Untitled (A Blog)

Unsolved Case of the Vertig-Oh no's, 2017. Acrylic and latex paints, wax marker, ribbon, shoelaces, laundry detergent cap and other found objects on wood with linoleum. 40” x 30” x 9”. Photo courtesy of Derek Macario. This! Here's an excerpt from a humbling interview with self-described “itinerant” Colombian-American artist Kat Geng: Kat Geng (KG): "... I did an installation called "If I Had a Bathroom" on a 16-foot box truck in a parking lot at The Parking Lot Art Fair. That was really exciting to me because it was the beginning of me experimenting with shared experiences and immersive installations. We live in all these people’s homes and it’s very intimate. I live among all of their belongings, I have a good sense, not of every aspect of their lives, but certain things that are generally more private. And we’re total strangers. They’re not friends, often they become friends but they don’t usually start as friends. And I was thinking what is one of

Check out the interviews I did with Grace Rosario Perkins and Kat Geng here !

Photo (and caption) from the article: "Cesar Cueva flashes a black light to reveal the images of 'Natasha McKenna,' 'Rosann Miller,' 'Monique Deckard,' 'Raynette Turner,' and 'Redel Jones' (2016) by Danielle Wright at the SOMArts 'Shifting Movements' exhibition" And an excerpt: Other pieces seem almost unrelated at all, until you begin to understand the intersectional work Kochiyama pioneered. A beautiful and heartbreaking section of the show, #SayHerName, is presented in complete darkness. Danielle Wright has created 100 portraits of black women and girls who have “come into contact with structural racism and state violence via law enforcement.” The portraits, small, but detailed, were done with invisible ink. To see them, you have to walk through the space with a black-light flashlight. The symbolism, that one has to go looking for these women, is immediate, and so is the feeling that this is something Kochiyama would s

I had the good pleasure of speaking with Miss Wanda Sabir this morning on her radio show Wanda's Picks. Ms. Sabir is a writer radio host, and teacher who runs the site Wanda's Picks , which she describes as a black events resource. Check out the whole episode here:

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” -Toni Morrison Black Women's History Month is a sustained meditation on the historical, political, social, and cultural contributions of of black women in the U.S. I hatched this project idea after years of being fed up with the lack of representation of Black Women during both #BlackHistoryMonth and #WomensHistoryMonth so I approached a few artists to collaborate with me to do something about that. My collaborators Brian Hayes , Joseph Omolayole , and Joseph "J.D." Green created over 50 portraits between the three of them! They shared their incredible work with their studio mates and with friends and others via social media. Check it out on Brian's , Joseph's and J.D.'s instagram pages. I painted one portrait each day for a total of 59 works (check them out on my insta page ) throughout February, or Black history month, and March, Women's his

Honored to be a part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama (1921-2014) at SOMArts! Organized by Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC), the multidisciplinary exhibition is part of the United States of Asian America Festival opening at SOMArts on Thursday, May 4. Put succinctly, the exhibit "[h]onor[s] Kochiyama’s intended legacy of inspiring people to 'build bridges, not walls,' Shifting Movements artists invite audiences to make connections between the past, present, and future — and each other." On view May 4–25, 2017, with an opening reception on Thursday, May 4, 6–9pm. Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Friday 12–7pm & Saturday 12–5pm. Where: 934 Brannan Street (between 8th and 9th), San Francisco Check out the SOMArts page about the exhibition here for more info.

I Like Purple (D6506), Sara Malpass, 2014. The last of my trio of features on art studios in the Bay Area for adults with developmental differences. Here's an excerpt from my profile of NIAD or Nurturing Independence through Artistic Development Art Center (formerly The National Institute of Art and Disabilities) for Nat. Brut: "In the ceramic area, I make my way over to speak with a woman named Karen May, who informs me that she was a little girl before she was born. Puzzled, I say to her, “That sounds complicated,” and she continues her story unphased, without further explanation. Apparently, sometimes her brother comes to take her out for lunch dates. When I ask her where she is from, I don’t get a clear answer. This bob-and-weave continues as our stream of consciousness conversation winds around. We talk about how she cares about people being nice to her. She informs me that she wants other people not to bother her while she’s making work. I ask if our conversation

Dave’s (or Dave Bowie’s) Goblin King of the Labryinth Pie, Yukari Sakura, 2016. Linking to my Nat. Brut essay about Yukari Sakura , an artist at Creativity Explored via CE's blog. An excerpt: During our interview for this piece, Sakura’s gift for storytelling is evident. It is as distinctive as it is remarkable. Her mind seems to zoom a mile a minute to fantastical realms I can barely fathom — one moment dropping knowledge bombs about endangered Siberian tigers, and the next spinning a fanciful love story between a winged elk and a fictional autistic woman. Fantastic creatures including unicorns, fairies, mermaids, and centaurs make regular appearances in her tales. Her excitement is infectious but sometimes makes her tales hard to follow. Throughout our dialogue, I notice that she often provides a magnificent “how” but struggles to give a satisfactory “why.” This is endearingly summed up for me when our conversation turns to The Da Vinci Code, a film from 2003 starring Tom

Finally! I've been threatening to start this thing up for AGES so here we go :-) In an ideal world, I'd write/post once a week on Wednesdays but, seeing as this is the real world where crazy, unforeseen complications sometimes occur (DT is President, y'all) I'm not going to hold to fast to that. Thought I'd start things off easy with some writing I did earlier this year. I submitted three pieces for Nat. Brut, an online "journal of art and literature dedicated to advancing inclusivity in all creative fields." This essay is about a woman, Ms. Rosena Finister, who works at Creative Growth in Oakland: A Little Birdie Told Me .