Here in the Bay Area of California life continues with very little change as the seasons shifted from summer to fall to early winter. If your life involves school there’s that big seasonal change. If not, things just keep moving and the quality of the light changes a bit, it gets dark too early, there’s an added crispness in the air, there’s often wildfire smoke in the air too, and this year, it meant that we were catapulting into the election. Whew. I am relieved and yet the work ahead is massive. Enough said.
My thrust on the state of humanity of late focuses on what I call “the invisibility factor”. There’s plenty to look at there! So this blog post features the first group show by The Invisibility Collective and invited artists in December. The piece below will be part of my installation – which you may write on if you come see the show in person!
Obliterated drawing of the inspiring model Kyla in an aerial dance pose with limbs wrapped in her silks. This 36” square print (Ed 1/1/) is on archival paper and will appear in the show hung on a wall that is contiguous with my new series of five 8’ long hanging sheer panels. There will be little pencils there too so you can write directly onto the print.
FALL FEATURES
The Invisible Collective Exhibition “SEEN X UNSEEN” Opens Sat, Dec 5, Noon-6pm, at the Radian Gallery (SF)
Virtual & In-person Open Studios
The Zoom Drawing Experience
Being Censored Becomes an Exhibition
Seen x Unseen – The Invisible Collective’s Inaugural Exhibition
WHO WE ARE
The Invisibility Collective is a collaborative group of nationally acclaimed artists, curators, and social activists exploring the deep experiences and complexity of the concept of Invisibility. Our varied backgrounds help bring our mission to life – to make change through artistic activism, and specifically, by making invisible people visible.
SHOW OPENING
We are having our first exhibition. I hope some of you will be able to visit Radian Gallery (SF) in-person. The first two Saturdays of December we’re are having several types of opening events (Covid may affect all this so check back) including art talks by Collective Member Artists Lonnie Graham, Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen, and more. Make an appointment now to see the show as occupancy will be extremely limited and timed. The rest of the month the show will be accessible by appointment and we will have an online version for those who can’t make it in-person.
“Dissolving” will be in the show with four other 8’ long panels on chiffon that you may walk through.
BACKGROUND
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
This exhibition looks at various ways that people express their feelings about being seen and not being seen and the intersection of the two worlds. We are exploring the many aspects of what it means to be invisible and presenting ways of becoming more aware of how this status affects us. Each of the collective’s members has asked questions about their experiences with invisibility.
Our inner community is expanding to include a slightly larger outer community circle. Together and individually we are exploring this intersection of being seen and unseen. The Invisibility Collective and invited guest artists are assembling an exhibition that is the culmination of months of virtual “Covid conversations” from the West Coast to the East Coast of the USA.
The ideas that form the foundation of the collective preceded Covid, but have not surprisingly grown to encompass elements and results of the prolonged pandemic. How often and in how many ways do these words come up in your own conversation? As we’ve probed these ideas sparks have flown and intangible becomes more tangible. We are peeling away layers to look beneath the obvious – to reveal – and to reflect through an art experience that peaks the senses. Questions are raised. Answers are discussed. It is experiential.
As The Invisibility Collective Founder, I’ll be showing a new digital original collage, “Appear/Disappear”, a 36” square print on archival paper to be positioned next to my floor-to-ceiling chiffon panels.
“Seen x Unseen” is the intersectionality of two ideas. “X” means so many things: It is an iconic symbol that is both the unknown and the intersection and it is a multiplier. Invisibility can be applied to the entire gambit of sociological, economic, political, and personal conditions and perceptions.
In this exhibit we have created new works, pulled from our personal archives, and invited artists from our broader communities to bring bold their statements into the public eye and to be seen, felt, and explored.
Invisibility Collective Members
Lonnie Graham
Susan R. Kirshenbaum
Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen
Samira Shaheen
Angela Tirrell
Invited Artists
Mary Graham
Sophia Green
Rell Rushin
Sawyer Rose
John Stone
Christopher M. Tandy (Courtesy of Glass Rice Gallery, SF)
Nancy Willis
Invited artist Nancy Willis’ Syria Dangling, a photopolymer 3-plate monoprint, 17”x16”, 2020.
Collective Member Samira Shaheen’s mixed media piece, Crossover, is in the show next month.
Image by Sawyer Rose as part of her installation, Force of Nature: Bety,
Invited artist Sawyer Rose’s installation, Force of Nature: Bety, will be in “Seen X Unseen”. (Both images above)It is from her series FOR NEITHER LOVE NOR MONEY-Women’s Invisible Labor/http://www.carrying-stones.com/
Invited artist, Rell S. Rushin’s, Onward, is an acrylic painting on canvas, 36”x24” in “Seen X Unseen”.
Invited Bay Area artist Sophia Green will be showing Isolation: Alone We Stand Alone We Fall, an oil painting on canvas, 31”x31”.
