Late Breaking News
Memorial Honors Frank Sifuentes, QEPD
Tempus fugit que no?
Frank's long-time friend, Jesus Treviño, has compiled a memorial including messages from all five of Frank's friends, and a video. Click the links to Frank's spoken word recordings at the USC digital library and Nuestrafamilia.
http://latinopia.com/latino-history/latinopia-hero-frank-sifuentes/QEPD, Frank.
Michael Sedano
Over there, across a couple of blinded-by-the-light grey roofs and assorted HVAC ducts, underneath the canopy, all old and faded. Behold the remains of
América Tropical, a mural painted on a Los Angeles wall by David Alfaro Siqueiros 80 years ago and whitewashed shortly thereafter.
"In a way, the whitewashing preserved it," one docent avers, pointing to the richer coloring at the right, a section that had been whitewashed earlier by disillusioned patrons whose vision of tropical America included lovely colorful people and happy native dancing girls.
What America got from el maestro is an undulating jungle surrounding a native nailed to a double cross upon whose crown perches a fierce eagle. ¡Ajua!
The mural also signals the benefits of painting on wall substrates. Nelson Rockefeller jackhammered a Diego Rivera fresco off the walls of that arts patron's building in Manhattan. In El Lay, where easy solutions prevail, city powers tagged the wall with their own gang color.
The mural, the only publicly accessible Siqueiros mural in the United States, is conserved. Numerous visitors ask about preservation, or repainting. The mural, whitewashed and exposed to ample ultaviolence by its south-facing wall, has faded past the point of ever being more than what it is.
A Getty-led conservation team has managed to remove the obscuring layer of paint and some tar stains, and has protected what remains from further degradation now that it once again finds the sun and elements. Black and white fotos exist of the mural, making impossible any ill-conceived wild hair notion to repaint.
Visitors to the observation platform must simply marvel at what that wall once said in its own voice. Downstairs, in the interpretive center, a trio of Siqueiros' muralist descendants--Barbara Carrasco, Wayne Healy, John Valadez--recreate
America Tropical in grand scale, reproducing those B&W frames taken back in 1932.
Opening day packed the space shoulder-to-shoulder. Such heavy demand must account for the elevator being out of service on my second visit. Access to the viewing deck, without that elevator, is restricted to able-bodied gente.
The spectacular corn mural in the stairwell is the compensation for stressed knees. Below, Angelica Garcia, a principal in a
Fontana tax firm, takes a breather for a snapshot with her daughter.
ATIC adds an important cultural dimension to school field trips to the birthplace of Los Angeles. I visited in 4th grade around '54. The place remains largely unchanged, a single file of curio and dulces-selling puestos down a cobbled pasillo flanked by restaurants, mid-scale boutiques, and recuerdos. ATIC fills a space midway down the street, next door where my primos' shop, Casa de Sousa, used to sell quality artifacts and espresso.
Thelma Reyna Reviews Pat Mora's Borders
La Bloga friend and guest columnist Thelma Reyna continues with
her exploration of classic works by Chicanas, a project Thelma's engaged in conjunction with Latinopia. The multifaceted Latinopia features historical and historic video features picked from filmmaker Jesus Treviños exhaustive archive of the movimiento, along with coverage of art, food, music, literature; la cultura en general.
Among the beauties of reassessing classic works is the likelihood of introducing readers new to these seminal expressions, to foundation literature that has influenced what they read today. Beginning at the beginning helps develop an informed critical understanding of everything read.
Among the classics Dr. Reyna has reviewed are
House on Mango Street, Nilda, Loving In the War Years. Latinopia currently features Thelma's appreciation of Pat Mora's poetry collection,
Borders.
Her book goes on to evoke and explore borders large and small, known and unknown, old and new, faint and glaring. The poet draws on her lifetime of living on and near borders, beginning with her birth in El Paso, Texas, her home for most of her life before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Mora has straddled the border between cultures and languages, has navigated the “like” and “unlike” for her entire life. As her book depicts, borders can be cruel or innocuous, but they ultimately reveal us to ourselves.
Cruel Borders of Hardship
Her book is filled with snapshots of people from all walks of life, people identifiable for their hardships as much as for their triumphs. Mora starts with the famous pioneering author and university leader, Tomás Rivera, whose hands “knew about the harvest,/ tasted the laborer’s sweat” but also “gathered books at city dumps
You can read Thelma Reyna's full review at
Latinopia here. The classics series also features
polymath Luis Torres, who reviews male writers, with Thelma Reyna covering women writers. La Bloga encourages gente to visit Latinopia's literary cornucopia.
