Sowing Ventures...I do not want to ruin my upcoming residency's viewing ...

But here is a taste of my latest production from various angles, displaying what I have been working since we last met.  Sneak peak of my latest series - CUT SHORT.  I am sowing different fabrics attaching them to dyed canvas, then I am painting over these.  Here is 3 different large pieces.

New paintings

Cool pic I took by the water



Painting with stiching















Read in between the lines...


















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Location:Studio

Updates - opening, readings, art, Maya Angelou, Retablos

Many updates....including added online addition to blog so that I can update more THROUGH MY IPAD WHOOOHOOO, SO EXCITED. So busy that this will mean I can share with the world on the move. I even got a keyboard so I am coasting.

1. We dropped off my painting to Oklahoma..SEVEN STATE BIENNIAL
Beautiful MUSEUM, space and people. Couple of hick ups nuts but
awesome. REALLY EXCITED ABOUT
The opening TONIGHT ... Sad could not be there but happy to
know my work is being enjoyed!

2. Kspace Contemporary opening
Unreal, classy event...really proud have been a part of!
Great feedback, artists and fun.
Here are some pics from the event:













































3. Got great stuff in mail
Got my new Art in America
also received my catalog SIGNS CONTEMPORARY ARAB ART
my favorite artist is
AHMAD MOUALLA - I met this piece of work at Houston first Fine Arts
FAIR....in which I also got to meet an ALMA THOMAS AND MY
FAVORITE OF ALL TIME JOAN MICHELLE!!!!

4 Another look at Dorothy Hood - I went back when I was in Corpus Christi for the opening...breathtaking views from Omni...also got you some sneak peaks at her exhibit at the museum (no cameras allowed so feel privileged I caught a couple before the guard stopped me)

























5. Meeting and art piece for Maya Angelou
referencing her poem. I encrypted her poem behind a tribute to ancient tribal languages, markings, symbols, ideograms and textiles from many countries around the world. You will see that the words glow (resinating through my pattern) through light. The words from her poem, are also trying to escape just like the bird..

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds
soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

Here is the painting that will be living with her now....





finished piece






her poem embedded in my formation of lines






painting working with natural light

6. Dropped off art work to Dia de Los muertos (pics to come)
At LAWNDALE - second time :)
October 17- November 5, 2011 for our 24th Annual Día de los Muertos exhibitions.
In 1988, Lawndale Art Center presented its first annual Día de los Muertos exhibition of retablos: small art works inspired by the traditional Latin American devotional art form of the same name. It is now one of Lawndale’s most popular programs that reaches out to communities across the region. Lawndale invites artists and the public to create contemporary interpretations of retablos on 8” x 10” pieces of sheet metal. These retablos are then sold at the gala to benefit both Lawndale and the artists. Many well-known Houston and nationally known artists participate; the exhibition attracts a large audience and the gala is one of the most fun parties in Houston!
Día de los Muertos is Lawndale’s only open-call, non-juried exhibition. The retablo Silent Auction is our single largest fund raising event of the year.

Gala and Retablo Silent Auction

Friday, October 21, 2011
Artist, Member and Sponsor preview 6-7PM
Gala and Silent Auction 7-9PM

Event Chairs
Jessica Phifer and James Glassman

Admission: $45 per person
$35 for Lawndale Members
Available via PayPal, at the door, by calling 713.528.5858
or email rvigil@lawndaleartcenter.org.

The festivities begin with a silent auction Friday, October 21. The auction of retablos, created and donated by nearly 250 Texas artists, feature contemporary interpretations of this traditional, devotional art. Guests will also enjoy Día de los Muertos exhibitions in the Cavnar and Mezzanine Galleries which feature the works of Houston school children.

Preview the exhibition Monday, October 17 - Thursday, October 20 during normal gallery hours.