Sophia Green will also be showing Private: How Much Do You Reveal How Much Do I Hide, an oil painting on canvas, 37”x49”.
Christopher M. Tandy’s Into the Threshold, Into the Hum, installation is a sample image of his work. Courtesy Glass Rice Gallery
Christopher M. Tandy, assorted drawings - graphite on paper is a sample image – not the actual work in the show. Courtesy Glass Rice Gallery.
The Invisibility Collective Member Angela Tirrell at work in her Napa stdio.
Collective Member Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen’s, Of What You Cannot See From What You Cannot Look Away, 2020 (working title), a site-specific altar and sculptures. Dimensions variable (this installation approx. 6 x 6 x 6 feet). This is a sample image – not the actual work in the show.
The art process video of me drawing this Barcelona model was just removed from YouTube.
ARGH! I’M BEING CENSORED
It’s true. I’m shocked. But I really am being censored. Recently YouTube has changed/automated their algorithms so that they “capture” my videos and disallow them. Which means that they either remove my videos and/or make them unavailable to anyone who is not over 18 years old. Here’s a letter I recently sent to YouTube to try to get them to reinstate my art process videos, and in fact they did reinstate one video (of several):
“I am a figurative artist who works on an iPad Pro in Procreate. This app records me making art and helps me provide demonstrations for both art students and established artists. That's why they are called “art process videos". They are teaching / demonstration tools. There is nothing inappropriate about the subject matter. It is not sexual or explicit. These are works made working with professional art models – as is the standard in the art and teaching world. Museums and art galleries welcome the public at large – of all ages. Why censor my work? Why target me – an artist? My work is never violent or sexual.”
I find this topic terribly fascinating! It is a despicable situation. How can this happen in the USA in 2020? It is fascinating that the social media world is so restrictive about benign works of art.
There is a crazy censorship issue involving female nipples – evidently not just in photos but in drawings too. Um, have you ever been to a European beach?
This drawing of Kyla encountered the female “Nipple Rule”. I might have key worded in “trans” and set off an alarm.
My art process video displayed below was removed. I disputed it (see my letter) and they put it back. Other art process videos…I was not able to get reinstated. Most of those that were questioned were re-assigned to an 18+ age requirement. I understand parents not wanting their kids to watch violence or porn, but this is neither. Take it up with me? Send me a note.
Remember when the NEA was in a panic over the performance artist Karen Finley? Amidst the dirty politics of the the current presidency I am having to fight for my freedom of expression to show how I draw a model. There is the ugliest, nastiest, most violent, utterly untrue noise around me, in Tweets, and on Fox News. And here I am, just drawing. Nothing vile. Nothing frightening. Nothing damaging. Not even creepy or disturbing…
YOUTUBE SAYS THIS:
Don’t post content on YouTube if it has any of the items below. Explicit content featuring the below policy violations could result in channel termination.
Depiction of genitals, breasts, or buttocks (clothed or unclothed) for the purpose of sexual gratification
Pornography depicting sexual acts, genitals, or fetishes for the purpose of sexual gratification
This story also makes me want to link to an interview I gave for a writer friend earlier this year, “Why I draw nudes”.
To be fair, this is not just about YouTube’s censorship. It is a general observation about a conservative shift that’s been going on for decades. Here’s a conversation that was relayed to me recently of an early modeling trauma from a model/teacher/artist friend: “Artist: Why are you showing us your stuff? Model: What do you mean? Artist: Please close your legs so I don’t have to see that or draw it!”
“Titania is Reflective” is a piece in the SFWA show about this theme.
I used my bathing suit-clad models for my VOTE series so they would be fully accessible on RedBubble and not behind a wall of for Adults Only.
WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT THIS?
From my new series of diptychs here is With/Without: Abby.
Every time I turn around my work is being censored. This experience is helping me form a new exhibition concept. I’ve begun work on a solo show “Women & Censorship: Imposed/Self-Imposed” (a working title). I’ll open in March of 2021 and I’ll also host several artist’s conversations on this topic. The exhibition will take place at The Misho Gallery – where I have my studio – in the Sobel Design Building. Opening day is Dec 5.
SF Open Studios – Virtual & In-Person
The annual Artspan Open Studios were so different this year! Well, they had to change or not have them at all. So Artspan re-organized the whole thing, and although I was sad that with an actual studio for the first time I was not able to have a regular open studio as people did pre-covid, I too worked around our limitations.
Participant artists had virtual Open Studios for several hours on assigned days. I chose to conduct my session in the Artist Salon at SFWA in front of a wall of art.
MY VENUES
At SFWA the Artspan Open Studios Live Virtual Event ended and an in-person Welcome event began.
Fellow artists visit SFWA’s Artist Salon Gallery at the in-person Welcome for “Abstract Thinking”.
