Mexico!

Mexico is an amazing country. Bountiful in resources, culture, geography, historical wealth, countless places of interest, but most important, its people. I have been to Mexico three times and every time I return in love with Mexicans: they are friendly, helpful, generous and resourceful. It breaks my heart the violence resulting from drug traffiquing, corruption in political figures, and greed in corporations such as banks and industrial compounds who profit well from chaos. How to change that? I can only offer what I do: art.

Thanks to efficient friends in Mexico who contacted me with arts organizations, I was able to give four workshops. Different groups were interested, two in Oaxaca and two in Mexico City. The workshops I designed for them was based on chine-collé, a mixed media technique in printmaking. I carried a Pin Press and Akua inks, they provided the rest. The participants were print makers and art students from different organizations. As payment each group brought homemade Mexican food to share with the group. Each workshop was different and enriching. I am truly grateful for having had the opportunity to contribute and learn so much!

In Oaxaca the workshops took place at La Curtiduria and at Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez:

La Curtiduría
Espacio Contemporáneo para las Artes

Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez
departamento de Artes Gráficas

In Mexico City I was fortunate to run workshops at the following Arts Organizations.

Escuela de Iniciación Artística de Mexico
escuela numero 1

La Clinica
Artist Run Centre in Mexico City

Transformers

I have been working on mono-prints but I am not quite happy with them.  So I decided today to play transformers, and to turn the five prints I did as prep work for the trip to Mexico, into paintings.  I glued them on wooden boards and waxed them, which gave them a different quality.  This enabled me to work on them a bit more, and it looks like they are going to work fine this way.  Here a sample of the five prep-mono-prints transformed into paintings.

When Does a Trip Begin?

In a few days I am going to visit Mexico, and preparing the trip feels like I am already on my way. I decided to include an art project: I want to create a mono-print every day of my visit. At the end I will end up with at least twelve different images. I will scratch and print a single plexiglass sheet every day. The supplies needed are inks, paper, rollers, spatulas, and the Pin Press. I am already trying the process at home, getting into the routine of a daily exercise. The visit includes Mexico City and Oaxaca, and I intend to post some of the resulting art work on this blog.

Furthermore, thanks to friends in Mexico, I have contacts with two graphic art studios in Oaxaca that are willing to have me for an afternoon each, to share what I do and to and learn from them. I am very excited about the prospect of meeting artists and art studios during my travel. Thank you friends for making this project possible!

The images underneath are a sample of the prep work, as a warm up before departure. Prep work will be a training routine for the mono-prints I will produce in Mexico. Every day I will add a new image to this post, until the day we leave. This exercise will put me in shape, and will ensure I pack all the supplies required for the work. Here are three samples of the mono-prints:

Day 1 prep work:

 

Day 2 prep work:

Day 3 prep work:

Still Healing

We all need to heal something. I certainly need to do a lot of it, which is why I am still working on the same theme.

I am shaping wooden objects like human organs, to represent the vessels of our emotional trauma and healing. I am convinced Generative Somatics are the only way to truly heal body, mind, and spirit, and possibly too, one's connection to the land. GS (for short) is a network that supports, trains, and empowers people in their healing process. This initiative is one of my sources of inspiration, internal work, and information.

For this artwork, first I draw and cut the shapes on plywood. Then I work on the surface with layered images that talk about stories, experiences, texture, words, sounds. Telling visual stories I recreate my own path and it helps me to move on. Words work like mantras that allow me to accept, understand and forgive. Qi Gong uses sounds to contribute healing internal organs, and I am using such sounds. I am also adding some of my drawings and prints of cell structures. My intention is to create visual opportunities for the viewer to engage, read and interpret, possibly connecting to his or her own healing path.

The following images show me cutting the wooden shapes, and how I prevent warps by painting a cross in the back of each organ. The last one shows the primed shapes with white milk paint, sanded and ready to be worked on with wax, fabric, paper and oil paints. The lower image is the structure of a liver lobule, which I find fascinating. These works will be shown in November at the General Fine Craft located in Almonte, Ontario, where I currently work part-time.

cutting the shapes on plywood

preventing warping by drawing an X

Finished Heart

Finished Liver

Process of Bruised

Earlier this year I made Seven Organs representing seven key body parts that keep us alive. They were shown together as a metaphor of interactivity in our internal body. These pieces were wood cutouts, and the surface was worked with fabric and paper, bound with bees wax.