Lawndale Art Center is pleased to present its 24th Annual Día de los Muertos events, a celebration of the art, music and folklife of Mexico. For over twenty years Lawndale has presented an annual open call, non-juried exhibition that celebrates the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos in a contemporary context. This program supports area artists and students by offering them an opportunity to show their works to diverse audiences in a museum quality setting. Over the years additional programming has been developed to educate audiences and encourage dialogue in celebration of Mexican-American heritage in our region. Día de los Muertos programs and exhibitions at Lawndale Art Center promote cultural awareness of Mexican folk art practices associated with this celebration of family, life and community.





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Location:Houston, Oklahoma, Corpus Christi

Kara Walker has inspired me!

Kara Walker Biography

Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California in 1969. She received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. The artist is best known for exploring the raw intersection of race, gender, and sexuality through her iconic, silhouetted figures. Walker unleashes the traditionally proper Victorian medium of the silhouette directly onto the walls of the gallery, creating a theatrical space in which her unruly cut-paper characters fornicate and inflict violence on one another. In recent works like “Darkytown Rebellion” (2000), the artist uses overhead projectors to throw colored light onto the ceiling, walls, and floor of the exhibition space. When the viewer walks into the installation, his or her body casts a shadow onto the walls where it mingles with Walker’s black-paper figures and landscapes. With one foot in the historical realism of slavery and the other in the fantastical space of the romance novel, Walker’s nightmarish fictions simultaneously seduce and implicate the audience. Walker’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. A 1997 recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award, Walker was the United States representative to the 2002 São Paolo Bienal in Brazil. Walker currently lives in New Y

Patterns That Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art

A comprehensive study of tribal art

I figured I would share what I am studying.  My mentor Terrell James lead me to this book and it is fantastic.  

American art historian Carl Schuster spent more than three decades traveling the world exploring tribal customs and patterns, gathering ancient tribal art and artifacts along the way. Though his goal was to illustrate the intrinsic human connection to artistic expression in an anthropological study, Shuster never managed to compile his research into a cohesive form. With the help of a fellow anthropologist, Edmund Carter, who transferred Schuster's notes and musings, they were able to transform Shuster's work into "Patterns that Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art", a seminal book from 1996 that provides evidence and examples to support the scholar's theories on our natural connection to art.

Comprehensive and comparative, the study contains a total of 1,023 illustrations, featuring sculpted figurines, garments, carved stones, paintings and body decorations from cultures and tribes around the world. Schuster labors to decode this complex iconography in notes and analyses that accompany the images, providing insight into the surprising unity of human society.

According to Schuster, tribal designs such as the ubiquitous zig-zag motif and artifacts such as "Y-posts" are really attempts to record family lineage, not meaningless doodles or objects meant for play. Of the continuous patterns generally used in ceremonial and even everyday garments Schuster remarks, "This is a graphic representation of the puzzle of procreation itself, in which there is neither beginning nor end."

In contrast to the common anthropological idea that each culture is singularly unique, Schuster argues that since these designs did not just occur in isolated cultures, but were widespread across the earth at different time periods, they are proof of a collective human instinct. Schuster further pushes his theory by positing that ancient patterns continue to survive and are in fact relevant today. Stacked chevrons, for example, ubiquitous in several tribal cultures, are used as modern military insignia denoting rank. Another extension of this relevance appears in modern tattoos, textiles, fashion and art, which all seem to draw from frivolous and innocuous patterns that are actually saturated with hidden meaning through their connection to our tribal past.

A hefty tome in and of itself, Schuster & Carpenter's "Patterns That Connect," is intended for more than casual students of anthropological beauty  Those even more serious about the discipline will want to check out the monumental work from which "Patterns" is derived, the 1986 "Materials for the Study of Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art," which consists of twelve books in three volumes. Alibris is a good place to start your search.

New Paintings...from left to right ... sun, 4 silhouettes, crucifix, 4 silhouettes, with angel flying

Stain dyed....

 New paintings on PAPER...(leather looking paper) loved this exploration