The New Inspirational Movement

Photograph for oil painting called “Wondering” 2008

Today I dream of a Counter Pop Evolution, where Artists concern themselves with their origins instead of mass productions. I want art to slow down to a snail’s pace so that I can really really think….

Slow Art
Art that is made with loving hands….Like you used to do when you were a kid…working with your father on a craft project like building a car…or with your mother like building a cake…
You know…art that takes time to make.

Now I have time to appreciate!

They are two different places in which I exist so differently:
One is public, the other is private.
One is passionate, the other is pensive
One is objective, the other is subjective
One is secular, the other is spiritual.
But one thing that they both share in, is that they will always be separate but united.

Like Adam and Eve, I co exist with their legacy.

“Regalo w/Still Life” oil on wood panel 75% finished

EVE, THE FIRST LIBERATOR OF MANKIND

For had it not been for the Apple that Eve gave to Adam, we all would surely have remained infants of HeShe (God), hadn’t we?
God punished Eve, as the “fall guy”, with childbirth pain, monthly PMS and worry. Eve sacrificed her own freedom so that Adam could enjoy his. He fought against this injustice by God and showed his gratitude to Eve by becoming the expert in science and psychology. Continue Reading »

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“Believing “pastel on paper 45″x55″ 2008

What are our fantasies as Indigenous/Multicultural/Mulatto/Mestizo Peoples/Artists?

The history I received in public schools, the Hollywood sitcoms, tv dramas, and movies that I watched, the museums that visited, mostly iconicized and exotified Native Peoples….I enjoyed this portrayal because it mythologized us. They made us look beautiful, spiritual, strong, but always ultimately defeated, which I resented deeply. To continue seeing one’s culture as defeated, is destructive to one’s consciousness and self esteem. This was my Indigenous Reality.

Looking back at my previous art endeavors in art school, I drew and painted about my Indigenous Reality: oppressive government laws concerning women and native peoples, reproductive rights, and failed relationships with boyfriends. My Indigenous Reality was hopeless and depressing. I continued working this way for over 10 years. I think part of why I painted such things was because I couldn’t be motivated to paint unless I feel. And so the topics that I chose to paint about in those days, deeply effected me. It wouldn’t be until the late 90’s that I began to paint from my Indigenous Fantasies.
It started with the LMA Series (Little Miss Attitude Series).

Wonderwoman LMA 8.5″x11″ graphite on paper study

LMA Series was an exploration of behaviors of empowerment. The cartoon has always been a creature typical of emotion and so are women. In our chatty conversations with one another, we expose so much about ourselves, go in depth about relationships with others, go into minute details about sex, love….When we aren’t conversing, our quiet moments are psychic, still attentive to each other’s emotions, knowing what the other feels, because we collectively know what makes a woman happy and what makes her bleed…So intoxicating is this awareness, that my research was already done. All I had to do was paint. And so I did 16 paintings, 8 studies, 8 paintings trying to understand what attitude was as a factor of empowerment in us ladies…This was the beginning of Indigenous Fantasies because I was painting what what my ideal of a woman was.

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“Wind from the Sea” 1947 Tempura Painting Andrew Wyeth

“I’m not talking about subject matter but a very American quality-an indigenous thing you’re born with.”
Andrew Wyeth

I was at a used bookstore in Fort Bragg Ca, during the July 4th weekend (my second year anniversary) and found a book called The Art of Andrew Wyeth. I was captivated by the way the book was written and his paintings: the critics/historians actually put themselves into his art/shoes, speaking almost in a human spiritual way about his work…and they let the artist speak a lot. I felt like I was living thru his life, like I understood where he stood in his studio and in his world. I was never a fan of “Regional” Art. But I appreciate Andrew because of his approach to making art.

A lot of people drive thru the country and see either a picturesque beauty or nothing important. But Andrew really captured something, the feeling and reality living in a farming community. And even more importantly, there’s integrity in his work, like “this is what my environment is really like, folks.” His portraits are of his neighbors and symbolicly choses them and their landscapes to capture the remoteness, the struggle of living and the death that occurs in such a place….Their emotional power move me…And we’ll I grew up in place similar to Chads Ford Pennsylvania, where he lived, but his paintings show a time of year when his community is very stark…(I would paint Kansas differently, with more color, if I ever have the desire.) But the point is, I’ve had similar feelings he had being out in such a simple landscape: just sky and land, the vastness of it to wander, ponder, to dream…When I read his book, I had a memory of Kansas when I was a child:

“Looking out the window of a car, driving on a single road. The tall prairie grass moving like liquid gold…
The car pulls up the driveway. We get out. I go to the backyard to find something to do. A chainlink fence, a dog house, a tree…A plane flys over me… Its distant motor makes a sound so sad that I’m reminded it’s Sunday…
Sundays are sad, because they are the end of a weekend, family and friends leave and I have to go back to school alone…”

Me

I love the nostalgia more than the reality of Kansas….which is why I can’t return. I’d have to go thru another nepantla to get there, and I can only handle one at a time…. Continue Reading »

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The Artist circa 1978 with Cartoon Snake Print

Rene Trujillo and I have been having a discussion about nepantla, an Indigenous word meaning “torn between two ways”, and two visionaries, Carlos Fuentes and Gloria Anzaldua. Our conversation has inspired me to write this post after two sleepless nights.

