News and News and Butterfly Horses

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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.

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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:

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

I Heart Chicken Dog

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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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

The American Way

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I have not much to say on the blog these days, but at least I’m fiddling with art again. I’ve been painting words onto the book pages of an American Way book from 1969 that was given to me by my friend, artist Baby Smith (thanks Beck!).

The American Way to True Fit Patterns was the industry standard in the grading business before computers took over. I suppose pattern makers who size the styles in manufacturing must still have to know the method because it was used in everything from Jordache jeans to high fashion runway clothing. I think Baby Smith found it in a dumpster somewhere and then she sent it to me as a gift. It sat in my studio for a couple of years until I was moving and I put it in the garage sale pile. Then the day of the sale my friend Beth Elliot came over and forced me to keep it. She said I could be making drawings on top of the pages or use it for reference in my art. Duh! She was right. I found a use for it after all.

Click here to see all of them. Some of them get a little weird, and I’m still working on them.

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I also saw Rochelle Botello‘s show at Me & You Variety Candy Los Angeles
today. More on that VERY special occasion as soon as I get some food and sleep.