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News and News and Butterfly Horses

March 23, 2008September 14, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

I’ve been down with the cold from hell: sick sick sick with lots of fun snot. Ew! But that has not been stopping the good life from coming my way. I have a ton of news. It’s been piling up since you’ve been away, and now I must release the horses before I explode with butterflies.

Last Saturday I was in the LA Times in an article about Self Help Graphics. They mention my print and a little background about my parents (the people in the print). Since I’ve been sick, I haven’t been able to go and sign my prints, but I think I’m going to be doing that on Tuesday.

Then I found out that Otis College of Art & Design bought a copy of my Artist book, 1-SELF. A couple days after that, so did the Brooklyn Museum! Isn’t that crazy awesome? They both also have Sweetnsour Pie too.

Well, it gets even better, Jack. Because this morning I also got word that it’s been accepted into Bibliothèque Kandinsky Artists’ Books Collection at the Centre Pompidou in Paris! Hot diggity popsicles! That’s just amazing. I am thrilled.

By French coincidence, I also sold my 3rd drawing to a new collector in Paris. The new canvases and panels I just ordered from CKS just got paid for. Woot! And a Hootnhollar! Being sick never felt so good.

I’ve managed to paint a little bit while being down. Over the last week or so I added more American Way pages and finished up this painting I started about 3 months ago:

I finally named it Eve’s Dilemma and it’s 30 x 30 inches with Oil, manila paper patterns, thread, embroidery and pencil on canvas. You can find a detail of it here.

You’d think that would be enough already, but I was also asked to show 30 pages from the An American Rhapsody series, along with 1-SELF and All Done But None, and this piece below in an exhibit at Seattle University’s Center for the Arts:

The show is called “Bookish” and also features David Bunn and Leo Morrissey.

In other news, I put up a new Artist Feature on the Picklebird Blog. I also went to visit Yolanda Gonzalez yesterday at her open studio. Her paintings are so wonderfully inspiring, colorful and bold. I was able to score this beautiful print:

“Portrait of Katja in Red Reboso” by Yolanda Gonzalez.

I Heart Chicken Dog

March 12, 2008March 12, 2008Ayin Es1 Comment

I had a dream that we had a chicken dog as well as my real dog Buddy. The chicken dog was part rooster and part Border Collie. He had only 2 feet, like chicken legs, but with fur, and he also had the rooster’s weird, wobbly red stuff on his head and under his chin. It was the weirdest thing you ever saw, but I loved him. He was running around the neighborhood, unloved and laughed at. People were afraid to go near him, so he lived like a homeless person, finding refuge and places to sleep in hidden areas of people’s yards and behind restaurants and bars. We wanted him to sleep in the house with us, but like a chicken, he was very hard to catch. I was finally able to catch him as he was running through the front yards on my block. He was very sweet and cuddly, so we took him into our family, and people thought we were super strange.

Meanwhile, in another dream, my mother finally left my father and became roommates with my friend and artist Jennifer Celio in a downtown loft apartment. My mother called me complaining about the smell of turpentine and varnish (both in which Jennifer doesn’t even use in real life). She said that Jen played her music too loud and wished there was something she could do about the situation. So I had to pep talk her into actually saying something about it – very similar to a conversation we would really have. At some point in time (in real life) my mom stopped saying what she thought and instead sat on it silently, racking up resentment and anger, much of it towards herself for not being strong enough to say anything, which then lead to more depression and self-deprecation. …Oh, like mother, like daughter.

Dreams are fucking weird.

In real life, I had the spinal tap that I was putting off for 8 years. That is a long-ass time. I was so scared of it, you have no idea! But I got through it. I feel pretty sore today and I have the infamous headache they speak about. Laying down flat is the only cure, and tons of caffeine, which makes it so I don’t want to lay down at all! So instead, I built this new blog for Picklebird. I guess I heart Picklebird and Chickendog.

Also, the new Coagula is now out, so please pick up a copy at your local gallery and read the review I wrote about Rochelle Botello.

Last Printing Day at SHG

March 8, 2008August 27, 2016Ayin EsLeave a comment

Well today was the last day of printing during my all-too-short residency at Self Help Graphics. I am one of 10 women chosen by SHG and Yolanda Gonzalez for the 2008 Maestra’s Atelier. Here is Master Printer Jose Alpuche hard at work on my print, with Assistant Printer and son, Ivan Alpuche. We had a lot of fun taking breaks and being smart-asses, but mostly I am overflowing with gratitude that I was able to learn the art of screen printing with such a talented printer as Joe. I’m already thinking about my next print!

Staring at the same image for the last 2 weeks has driven me absolutely batty. My fingers seem to be permanently stained with rapidograph ink from working on the 7 different acetates. It takes rubbing alcohol to erase your mistakes or make any changes, but once the acetate is shot and exposed onto the screen, you kind of have to live with the result, so you have to be sure. Since I’m not sure about most things, I had to rely mostly on the guidance of the Master Printer. If he says to make your lines darker, you better listen, or else you’re one stupid culo.

Next week I will go in and sign and number my prints and take a good picture of how it turned out. I think it looks pretty cool, but like I said, I’ve been staring at it too long. A few SHG peeps came in and they liked it a lot. It was definitely something a little different than what’s usually printed there. The colors are very subtle. I’ll show it at you next weekend, but for now it’s relaxing time.

Self Help Graphics in the heart of East LA has been an important part of Los Angeles and the Chicano Movement since the early 1970s. They have earned national acclaim for their programs and services. Their amazing building on Caesar Chavez Ave. is surrounded by a local population of over two million Chicanos/Mexicanos. They are a vital community resource for the creation and presentation of art and culture. I am honored to be welcomed into their home.