At my in-person one-on-one Open Studio visit. This is the gallery portion of my studio (on loan from Misho Gallery) at the Sobel Design Center. I filled the whole space with my work. I hope to have a show here in Spring 2021.
My art friend and patron Kris visiting my studio during Open Studios. She’s wearing my art mask and leggings titled Woman on Fire!
At the home of my buyer after delivering The Situation, from my SFWA show, the “Word Series”.
ZOOM DRAWING SESSIONS
Starting in the Covid Spring of 2020 artists and models began organizing virtual drawing sessions to accommodate models’ lost wages and to maintain artists’ drawing routines. Like any exercise, we require frequency and continuity of our practice.
A model drawing from a live and a virtual session held in my old home, Barcelona.
Some folks who never drew the figure and had lots of time on their hands while sheltering decided to take it up. Now it’s incredibly popular!
Janique M. Bailey is a Berlin-based American model (artist and dancer too) who is utterly thrilling to draw. Her look is inspired by Grace Jones. The drawing group that hired her for this session is based in London.
Titania is a fantastic Bay Area model who runs her own sessions. I have been totally inspired by her spirit and her impossibly athletic poses.
Alluris, aka “the alluring one” is a charismatic Bay Area model I was lucky to get to draw for many months of Covid sheltering. Loved her DJ music too.
There are many types of drawing groups around the world and they hire all sorts of models (or models organize themselves), and provide instructed or uninstructed sessions, plus they all make it easy for online payments, and when it’s safe in one country/city or another, they also open their doors again to scaled-back, masked in-person sessions.
An unintended advantage of the virtual session: Models are often wearing underwear or bathing suits - and this is because they feel unprotected by such easy access. This trend makes virtual drawing session art more appealing to a broader audience who might not buy a nude.
I created this multiple piece called “Embrace inspired by the graceful and expressive model and dancer Lael.
Art model Bibi is also Bay Area based. We have a wealth of talent right here!
Amanda is multi-talented and loves a good theatrical costume and/or theme. This was her dark angel.
Kyla, on the East Coast, is an aerial performer. Drawings of her dangling are the basis for my latest ceiling-to-floor panels for my Dec show, “Seen x Unseen”.
Yup, that’s her rifle over the fireplace in Victoria, BC.
Trying out drawing groups on Zoom, sometimes they describe and promote the model and sometimes not. I forgot to check who this group’s model was going to be. I admit to being less inspired by some models than others. That said, I like how this drawing turned out.
“Ruth” is a portrait I made in a virtual session billed as drawing an “older woman”. So many models are young and beautiful, yet it feels odd to know that the pitch is to have a chance to draw an older person. This idea ties directly back to my thinking about The Invisibility Collective and Grace of no Age.
PEOPLE I KNOW
My San Francisco drawing group, led by John Goodman, and who I’ve mentioned in reference to our ongoing heads and hands studies, has met for many years two nights a week. We’ve maintained our core group throughout Covid through Zoom sessions where we draw each other while chatting and sipping. My drawing group has multiple participants who are both artists and models. Modeling helps an artist understand poses by feeling them. It’s all great exercise for me – the challenge of capturing a likeness or gesture of someones’ hands.
“Alex & his New Recorder”, is an avid life drawing group artist as well as a model. I’ve never known anyone to draw as frequently in figure drawing sessions as he does.
“Barbara” is a drawing I kept working on after my Drawing Group session ended. Now it can be found at the SFWA gallery in the Nov show, “Reflective”.
“Dwight Leaning Back”
AMUSEMENTS
A friend who is not afraid to wear color (in the form of my art clothes) or display figurative art.
I keep adding more art to RedBubble shop so that you too can find what you like and apply it to clothes, notebooks, whatever and buy it directly. The way that it works is I choose the product and apply my art and scale it as I wish. I get a commission from your purchases. You get your order directly from the website.
As the pandemic deepens we are staying home and not going into stores. I see this as an excellent time to amuse ourselves with a bit of arty shopping.
If you haven’t joined a book club yet, now’s the time. I’m reading Milkman for my book group. And I just read my friend Marta Acosta’s newly completed manuscript for Mad Dog Down the Road. This is the second book in the series. What a thrill! I can’t get over the fact that I have a friend who writes books that I love to read!
I took two ferris wheel rides last week! What a fantastic view. Somehow it felt like Paris overlooking two museums, a bandshell, and fountains. The sky was gorgeous both days. Check it out here.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
It’s so hard to keep social distance all the time, and wear a mask in public, all the time. I really miss having friends in my house for dinner. We are all tired of the lack of friends and family in person. Of dinners and parties. Of travel, dining, art events, and shopping. As the weather cools and the rains come on, we know we have to moderate ourselves.
Let’s all be thankful for what we’ve got. Please stay well and safe. And stay in touch.
I am always looking for: Your Barbie Stories; Photos of your Collections; and now your experiences with being CENSORED, especially as an artist.