Count on La Bloga to continue our de vez en cuando
reviews of the old stuff, too. You can join in as a reader, or a
guest columnist. For comments and questions, click the Comments link below, and be sure to subscribe to your comment to receive reader comments.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams Book Tour Makes Pasadena Stop
Author Rudy Garcia joined a handful of guests--writers and artists--in Pasadena to talk books, science fiction fantasy writing, Rudy's novel, and the upcoming Latino Book & Family Festival.
 |
Hugo Garcia tells J. Michael Walker and
Alfredo Lascano about La Dolce Vita. |
One aspiring novelist arrived early, expressly to quiz Rudy on the mechanics of getting his first book published.
Garcia replied with the classic question, "what's your book about, in 25 words or less?"
Rudy stopped the novice around the 800th word. The lessons from pro to beginner: know your own stuff and get it written, then worry about the rights.
Rudy Garcia noted the rarity of Chicana Chicano science fiction and fantasy titles, making
The Closet of Discarded Dreams a pleasingly unique opportunity for scifi readership, but uniqueness an obstacle to publisher decision-making.
Discussion ranged widely across writers, titles, and story lines, then divagated to revolutionary new waves in film, and authenticity in historical fiction, and other genres.
Discussion segued into an ideal moment for Rudy to take the floor and read two passages he selected that illustrate his book's surreal exposition and the author's ability to write funny.
Short story writer and poet Angel Guerrero basks in the ambiente of good friends, new friends, good reading and listening. Then cracks up at one of Rudy's funny passages.
Painter,
cartographer,
portratist, J. Michael Walker absorbs the performance from his artist's eye.
Novelist Sandra Ramos O'Briant observes as Jesus Treviño documents Rudy Garcia's reading in this living room setting. Treviño will showcase the reading in a future
Latinopia.
Beyond the reading at Casa Sedano, Rudy appeared at Tia Chucha's Open Mic on Friday, the LB&FF, then a reading at Tia Chucha's Sunday afternoon.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams heads to a science fiction writers conference in Colorado then San Antonio.
Banned Book UpdateStill banned.
No big news out of Tucson. Vote like Freedom depends on it, because it does. Give Obama a Democratic Congress and let the nation see the return of bipartisanship to government. Give the GOP power and they will ban more books, just as a beginning.
On-Line Floricanto Mid-October 2012Avotcja, Sharon Elliott, Tara Evonne Trudell, Andrea Mauk, Tom Sheldon
ALGO DE TI, Avotcja
The Fence, Sharon Elliott
Dual Citizenship, Tara Evonne Trudell
Second Story, Andrea Mauk
Columbus through tiny eyes, Tom Sheldon
ALGO DE TIby AvotcjaTu pelo,
Abrazando su propia negrura
Como el color de medianoche en la manígua
Tu ser,
Un cuento vestido en sabiduría anciana
Una sabiduría agridulce
Sabiduría con sabor a colores de miles de flores
Bestial y arrogante
Una seda desenvoltura
A la vez inmóvil, pero misteriosa
Y como la noche de luna
Esclava de nadie
Eternamente libre como el viento
¿Y Otoño?
Siempre hay otoño,
Riendo, llorando, y bailando
En la negrura de tus ojos Indios
Tus ojos sabios
Tus ojos orgullosos
Tus pies ya caminaron por unos miles de siglos
En las tierras de tres continentes
Por los sueños de los afortunados
Por las pesadillas de los que nos engañan
Y porque tu eres quien eres tu,
Crecen las flores donde caminaste
Los Dioses me dicen
Que tu piel tiene el sabor de miel salvaje
Mientras que el viento canta tu nombre
Como yo ..… como yo
Y tu eres el color de amor
El color Moreno
El color prieto
El color Indio
El color de mi felicidad
El color de amor ….. eres tu
SOMETHING ABOUT YOUby AvotcjaYour hair,
Embracing its own blackness
Like the color of a jungle midnight
Your being,
A story dressed in ancient wisdom
A bittersweet wisdom
Wisdom that
Tastes like the colors of thousands of flowers
Arrogant & wild
A smooth flowing freedom
That's at the same time stubborn, but mysterious
And like the moonlight
A slave of nobody
Infinitely free just like the wind
And Autumn?
Autumn is always laughing, crying & dancing
In the blackness of your Indian eyes
Your wise eyes
Your proud eyes
Your feet have walked
Through thousands of centuries
On the lands of three continents
Through the dreams of the fortunate
Through the nightmares of those who deceive us
And because you are who you are,
Wherever you’ve walked flowers grow
The Gods tell me,
That your skin tastes like wild honey
While even the wind sings your name
And so do I ….. so do I
And you are the color of love
The color brown
Very dark brown
A dark red Indian brown
The color of my happiness
You ….. are the color of love!