I was also given a great gift from artist Peter Tovar. It is a little monoprint he was working on in the Etching Studio today. I’m just lucky all over.

And I will be getting a new print by Vincent Valdez since he is willing to make a trade. His new print is AMAZING! I can’t wait to have it in my home and show it off on my blog.

This and That

March 2, 2008February 16, 2024Ayin Es2 Comments

Guess what!?? Otis College of Art & Design is buying a copy of “1-SELF” for their Artists’ Book Collection. That is soooo cool! I am a happy clam. Woopiedoo for me!

I know I said I’d be back to tell you about the Rochelle Botello show, but instead you’ll have to read about it in my article that is coming out in the next issue of Coagula. The article is called “Down by the River on Tenterhooks.”

I am currently doing a residency at Self-help Graphics, so I don’t have a lot of time for the blog, but it’s Sunday, and I’m piecing together a bit of this and that of what I’ve started to write and didn’t have time to finish.

I really like this website where you can see the progress of a screen print by Gary Baseman. He recently did this above mentioned 24-layer screen print and sent out an email announcement the other day. Very cool.

Sunday is a lazy day for most, but Michael and I have been working in the back yard putting little stepping stones on the path that leads to my cactus garden, so we are getting sweaty. This evening we are going out with the Power Couple, Mat Gleason and Leigh Salgado and get some delicious grub and r e l a x.

I also talked on the phone with artist Jack Chipman, who I am planning to see next month and hopefully buy something from him. I love his work.

By the way, thanks to Reuben Sorenson for mentioning me on his cool blog. I also found this blog through his that I love called Chocolate Covered Xanax by 2 cousins from Humboldt County named Keri and Krisabel.

And lastly, I am STILL working on that painting that looks like a high school student painting, hardy har… (don’t worry I’m over it) and I am working and reworking it, and having fun with paint again. It’s starting to shape up and I’m about 3/4 done with it now.

(Here’s a detail)

Oh! And here’s a pic of one of Rochelle Botello‘s sculptural pieces called, “Oh Dear:”

Okay, gotta go. Bye.

2008 Whitney Biennial Los Angeles Heavy

February 8, 2008November 19, 2014Ayin Es2 Comments

The 2008 Whitney Biennial is Los Angeles Heavy

Congratulations to these Los Angelinos:

Edgar Arceneaux
John Baldessari
Walead Beshty
Jedediah Caesar
Harry (Harriet) Dodge and Stanya Kahn
Shannon Ebner
Amy Granat and Drew Heitzler
Rashawn Griffin
Fritz Haeg
Patrick Hill
William E. Jones
Alice Könitz
Charles Long
Lucky Dragons Luke Fischbeck
Daniel Joseph Martinez
Rodney McMillian
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
Matt Mullican
Ruben Ochoa
Kembra Pfahler
Stephen Prina
Michael Queenland
Jason Rhoades
Ry Rocklen
Amanda Ross-Ho
Eduardo Sarabia
Frances Stark
Mika Tajima
Mungo Thomson
James Welling
Mario Ybarra Jr.

These artists were either born in LA or they live here now, or both. I’d say Los Angeles is on the map now.

And I was happy to see that one of my most favorite and influential artists was at the top of the list: Rita Ackermann. If you didn’t know who she was before, you will now. And you might be able to see how many artists were influenced by her work, since she was the first to do the style she does. She is a true original. My Hungarian side would like to think she is somehow distantly related to me. In some universe, I feel we are.

Yesterday

Yesterday I went to speak with students in the Fiber Department at Cal State University Long Beach. The chair of the Department Carol Shaw-Sutton (an incredible fiber artists who makes stunningly beautiful work) invited me to give a slide presentation and lecture there. Carol and I have shown together at the Riverside Museum of Art in a show called Material Girls, which got a lot of press and was a very good exhibition with a full color catalog and a perfect essay by Shana Nys Dambrot.

Anyways, I was nervous, but I had a good time. Some of the students really responded to the work. I brought some originals, including my books, and one girl said All Done But None was the greatest book she has ever read in her life. Granted she looked to be only in her early 20s, but it was definitely the best compliment I’ve received about the book.

Carol’s assistant is a graduate student named Susan Porteous who is also an incredible book artist. And I mean incredible. She took me back to her studio afterwards and I was able to see all the books she has made during her Master’s program, and I was just totally blown away at her originality and dedication. Her work is meticulous, and the handmade “books” are truly pieces of art. She has seemed to master letterpress, and uses found text within her art books, and plays with arrangements of making them thematic narratives by way of sculpting and using elements of bookmaking. She is going to be a Book Arts star.

Afterwards, I saw my friend Kyle Riedel for a quick hug and headed out early to San Pedro for a meeting I had. I parked near my old studio at Angels Gate and watched the sun go down. My old studio, ironically used to be Carol Shaw-Sutton’s studio before it was mine and I thought about how we both read on out futon couches looking out into the sea. It was weird being there and seeing how a new artist is probably enjoying the hell out of the space now, as they should be. I’ll admit it was a little hard being there in the park and seeing how beautiful it is. A little hard is an understatement.

Awwww, isn’t that such a sad story? Ya well, get over it.

I’m slowly but surely getting back on my horse here in South Pasadena/Alhambra/El Sereno. It’s a pretty area. I have an amazing garden and this makes me happier than when I lived in my little house in Pedro. I’m just still trying to find my way. I have a little dream now about getting a cabin somewhere in Joshua Tree and just staying out there for weeks at a time and doing nothing but working. Kind of like a recurring residency retreat. It’s an idea, and it could wind up to be cheaper than renting a separate studio. We’ll see how it pans out though.