The Search

Movin'

2008-08-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

I decided to fuse my 2 blogs together. So from now on, please go to http://caseandpoint.wordpress.com. And speak no more of this blog. It's dead to me now. Dead! You hear?!

I Was There

2008-06-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

I know this amounts to me showing off, and, as far as showing off goes, it's really sad since it's something that happened 4 years ago. Still, I was looking through some old links for some contact info and came across this. I think this piece is the most photogenic things I've made.

"You Are Here", Sweeney Art Gallery at UC Riverside

Intersection 2008

2008-06-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

I am trying to figure out what Facebook is good for, other than to waste time and write on people's walls like we're back in senior year of high school, yearbooks and ready phrases like "Have a great summer. K.I.T." in tow. I did a search and started becoming friends with art-minded people and organizations. One organization I discovered, as it turns out, is right in my backyard. Outpost for Contemporary Art is located in Highland Park and develops international art projects and has a residency program. They have a show right now called Installation 2008. It brings together local artists with local businesses in Eagle Rock -- various artists partnered with store owners on Eagle Rock Blvd. to create site-specific/relevant work in or around the stores. My friend and sometime-cohort Shannon and I did the art walk on opening day 2 weekends ago.

There were some hits and misses, as would be the case in any group show but one of the things that mesmerized me the most was not art but the shop itself.

Pets with Fez is an antique store/weaving studio with all these cool looms in the back. This is where Shannon and I came upon the owner and weaver extraordinaire Babajan, hard (but happy) at work on a loom. How amazing it was to see an old craft like this come alive right before my eyes! It'd be great to learn to make my own rug or even a scarf (there are intricate patterns possible with weaving that would be a nightmare, if possible at all, with knitting or crocheting) ... But who has the time for ancient traditions these days? Especially when bombarded with the all-important sitting around?

Beep, Beep! The Woodworking Bus

2008-05-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Side Street Projects is this awesome organization created to be a resource for artists as well as to offer art programs for kids in the L.A. area. I look a course called "Get Your Sh*t Together" that covered everything from taxes to grant-writing to portfolio cataloging for fine artists. One of the coolest things they have is a traveling school bus that houses a woodworking studio. How great it is to see all these kids so enthralled with the tactile and creative process of woodworking!

the Why Cheap Art? manifesto

2008-05-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Bread and Puppet: breadandpuppet.org. Nuff said.

Video Fun

2008-05-21T22:52:00.001-07:00

My partner-in-crime Shannon and I went to see the California video show at the Getty last week. That may not sound like a big deal to you but it's a big to me/us ... I don't think I've been to the Getty in a couple of years. It's daunting to try to take in a show that's entirely made up of video work. It sort of made me feel bad for people who have to see my video work -- it's a HUGE time commitment and there isn't much in terms of pay-off at the end, which is what people normally expect when seeing something in the moving pictures vein. Not that all video art is obtuse. I definitely saw several pieces that were very accessible, whether it be on a visceral or narrative level. I don't know why I feel responsible for my audience enjoying themselves, especially when this isn't necessarily the objective when I'm making the pieces. I suppose I just want to be a good hostess. Anyway, Shannon and I are going to start working on stuff at our next meeting. Well, we're going to revisit an old piece anyway. It was finished off pretty quickly because of our then pending art show but it may need to be fleshed out a bit more. I don't have a web-friendly version of it but here are a couple of photo stills ...

Color Pencil Pal

2008-05-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

List of things I pleasantly surprised myself by doing in the last few days:

1. Take a morning walk in Griffith Park with my roommate
2. Go to the Getty Museum to see the California Video show
3. Bake my first-ever vegan cupcakes
4. Write my resume
5. Write a poem, sort of
6. Draw

To specifically address #5 and #6, I've been working on an on-going project with a friend and the help of the US Postal Service. It goes like this: Brande started with a journal. I started with a journal. The first week, we each drew and/or wrote something on the first page. We then mailed our respective journals to the other person and we had a week to come up with something on the next page. And so on and so forth. We are 6-weeks in, and the following are images from Brande's journal (meaning the first image is by Brande). When I get "my" journal in a few days, I'll post images from that as well.

Brande

TED Conference 2003

2008-05-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Brazilian-born, NY-based artist Vik Muniz spoke on creativity at the 2003 TED Conference in Monterey, CA. It's 15 minutes but I assure you it's worth your time! You'll be amused and touched and challenged/inspired about what it means to be creative, what it means to negotiate that space between audience and artist. It's not as straight-forward as we often make it seem. This is the sort of thing I think I aspire to do ... Maybe some day soon?