The Fenceby Sharon Elliottsin vergüenza
Germany pulled theirs down
artifact of Nazis
with joy
celebration
Berlin united
pieces of brick
and stone
now inhabit the globe
in memory
of tyranny overcome
we
construct new fences
of wire and steel
to keep out ciudadanos
los que son
dueños de esta tierra
quienes que nos dieron
una bienvenida de corazón
nos cuidaron
nos regalaron una cama para acostarnos
nos alimentaron
con maíz y amor compartido
y que hicimos nosotros?
what did we do?
we accepted their gracious gifts
then stole their land
pushed them off
enslaved them
and their children
treated them as interlopers
in their own home
now we build fences
to keep them away
from what is rightly theirs
what hardened our hearts
blinded our eyes
withered our souls
money is a simple answer
privilege and power
more complex
yet the
foundation of those fences
bears more scrutiny
es una pobreza de alma
corazones sin sangre
como podemos vivir así
sin lo que alimenta a uno o el otro
tear those fences down
stand in our humanity
wield sledgehammers
wire cutters
bulldozers
machetes
y en un solo golpe
tear those fences down
until we do
we will not be whole
we will continue to be ghosts
fragmented spirits
alone
disconnected
and afraid
Dual Citizenshipby Tara Evonne TrudellAnswers lie
when their truths
don't add up
whitewashing politicians
diluting
intelligent thoughts
puppet shows
debating
who's in control
slandering smiles
blinding white
control
Americans hanging on
to every word
taking their minds
off humanity
the wanting
of righteous law
breaking politics
playing ping pong
hitting hard
manipulating tactics
of manifest destiny
corporate sponsors
running the game
monopolizing
earth
colonizing
brown
people backed up
against
invisible walls
guns drawn
border agents
playing warfare
targeting migrants
killing softly
our song
500 years
of proving
we belong
to our earth
erasing their borders
in sand
willing breaths
we fall
before we stand
in barrios
in canyons
in homes
uniting
dual citizenship
past
their make believe
land
their misleading debate
loudly continues on
in a world
our spirits
do not belong.
Second Storyby Andrea MaukNo matter where you live,
you exist on top of a
failed, conquered civilization.
You walk upon footsteps of buried wisdom,
upon people who understood
the whispers of the winds,
the nutritional medicinal value of
each plant and
the reason to respect each animal,
upon 'pagan' engineers, architects and astronomers
who learned the formulas taught
by the sun and moon and stars.
You walk on the skulls of those
sacrificed in ceremonies
we will never fully understand,
you guffaw at their Gods and
their nectars and their dances
as you marvel at the
modern technology that
distracts you away from the fact
that our planet, our earth,
our way of life is spinning out of control,
and you are standing on top of
land grabbed without regard to
the wisdom of civilizations
who may have understood
our existence
better
than we.
Columbus through tiny eyesby Tom Sheldonsister Marie taught us about an Italian sailor
who shaved every day and carried a bible
he brought us pork n beans
warm blankets n fry bread
he brought farmers and soldiers
and discovered us
bringing Original sin and horses n dogs too
all on ships sent to aid the white man’s domination of Mother earth...
Is it entirely appropriate that this most auspicious day, be a day of mourning, ashes and weeping.
biosALGO DE TI by Avotcja
The Fence by Sharon Elliott
Dual Citizenship by Tara Evonne Trudell
Second Story by Andrea Mauk
Columbus through tiny eyes by Tom Sheldon
Avotcja (pronounced Avacha) is a card carrying New York born Music fanatic/sound junkie & popular Bay Area Radio DeeJay & member of the award winning group Avotcja & Modúpue. She’s a lifelong Musician/Writer/Educator/Storyteller & is on a shamelessly Spirit driven melodic mission to heal herself. Avotcja talks to the Trees & listens to the Wind against the concrete & when they answer it usually winds up in a Poem or Short Story.
Website:
www.Avotcja.org Email: mailto:
[email protected]Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.
[email protected]
Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry is featured in the 2012 Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. Her production company, Dancing Horse Media Group, is currently in pre-production of her independent film, “Beautiful Dreamer,” based on her original screenplay and manuscript, and along with her partners, is producing a unique cookbook that blends healthful recipes with poetry and prose.
Had me quite a double feature the other day -- two DVDs courtesy of Barrio Dog Productions and Latinopia that blasted me from the past and slung me into the future.
