Hello again.

Ummmm, a but load of stuff has happened since my last entry.

New president (yay!)

My dog Reggi almost died but made it through 2 surgeries and 2 weeks at the vet hospital. He’s doing great thank the universe and the wonderful doctors and staff at the SPCA. I am eternally grateful to all of those who donated to the very costly treatment he had. I am also very grateful for all those positive vibes and thoughts I received during that very difficult time.

I decided to apply to grad school. I went to my friend Cascade Wilhem’s (amazing kick ass photographer) MFA show at the Art Institute gallery Sweat Gallery. Her photographs are included in the album. I personally love her work and her contemplation of the female form and essence. Being surrounded by art discourse and meeting other artists just gave me a huge yearning to be back in that environment. I know I have a love-hate relationship with the art world but I’m starting to realize that its part of the package and that there are alternative avenues to showing work and participating in the community as an artist. Particularly in San Francisco, there are definitely alternatives available to show your work aside from the big name galleries. So aside from applying to grad school (Berkeley, UCLA, and possibly the Art Institute in SF) I’m also submitting work to shows in the area. Basta with the laziness and the excuses. I’m done or rather, I’m just getting started. It’s exciting.

This week I will be submitting a series of belly button portraits I’ve been doing for 4 years to a postcard show at the exhibition space The Lab in the Mission District here in SF. This project is very dear to me. Its not often I become so attached to my work I can’t fathom showing it or letting it go. This is one of those I always feel I will continue to make for the rest of my life. The portraits involve a particular exchange with the people I feel I’ve shared a certain level of intimacy (not sexual-although sometimes). Asking people, even those I’m comfortable with, to show me their belly button often feels intrusive (almost like asking them to show me their genitals- no joke) but when the request is accepted the process of producing the portrait becomes yet another intimate moment shared. The belly button alone is such a loaded scar. I’m quite obsessed with them. Anyway, I’d love to be able to show these. Any thoughts?????…please share. I’m sure a few of you will recognize yours in the collection.

I realized I haven’t really been taking pictures of my time here in San Francisco in order to break that I’ve attached an album of the here and now. Enjoy.

Life is good.

Hasn’t quite worked out that way, but there are days like last Tuesday, where I succeeded in getting off my lazy ass and went to go look at some art. I went to the experimental exhibition space called The Lab in the Mission District and checked out their current show called Code Switchers.

Now, I’m not a very eloquent art critic, in fact, I’m not an art critic at all but I did find a few things at the show that were of interest and I thought I’d share. There was quite a variety of work. A little of everything, photography, video, painting drawing….some of it didn’t really say much to me but a few pieces did catch my attention.

An artist whose work I’ve seen before, Lauren DiCioccio had a few pieces in this exhibition. I have a soft spot for embroidery of any kind and DiCioccio does a lot of it as well as soft sculpture. The image attached shows the composition book she made out of felt and thread. She also uses newspaper images, wraps them in semi-transparent fabric and embroiders the images and the text often leaving them unfinished.

Lauren DiCiccio

Lauren DiCiccio

Work that most caught my attention was on the south wall by Klea McKenna titled, 14 days (all your fear just turns into relief). It seemed like one of the most inconspicuous pieces in the show however it directly addressed and encourages the act of translation. The works were produced during a trip where the artist had to care for her sick mother in a foreign country. McKenna took the issues of translating for basic needs and took it a step further by pairing photographs taken during the trip with Braille paragraphs. The prints with braille were humbly tacked to the walls with a sign that said “please touch the braille”. Something about the work made it very difficult to walk away from it. Part of me questioned why the Braille? Another part of me felt like the why didn’t matter simply. I was touched by the exposure of such a personal event accompanied by the proposition to the viewer attempt to translate it into another sensory experience. I’m not too sure if I’m expressing myself clearly but I really like her work. Worth checking out: http://www.kleamckenna.com/

Klea McKenna

Klea McKenna

I also loved Badges by James S. Pitt. This wall installation of these series of irregular, ambiguous wood “badges” painted with acrylic.

Klea McKenna

The show goes through October 11th.

This was a three-day festival at Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco. I believe it was the first large event to be held here and surprisingly it went smoothly despite the close to 60,000 people that turned out for the first day alone.
Manu Chao came on first in the main stage and I was able to catch most of their set. Live, they are super high energy, and somehow they integrate both reggae beats and ska/punk speed into all of their songs.  I had seen them before in Prospect Park in Brooklyn about a year ago and it was sort of the same energy except way less people were jumping around like I was at this show. 