Farmer in the Mac

2008-05-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

I am so over Dell, especially seeing what my roommate had to go through with their customer service. Ew. Anyway, after much ... inactivity ... I powered through and put together a much more presentable online portfolio for The Think Farm. I always knew this would have to be priority before I did anything with my art practice on the web. TTF is still a work in progress -- a whole section is missing -- but it feels nice to have something decent up there at least!

Every Great Idea I Have Is Awsome

2008-04-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

I came across this on my friend Brande Jackson's Flickr site and thought it was just about the best thing I've seen in a long time. It's the first page of a journal by one of her 4th grade students named Chris. You can read more about Brande's afterschool art program here.

I am going to use this as my mantra from now on. So often I don't honor or give credence to the ideas that I have and, really, why not? If I don't back my great ideas and see them through to their appropriate ends, who will? I'd rather take a chance on an idea than have it poured down the drain into the crevices of my mind -- that place forlorn Great Ideas go to die.

Zambia

2008-04-25T01:02:00.000-07:00

Old news but still .... I was in Zambia, Africa, for about 3 weeks last summer. You can read about some of my adventures here. It's wasn't officially an art venture but a friend of mine reminded me today that there are no delineations in The Process. It's one and the same. This informs my stance in the world and that in turn informs my voice as an artist (I hope).

This video clip is from a women's conference we participated in while in Kabwe. Thanks to Young Mi Chi for providing this footage. For some beautiful photos of Zambians, visit Jess Barnard's website: www.jessbarnard.com.

Brazil in Time

2008-04-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole year since my last post. I guess the search for art has not been very fruitful in my case. Which brings me to this: for someone who considers herself an artist and general creative creature, it's amazing how lacking I am in the culture department. Back in March, thanks to my good friend Hank, I made my way to the Armand Hammer Museum for the first time in Y-E-A-R-S. I still mean to go check out the Kara Walker show (please do check it out -- it looks A-mazing) but I did get to see a documentary called Brazil in Time. It is late in the day, it was awhile ago but it is worth mentioning. Unfortunately, it had a limited showing and there isn't much info out there. The film was about many things -- most obviously about DJs and percussionists coming together in Sao Paulo, Brazil -- but the thing that struck me was the way in which the creative process transcends age, generation, cultures and aesthetics/genre. I don't know of many other processes in our day and age that allows for such synergy. A bit more info here.

Oh, and something else worth mentioning: stay tuned for some p(r)etty photos from a project I'm attempting (please, USPS, be good to us) with fellow artist Brande Jackson.

Walking in L.A.

2007-04-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

Someone recently commented that my blog is as much about shows I didn't make it to as ones I did. So true, so true. Quite out of character, than, I went to TWO (read 'em: ONE, TWO) art things this past weekend. Checked out Fatima Hoang at Concrete Wall on Saturday (one clever punch line repeated too many times in too small a space) and then went on the Brewery Art Walk on Sunday. I felt pretty frustrated on the art walk -- a lot of the work felt so contrived, unoriginal and uninspiring. Of course, easy for me to judge when I'm not the one producing work. One thing I have to say for the artists at the Brewery is that they all seemed truly committed to their practices and disciplines, and pretty prolific, too. In the end, their passion and commitment was pretty inspiring. I can see how such an environment would be so conducive to working, working, working. It's supposedly the largest live-work art colony in the world. I did see a couple of works towards the end that I thought was really compelling. Will have to google and see if I can find more info on the artists.

Upcoming: I will be volunteering at VITAL SIGNs, an NAAO (National Association of Artists' Organizations) National Conference. My way of getting in for free. Yay for free! I have a feeling a lot of the content will go over my head, or at least be stuff that I can't really do anything with right now. I just thought it would be good to expose myself to stuff like that, though.

Artists Just Wanna Have Fun

2007-04-19T00:39:00.001-07:00

Does anyone want to see his installation at Concrete Walls (@Cafe Back Door in the rear) this Saturday? Yes, he is an artist. The press release below proves it!

================

April 21 – June 16, 2007

Opening Reception & Special Video Projection: Saturday, April 21, 2007, 6-9pm

Concrete Walls is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Fatima Hoang. Hoang's site specific installation masterfully incorporates video, sculpture and performance to transform Concrete Walls into a space fit for hip hop icons, groupies and rock stars a like.