First was América Tropical. I had seen it when it was originally shown on KCET -- L.A.’s PBS affiliate -- back in 1971 when I was still in high school. It blew my teenaged mind, and influenced how I would navigate my cartoonist/writer ambitions. This telling of how a mural by David Alfaro Siquieros was commissioned by an L.A. business man, then whitewashed of its controversial content, helped me focus my concept of what it was to be an artist. The way it created a cinematic time warp to connect the Chicano Movement of the Seventies with what was going on in the Thirties plugged me into history in a way I never felt before.
It also influenced my first novel Cortez on Jupiter. I found myself daring to dream about a Chicano artist taking on a hostile society in the future, and beyond this planet. And when I faced conflicts over my own controversial material, I wasn’t completely blindsided.
The
By: msedano,
on 1/23/2012
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Review: Rudolfo Anaya. Billy the Kid and other plays.
Rudolfo Anaya.
Billy the Kid and Other Plays. Afterword By: Cecilia J. Aragón , Robert Con Davis-Undiano. Norman: UOklahoma Press, 2011.
ISBN: 9780806142258
384.
Michael Sedano
There's a burden on Rudolfo Anaya's back that rivals Sisyphus' rock: being "El abuelo" the "founding father" de Chicana Chicano Literature. It is his fault, after all, that
Bless Me, Ultima is the megaseller it has become so he must accept that responsibility. Fortunately, unlike that accursed's mythical burden, an ever-inspired Anaya easily shoulders his on to myriad heights.
2012 marks the fortieth anniversary of publication by TQS of
Bless Me, Ultima. (Look for a special announcement later at La Bloga.) Aside from illustrating that quality surpasses the limitations of a tiny obscure publisher,
Bless Me, Ultima helped bring Chicana Chicano cultura into United States Literature on our own terms.
As if that weren't sufficient career achievement--Harper Lee, recall, published only a single novel in her career--Anaya goes beyond
Ultima to bring readers childrens books, warm folktales, travel writing, and edge-of-your-seat detective novels.
Every family should own
Serafina's Stories, read it to the kids for bedtime storytime. Once you've read all the way through it, expect the kidlet to request you read it again.
The lesser-known
A Chicano in China documents ways a chicano uses his US-bred xenophobia to find bridges across the cultures and personal enchantments. Then there's the uniqueness of it all; how many chicanos are writing about the PRC?
Every reader of detective fiction will want to devour the Sonny Baca novels. From Sonny's first appearance in
Alburquerque through the seasons,
Zia Summer,
Rio Grande Fall, to
Jemez Spring. Baca's a great character plus there's fun seeing Anaya in the character "Ben Chavez," and CHICLE-founder
Teresa Marquez appear as herself.
Now Rudolfo Anaya's playwriting has been collected in the University of Oklahoma's 2011
Billy the Kid and other plays. The volume is the 10th in the Press'
Chicana And Chicano Visions Of The Americas Series. The title piece and "Who Killed Don José?" appeared in
The Anaya Reader. Five plays will be new to most readers.
"The Season of La Llorona" is a fitting opening piece for the collection. It echoes the actos of movimiento teatro, and, like any YA piece is transparently designed to instruct. The piece is a visual treat, too, whose setting alternates between Abuelo's lap on Hallowe'en night, and 500 years earlier to Doña Marina and her slavemaster.
A reading through the collection to its final two works, "Billy the Kid" and "Angie,"tracks refinement in the playwrite's art. "Billy" reads vividly. Irrespective of the formalities of a printed script, the narrative flows effortlessly. One hesitates to praise the play for reading like a novel, but Anaya gives the speeches a coherency that fills in the absent narrative. A play is not prose, but speech. Anaya's ear so effective his characters jump off the page with distinct voices.
Anaya's intent to soften the historical image of cold-blooded murdere
This was the first part of the Gosh! London comics shop window project for Nelson Week, a scribble on a dinner napkin by our Nelson editor Woodrow Phoenix, after we had finished two full days in Leeds at Thought Bubble comics festival. (Well, Woodrow doesn't really scribble, he draws quite carefully.)
And here's an excellent video shot by Gosh's Tom Crowley! You can read all about it over on the Gosh blog! And do come to Gosh tonight (1 Berwick Street in London's Soho) at 6pm for our Nelson signing party, it'll be good fun!
I'll post a few more photos from our Monday painting session. Woodrow has posted a bunch more on Flickr here. I was just going to show up at the shop and paint something, but on the train ride in, I thought, hmm, I think I'd like to do a bit of pre-planning. So here's what I sketched on the stretch between London Bridge and Charing Cross stations.
Woodrow was stuck on messy trains from out of town, so I had a chance to grab a muffin in the lovely coffee shop next to Gosh, Foxcroft & Ginger and work on my Nel sketch a bit more.
