Blog

He estado colaborando con COSTASALVAjE en varios proyectos de Diseño.  En su página puedes ver todo lo que hacen por nuestra costa californiania, y toda la vida que en ella habita.  Estoy encantada de estar trabajando con ellos, y recientemente doné ésta pequeña obra para su subasta de recaudación de fondos.

Green, blue, now - Acrylic on Canvas.

No voy a hablar de él, pero voy a mostrar los bocetos.

Normalmente son poses de 20 minutos, a veces hago puro cochinero, pero a veces salen unas lindas:

Grafito y Conté Blanco sobre Papel Kraft

Grafito y Conté Blanco sobre Papel Kraft

Tinta (pluma punto fino) y Prismacolor

A while back I showed in LA with two other artists whom I´d never met.

One of them was a multimedia artist from Basel, Switzerland, named Sebastian Mundwiler.  That´s ok, I didn´t really know the place either before he mentioned it.  Whenever I meet someone so foreign to my own existence, more than halfway across the world I think, I am usually very curious as to what his life might be like.  Luckily, over the next three days we (me and my husband) got to know Sebastian rather well.  We all stayed at our friend and gallery owner´s place so we had to share a bathroom, breakfast, and rides, since we were all touring around the city.

Sebastian, looking serious on the History Museum.

We went together to visit museums which meant long rides on the car, there is no other way in LA.  And so we talked a lot.  We realized we had much in common, and I much liked Sebastian’s honest and warm smile and interesting conversations.

He’s been around, and his work is very multidisciplinary, and very much thought inducing.  I loved the piece he presented on the group show, but mostly, I like the way he approaches art.

Here is Sebastian in his own words:

I know you’ve been around and have had some other jobs before going head on in to art. When did you know (or how) that you wanted to be an artist? What drove you?

I was always a kid with a huge fantasy. So I was never bored or less entertained during my childhood. There where always so many things to do and discover. Unfortunately
the days where always to short to do anything what I wanted to do in one single day. It is the same for me today. I have never enough time, but I have to take my time and decide
how to manage it. My goal was always to look for a situation and profession where I could combine all my different interests to be satisfied with life.
For this reason I quit the school and tried myself in different professions as: electrician, painter, bricklayer, vintner, farmer, salesman, gardener, tinker, musician, DJ, sounddesigner,
mixer, waiter, barkeeper and finally Chef de Bar and trainer for cocktails and gastronomie products. But I was not happy at all!
I started to study in a academy about post-industrial-design and project-management. After one terme I was completely down. So I tryed to understand what I need to chance in my live.
I tryed to find the problem and its roots. I rembered myself on my childhood and how much I was into doing some kind of art in a way. Why did I stopped doing that? The answer is: I had
fear to get lost and I needed to assure myself to do something “useful” as my father would say.
In the end I found out there is a word for all the things I want to do and expectations I have to the world: It’s Art! That incredibly simple!
Doing art means to me the best solution to deal with live, faith, work and time. It’s not something about dreaming, fullfilling destiny or romantic expectations.
I never wanted to be an artist as I was never a big fan of the artworld as it is often very elitist. But I was never happier before I realised I need to be an artist as all my expectations on
live starts to fullfilling itself from the moment on I started to do art.

I need to learn a better english also

You are a trained artist, studying in Switzerland. What is the orientation of your studies? What I mean to say is: is your Art School a classical, academic oriented faculty, or is it more inclined to contemporary exploration?

All the artschools in Switzerland are dealing with contemporary art in a very open but academic way. The way of teaching art is not related to a media (drawing class, sculpture, new media…)
but it’s related to a topic and, or to a theoretical context or background.

What is your day like? Aside from the fact that you have to eat and all that mundane stuff.

In the morning time I like to do all the boring stuff I have to do like office work, cleaning the studio, fix broken stuff and so on… For that I need a lot of coffee as usual.
Then I go running with a barkeeper in the neighbourhood, followed by a good meal. Now I start my artistic work. First I make a list of things I want to do and things I have to do or I complete the list I made the day before.
Now I work till 7pm and I start working again at 9pm till midnight or later. It depends the amount of work I have. When I have a deadline to finish a work, there is no schedule at
all, just working 24h on 7 days and a lot junkfood and beer. But I try to avoid that as good as I can as it is not healthy at all and it makes me feel sick.
My biggest problem in organising my daily life is the fact I love the night in the same way as early morning. I used to sleep only 4 to 6 hours in the last 10 years. Recently I changed that as I didn’t felt comfortable with
this anymore. So I sleep now up to 9h a day which leads me to the problem I mentioned before. I have to decide between the night or the early morning. Ufff

Do you create your works ‘on demand’? for example, for a gallery, or for a certain show, or are you constantly creating pieces and just present them afterwards? I guess this question would be better frased as: “What is your process?”

I have a lot of works which are not fully finished but presented in the portfolio. I finish them on demand. Then I have sometimes works on demand in sound design which is not part of my artistic work.
In my artistic work I try to work constantly on my ideas and series. If I finished a lot and there is nothing to do, what is a very rare case, I just start reading in my sketchbook or watching my video notes… there are always many things!
I will not be able to do all the stuff which is already in my head…

What is the hardes part of being an artist and having your work seen and judged?

