Anybody go to Incognito last night? I wasn’t able to get there and I was hoping someone could give me a little update on how the event went. I’d really be grateful.
Inspiration
I’ve actually been back to work. It’s only been since forever, and I have little time for it, but I finally ordered new canvases and I’ve been working on a painting for the last 2 weeks. It incorporates drawings, embroideries, paper collage, sewing and oil paint and is going to take a long time, especially because I don’t get to spend as much time on it as I used to be able to, but it’s coming along, and most importantly, I’m inspired again. It’s been a long time a-commin’ but I finally have excitement about painting again.
For a long while I thought I was going to have a tremendous breakthrough, like the sky was going to open up and present an entirely different muse and a clear path towards a very new direction, but it just didn’t happen like that. Not at all. It’s hard to explain it, but I am on a new path, it’s just not so much different as it is clearer. I am who I am and it’s time to embrace to its fullest and to fear not. Some fear is good. Healthy, and even necessary, but it’s time to stop being polite – not that I was very polite, but I have been conforming to a certain degree and I am excited about breaking out. Therein lies my inspiration.
Calvin
I guess I am not just in a painting rut, but a writing rut too. I haven’t been doing much of either, aside from some grant apps and miscellaneous chatting here and there. The truth is that I am still busy with taking care of my mom and her affairs since we moved her from a nursing home and into my brother’s house. I feel like I just haven’t had much of a life besides that. The reception for Inner Outline went well though. I was so very very appreciate for the people that came all the way out to Westwood on a Wednesday evening just after the rush hour. I know that couldn’t have been fun. I was very grateful and humbled by the wonderful and positive feedback I received.
A nice surprise was that I got to finally meet the new director of George Billis Gallery, Hillary Metz. Bonita Helmer, another GB artist was showing at the gallery upstairs from me, so she was there to support the both of us, and it was great to be able to spend some quality time with her with so much of the work displayed. She’s going to be great for the gallery and I feel some great things are coming down the pike for the gallery. Speaking of Bonita Helmer, her show looked fantastic. She and I are also part of the Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California. I happened to have had a meeting today with their new Program Director, Anne Hromadka, who happens to be the Director Emeritus at George Billis… See how it all becomes one big circle??? Anne was filling me in about all the future plans for JAI and I am really excited to get my feet deeper in.
Now that a light at the end of the tunnel is coming up soon, I hope to get back to working again at a more regular pace. Like I said, I haven’t been painting, but I have been sewing. I have to get on the horn and make a bunch of new work in a hurry for the Spring so I can show the soft, sewn sculptures in Marfa at Galleri Urbane. I’m also fixin’ to make a few more Thomas Bros. maps for a JAI event and something for the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s Incognito fundraiser. I just finished “Calvin” to keep “Medina” company. I used my Dad’s real trifocals and the resemblance is pretty striking, I must say.
Wednesday, Feb 18th!
Carol Es
“Inner Outline”
January 7 – March 20, 2009
Reception for the Artist:
Wednesday, February 18th 7-9 PM
Please join me at the reception for my very special show at UCLA Hillel’s Dortort Center for Creativity. I am presenting more than a dozen paintings, along with a 46-piece drawing installation in Gindi Hall on the 2nd floor. I am honored to be showing my work in the context of this setting for many reasons, especially since I have been using pattern shapes to create Hebrew texts as a way of connecting to a source of place and people which feels like home to me. I have been scraping together what little knowledge I have of my roots, my genetic heritage, and my Jewish birthright because I missed out on most of it as a child. This exhibition has been a wonderful way for me to embrace a long lost part of myself and share it with students, faculty, and the public. I would greatly appreciate and honor your presence.
Dortort Center for Creativity at UCLA Hillel: Gindi Hall – 2nd Floor
574 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. 90024, Contact Perla Karney, Tel: 
(310) 208-3081
I will also have my new Artists’ book Horsebucket there, available for purchase for just $129.99. Such a bargain!
Back from the Dead
I know, it’s been forever since I have posted anything on the blog. My life has been chaotic and rather serious lately, since August really. Dad got sick and died, I moved my mother back out to LA, had a solo show, then I got sick, then my mother had an accident that she is still not recovered from, and a couple more deaths occurred. One being actress and collector Ann Savage, and the other being my very good friend Judith Hoffberg, a couple weeks ago.
Now I have a show going on at UCLA Hillel and the reception is on February 18th and I just got the postcards. I need to get on the horn and send them out, but I am inundated with my mother’s bills and moving her yet again from a nursing facility and into my brother’s house. It’s more work than it sounds like. During all this time I have hardly made much art, but am finally getting back into it in the form of soft sculpture. I was recently inspired by a couple of artists I was introduced to via the Saatchi website’s chatroom, which I just quit yesterday after being ensnared in my last upsetting dialogue there – over the holocaust of all things! There is quite a bit of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial in there that is just too painful to deal with for me. Not really worth my energy, so in many ways I was done a favor by getting upset enough to bow out. I met so many wonderful artists there however, and perhaps some new friends for life. It was a nice distraction from mourning my father’s death and being in an art rut, which is just an odd place to be.
Something I have learned while being in this rut is that I am searching for an entirely new motivation. I believe my whole life I had something to prove to my father in the work I was creating and now that’s he’s gone I no longer have this argument/dialogue, or chip on my shoulder to show him I am doing right by him. I only hope he recognized it somehow in the end and that I too will cut myself some slack and feel worthy of something in all my life’s work thus far.
I am currently working on a soft sculpture named Calvin (my father’s name) using his real trifocals. I need to fashion some kind of little hand gun to stick in his belt and I’ll be pretty much done and will post some images. In the meantime, here is the last thing I’ve done. Her name is Medina
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