When Woodrow arrived and Tom at Gosh gave us our supplies, Posca pens, I remembered them well from my mural painting session at Game City (blog post about that here) and how much they need shaken to get the paint running. Shake, shake, shake. It turned into a sort of dance session, while Hayley Campbell tweeted this photo.
Then Will Morris arrived, with much more polished preparatory sketches. Will studied on the same MA course at Camberwell art college as I did, a few years later, under Janet Woolley, and we're both big fans of her. Will's work is lovely.
We decided the lettering had to come first, before the character paintings. And no one does lettering as well as Woodrow, he's very exacting.
I asked him if 'e' was the hardest letter to draw, and he said, no, that 's' is much trickier, getting the two curves just right.
We were painting on the inside of the window (so passers-by couldn't pick it off) but I did a quick sketch in white on the outside of the window as a guide.
When JAKe arrived, here's the sketch he made, drawing straight from the book:
Check out this great mural composed of images collected from Duke University’s Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection.
Artist Bill Fick says, “In the past four years I’ve been using the Murray Collection as a teaching tool and resource for my Art of the Comic Book and Zines class. It’s an amazing resource with over 75,000 comics! I really enjoyed making the mural and plan to make more in the future using some of my original stuff.” Can’t wait, Bill!
(via Mural at Perkins Library, Duke University)
“”
- Art in Action exhibition - DIVA
Check out this live footage from 1939 - in COLOUR - of Diego Rivera painting murals for the Pan American Unity Expo. He does it for real, painting with fresh-ground pigments into damp plaster (ie, no screwing up! you have to get it right the first time).
On Tuesday, my studio mate Ellen Lindner and DFC comics colleague John Aggs and I took the train up to Nottingham to paint murals for a big festival called Game City. We'd known about it last year because the guys who used to work upstairs in our studio, Ian Gouldstone, Martin Lye and Dave Surman had done a lot of animation work for it, so we were prepped to expect a huge burst of creativity on Market Square.
Our brief was for each of us to decorate a gaming lounge by Wednesday afternoon. John's and Ellen's were more specific (John had a somewhat open mission to feature the video game Crysis 2 and Ellen's instructions from LEGO were fairly tight.) I wasn't given a set theme, so I decided to draw a 30-panel space opera comic featuring a bunny called Flummox. When I saw the guys across the way finish theirs in three hours, I realised I'd been stupidly over-ambitious, and I had to work like mad, and leave out a lot of things I'd planned to do to finish by the next day and catch a particular train. But hey, it's there now, ta-dah!
This was my rough outline. It's a choose-your-own-adventure type of story, inspired partly by seeing Daniel Merlin Goodbrey's pieces at the HyperComics exhibition at Battersea Park, and having tied the idea into a workshop I led there.
Here's the almost-finished painted version. It's sort of a mash-up of the bunnies from Vern and Lettuce comic book and the aliens from You Can't Eat a Princess! picture book.
Poor Flummox. The story had several 'Game Over' bits, so he died a lot.
Here's some bits of John Aggs's work, which was sectioned off in the 'mature' area, since the video game is rather violent. The subject matter isn't my cup of tea at all, but no one can deny that that this John guy can really draw. (And he'd only been commissioned at 5pm the night before!)
Ellen was still working with the LEGO people as I left, but you can get a glimpse of it here, next to the family arts-and-crafts area. They changed the brief completely when she got there, but she was great at coming to a compromise with them.
These were the guys who finished in three hours: Daniel Grey (daninski on Twitter) and Tom Brown (tomshqui on Twitter) from Holbrooks Films. They dragged black paint down the wall on bits of cardboard, a bit like screen printing, and their walls looked great.
By:
Laurel Gaylord,
on 5/26/2010
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This is what I've been busy doing this past week. It's a birthday surprise for my friend Barb while she's away on vacation in Arizona! She said to do whatever I wanted, but trust me I had some limits here.
Barb is ultra traditional and her kitchen has been the same for the past twenty-two years! I did the last theme as well, black cats and red/white gingham touches.
I took all of the kitty pictures out of the frames and replaced them with four lovely poppy paintings, one of course by Georgia O'Keefe. Then I went to work on this wall, all free-form with very little pre-drawing. (I hate to have to erase lines after!)
This is a very small wall so I kept the design light and flowing. This wall is to the left of the step up into her kitchen. The starfish, sand dollar, beach glass and shells were added because of all the time Barb has spent on Cape Cod at her family's treasured cottage.
(Here's a bit of detail. I hope they enlarge.)
I had a hard time with the shadowing because the wall kept resisting the glaze. Shadowing is my favorite part! That, and detail. Oh well, it will have to do.