I first want to say that much of what has been on my mind is about self definition as a person and an artist. For all of my life, I have been very tight lipped about this because I was afraid of being seen as a narcissistic and arrogant artist. So I strayed from myself and focused on what was going on around me, family, government and politics, things that I had no direct control over, and used my art as a tool to express my opinions about thoses forces. In 1992, I read “Toward a New Consciousness” by Gloria Anzaldua, which gave me direction in order to emerge as an artist. Because of her writing and the injustices in the strip clubs, I completed my first body of art “My Life as a Comic Stripper.”* This solo show was my “coming out” show in the artworld. I emerged as a fledgling artist and as a result, I ended up in Bay Area Now in 1997. Around 2000, I began to feel a need for some kind of change. But I wouldn’t take the initiative until last year after a trip to Sante Fe, where the Native Americans at the Institute of American Indian Arts, turned me onto a book called “Relations Indigenous Dialogues”. This book is highly intelligent, visionary (something I find greatly lacking in the artworld today, where are the great art critics of color? artists of color/philosophers of color????), and boldy opinionated (something lacking in many young artists today.)

Front Cover of Relations Indigenous Dialogue 2006

While reading the book, I realized that I was an intellectual artist and that I desired to establish myself in the artworld, against the concerns of my fellow artists friends who’s fears were:

“not to suck up and sell out”,”fuck the critics”, “why do you want to move to New York?” and “art is just a job, it’s not a life”…

I didn’t respond to them. But in my mind, I thought to myself, “how can an artist live up to his/her potential with such bad attitudes toward art?” Why are we so willing to sabotage ourselves?

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“Pequeña” Cartoon Study Color Pencil on Colored Paper 2005

The cartoon is the new figurative. It is more unique than any other type of figure because it has the potential to exist in two realms at the same time. In one realm, it is created subconsciously: doodling, noodling until it forms into something. This subconscious way of drawing, is Ancient and leads to supernatural imagination.

Huichol Art made of yarn and wax on board (date unknown)
The second realm is mathematical because it is based on proportions. Proportions are formulas and techniques that require conscious thinking. Conscious thinking is Classical and it leads to a realistic imagination.

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Tuesday April 17th 2007 in my living room

I’m writing out of frustration today. I’m getting ready to give an artist talk at California State University Northridge and it’s been difficult. I had done a previous talk at Stanford University and it sucked. It sucked because I tried to conceal my fears and contradictions.

The power point presentation looks nice. I’m covering a lot of material only my last 10 years as an artist…. I have cut back considerably, but I don’t want to loose my evolution. I want them to feel what its really like to be an artist, not that romantic bullshit that we read in popular culture magazines and websites.

The presentation has to be about an hour long. I press record and I begin speaking about my art to see if I’m within the hourly limit. It’s close, about 45 minutes. I rewind and press play to hear myself speak and all I hear is the tension in my voice, my own vulnerability and I am embarrassed. I try to think of Jimi Hendrix, Quinten Tarantino, Micheal Basquit and Tupak Shakur, how loud, quite, jittery, arrogant, they were/are…they had/have a strange quirkiness in them…I don’t know if it’s the drugs or nerves? a mental condition? or maybe just that’s the way they are….

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Clay Figurine w Nicole’s Necklace: Idea for Collaboration 4-6-2007

Hey Nicole, I wanted to respond to your messages. I’m curious what your ideas are in terms of a collaboration. I thought I might share mine with you…

You: (Thru my observation) I thought a lot of your style: glittery, crafty, decorative?, pop. There’s a sculptural element to your work, working with objects and fashioning them into “creative things”. I have seen your jewelry that you have made for sale. Doing jewelry seemed like a logical step in your art making process….

I remember you talking about a “church” that you go to on Sundays? Do you like religion?

Me: I thought alot about my style: cartoon, classical (old school), anti pop.

