Author: Ayin Es

This 4th of July Weekend

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I’ve been working on my artist’s book Houses, pretty much non-stop. I did, however, take a break to go to the Hollywood Bowl last night to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II, which was fabulous! I have lived my whole life in Los Angeles and I have NEVER been to the Hollywood Bowl! Isn’t that something? Aint I a stinker?

This was an early birthday present from my amazing boyfriend, who got us perfect seats, right smack! in the middle, just above the sound board. I also quit smoking (again) on Friday night, so yesterday was my first day without a cigarette, and it wasn’t so bad. Keeping busy really helps. And the patch. And live music. And Bugs Bunny.

I know I have probably said I have quit smoking 100 times on this blog, but you have to understand that I have been successful at this before. Many times in fact, so don’t think just because I keep falling off the wagon that it means there is no hope for me. There is!

First of all, I’ve smoked since I was 12 years old. I quit the first time for six months when I was 19. The second time for two years when I was 28, and 11 years again when I was 31. I smoked six months in between that last time.

Then, when my dad was dying, I smoked for a couple of months. Not even in fact. Picked it up again three months later when my mom got dementia, and then it was on and off until last February. That’s when I quit for a good six months after I wound up in the hospital with pneumonia. Why I started again after that has been the biggest mistake of my life.

Now, I have my excuses, like almost going crazy and stuff like that, but I haven’t really tried quitting again. It’s easy when you’re sick in the hospital and can’t breathe NOT to want to smoke, but once you can breathe again and feel healthy and WANT to smoke, how do you quit?

One thing is for sure. You can’t wait until you don’t want to smoke anymore. That’s not going to happen. I started again by bumming ONE smoke off someone during an art opening and I thought I could just have one – once and a while. HA!

I’m a smoker. Always have been, always will be. I love smoking, but I’m not going to sit here and type all the reasons why – let me count the ways – when I’m trying to quit now.

Today is day two, so give me a fucking break.

Okay, so back to the book…

The colophon has been printed. There is no turning back now, however, it looks like the Giclee print is not liking the Arches – not the kind I have in my arsenal anyway. Tomorrow I have to go find a brighter, whiter Arches that’s less absorbent.

I also have to get some spray mount too. I ran up against a wall this morning when I was working on the embroidery page. I need to spray mount that piece of linen on top of it before I sew into it. This is the page that is going to take me the longest. It is pencil, ink and collage. Plus I have to poke holes into it so I can see where I am going to embroider into it from the back of the paper, but the fabric has to be kinda stuck on there a bit before I do that. You get where I’m coming from without me having to show you pictures? Because I’m not showing you any yet. If it all goes as planned, this will be my favorite page in the book. Trust me, it will look cool. The piece of linen is a kind of pocket shape a covers some of the “scene” in a way.

…Maybe because it was all so shameful and private? Just thinking about that now. Weird.

Oh! I know what I will show you, the text from the poem that is letterpressed on the opposite side of the page I am speak about above, and how it is broken up:

Homes where sounds / of broken dishes lay / Murdered paintings admired / left in her past  /she killed / HOUSES

And, the colophon reads like this now:

Houses is based on a poem written by Carol Es, copyright and published by Careless Press, ©2013. Special thanks to Bill Roberts, Stephanie Mercado, and Poli Marichal. This handmade book is limited to a signed edition of eight copies, all slightly varied because of the original touches throughout.

 

Four of the inside pages, plus the front and back covers were letterpressed by Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press, Dover, DE. The two etchings were printed at Paper Doll Press in Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA (thanks Stephanie) with Master Printer Poli Marichal.

 

Papers used throughout are Artistico Fabriano, Rives BFK, Strathmore Artagain, Mohawk Superfine text, Moab Kayenta 205 gsm., Daler-Rowney Canford 150 gsm, various cereal boxes, and imported flower-pressed and gold, imported handmade papers from Nepal.