Now I want to work on human tissues, as a deeper search for our internal landscapes and how we are connected inside. I am drawing the four kinds of human tissue, and filling my mouth with their beautiful names: epithelial, connective, muscle and neurone. As it happens in artwork, I have a general direction of where I want to go, I have to set the limits of what I want and what I don't. It is the work what dictates the path, being attentive to my emotional reactions, my body posture, the internal dialogues my mind embarks on, and most importantly, the connection to the creative process.

Here is what a corner of what my table looks like, with the group of art pieces I call Bruised. These will be worked integrating transfers on fabric taken from an Esmarch bandage, embroidery, drawing on rice paper and print. I just got a Pin Press as a gift, and I have been experimenting with it. Here is a sample of the process.

Prints for Cancer

This month I will have two shows: one at the Shenkman Arts Centre as part of the exhibition Selections, which opens on the 25th. In it I will show my brain, well not mine, but yes, mine.  The second show will be at the Fundation Quebecoise du Cancer, located in Gatineau.  They were interested in artwork that deals with healing and contacted me. However I will not show the seven organs as some of them have been bought (yippie!) and I don't have enough time to make new ones.  Instead, I will show some of my monoprints, two of which you can see below.

These monoprints were made using the fabulous Pin Press, Akua inks, rice paper, Canson printing paper, bits of other things found along the way (such as the stencil letters I used for the Book Exchange Box).  My drawings were based on microscopic photos of human tissue.  I am still fascinated with the marvels and mysteries of our human body.

Book Exchange Box

We have been building a Book Exchange Box with the family, to go in the front of our house. Last Monday on Labour Day, it was ready to be inaugurated. We giving it the finishing touches when the City Councillor for our area of the city appeared, as part of her campaign for re-election next month. We asked her about concerns we have in terms of plans for the park at the Kanata Town Centre Core. Her reply made me decide to write letter and send it to the local newspaper.  We feel the area needs to remain green to serve our community rather than developers and corporations. I include a copy of the letter, in an act of cultural activism.

Prints

Thanks to Susan Ukkola's print making workshop, I learned all kinds of new techniques. The three day course was focused on mono-prints, which means printing a unique image every time. During the workshop we used with non-toxic materials and we drew on alluminum plates and plexiglass. We also worked on 'chine colle', a printing technique that enables you to glue paper and fabric and print over it. I have been experimenting at home.

The series I am beginning will fall under the theme bruised, as a reminder that vulnerability is what allows me to be sensitive, compassionate, and human. I am convinced that allowing vulnerability makes me stronger, more resilient, more adaptable and gives me a sensitivity that would be otherwise masked. The images I am using were taken from a large bandage I saw at St. John's Ambulance, where I took a first aid course. The original bandage was designed by Friedrich von Esmarch, a university surgeon and medicine professor at Kiel, Germany, in 1870. He designed triangular bandages with the procedures printed, and  he called it 'battlefield medicine'. In his honour they are called the Esmarch bandages.  The images show men wearing suits and ties whilst displaying how bandages should be tied when injured.

These images of bandaged people make me think of how I put up an armour (or a suit) when trying to conceal my tender side. I want this work to represent my struggle to allow vulnerability: fully dressed and impecable yet bruised. Here is a sample of the bandages I am using, and a first image of my monoprint experiments.

Image from an Esmarch bandage

One of my prints using images from the Esmarch bandage

Video of Whispers at Blink Gallery

Here is the video of Whispers (2.50 minutes long) as a sample of the art show that took place at the beginning of this month. In it you will listen to one of the poems read by charles c. smith, and the cello composition played by Judith Manger. I am drawing as they go, and members of the audience join in the performance as well. 

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Opening of Whispers Tonight!

Today Charles Smith and Judith Manger travel from Toronto for the opening of the show Whispers. The work is up, and the performance will start at 6:30 pm.  Charles will recite his poems, Judith will play her cello and I will draw on a wall and I perform with coloured shapes and drawing.  I want to invite the visitors to join me during the performance to draw and make figures, I hope some join in.  I am already nervous, like guys must feel when asking girls to dance.  There is always the possibility of a no thank you, so I will have to ask another dancer.  Here is how the gallery looks now, tomorrow I will post photos of the drawings and soon I will upload a video of the performance.

Whispers at BLINK GALLERY

Blink Gallery will be showing Whispers, a collective art work by three artists of different disciplines: Judith Manger, cellist. charles c smith, poet. And me.

