Work, work, work!

Another post about two kinds of work, art and kids.

Yesterday was my weekly gig with Alexandra and Arthur, with whom i play and speak English for two and a half hours. Alexandra and i are like two peas in a pod, and we get along famously even when we don't understand each other. Although, when i tell her i don't understand her, she often says with frustration, "Jopé!" (DARN it) with LOTS of emphasis on the "h" sounding j. She is charming. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for me to understand her brother, with his 3-year-old's version of Spanish, but Alex "translates" (from Spanish to Spanish). Arthur is usually with his mom or at a playgroup for at least part of the time, so often it is just me with Alex, much to my relief. Arthur is a volatile child who likes to be at the center of attention all the time, and when he's not he can react quite violently, throwing things with wild abandon and biting. Luckily i have started to figure out how to handle the two of them together. Yesterday the solution was two harmonicas. I will miss these kiddos a lot when i go.

Today i finished my project for the Expressa't exhibition. This is an annual exhibition that Metafora participates in, in conjunction with the Ambit Dona resource centre, for World Aids Day. The title of the exhibition means express yourself, in Catalan. All of the works are a response to or a commentary on HIV/AIDS, and i'm really excited to be a part of this. Here's the piece i'm submitting, minus the installation component (yes, i, the painting snob, have made an installation piece):



And here's what i wrote about it:

I chose to focus on joy. Though my project began with a very important element of collective oppression, as my paper people came to life, they were undeniably dancing. So i decided to liberate them instead and let them wind their way freely through the space. Though i also experimented with a mulitcolored set of figures, i chose to make all the silhouettes red, to more intentionally represent the HIV/AIDS community. As i finished the piece, i worked more deliberately to let the figures dance, and i based many of the images on forms from dance around the world, as well as trying to capture casual movements that the average person makes during the day. Some of the figures are very sensitive and emotionally expressive, others are more still, and each one genuinely seems to have an individual personality! The message has become one of hope, a celebration of the resilience of humanity in the face of whatever we may face. Suspended in the air on a lightweight thread, they are always slightly moving, and always connected to each other.

My plan is to install this piece in a spiral or circular manner. I'm quite excited about it, people really respond to them, though i wonder if the response will be different in a gallery setting.

And here's a painting i finished today:



The photo doesn't represent the color very well, it's represented better in this slightly out of focus detail.

Tomorrow i am hoping to go to the nearby community to work in the garden, and then i have my second and likely final acupuncture appointment, which i am very excited about. Our next round of projects is due next week, so i need to get cracking on that, and we will be installing and opening Expressa't. All my "to-do" stuff wraps up next Friday, which is good timing, because that's the night that Ethan arrives!

First Critique at Metafora

Yesterday i gave my first presentation for critique at Metafora. It was a little nerve-wracking! We were given the theme of "The Tower of Babel (Culture and Identity)" as the basis for these projects.

My statement, with images included, is here (the link is to download a .pdf file). I got decent responses, there wasn't lavish praise, but nobody trashed me either or asked what the heck i was thinking. I wasn't totally happy with my project - what i said in my presentation was that the anger piece was particularly hard for me to work on, because i'm not angry much these days and it's hard for me to access that emotional place, not to mention that i don't really want to. I feel like in a way i've been there, done that, and to force myself back to it now, without a genuine impetus, would be artificial. I'm happy with the sculpture, which is shown in my statement in full, and the painting, also in the statement, but the collage piece (only a section is shown), i could toss. I like the approach i've taken with the painting, which is the same as a couple of other pieces i've done this semester. Using organic matter to "stamp" onto the page, using cutouts to work with negative space, etc. I really want to keep working with that type of imagery.

However, the next theme coming up is minimalism, and while usually, minimalism does not interest me in the least, i think it will be an excellent vehicle for a certain project that i started conceptually in August. I plan on working with the body casting technique - maybe some projection, too.

I got some very plush corduroy fabric yesterday, to make another pair of pants, and my plan was to cut and pin this weekend so i could jump straight to sewing on Monday, but i brought the wrong pattern home. Boo! I'm so very into the clothes designing at the moment, i hope i continue to have success and inspiration. There is a very upscale fabric store here in Barcelona and going in there is so exciting. They have so much beautiful, lush fabric - i want to pull everything off the shelves and roll around in it. The sequins! The silk! The lace! The pants i already made, while the hem needs to be let down, fit me perfectly and are exactly what i wanted, which i can never find in stores. Very pleased.