To keep in mind my personal vision from which I would be lead in my work not to much from ordinary opinions.
I like to see my work judged and I try to take this part as an interesting surplus of my artistic work.

And finally, who are your favorite artists? Current or dead, doesn’t matter.

Bruce Naumann, Bill Viola, Pablo Picasso, Gary Hill, Friedrich Dürrenmatt (writer from switzerland), Lucius Burckhard, Plato, Douglas R. Hofstadter (americ. scientist) and a lot of art making friends!

This is the piece Sebastian presented in L.A.  It was a very immersing experience, but put on your headphones and play it full screen for a while and you’ll get the idea.

“die Rolltreppe” from basil eidenbenz on Vimeo.

And you can read about his project, which is a very unique view on the landscape and plants (he was, after all a gardener as well!) “On the Metaphor of Growth” here

La pasada semana estuve inmersa en un taller intensivo – El Paisaje Intervenido- por el maestro Alfredo de Stéfano.

Su trabajo es por demás inspirador e impresionante, y el taller me confrontó con los espacios abiertos y silenciosos que no suelo explorar normalmente en mi obra.  Especialmente impresionante fué la salida a Laguna Salada, un grande valle de arena salitrosa dónde nada crece, que abruma con su presencia y te hace sentir agoraphilia (no busquen la palabra, no existe pero significa ‘amor a  los espacios abriertos’).

La idea de intervenir un espacio de manera congruente es complicada.  A continuación mis ejercicios, que no lo logran del todo pero han iniciado una pequeña revuelta en mi manera de crear, y de explorar la soledad.

Las primeras dos fotos fueron tomadas en el inicio del Valle de los Cirios, las siguientes en Laguna Salada, y los títulos en referencia a Los Jardines Secretos de Mogador, de Alberto Ruy Sánchez.

Los Dedos del Sol - Fingers of the Sun

Mis Plantas se Alegran - My Plants Rejoice

La Supuesta Naturalidad II - The Supposed Naturalness II

La Supuesta Naturalidad I - The Supposed Naturalness I

Ayer hicimos un estudio de la figura en movimiento.

Qué bonitos son los cuerpos humanos.

Aunque a veces no.

Análisis de figuras en movimiento, de Ynés Guevara.

Alguien me prestó ésto con rollo.

Gracias.

Agfa de Eric. Grafito sobre Papel.

El fotógrafo Steven Hirsch tiene un proyecto fotodocumental acerca de los nómadas urbanos de NY, East Village.  Las fotos están … poquito buenas? Unas muy buenas pues, otras ..meh, y en general el proyecto me parece un poco gastado (ya saben: ‘Been There, Done That’ aunque: ‘Not Really I haven’t'), pero debo confesar que soy adicta a leerlo.  Muy buenos quotes y brevarios de sabiduría callejera.

Mis favoritos:

I’ve gone three and a half months without a shower before. Doesn’t bother me. Why would you have to buy body odor? You make it. I get really mad at people who yell at me on the bus. You know you fucking smell like a chemical you bought in the store. I smell like what? What God wanted me to smell like. If your God wanted me to smell like flowers under my armpits, fucking flower smell would come out of my armpits. No, this is the smell that comes out. The only reason you can smell it is you’re so busy trying to cover it up.

y también:

I’m not gonna be that home bum. Someday I’ll do something. I just don’t know when. I’m not gonna be a home bum, dude you know living under some fucking bridge when I’m like forty five years old.

It’s a way to live, definitely not a way to die if that makes any sense.

y luego:

Then I wake up and he’s like, “Baby I lost a bag of heroin.” And I’m like, “God damn it.You lost. Ok you lost it mother fucker, yeah you lost it.” He’s wasted. So I go back to sleep. I wake up and “Jahni your boyfriends getting arrested.”

priceless:

And I’m always surrounded by a bunch of, I don’t want to say idiots, but people I sometimes worry about their intelligence.

Pero luego hay uno y otro muy triste y quiero llorar y eso y tengo que cerrar la página :C

Sí, sí, ya sé que young Paul Neumann está papito, pero: Ya vieron ese perro? Fucking Adorable.

Ensenada ArtWalk de Julio, hoy mero.  Lléguenle sin miedo!

El próximo Viernes 5 de Agosto a las 7:30pm se inaugura la exposición individual de Alejandro Martínez-Peña, ReVerdeCe, en la Sala Muñoz Acosta de CEARTE Ensenada.

La obra de Alejandro es caprichosa y armónica a la vez, y siempre he admirado mucho su excelente manejo de la técnica y los materiales.  Sólo viéndola aprendí que hay muchos muchos mediums y posibilidades para trabajar con el acrílico.  Además, lo quiero muchísimo y lo admiro también en lo personal…. además en su casa tienen un basset hound hermoso que se llama Hobbie y que se alcanza a ver en la foto, echado afuerita de la puerta.

http://www.martinez-pena.com/2010/

Save the Date!