And YES, this is what I was painting when I fell backwards and hit my head.
I can't believe I didn't drag my red paintbrush down the wall.
19 Comments on Animal Wednesday: Does a starfish count?, last added: 5/30/2010
Today was an interesting day.
It started out by me taking a couple of photos of this cute fish and cat teapot that my sister bought me when she came to visit on Saturday. We love going to second-hand stores and antique shops. For now I've placed him on the shelf between the kitchen and the dining room. I think he's smitten with that bunny!
Here is another view with the light from my studio doorway in the background. I'm standing in my galley kitchen in front of my stove.
Thank you pat. I love this little guy! he makes a wonderful addition to all of my blue and white pieces. (But you knew he would!)
This handsome, adorable awesome guy is Grady, my friend's cat. They're away in Sedona, Arizona for a much needed vacation. Grady has special needs because he's a herpes kitty with major sinus issues. Let's just say it was a very messy nose day today!
That said, I'm doing a mural (small trompe l'oeil actually) for his mom's birthday
© Paula Pertile
Here's what I'm working on. Its an heirloom tomato. Have you seen these? They're pretty wild looking. And they taste heavenly. This lovely specimen is not red, like the tomatoes you're probably used to. They're all some variety of yellows, greens and oranges, with a touch of red here and there, and they're each truly unique. Nature is amAZing.
I'm using Polychromos on Stonehenge. This needs more orange and an over all bumping up, but its getting there. The faint "polka dots" you see on the page are grape tomatoes. And that lovely grey bar along the bottom is from my scanner, which I didn't bother to crop off.
This piece is actually vertical, and 11 x 17. I've cut off the bottom half. The whole idea for this is something a little new for me, but finally something I can say is truly "me". I took about a hundred reference shots of these tomatoes, all posed in traditional ways, stacked up, with interesting lighting, in a paper bag, etc. etc. etc. Then slept on it, and had a moment of clarity when I realized that none of those was what I
wanted to do.
I had a whole conversation with myself about why I'm afraid sometimes to do what I really want to with my art. Do you 'go there'? Its often tempting to do what you think people are expecting to see, or what will be well-received, or in more blunt terms, "what will sell". And in the end, what's the point of that? The point of making art like this is self expression, saying what you want to say, "not dying with your music still in you" to quote Joseph Campbell (at least I think it was him ... its likely he was quoting some ancient sage when he said that, my Philosophy 101 is rusty).
So anyway, now, I'm doing what I want to do, and am having a blast!
~~~~
Cool art -
© Vince Valdes, and /or The SF Chronicle
This is a property for sale in San Francisco. And this, specifically, is a mural gracing the stairway. How fabulous is this? I would love to know who the artist is.
(OK, you may not want this in your stairway, but framed and on a wall, yes? Well, I would.)
Back to work on my tomatoes. Hope you all have a lovely day.
So for the last four days I’ve been painting non stop on this under the sea mural for Aubrey.
Some of the pieces were cut out of plywood, painted and attached later for added dimension.
The fish are glittered to catch the light and the bubbles have an iridescent undercoat.
Four days of working until 1:30 AM… and Liv asleep in her jammies on the floor in a sleeping bag.
Surprise with a big pink bow!
This is my gift to you Aubrey!
xoxoxoxoxo
![]( "finished-mural1")
Michael Sedano
Over the past year, I've related the fruition of a dream come true, the conversion of "lost" videotaped performances of important Chicana Chicano poets and writers into modern DVD and web-streaming media. Look for an official announcement from the University of Southern California in the next few weeks on its receipt of the finished product, 39 recordings of such poets as Omar Salinas, rrsalinas, Oscar Acosta, and Tomás Rivera.
Happily, Juan Felipe Herrera and the Tomás Rivera Archives at the University of California Riverside's Tomás Rivera Library acquired a number of photographs I shot back in 1973 at the first Festival de Flor Y Canto, held at USC. I'm happy to report UCR and the Tomás Rivera Archive will be showing these photos in conjunction with the upcoming Tomás Rivera Conference.
Here's news from the Conference website. Please click here for mayor info.
From the Fields to the Stars
22nd Annual Tomás Rivera Conference
April 24th, Friday – Free to the public
Featured Speaker: Ligiah Villalobos
LIGIAH VILLALOBOS is the Writer/Executive Producer of the feature film Under the Same Moon, (La Misma Luna). The film was an Official Selection at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and became the highest sale for a Spanish-language film in the history of Sundance. Since its release on March 19, 2008 by Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company, the film has become the 3rd highest grossing Mexican film and the 6th highest grossing Spanish-language film in the U.S., of all time. The workshops are open to all students and community members at large. Learn from one of the first Latinas to make it into the Hollywood film industry.