Hoang aka the "Rockness Monster" is the 2005 National Air Guitar Champion" and developed cult status on websites like youtube.com and usairguitar.com after he performed, what is now his signature song, "Raining Blood" by Slayer.

Fatima Hoang received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2005 and his BFA from the University of Hawaii. He has shown at Conner Contemporary in Washington D.C., Artists Space Project Room in New York, NY, and the Huntington Beach Art Center in Southern California. He has also been featured in ARTnews, the LA Weekly and the San Francisco Chronicle. Hoang is currently ranked #3 in the Air Guitar Hall of Fame and performed at the Air Guitar World Championships in Finland in 2005.

Gallery Hours: M-F 8am - 6pm, SAT 8am – 3pm Free parking in rear

Concrete Walls
@Cafe Back Door
5484 Wilshire Blvd. (rear) Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.933.4020
info@concretewallsgallery.com

www.concretewallsgallery

Unmotivated

2007-04-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, yet again I missed a show I was determined to make it to. Did not get to see Stations of the Cross ... BUT I did get myself over to Barnsdall and see the Multiple Vantage Points show. I also went for a stroll on Chung King Road in Chinatown (this guy Andy Alexander that I went to school with has a show at China Art Objects). Maybe it's because I'm feeling under the weather these days, but I just did not feel compelled by the overall scene at either places. There were a few things that I liked but, on the whole, I felt like I could have done without. I wonder if it's my laziness -- I don't want to put in the effort required of the active viewer. I just want it to be made easy for me. Not surprisingly, it was the visceral works that I liked best. Over at Chung King Road, I think it was the whole gallery vibe that was turning me off more than anything. Not that I was ever really into it, but if I was in any way, I am way over it. Had an interesting talk with a fellow artist-cum-entrepreneur named Brande Jackson about this. I guess I feel that the functionality and relevance of art (whatever that may mean) outside of the context of art has become far more important to me than anything else. Within the structure of commercial galleries and such, the discourse seems limited, even incestuous. I'm sure that's going too far but how I've felt about it for awhile now.

I really wrestled with my artist statement tonight (due for class over a month ago). I don't think I've ever felt so tortured trying to put words on paper. I console myself with the thought that the statement can only get better from here. The main struggle is lack of motivation about going forward (with my design studio, with all this art stuff ... everything?). And, anyway, how does one write about one's art practice when there is no practice to speak of?

Sol LeWitt Passes On

2007-04-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sol LeWitt passed away last week. He pioneered some amazing ways of thinking and producing art. So many of his ideas, particularly those in which the ego/persona of the artist diminishes for the sake of art, even while art itself is taken down from its usual place of reverance for the sake of the idea, are so inspiring to me. You can read his obit here.

Untitled, Part 2

2007-04-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to track down the drawing that I did with Young Mi back in February. You can see the full drawing and the original post here but below are some details. You can click on them for a larger view.

Single Wooden Chopstick Looking for Same

2007-03-21T16:35:00.002-07:00

I had lunch with my friend Jane the other day and when I opened up my chopstick packet, out came this sad little guy! I can't imagine what happened to the other one. Two chopsticks in the night ...

My Life Flashing Before My Eyes

2007-03-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

In the end, I didn’t catch the Magritte show. I was very disappointed but I'm over it now. I'll live. A sad substitution, I know, but I read Howard N. Fox’s (LACMA curator of contemporary art) interview of John Baldessari in the museum newsletter. (I am compelled to tell you here that I used Cliff Notes just ONCE in my life -- for Moby Dick -- and felt that in the end I only cheated myself ... Ok, I made that last part up.) Anyway, a couple of things that Baldessari said got me thinking. For one, he said that there are "all kinds of narratives, and the ruling narratives are the ones that most people believe in." Kind of obvious, maybe, but I appreciate this idea. I think it's very true. I would add that it's super important to understand the ruling narratives really well in order to subvert or dissect them which hopefully instigates thought and discourse. Meaning, one can't completely disengage from what is understood as the status quo. To disengage is to leave reality, in some sense, and even then it's limited because eventually you come back to the world around you and then you go eat lunch at McDonald's or watch TV or whatever.