 

Each 20-page book contains an original drawing on black paper, a hand die-cut cover, two original watercolor paintings, four digital pages in Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks, two etchings, a block print and a Sumi ink painting on gold paper, and one original pencil, ink and collage drawing with sloppy hand embroidery over a bit of linen fabric. Each book also includes a 5 x 5 inch, full color Giclée print of the painting, “Home is Near the Sea” on hot pressed Aqvarelle Arches watercolor paper. Originally 30 x 30 inches, this painting was created in 2001 in oil and paper collage on canvas. The print slips out from an acid-free, laid paper pocket adhered to the page.

 

Pages of this book are French folds, with the exception of the end papers. The binding was Japanese stab bound by Carol Es with waxed linen thread from Ireland.

How’s that?

The second most complicated page there is to do is actually the first page. It’s a kind of detailed watercolor and I’ve only done one! Seven more to go.

As much work as I have to go on this book, I hope to have it completely done by the end of the summer, if not sooner. But I say that now. It really is a lot of sewing (not the binding, but that embroidered page)!

Still thinking about price. This will be the smallest edition I have ever done. Not only that, most of the pages are original. It has to be more than 1-SELF, but less than All Done But None because it is not hardbound. I ordered some simple lime, vinyl envelopes that I pray they will fit into as dust jackets. We’ll see.

The Cups

Ayin EsLeave a comment

So I am finally getting around to telling you – YOU – everyone, anyone that will listen/read about the day of the cups.

This is a big deal, so pay attention.

us

I only have one sibling. My brother Mike. Many of you that know me, and that know him, know that we have a very complicated relationship. We have gone years without speaking to each other. We’ve gone through that fiasco many a time, for a couple of different reasons. And we have come back together many a time too, and so on. Sometimes by force. Sometimes because we wanted to try again, and try to heal, and let bygones be bygones. What the fuck is a bygone? Oh. I just looked it up. Yeah, that’s a difficult thing for me to do, or it has been for me.

It means disagreements. Let disagreements be disagreements? That’s funny. I mean, if you know me on a super intimate level. I have had a real hard time with that one. It’s only made life harder for me. Not anyone else.  I think about that now and I see that I am much better at that than I used to be. MUCH better. But I’ve always been one to nag at the other person in my relationships to “fix” these disagreements, when “fixing” them meant making them agreeable. LOL!

Anyway, I digress. A little. Mike and I have had our ups and downs. A lot of downs. Or should I say, a lot of rocky road in trying to reconcile enough of our current relationship so that we can just manage to love each other without it getting too complicated so that we’re not fighting all the time. That’s why playing music together is such a great idea for us. There’s just no bullshit there. It’s easy, and we connect and get along great. Nothing to it.

Well, recently, as you might know, I was part of this wonderful exhibition,  Intersecting Paths: Art & Healing at Hebrew Union College at USC, curated by Georgia Freedman-Harvey. What’s great about that show is that, even though it’s over, there is still an online archive of the exhibition here.

And one of the artists in the show was Ehren Tool. He makes these ceramic cups for the children of soldiers that have seen action, or have fallen in battle. At first, I thought he made these cups for Jewish soldiers, so I didn’t bother to give out my name when Georgia the curator was asking the artists in the show if they had fathers or grandfathers that served in war. But then, at the end of the exhibition, just a couple of weeks ago, there was going to be a ceremony where Ehren’s cups were going to be presented to the artists and their families, among others, and it was going to coincide with a partial exhibit across the street at USC Hillel, where there would be small portraits of fallen soldiers.

Anyway, at this point, Georgia asked me again if my father was a vet and I told her he was in fact a WWII vet, but he wasn’t a Jew. She told me that it did not matter. He married a Jew, he had Jewish children, and he helped in the war effort to free the Jewish people in Europe. It was like a giant light bulb in my head was short circuiting or something. Duh!