In addition to Villallobos' keynote, she leads a TV Workshop and a Screenplay Workshop, as part of the daytime program. See the Conference site for enrollment details.
Day Program 8am-4:15pm,
Evening Program 6:00-10:00pm
The conference is funded and coordinated by UCR Tomás Rivera Endowment/Department of Creative Writing and co-sponsored by UCR Chicano Student Programs, the Tomás Rivera Library – and Special Collections, CHASS First, Department of Theatre, Palm Desert Graduate Center, Riverside City College-Academic Support Program and the Inlandia Institute of Riverside.
Mural Dedication Mid-April
Join La Bloga friend
Carlos Callejo and the
City of Piru for the dedication of Callejo's just-completed mural, above.
"The Piru Mural -- A pictorial history of the town and its people." The dedication of the mural to the Piru community takes place on Saturday, April 18 at the mural site, at 10:00 a.m. The site is East of Piru Creek, north of Center Street, on the Piru Camulos Bike Path. From Highway 126, exit Center Street. Park by Piru Motocross.
Help Needed - A Book About the College Experience
I am striking out going through a mental annotated bibliography of Chicana Chicano novels to help fill this request from a bloguero's former student:
I am searching for a fiction book which depicts Latino/a trials and tribulations of young Latina/os trying to go to college.
Have a suggestion? Please click on the Comments counter below.
Bits and pieces for April's initial Tuesday, a day like any other day, except we are here, ¿que no?
La Bloga welcomes your comments on the above, especially a novel about the Chicana Chicano Latina Latino college experience. Click the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. When you have a review of a book, an arts or cultural event, or an extended comment or bone to pick with one of La Bloga's daily reviewers, email las blogueras los blogueras with your proposal.
Michael Sedano
Today I am sharing a series of photos shot at Mexico City's Secretaría de la Educación Publica across a span of ten years, first in 1995 and again in 2005. With some trepidation, I hope to revisit these walls in the near future to see what progress time has produced. I hesitate because once photographers were free to photograph any wall. My most recent visit to el Castillo de Chapultepec, zealous guards threatened to confiscate my camera if I so much as raised the viewfinder to my eye! Fortunately, the educators have a much friendlier actitud.
On the 1995 visit, I spent an entire morning in the Secretariat, shooting every panel possible, plus some interiors. It is a short walk from the Secretariat to el Zocalo and el Palacio Nacional, where Rivera has covered the second floor with a richness of precolumbian themed work. There, again, I took detailed images.
On my most recent visit, I reached the Secretariat late in the day and was able only to rush through a couple of interiors and cursory shots of key panels. Sadly, I didn't make the effort to track down the worst of the samples and cannot illustrate a before-and-after of the destroyed panels.
As the first pair of photos illustrates, certain of Rivera's frescoes were totally obliterated and their reappearance on the walls must be seen as instauration rather than restoration.
I did, however, have the good fortune of shooting Rivera's 1923 work, "La Feria Del Dia de los Muertos," during its ongoing restoration. The first set of images shows an artist patiently cleaning the substrate at the bottom of the mural.
I did not find a guide to ask if the damage resulted from weatherization or terremoto.
Ni modo, the work was in dishearteningly terrible shape. At bottom center, large swaths of detail have disappeared.
Have a look at the next image, at right and below. Note the figure of a woman in yellow dress in the 1995 image. Left of her all that remains is white plaster. In the close-up you can make out the artist using a point to clean off the surface in preparation for a repaint.
Notice how in 2005 all of the bottom center has been restored. Figures emerge to the left of the yellow clad woman. Now the work bench dedicates itself to work higher up, at lintel level. When I stood next to the work however, I could not make out what aspects were under repair or restoration. Study the over-under close-up and note the excellent quality of the surface.
Below see an over-under layout of close-ups showing more or less the same region. This is a set of figures at the far left of the panel, above the lintel and just to the right of the half-round clerestory of the portal. At top, the restored sections are barely noticeable. At bottom, the damage makes your heart stop.
I am working on a series of illustrated lectures on Mexico City's mural frescoes--Rivera, Siquieros, O'Gorman--and welcome leads to books and other resources. One highly informative resource I found for the Education Secretariat and the National Palace is a long out-of-print tourist manual, by R. S. Silva E., Diego Rivera's frescoes in the National Palace of Mexico, City: a descriptive guide. Mexico City : Sinalomex Editorial, 1965. I am grateful to John McDonald, a senior librarian at the Claremont Colleges Libraries, for letting me borrow the book from the Honnold Library. The title is also available at UC Berkeley. Silva points out that the personages in the Dia de los Muertos detail include actress Celia Montalban and bullfighter Juan Silveti, with the cigar.