It seems as though the festival was trying really hard to stay on schedule so when it came time for Manu Chao to get off stage, they were pretty much kicked out and the setting up for Radiohead started. 
For years I had heard about how awesome Radiohead was in concert but never really made an effort to see them until this last album came out.  Before leaving San Diego I had purchased some kick ass seats to the Radiohead concert for August 27 at the Cricket something or other theater but I couldn’t stick around San Diego just for the concert, so when I heard they were playing at the festival, I was as they say here in the west coast “stoked”.
Because I’m pretty petite and very polite, I weaseled my way to the front right of the stage and had a considerably great view of the show. I can get a pretty anxious in large crowds and just as I was starting to wonder if I should get out of the crowd and go somewhere a bit more open, Radiohead came out and I totally forgot about my anxiety.  I was in kind of in a trance from that point on. Occasionally I’d look around at the crowd and it seemed like they were enjoying it as much as I was. 
I was not only impressed by the quality of the sound (which left me deaf from my left ear for a few days) but the lighting worked so well with the performance! So beautiful! To my surprise they performed a song I hadn’t heard in years but remembered loving and playing on repeat when it came out on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. It was like buttah.
Sigh! What a great performance. Really, my hat goes off to Radiohead. I’m so glad I got a chance to see them perform this tour.

sunset from my window

First impressions……this is probably the most beautiful American city I’ve ever been to. As I was driving through the Bay Bridge into the bay area I was taken a back by the architecture and the variety of color on the buildings.  It seems the city makes up for the lack of color in the sky by keeping their buildings unique and colorful

san fran buildings

 Which leads me to my next point , the weather. Uh, totally unpredictable. Forget seasons. I know I’ve only been here for a week but I’ve surveyed the locals and the concensus is: seasons don’t really apply. Just to give you an idea: It’s been foggy and cold until yesterday, which was incredibly sunny and warm. So sunny and warm I got a SUNBURN when I was out gardening.  Today I’m back to wearing a sweater, jacket and scarf.  Go figure! The sporadic weather doesn’t faze me. I’m choosing to see it as part of the adventure, besides, I’ve always got Miami to escape to. 

reggi says "hi!!"

my tomato plant

I now live in a house with my friends Natalie and Marcelo (and Reggi of course!). We have a yard we are working on and hope to get an organic garden going soon.  The tomato plant featured in my last entry has grown and one of the tomatoes is very close to ripe. And although my room is petite, there is a huge basement I plan on setting up an art studio in with all sorts of crazy potential. 

the before picture

Another highlight, the food is pretty kick ass. I live in supposedly one of the most diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco otherwise known as Excelsior. I’m surrounded by Filipino, Hawaian, Nicaraguan, Mexican, whatever…there’s so much I haven’t even seen. Point is, I haven’t had a mediocre meal since I’ve been here. 

viva leon jodido

I definitely see myself spending more time in the Mission which is a ten minute bus ride from my house and full of cute boutique shops, book stores, bars and restaurants. 

All in all I see myself thriving here. It will take some time but I’m very prepared to enjoy the process….and NO MORE MOVING! At least not for now =).

I’m very very excited. I have good friends waiting for me there, a place to live and a garden to grow as well as several job interviews. So the picture is symbolic of the growth I will potentially experience in my new home. I bought this tomato plant at the farmer’s market last weekend. I have a lot of packing to do. Keep you all posted on my progress. Also, I’ll soon have stuff for sale on etsy.com so please revisit!

I think the basic purpose of the show was to give the employees a chance to show what we are capable of doing with the materials we talk about all day. I really liked everyone’s work. We each had a wall to ourselves and I think we all were well represented by our pieces.

Brian’s wall had a series of both paintings and drawings he had done over 4 years of his friend Pat. He really enjoys portraiture and is pretty amazing at capturing expressions in both drawing and painting.

Brian

My favorite of Brian

Eric had three large paintings of his babies with headphones series. He mixes pastels, with gesso, spray paint, and turp creating these layered chalky jesters and stains often in the form of infants or figures. His marks give a certain subtle vibration to the figures.

Eric

Eric

Another one of Eric

Happy, ahem…sorry, Mario made a rather large painting he first designed then carefully and very cautiously executed…and it turned out kick ass. He used, latex paint, acrylic and water soluble oils on his piece. His piece is rather pop-py and his design influences are definitely evident in the palette as well as the execution of the painting. He’s one meticulous mofo.

Bad-ass popiness

Mario

I decided to show the series of play studies I’ve been doing and a larger drawing on masonite. The play studies were an experimental exercise in which I used the materials I had while remaining as abstract as possible. I didn’t include all of them because I didn’t feel they were all strong enough to show and because I made my own frames (I’m on a budget). Although I had a few set backs in making the frames, I’m very pleased with the way they turned out.

My play studies

The second larger piece was rather spontaneous. I had initially intended to do a painting of one of my environmental light studies but after having a very in depth conversation with my mom I changed my mind and instead did an oil pastel drawing of my grandmother, aunt and mother from an old picture taken in Cuba. I had forgotten how much I love working with oil pastels and how comfortable I am using them.

My Wall

The turn out was decent but more than anything I enjoyed the process of putting the whole show together. Consulting each other on our progress, planning for the event, installing, and then enjoying the evening even though we were all cracked out and exhausted – it was really satisfying and I can’t wait till I get the opportunity to go through the motions of showing again. 

Mujeres Maza

It’s been an eventful June quite honestly. Highlights (besides my best friend coming to visit me from Miami – Erika you rock!) would be the Bebel Gilberto concert I went to on June 23rd.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to go to Brazil before the end of the year but at the moment that seems temporarily financially impossible. It’s not all that often that I can go to a Brazilian concert out here so this seemed ideal both because I had heard she was great live and because I was able to get a small but potent dose of Brazil to hold me off.