The three of us have been working on the theme Healing, and we presented a proposal to Blink Gallery to show our work as a collective. They accepted it and the time has come. From Thursday July 31 until Sunday August 3 we will be at the gallery performing and exhibiting. Charles will read his poems, Judith will play her cello, I will show my pieces. I also want to draw on the wall, perhaps graphite powder and maple syrup. I haven't decided yet.

Here, a sample of the work.

The first art show this summer

The body of work Seven Organs found a exhibition space to take off.  From May 17 to June 17 it will be part of the Chinatown Remixed, a fun event that takes place in Ottawa every year.  It is an artist-run event that takes over the area of Chinatown, where lots of venues open their doors for artists to exhibit work.  I asked for a Chinese acupuncture office, and instead they offered me the Middle East Bakery.  I will show the Seven Organs, but they will be connected with strings and flags related to the Middle East Phoenician culture, that I much admire. Stories of the king Nebuchadnezzar 604-562 BCA, (in Spanish Nabucodonosor); the incredible tyrian purple extracted from a minuscule sea shell; their amazing ships that cruised the Mediterranean Sea and around the African horn looking for commerce and trade; and their timely invention of the phonetic alphabet. These are among the many wonders of what we call today Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Palestine. Perhaps it is best that I wasn't given a Chinese acupuncture place after all.

I will post images of the bakery with the banners I will make, connecting my Seven Organs to these images of history, our history. We owe a lot to the Phoenicians, so THANK YOU PHOENICIANS! (As Maria Montessori used to say).

Forest School training

At the end of this month I finish the Forest School Training. My dad sang Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, when he saw me last summer, ax in hand, making a horse saw. Crockett was an American folk hero, who lived in the 1700 and 1800, soldier, senator twice, and frontiersman. Frontiersmen were the pioneers who moved into the frontier zones at the time. He was strong and was credited with acts of mythical proportion. I hardly consider myself a frontiers-woman, certainly not a soldier, and far from politician. But I like the idea of being the Queen of the Wild Frontier, if studying more, and pushing my boundaries counts.

For the Forest School course we have to learn how guide a group of learners into the forest, and offer a chance to experience and explore a natural environment. We share information on flora and fauna, geology and rock formation. We may discuss ecology and how to minimize our footprint. However the journey is far more than academic. It is an immersion into a beautiful setting, with an opportunity for Silence and calm. There are exercises we propose such as the 3S: sit, still, silent. The purpose is to quiet mind and body for a while. According to studies in UK, this experience helps to build self-esteem and helps with behaviour issues in children. During some of the visits we guide on how to make instruments from natural materials, using tools like a hatchet, a Mora Knife, a bow saw, and pruning shears. Practitioners must submit a portfolio with three fat chapters on diverse aspects of administration of a Forest School including parent handbook, risk management, policies and procedures, first aid certificate, history of forestry, and a lot more.

Here I am building a shelter in a beautiful place near Maniwaki, Quebec. This picture will go in the portfolio, in the section of Practical Skills and Woodland Management. The white background is a frozen lake. The other photo is where we built the fire next to the stream. What a place! Alejandro took the photos and videos while I sang, Mariii Mariii Gomez, Queen of the Grand Frontier.

Findings

On Friday March 14 I had two appointments: One at Ontario Arts Council in Toronto, and the other at the Archives of Ontario, located in York University in the north of Toronto. Both appointments were connected to the work of Ricardo Gomez Campuzano. The first to find out more on how to apply for a grant to search for his paintings in Canada, the second to look for information of his life as an artist when he lived in Toronto with his family.

Myles Warren from the Ontario Arts Council was great. He gave me useful tips on how to apply and how the process works. The deadline to apply for the Chalmers Arts Fellowship Grant is June this year.

The archivists of Ontario Archives were incredibly kind and helpful, and they helped me find some information on the days of Ricardo Gomez Campuzano in Canada. I found three newspaper clippings with information, which I am posting here. In the first of them RGC offered to paint portraits of children for $150, head and shoulders for $250, and three quarters for $350. Considering this was fifty years ago, I wonder how he would announce those services today. Would he include digital copies as part of the deal? Would he take Pay Pal? Would he offer options such as installation portraits or performance-landscapes? I wonder what he would think of todays art world. I suspect though, he wouldn't bother and would continue with his oil paint landscapes and portraits, unaffected.

How we have FUN

Here is a video I finished today (less than 3 minutes long). It is the middle of a very long winter, Jose is travelling, and I am fighting a cold. All will be well, with a little help from my friends.