What is Art But Escape? 2008, Carol Es.

I have some great news to announce. I was chosen for the 2008 Maestra’s Atelier at Self-Help Graphics! There are 10 women in all doing this special residency with Master Printer Jose Alpuche. I will be making a large edition (80-100), full-color serigraph that will be 20 x 26 inches. The project will be completed this summer, although I will have my prints by May.

For this project I will be focusing on the concept of memory. My subjects are my parents. The image began as a photograph that was taken the first time they came to visit me in my house in San Pedro in the winter of 2004. It is the first time they saw where I lived, my artwork, my life. I was snapping pictures of them while they sat in my office listening to a radio interview I did on KPFK earlier that year. My mother was nodding off as she listened. My father had no idea I was talking about him in the interview. Anyway, with these photos I was snapping, I was able to capture the essence of this in pictures: the essence of the moment and the essence of them as people separate and together. It is an image that engenders memory for me in a whole sense, and for a viewer who has no relation to the image. I began sketching from that photo and presented it to the curator of the 2008 Maestra’s Atelier program, Yolanda Gonzalez. She seemed to really like the concept and the sketch and so now here I am about to embark on this wonderful learning experience!

I wanted to also mention a couple exhibits out there that are worth taking a look at, if not valuable to your innards:

Christine Nguyen at Michael Kohn.

Rochelle Botello at Me & You Variety Candy Los Angeles.

Edith Abeyta at Wignall Museum Gallery at Chaffey College.

Mel Kadel at Richard Heller. (Opens Feb 9th.)

And then some new discoveries:

Jennifer Febbraro, I just bought this amazing and inspiring painting that I can’t wait to hang on my office wall!

Tucker Nichols, who’s art was all over the Space Rabbit Ranch house.

And Amy Wilson; an old discovery turns new again. Just been revisiting her site and reading her blog. Her blog is putting me on the right track again because originally my blog began a lot like hers. It should be a place to post my new work, works in progress, and artistic concepts. Sorry for the recent personal dramas. My work/life has an awfully thin line between them and I’m always working on making that line thicker. So I’m off to feed the line now. Bye for now.