Bebel Gilberto

Bebel Gilberto

The Belly Up, where the event was held, isn’t really a large place but it was perfect for this show. As soon as Bebel came on stage her feminine sensuality pretty much flooded the room. She has incredible stage presence. It was wonderful to see a woman so comfortable in her skin. She performed both old and new stuff in English and Portuguese. The audience easily responded to her encouraging us to jump and clap in synch, which we did. And although the song “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics has been butchered by a ridiculous amount of people, her cover of it, on the other hand, was smooth and divine.

After Bebel did her encore, the DJ (not sure who he was) continued playing Brazilian music. What seemed like most of the crowd poured out of the club, but once the traffic was gone I realized there was still a huge amount of people there and I swear every Brazilian in North County was on that dance floor. I’ve seen people dance Samba before but these were also dancing something that resembled a less acrobatic capoera. It was such a lively crowd. It made me want to go to Brazil even more, especially to study dance. Sigh.

“So, what’s going on with Orange Bowl? Are they still talking about tearing it down?”

“Oh yeah, it’s gone. Just after you left I think.”

Or something like that…point is, even though I no longer live and haven’t lived in Miami for quite some time now, the fact that the Orange Bowl no longer exists is rather pinnacle for me. I know…what the hell does a college stadium in Miami have to do with me? Actually a whole lot I realized. It’s a monument of nostalgia and nostalgia is core to the Cuban exile regardless of their beliefs, experience and decade of arrival. It was a landmark as far as I’m concerned, not for all the fabulous games the Hurricanes played. Geographically, it was smack in the heart of little Havana, a neighborhood that up until recently, was one of the most predominantly Cuban exile communities in Miami if not, I dare say in the U.S, since Castro came to power. It’s where everyone from the Mariel Boatlift in 1980 ended up after leaving Cuba having forfeited everything to the new Cuban government upon leaving. They lived in the Orange Bowl in make shift tents until they were able to start their lives again.

For the first 6 years of my life, the Orange Bowl and I shared a street. My entire family lived in the small apartment building directly in front of it and in neighboring streets. As Miamians might know, there is no parking in that area, so on days when the Hurricanes played their games at home, my neighborhood transformed. Cars, people, noise, and flooding lights from the stadium inundated the neighborhood. All the residents I think enjoyed it regardless of the commotion. It brought everyone out of their apartments. My grandmother and her sisters along with most of the other tenants rented their parking spaces as they sat on the sidewalk in their lawn chairs comfortably and lazily waving San Juan Bosco church fans they used to both fan themselves as well as advertise the amount they were charging for their space. There was usually an 8 or 7 written on the back of all of the fans in our house.

My father played baseball and football on the outer lawns of the stadium. In the summers my cousin Lusito and I (with rollerskates on ofcourse) would sneak in and go exploring consumed with the feeling of exhilaration you get when you are doing something you are not supposed to and will probably merit an ass beating if caught. Even on regular nights the tenants from the building would bring out their lawns chairs and sit in a big circle and just talk till it was bed time. Being the youngest, during this communing time I entertained myself by pestering my older cousins or singing into Tia Ana’s baston.

The Orange Bowl was always there, towering next to us.

I waited for my school bus in front of it. I remember my grandmother waiting for me infront of it when I came home in my gwa-wah.

This just confirms a sad fact. For some reason, Miamians don’t seem to mind erasing their monuments. The only historical buildings left inMiami can be found in areas such as South Beach, and Coral Gables save for the Freedom Tower in downtown. Miami’s a poor city, I know it doesn’t seem like it thanks to actions films and Will Smith but it is, or at least it was until Art Basel showed up about 5 or 6 years ago. I’m sure tearing down an outdated stadium and plugging in a brand spanking new stadium makes total sense. As the new stadium will not house the Hurricanes, it will now encourage Marlin fans to games! Oh, wait Marlin fans don’t go to games. Hell, Marlins fans aren’t fans unless the Marlins make it to playoffs – which is never. Hmmm.. well it will definitely boost the real estate market of the neighborhood…..that is as soon as the residents find somewhere else to live because they sure as hell won’t be able to afford it any longer. And yet another historical neighborhood goes under a swift metamorphosis. Gentrified, dispersed and forgotten. This happens a lot in Miami and everywhere in the U.S., but in this particular situation it is rather personal for me.

So I write this because I felt I needed to and because I now have a blog to do it in and because ironically, I have been working on the first of a series of paintings based on memory. This first painting happens to be of the Orange Bowl. For some reason the memories of those first years in my life are so vivid. Those eventful nights the Hurricanes played, the elders that are now long gone, the Cuban-ness everywhere, what once was a very large and loving family, the sense of community, …its all pretty crisp in my mind. Maybe I’m idealizing it, but please remember I’m seeing it all through a child’s eyes. Apparently, nostalgia is quite significant to this second generation Cuban way out in San Diego,California. And I know I no longer live in Miami, but I still consider myself a Miamian, I just happen to be in another place.