of 120.313 holes, one for each person interned. Rusted nails are pounded into the grid, forming a large American flag on the main wall. The remaining nails would fill the walls. Visitors are encouraged to add nails to the wall in memory of or to honor those who were incarcerated.”    —Kristine Aono

 

Patrons are encouraged to become participants in the creation of the piece.

The immensity  yet subtlety of the piece makes it challenging to photograph…

I found the combination of writing overlaid by nail emerging from it, both of which require manual actions to effect, particularly compelling and evocative, in an almost silent way, like a memorial.

We must not forget.