You can click on each of the images in today's post to view the files in much larger, better detailed size. In fact, I've laid out the Rivera over-under image as a picture postcard that you can print on heavy photo stock and mail to friends. Click here for this, and other, print 'em yourself postcards from Read! Raza.
By: Rebecca,
on 1/8/2008
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Every once in a while I get a blog piece from an author that I am so excited about I am compelled to post it immediately, today’s piece fits that bill. Philip Pullman, best known as the author of The Golden Compass, which is in theaters now, also wrote the introduction to the Oxford edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Today, it is my great honor to post Pullman’s thoughts on Milton in 2008. Enjoy!
Four hundred years after the birth of John Milton, he still lives, his example still inspires, his words still echo. Paradise Lost is played on the stage, is sung to music, is choreographed for a ballet; it is an audiobook, it is the subject of countless theses and dissertations, and on the very morning that I’m writing this, an invitation arrives to the private view of an exhibition of paintings and prints called The Fall of the Rebel Angels, whose iconography is unmistakable. (more…)
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I am working on a series of illustrated lectures on Mexico City's mural frescoes--Rivera, Siquieros, O'Gorman--and welcome leads to books and other resources. One highly informative resource I found for the Education Secretariat and the National Palace is a long out-of-print tourist manual, by R. S. Silva E., Diego Rivera's frescoes in the National Palace of Mexico, City: a descriptive guide. Mexico City : Sinalomex Editorial, 1965. I am grateful to John McDonald, a senior librarian at the Claremont Colleges Libraries, for letting me borrow the book from the Honnold Library. The title is also available at UC Berkeley. Silva points out that the personages in the Dia de los Muertos detail include actress Celia Montalban and bullfighter Juan Silveti, with the cigar.
this is just gorgeous. will you come to my house when I get one and paint??
Your friend will love this Lolo. It is so cheerful. I hope your head isn't still hurting. Your helper seems quite pleased with the project.
Very lovely! I am such a sucker for red though.....even if you had dragged the paintbrush down the wall I would have liked it!
And Grady seems to like it, so life is GOOD, yes???
XXOO!!
Anne
What a terrific surprise!!! Everything looks perfect because you know her so well. Jut beautiful!!
HAW
oops.. cute pix.. not cut pix. haha
OMGosh that is beautiful. She will love it. what a wonderful friend you are. I hope you're feeling better and no affects from your fall. Kitty looks mighty comfy there. Cut pix.
Hi Grady!!!
Beautiful work on the kitchen wall...she will absolutely LOVE it! I love red poppies...
They sure do!!!!
My what a gorgeous surpprise you have created for your friend!!!!!
LOVELY! And perfect for her I think.
Love your "little" helper.....
A pity I can enlarge the pictures very much on my ini mini laptop.... but I will at home.
I had a good nights sleep and today I will go to a Bhuddist temple to meditate with a colleague.
The sun is shining and I feel wonderful!
HAW!!!!
♥♥♥
>M<
awwww.
this is fabulous. beautiful. very cape coddy. i didn't know you also replaced and reframed.
you are a good friend. your friend will be jubilant when she sees this.
you are a good friend. i should know.
love
kj
Gorgeous!Love it!
Oh my! It looks fabulous so far ... even so, what job accomplishes anything without a site supervisor? GO GRADY! Get to work, Laurel!
Lolo you are fantastic what a dear Friend....
Hope you and M. come to visit some day in France and don't forget your pencils LOL.
xxMar
Absolutely gorgeous work - with that dreamy quality that marks it a Lo painting....
And....I have to say it again, I love the expression on your Furry Assistant's face!
Love,
♥ Robin ♥
Love what you have done here, Laurel. The combination of red poppies (I dream of Italy) and seashore treasures is so unexpected, but, it WORKS. Barb will be counting her friendship blessings when she returns home.
I am in awe of your talent, and I can't tell you often enough, it seems! I am attracted to red this year...I've planted loads of poppies, red petunias and geraniums. I wish you could come and paint my wall, lolo! Your friend will love it...it is so cheerful and warm.
This is so pretty! And so special because it was made by you! I'm sure your friend will be thrilled with this, I would be.
Oh ouch! Beautiful work though X:-)
OOOh MY...this is so sweet! I love the dangling shells...great little shadows...looks very real! what a treat to have a Lolo wall in one home! Awesome!
Ah, I knew I would love it!!! And your friend will be over the moon! How clever you are to paint it directly on the wall - think I'd be a bit nervous with that red paint. Love your rotund helper!