Another idea that Baldessari brings up in his take on Magritte: "imagery is more overwhelming than words. If you open up a book and there's text on one side and an image on the other, we're going to look at the image first … it is a little treacherous because we might get seduced too easily." Fox's response to this statement, but in regards to Baldessari's work: "Your own work seduces the viewer but never lets that very seductive moment be consummated because you're always confounding the viewer." Cristina and I talked about something similar to this last night, the idea of presenting a work without context or without answers and how this can be an exclusive or elitist act. I guess this practice supports the pre-existing idea that art is unintelligible by and irrelevant to society at large. I’m sure there must be a way to confound and mystify while respecting the viewer, while still engaging in a mutual dialogue … Of course, one also has to deal with particular misunderstandings and misgivings toward art that have been in place for a long time in popular culture.

ANYWAY, to address the title above. I am taking this course called "Get Your Sh*t Together" (asterisk theirs, not mine) through Side Street Projects. In many ways, I'm learning what it means to be an artist and how to be a professional one. Our first assignment was to write our obituaries, the idea being to figure out what we ultimately want to accomplish and what we want to leave behind. I'm not dead-set (ha ha) on accomplishing everything I wrote but it was a helpful exercise in figuring out what my direction should be. I would imagine my obit would change by the end of this course but it felt strangely therapeutic to flash my imagined life before my eyes, through the power of MS Word.

So here it is. Don't judge me. And if you must, I don't want to hear about it.

The artist and philanthropic entrepreneur Helen H. Kim died on Thursday, her 78th birthday. The cause of death is as of yet unknown. Kim grew up in Los Angeles after emigrating from Korea at the age of seven. She received her BFA from the UCLA School of Art and Architecture in 1996 and began to show work in various disjoined group and solo shows for the next 10 years. Never feeling completely at ease in the paradigms of the established gallery and museum circuits, Kim ambiguously straddled the line between, in her own words, “the role of the civilian and the cultural, anthropological mediator” during this period. It was in 2008 that Kim began a newly focused, life-long commitment to the arts, having in the previous year come to personal resolutions about the role and functionality of art in both the private and public realms. This established a personal manifesto about art and strategies for cultural, spiritual and political awareness that informed her career for the remainder of her life.

Kim sought to “bring art to the streets,” creating unconventional venues through which the public experienced ideas of religion, spirituality, culture, displacement and alienation. Her site-specific works repeatedly drew the attention of local media, though generally as whimsical spectacles or odd occurrences due to the novel modes of presentation. Often, the works were presented anonymously so that the experience for the viewer was completely visceral and without the categorization of art. Kim felt this particular moniker disallowed the true art experience for a public generally unfamiliar and disconnected to the art world. Kim’s work, unlike that of many street or public artists of her time, flew under the radar because of the lack of branding or marketability in her practice. Despite this level of anonymity and lack of conventional categorization, Kim found and developed a small and dedicated following.

In addition to what she dubbed her “street-level” art practice (which also included the web), Kim carved her place in the art world through small but established galleries and museums throughout North America, Europe and Asia. She used this cache to progress her idea of bringing art to the streets by creating work in public spaces in conjunction with various art institutions. This eventually lead to projects funded by organizations as varied as Amnesty International, the Korean American Foundation of the Arts and several Christian organizations referred to en masse as the Emerging Church. Throughout, the intention behind Kim’s body of work continued to be to blur the lines between spiritual and intellectual, high and low cultures, the mainstream and the marginalized. It was specifically “the sphere of otherness” in which Kim was interested. She, having experienced the sense of otherness first as an immigrant then as a woman, came to believe that the sense of otherness was a part of every human experience. She sought to create a space for dialogue based on this commonality. After working with numerous groups on such projects, Kim founded her own organization, Group Effort, which promoted global dialogue and awareness about and on behalf of disenfranchised peoples primarily, though not exclusively, through the arts. Group Effort is now under the leadership of Kim’s daughter and fellow collaborator of many years.

In the end, Kim stated that her purpose in life was to “live authentically and truthfully. Otherwise it would be a life wasted, and what would I have to say for myself when God Himself asks me what I was up to in my 70 to 80 years on earth?” We can only wonder what conversations Kim is having with God as this goes to print. Kim is survived by her husband, daughter and Group Effort.

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

2007-02-28T14:39:00.001-08:00

Paul Laurence Dunbar is an African-American poet from the late 1800s is one of Maya Angelou's favorites. This poem is where she drew the title of her autobiography, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;

When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals --
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting --
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, --
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings --
I know why the caged bird sings!

Rainbow in the Clouds

2007-02-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

One of the things I’ve been wondering about is what it looks like to be a female voice of influence and empowerment in the world. I feel that I’ve been enculturated to think that to be feminine in the larger society is to be objectified, frivolous, weak, even altogether irrelevant. In the past, my solution to this was to extract the feminine out of my voice, or at least to present it with enough academic qualifiers to justify its presence. Recently, though, I’ve been wondering what it looks like for a woman to maintain her sense of self (not just as a female but her whole self of which her gender is one aspect) and command others’ attention and respect.