Then I had an idea to bring Mike into the ceremony, as he was my family, in fact, my only family and we were addressing our father. Why wouldn’t we both get cups?

I sent Ehren a picture of my father at 19 years old, sitting on top of an Army tank in northern Italy (Treviso) in the winter. He was a radio operator sent in the very last (88th) tank brigade. I also sent him a picture of my father with my brother when he was a baby. His first and only son. He looked happy, and proud. And my favorite pic of me and my dad when I was little sitting on my brother’s bike, wearing practically identically the same material (my dress and his pants).

I did not tell Mike that his cup would have a special picture of himself with Dad on it, so he was quite surprised at the end of the event when we went up to the front to get our cups.

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Very early into the event, when the speakers began reading off the names of the vets that were being honored on the cups, one of the women’s voice began to shake as she read the name of a man whose family she knew very well. She was not expecting to read the name and she began to cry.  Sitting in the audience and watching her trying to hold herself together, I suddenly lost control of my emotions. Not just for her, but for the fact that they shortly thereafter read my dad’s name, Private First Class Calvin J. Snyder, United States Army. And for the fact that I was sitting there beside Mike and we were there together as sister and brother, willingly there, together, happily – and this would have made our parents happy too. And more importantly, it made ME happy. And I just could not stop crying my eyes out.

Then, Mike started crying too. He got up to get us some tissues, or napkins rather. That was nice of him, but it did no good. I went through those pretty fast. I was a snotty mess the entire time until we got our cups and finally got the hell out of there.

We sat in his fancy car (he has a Porsche that I’ve often made fun of) and stared at our cups for a real long while, playfully fighting about whose was better. Mine was better, of course. But you can see Mike’s on his Facebook page.

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Ehren Tool has made and given away over 14,100 cups. He is a modest, humble, amazing, beautiful person and artist to have this purpose. I really wonder if he knows the effect he has on the families he touches and how an item such as this can be a means to speak about war and feelings and memories and bring loved ones closer together than therapy. Maybe he has an idea, but maybe he’d be too overwhelmed if he could take in all the appreciation we all feel.

What the Heels Been Going On?

Ayin EsLeave a comment

Lots and lots. There’s never a dull moment around here. Just dull people.

Lists and lists. I’m trying to stay away from them, but they are still going on, but I’m glad to say they are tapering off a bit. I have Xed out so many out of the four pages I made for myself. So what’s left? Some things won’t make sense to you, but I can help you a little by telling you that I am back on the artist book I started what? Two years ago? Houses. I’m finishing up my back yard, tying up loose ends, I’m about to fix up Arctic Memory, and have a few new projects coming in from the back burners. That kind of means… Old chapbooks become new again. You’ll see.

McMannus & Morgan
Letterpress plates
Santa Barbara Sage
Bricks
Trims
Watercolor Pages
Pay Bills
Finish Edition Tags
Embellish etchings
Wire grid the climbers
Dentist
Letter to Elizabeth
Anne
Prep Panels
Jonathan
Arctic Memory
Rxs
Cut flower paper
4 digital red/blue pages
8 digital/embellished pages
Print Giclees
7 Gouache pages
8 pencil/ink/embroidery pages
Print colophon

And that’s my last page of shit-to-do.

Yesterday, I finished the Colophon for Houses. Wanna read it? Of course you do!

Houses is based on a poem written by Carol Es, copyright and published by Careless Press, © 2013. Special thanks to Bill Roberts, Stephanie Mercado, and Poli Marichal. This handmade book is limited to a signed edition of eight copies, all slightly varied.

 

Four of the inside pages, plus the front and back covers were letterpressed by Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press, Dover, DE. The two etchings were printed at Paper Doll Press in Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA (thanks Stephanie) with Master Printer Poli Marichal.

 

Papers used throughout are Artistico Fabriano, Rives BFK, Strathmore Artagain, Mohawk Superfine text, Moab Kayenta 205 gsm., various cereal boxes, and imported flower-pressed and gold, imported handmade papers from Nepal.

