September 1, 2006
Art Exhibition:
Shes Crafty: Working Artesanas
and the Culture of Handmade in Los Angeles
Opening Reception: Saturday September 23, 2006 (closing date Oct.22, 06)
@ Imix Books, 5052 Eagle Rock Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90041
323-257-2512/ www.imixbooks.com
Contact: Ana Guajardo oralearte@hotmail.com
or: Elisa @ Imix Books 323-257-2512
Shes Crafty Concept:
Los Angeles is a dynamic global city with layers of history, political movements, and an astounding array of artistic and cultural production. It is then no surprise that self-sustaining communities of artists, performers, designers, and other creative folk come together to carve out of this grand metropolis intimate, mini-L.A.s where their clothing, jewelry and decorative art designs circulate in dance clubs, street festivals, community farms, art openings, and the interiors of homes across the city and state. Their work becomes a visual language that represents values beyond superficial obsessions with beauty and designer labels, with which our city is inaccurately equated. In their objects, made of carefully meditated themes, materials, and styles, we find a lexicon that asserts particular notions about spirituality, health, politics, cultural identity, and history. While there is always a significant male presence in this work, women generally overwhelm this landscape of artistic production, and it is on them that this exhibition will focus.
Shes Crafty is an art exhibit showcasing master works by a community of women of color artists and designers who are interconnected through the venues to which they distribute their work, as well as through friendships and support networks.
The exhibition has two main goals:
1. To showcase original works that emphasize the craftsmanship and unique artistry of each artist and designer involved. 2. To bring into relief the process of art making by giving each artist the space to create installations addressing their use of materials, artistic influences and cultural identities as artists working in the City of Angels.
Mercados Exhibition Organization:
It is significant that this exhibition is on display at Imix Books, a relatively young cultural bookstore that represents one of the many venues of the post civil-rights movement generation that support our work, and that we in turn patronize, creating an empowering, self-sustaining community that is nurturing and regenerating.
The exhibition space will be organized into 5 sections, demarcated by little rooftops poking out of the wall to create the landscape effect of walking through a mercado, or marketplace. The marketplace is important, because ultimately each artists goal is to sell their work. Their pieces take on a social life of their own, where they fashion, accessorize, and define the consumers cultural politics
The 5 Sections
La Boutique- Clothing and Accessories. Designers include Araceli Silva, formerly of Labor Fruit and the 33 1/3 Books Collective and Gabriela Garcia Medina, performance artist and founder of the fashion collective Labor de Amor. Silva has created a work entitled Metamorphosis, a stunning, multicolored, flowing butterfly gown designed to honor transformation in womens lives. In Silvas words: We begin as white butterflies and through out our journey earn our colors. We go through several stages of metamorphosis, allowing a new person to emerge. We spread our wings ready to take flight. We are fluid creatures transforming everything we touch. Garcia Medina, a self described Cubana-Xicana, has created designs that pay tribute and draw from characteristics of the Orixas, or spirits of the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria, a religion that has a strong and growing presence in Los Angeles today.
La Tienda de Artesanias- Decorative arts and Painting- Ana Guajardo, Christy Burgos, and Emilia Garcia create mixed media works and installations in this section focusing on everyday pieces that decorate our homes as opposed to our bodies. Burgos, inspired by her Mayan ancestry, creates paper-mache 3-dimensional paintings and jewelry that incorporate themes of cultura, politics, as well as women. Garcia, a prolific painter who has successfully created a line of gift items from her artwork, entitled Burnt Tortilla Creations, will exhibit a painting in an installation setting that showcases the process of her work from the canvas to the gift card. Guajardo designs 10x10 decorative mirrors incorporating Thomas Guide maps that pinpoint locations of important cultural venues where our works circulate (Self Help Graphics, Imix Books, the South Central Farm, and more).
La Botanica- Homemade soaps, teas, plants, oils, and other remedies. Elena Esparza and Daisy Tonanzin, founder of Yerberia Mayahuel and visionary of the collective Proyecto Jardin (a Boyle Heights community garden) are creating a botanica installation piece inspired by the spiritual shops that line the streets of Los Angeles, where home remedies and spiritual counseling is offered. Esparza describes the powerful energy that the artists will infuse into this space: The Botanica represents the harmony of these songs, each of the plant spirits has its own song and knows how to heal those special places in our bodies. They share with us their secrets and gifts in subtle and sometimes powerful vibrations that are unmistakable. It is a vibration that reconnects us to our spirit, to the source of life, renewing our bonds and relationships to all things. The tools of the medicine maker, the leaves, roots, barks, resins, oils and flowers all offer their distinctive qualities for they know to which organ, system and cell it must connect with. This is the integration of Body, Mind and Soul.
La Joyería- Jewelry Lisa Rocha, Mari Hashimoto, Monica Hernandez, and Christy Burgos. This section includes a significantly diverse sampling of jewelry designers that work in silver, natural, semi-precious stones, and clay. In a collaborative installation, silversmiths Rocha and Hernandez recreate their workshops where they create their elegant pieces, by incorporating the tools of their craft and a traditional workbench. Hashimoto pays tribute to the earth, water, wind and fire elements that infuse her work with spiritual and cultural dimension. She designs collage backdrops to display her designs as well as to emphasize her Japanese-American heritage and cultural influences deriving from hip hop and her upbringing in New York City. Burgos creates unusual, hand-sculpted pieces using designs derived from her Mayan heritage.
La Casa- In this section, the home, attributed to the place where craftiness begins for most of the participants, master altar builder, Ofelia Esparza, and her daughter Elena Esparza create an altar installation that incorporates offerings by each artist in the exhibition. Ofelia Esparza eloquently describes this installation: In this altar, dedicated principally to my mother, my step dad, my husband, and the great cooks of my family, I have chosen the cocina (the kitchen), a place with the warmest memories for many of us. I learned that cooking for family and friends is, truly, an act of love. The kitchen aromas and certain items continue to invoke warm memories and wonderful images that will never be forgotten.
Shes Crafty will be a multi-sensory, multi-media experience, with original works and products available for purchase, and most importantly for careful analysis, because they reflect a culture and community that is thriving in Los Angeles today.
Related Events:
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7TH @ Imix Books, 7:30-10pm,
ONE NIGHT THREE EVENTS!
BOOK SIGNING- with Crafty Chica Kathy Cano Murillo- Phoenix, Arizona author of Art de la Soul, La Casa Loca: Latino Style Comes Home, and others. (see more @ www.craftychica.com)
SHORT FILM SCREENING: Dalila Paolas work capturing the profiles of Shes Crafty participants and the culture of handmade in Los Angeles
ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: question and answer session with artists about the exhibition and their significance of their work in todays mass-consumer society.
CURATED BY: ANA GUAJARDO
EXHIBITION DESIGN: DANNY GONZALES