Last Friday, I went to hear Maya Angelou speak at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I was working as a press guide for the Oscars last week so it was a bit of a to-do to rush to Downtown from Hollywood on time after my shift. I got there fine, though, and I felt a sort of wonderful, melancholic solitude as I insulated myself against the wind in my ratty coat. Hope Street was so deserted and quiet as I marched up the hill to the Music Center but the Pavilion itself was abuzz with families, friends and couples lining up to get in. Sometimes there's such a pleasure in getting lost in the crowd.

I was so exhausted and worried that I wouldn't be able to focus. I was at the edge of my seat through the whole talk, though, and the exhaustion just made me emotionally open – I pretty much wept through the whole thing.

Maya Angelou’s presence was so magnetic. She got a standing ovation as soon as she appeared on stage. Her voice was so commanding and yet so at ease. She knew herself and her place in the world. She was at complete peace and yet not resigned or complacent. Her knowledge and her peace had movement. She not only moves herself through the world but she clearly causes movement in others too.

She spoke of how, in Genesis, God gave his people the gift of the rainbow to ease their worries that the rain would never stop. She spoke of how one can see rainbows even in the clouds, that even though the rain hasn't completely stopped, there is the hope that it will someday. Then she spoke of those who were rainbows throughout her life, and how she strives to be a rainbow for those who are lost in the tumult of life. How all of us can and must be rainbows in the clouds for others. Maybe it sounds cheesy but the way she spoke of these things was so grounded in the timeless truth of humanity and its needs that she cut through whatever cynicism we are accustomed to exulting as reality, intellect, enlightenment. I think this is why I wept.

Untitled, 02/11/07

2007-02-20T22:58:00.001-08:00

Untitled (cuz a title was never discussed), 2007. Oil pastel and carbon on canvas, 36" x 50".

So ... this is the drawing that the illustrious Young Mi Chi and I collaborated on. It's all oil pastel and pencil. We went nuts all over the canvas with the pearly irredescent oil pastel, though you can't really tell from the photo. I'm going to try to post some details later but if you want to see the drawing in person, come to the Mayan on Sunday.

Click on the image for a (slightly) larger version.

Memories and Cravings

2007-02-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

Goal for the foreseeable future: baby steps. Meaning, 1 “art activity” every 2 weeks. Then thoughts about said art activity. Embarrassingly basic and minimal but must remember: baby steps. I meant to go to LACMA to check out the Magritte show last week (really interested in how John Baldessari installed the show) but I didn’t get around to it. You know how life can be, sometimes.

I did collaborate on a drawing with a friend of mine, an artist named Young Mi, yesterday at Mosaic. She would very likely squirm at that description – it’s funny how we're so capable of extending such monikers on others and how difficult it is to accept them ourselves. Anyway, I drove up to Oregon along the PCH once, videotaping the view out the window. Something about capturing moments while willingly trapped in a car fascinates me. I never did anything with the footage I took then, but recently I elonaged a 10-minute piece from Big Sur to about an hour. Young Mi and I projected it onto a canvas from behind and then drew on the surface with cray-pas while the video was playing. It definitely had a huge performance element to it, which unnerved us and yet energized us at the same time. We'd tried it once before, but that time the work never took flight from interesting concept to compelling end-product. I think it was due to lack of strategic dialogue about logistics and such. I guess we realized this but still felt ok – because it was so much about performance and real-time, it was good to just "do it" in order to figure things out. At any rate, we talked through things a great deal this time around and I believe the drawing was stronger and more successful because of it. We also felt much more comfortable drawing and working side-by-side this time around since the getting-to-know-you element of the original effort was out of the way (we've collaborated on lots of things but never in a way where the interaction was so immediate and time-sensitive). In fact, I reneged on the original idea of taking turns drawing to allow each other the whole canvas at a given time. I hope Young Mi didn’t mind. I couldn’t help but jump in. Being so invested in the process, it was difficult to sit back as ideas and general enthusiasm got the better of me. We ended up having some technical difficulties but I think the work we produced is very cohesive. It was about loss, love, journey (both physical and symbolic) and alienation filtered through childhood memories.

It felt great to DRAW. And it felt great to produce something that was attractive. It felt great to CREATE, as cheesy as that sounds.