Aaaand tomorrow i think i'm going to Segur de Calafell, south of the city, to nanny for a few hours. Yay euros!

Work: Art and Otherwise

(Sigh, this should have been two entries. I'm verbose - where on earth did i get *that* from??)

So, i have a strong desire to not spend *all* of my money in Spain. I'd like to have enough to go to India and Bali and then a little to get set up in Charlottesville for a few months. Jette is the funky way cool director of the art school i'm attending, and after meeting her children i offered her my babysitting services. She immediately said she could send my information to a list of "mummies" that she's connected to in the area, and shortly after she did that, i was flooded with job offers. Hooray! I've taken two; i need time to work in the studio and do yoga and enjoy the city, and with two i'm making 60+ euro a week, which makes my life much more comfortable.

One family lives on the edge of the city. They have two children, and i work with their daughter, Alexandra, primarily. She's five, and precocious and adorable. Her favorite movie is the Little Mermaid. We get along famously. Their mother is very insistent that i only and always speak English. The first day i was working with Alex, she was tenaciously trying to teach me Spanish, asking me to say names of colors and animals - the same approach i was using in English! It's hard, using only English when she doesn't always understand (sometimes i cheat and whisper to her in Spanish if i really need to). Her little brother, Arthur, is terribly rambunctious and i can't possibly teach Alex any English if i'm having to wrangle him too, so he stays with his mom while i'm there, mercifully. The first day i was there, she did have me with both of them, and afterwards i thought, "What have i gotten myself into?!?"

The second family i only started with yesterday. They live in Segur de Calafell, which is a 45-minute train ride out of the city. It's kind of a long way, but i like the train, and the air is cleaner there. They also have a daughter and a son, 4 years and 20 months respectively. It was a huge hassle to get there yesterday, with confusion on my part due to omission of detail on the mother's part. Whoops. But i did arrive, and went from the train station to pick up the daughter at a friend's house, where we lingered and lingered while the girls played. The friend's house was up on a hill with an incredible view of sea in the distance - the town is smallish, and tucked in around mountains on the shore, like Barcelona, but without the large valley that Barcelona occupies. At their house, the mother and i sat at the kitchen table and got to know each other. She spoke to me in rapid fire Spanish, and after a while i realized i'd spent the entire day speaking Spanish and that i was understanding and responding well. In other words, having real, adult conversations in Spanish about things other than, how much does this cost? and where is the train station? She's more interested in straight forward childcare than formal teaching English. She said she wants someone with fresh energy and a different cultural background to spend time with her kids, and "if you want to speak some English, great." The town where they live, curiously, is five minutes from Sitges, which is where the Spanish foreign exchange student we had when i was five (i think?) is from.

Here's what i've been working on in the studio. More cutouts, more collage, but evolving. Metafora students are invited every year to participate in an AIDS exhibition in the city. Initially i was not planning on submitting a piece, but i've since had an idea (inspired by my chicken-wire collage!) and so i'm currently researching and sketching. I've got a pretty good visual brainstorm going. I think.

Here's the final (ha) version of the dancing ladies:



This piece directly inspired by my yoga teacher, likely not the final version. I was so excited about the yellow paper and now i'm that i'm using i'm less than enthused about the results.



Same deal with this one, the yellow paper cut-outs, i believe, have got to go. I've pulled them off since this picture:



Oh yeah, ick. Those should not come back. Anyway, moving on...



No idea what will go between the trees.

I'm quite excited about this painting below. I used a hand-printing technique that didn't go quite as i'd planned, but i liked the way it turned out anyway. I used the sheela-na-gig pattern from the other piece to create negative space, as well as leaves and organic material collected from a nearby park. After the printing part, i used the leaves as a stamp. To take care of my aversion to white paper these days, i brushed over the whole thing with a tint when i was finished.



This one i made with a similar hand-printing technique, but i used a jar, and then more leaf-stamps afterwards. I am soooo rebelling against what i learned in painting class at Centre. Or maybe i'm building on it. Yeah, that's it, evolving... Whatever, i like it quite a lot, maybe even enough to let the paper around it stay white.



I'm floating the idea of the sheela cut out on this one, too. I just love her! Though maybe the dancing lady would be better on that one...



And here's my latest effort. The leaves i used to "stamp" onto the pages with looked so pretty i couldn't just toss them, so they became this:



I'm still figuring out how to get the wire to stay. Sew it to the paper, probably.

Don't worry, i can still draw people.