I am not a practicing Christian, but I appreciate religion because of it’s ritual and how it gave artists opportunities to interpret it’s stories…Also, I’m going Ancient these days and ancient art was created for ritualistic/spiritual reasons…You, know, jewerly is a very ancient art and has history with religion too…

I feel a kinship between your jewerly and my figurines: they can be modern or they can be ancient. It’s endless!
Us: Perhaps our theme could be religion/spirituality? Would you be interested in creating our own religion(belief system) thru our art? Maybe each cartoon figurine and each piece of jewelry can mean something? Would they be symbolic? Storytelling? What do you think? And what about materials? Clay? Wood? Pewter?

Isis

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“Woman with Bokken” Photo by David Perry 2006

Been thinking a lot about why am I drawing masked women in lingerie and military jackets? Why has this masked woman been with me for so long since I first performed her in 1998? The critique that I had a month ago in my classical realism class keeps playing in my head. Before I explain why it was important, I want to rewind to about six months ago in October at the Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire.

October 2006 The Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire
Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire sits on the east Bay at the former Alameda Point Naval Air Station. It’s Northern California’s largest antiques and collectibles show with over 800 outdoor dealers selling their merchandise on the first Sunday of every month. I went early in the morning in search of nice looking antique furniture for our newly remodeled home. There were all kinds of unique distractions and one of them was at an area where a Korean War vet was selling all kinds of military uniforms and patches. He was a tall elderly man, big square glasses with a piece of his nose missing. I was looking around at the jackets, checking out the medals, the patches, the pins wondering what it all meant. I kept staring at this one jacket and he told me that it was a French Foreign Legion Jacket. He pointed to one medal pinned to the right pocket and explained that the man once wore this jacket served in Rhodesia, Africa. He pointed at a pin with wings and told me that he was also a paratrooper. The red cord wrapped around the shoulder meant he was a captain. I stared at the piece of clothing for a long time. I could tell by the fabric, the stitching, the satin lining and the pleats around the waist, that a lot of effort went into the making of this jacket. He kept encouraging me to try it on, but I was reluctant, as I didn’t feel right about it. Someone else earned all these medals, and we’ll I didn’t want to pretend like it was Halloween. After a while, I did try the jacket on, and it hung snug around my curves. I stared into the mirror at myself, looking at all the medals. As a woman, I have never worn a piece of clothing that was symbolic of my accomplishments. I tried to think of clothing that might have significance, and of course, I thought of a wedding dress. But still, I looked into the mirror and I didn’t feel like myself again. There was conflict inside of me about buying such a meaningful piece of clothing. I decided to wait and focus on the furniture. But an hour later, I found myself staring at the jacket again from afar. The Korean Vet waved at me and the next thing I knew I was leaving the flea market with a jacket and no furniture.

“Woman with Bokken” Charcoal Study Febuary 2007 Isis Rodriguez

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Hello everybody,
For the last few weeks, I’ve been unpacking boxes and reorganizing my studio. Since the remodel, most of my art supplies and books have been in storage. While I was unpacking, I rediscovered 3 boxes that contained my comic book collection! As I was putting them on my shelf, I realized how much I had missed them and how much they influenced my art back in the 90’s. I stopped and thumbed threw the graphic pages of several artist’s imaginations and decided to post my favorite ones.

Antonio Prohias creator of Spy vs Spy 1961-?

Antonia Prohías of Spy vs Spy was one of my favorite cartoon strips when I was an adolescent. Antonia left Cuba after Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1960 and in 1961 began the first strips of Spy vs Spy in MAD Magazine. According to the book, Spy vs Spy: The Complete Casebook, the strip was a commentary on the Cold War and each character represented two cold warring countries. I of course didn’t know this as a kid going to public school in Topeka Kansas in the 70’s when I first started reading comics. If anything, I think the two characters reminded me of the way kids picked on each other, obsessed with each other’s inadequacies.

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“Contemplating” Detail of Charcoal Study w/Cartoon Isis Rodriguez 2007

“It requires the work of each and everyone, to unearth this desire to belong to the self in community as part of a radical project- not to be confused with the self-preoccupation on which individualism thrives. Self-determination is both an individual and collective project.”

M. Jacqui Alexander
From her essay: Remembering This Bridge, Remembering Ourselves: Yearning, Memory and Desire

Dear Artists of NIM,

The posting of my first attempt to define Anti Pop has hurt and offended some of you. This was not my intent. My intent was to provoke discussion so that me/we were able to define Anti Pop more clearly. Thanks for your comments and I hope that more artists will respond.

I realized that Anti Pop cannot be a “movement”…. yet? It’s an assumption that puts the cart before the horse. But it’s a dream….Fortunately, I will continue to call myself Anti Pop.

I picked on Pop Artists in order to distinguish myself from them. So far, I’ve decided on two reasons for not being a Pop Artist:

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