 

Each book contains an original drawing on black paper, a hand die-cut cover, two original watercolor paintings, four digital pages in Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks – although one of them (the one with the grass) is embellished by hand, two etchings, a block print and a Sumi ink painting on gold paper, and one original pencil and ink drawing with sparse embroidery with bits of linen fabric. Each book also includes a 5 x 5 inch, full color Giclée print of the painting, “Home is Near the Sea” on hot pressed Aqvarelle Arches watercolor paper. Originally 30 x 30 inches, this painting was created in 2001 in oil and paper collage on canvas. The print slips out from an acid-free, laid paper pocket adhered to the page.

 

Pages of this book are French folds, with the exception of the end papers. The binding was stab bound by Carol Es with waxed linen thread from Ireland.

In Love With the Line

Ayin EsLeave a comment

I’ve been falling back in love with the line. I mean it’s been going on for a while now. I just haven’t talked about it. I suppose I was embarrassed, or figured it would be boring. Who wants to hear about the simplicity of drawing?

For years I’ve kept my little moleskin notebook by the bed. mjp got me my handy and wonderful Space Pen – that I swear by – which is obvious since I’ve talked about it in several blog posts now, and I used that for the purpose of jotting down my most obscure thoughts – as I’m falling asleep or waking from a dream. Moving my body one iota would take the images away, and fast. If I am on my back I can reach for that notebook and pen, and write upside-down if I had to. I wouldn’t have to move my head and shake my thoughts clean.

Then, I even made a little Artist’s book of a few of those drawings from that moleskin book: Horsebucket. I turned them all into gouaches first, to make them a bit more interesting. I felt I stayed true to the original lines. It was all about the line there…

But about six months ago or so, I started seeing Ellie Blankfort for career consulting and she had me keep another type of sketchbook (like I didn’t keep enough already) and that was the one that made me begin the realize how out of touch I actually was with the line. So, within the first few weeks of the exercises, I started to watch what I was doing. It was like starting all over again, like I was a child with a crayon, and now I’m just in love.

Whether it was apparent or not (it probably wasn’t), I used to be such a perfectionist about my lines. The thickness of them had to always be consistent. I’d spend so much time on a painting making sure of that. It was so hard to break away from this habit too, but my tremor got worse and there was just nothing I could do about it anymore. I had to learn to like the wiggly line. And I learned to appreciate other artist’s wiggly lines. I mean, I would kill to have one of Charles Schulz’s later wiggly Snoopys, wouldn’t you? I just saw that everyone had their own special hand and I began to love that too. It’s what makes me love art in a general sense.

So now I’m just so in love with the very basic line. It’s everything to me. I once hated that I “outlined” everything, and maybe everything doesn’t need to be, of course, but lately I’m just into it. My hand is skilled enough to paint a damn good line, tremor and all. I don’t have too much to worry about when it comes to that, and I can always go back and thin them out when I put the color down.

Here are a few I started over the past day and a half.

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bulletproofupsidedown walkingthingoneasel

The one on the big easel is an older painting from 2003. I decided I wanted to fling into the ocean, but beings that I don’t live anywhere near the ocean, I am going to salvage it and turn it into something better. It was once part of this horrible triptych called Full Person:

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It even exhibited a few times, and once at Bentley Gallery in Phoenix.

And here was that part on it’s own, which was called Not a Bulletproof Vest:

bulletproofvestdetail

Now I’m turning it upside down and going to make it a kind of pink and lime, keeping those stitches in. We shall see…

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I’ll do something with the pants too, but I will free the head, which is called Blush and see if anyone would like to buy it during the sale.

blush

WHAT? You don’t know about the sale? You better sign up on my newsletter list so you can get in on it before July 21st. I think this one will be 75% off. Uh…Yeah! No kidding.