San Diego Art-i-facts

The Watch List 2012: San Diego City Beat

2012-01-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

I was included in City Beats' 2012 Watch List... along with the likes of Tea Party veteran, Nick Popaditch, "Musical-instrument thieves" and "your old drug dealer" because ... all these people are people you'll have to watch out for in 2012.

City Beat describes the list:

"While other local media outlets like to slather prominent citizens with a layer of sticky-sweet prose and then throw a big party where everyone pats each other on the back, we’re providing a different service. We’ve compiled a list of folks whose presence in 2012 should fill you with a sense of dread or, at least, guarded concern. Do keep an eye out for these mischievous characters. And if you’re on the list, it’s best to take it with a sense of humor."

But there are others on the list that I'm honored to serve with : Alexander Salazar, Seth Combs, Guy Lombardo, and Jon Block.

So... City Beat sais this about me:

Katherine Sweetman: Artist and filmmaker Sweetman punked The San Diego Union-Tribune when the paper asked her, and other local artists, to blog for free on its website after the newspaper fired longtime art critic Robert Pincus. Saying yes, she gained access to the U-T site and posted a resignation and scathing criticism questioning the paper’s motives. These days, Sweetman’s writing about art for Reviewer Magazine, calling art fairs “dirty whores” and posting photos of artwork with messages like “Fuck off art cunts.” We watch Sweetman because it’s fun.

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego//article-10011-the-watch-list.html

Art Basel Miami Beach, highlights (in images)

2011-12-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

text here: Art Fair Vital Necessity and Dirty Whore

Art Basel, Miami Beach, 2011: Personal favorites in the order I encountered them:

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Shadow Box #5: The Year's Midnight

Introducing The New Reviewer Magazine Contributing Art Editor, Katherine Sweetman

2011-11-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

Reviewer Magazine welcomes the smart and savvy writer, artist and filmmaker, Katherine Sweetman as the new Arts editor.

Katherine’s intriguing list of accomplishments include; directing 3D Reality TV shows on such provocative topics as strippers and amateur cage fighters; running art galleries in Tijuana; inspiring boycotts of the San Diego Union Tribune; teaching courses on visual culture, media and art at The University of California San Diego, San Diego State University, California State University, San Marcos, and Southwestern College.

Katherine is known for her sharp tongue, her interesting friends, her unconventional work and her skillful writing. Her credentials include a MFA from UCSD in visual arts, a BA in Arts and Technology, and a certificate from The New School University. She has written previously for San Diego City Beat, San Diego Visual Arts Network, San Diego Entertainer Magazine, Pros* Journal, Artweek, and more.

Reviewer Magazine is excited about her upcoming interviews, reviews, and opinions on visual art. “I am beyond thrilled to have Katherine assume the art editor’s position here at Reviewer,” said Reviewer Rob, Editor-In-Chief. “She’ll be working the art beat, locally (San Diego, Tijuana, LA), and nationally. Katherine has so much talent my expectations for her are unlimited,” he said.

Look out for Katherine’s upcoming reports on her trip to International Art Fair, Art Basel Miami.

“I’m very excited to write for an open-minded publication that’s not afraid of what I might say,” Katherine said.

Art denizens and malcontents to the status quo can send their ideas for arts stories to Katherine at me@katherinesweetman.com or through Reviewer Magazine at editor@reviewermagazine.com.

Katherine wielding the documentary video camera.

Artist Bd Dombrowsky and Upcoming Exhibition at Zepf Zepf Alt, 11/12/2011

2011-11-08T10:12:00.001-08:00

Last weekend I happened across artists Bret Barrett and bd Dombrowsky working in their studios on a Saturday night, preparing for an upcoming show. I ask them if they would tell me a bit about their work, the building they work in, and Daily Consumption, a show this coming Saturday that occurs just underneath their studio spaces-- in the basement -- at Zepf Alternative Space.

--1150 7th Ave-- San Diego, CA -- 92101--

An Interview with Artist Bd Dombrowsky (B.D.), interviewer K.S.

Bd Dombrowsky is an extraordinary creator of objects (paintings, sculptural pieces, etc) whose work, I would say, falls into the category of pop surrealism (but only if I'm pressed to put it into a category). His at times humorous, at times dark, and always smart works are each beautifully unique.

K.S. You work alongside Bret Barret, Sean Brennan, and Andrew Estrada in this crazy building, that doesn't seem to have a name. What do you call this place, and who are your peers that work here?

B. D. There is no name to the building that I know of. We have called it the art colony in the past, but that is kinda lame. I just call it Sanctuary, like Quasimodo fleeing into the church "Shanxtchuerry". There are several other artists in the community; Dan Allen, Bret Barrett, Sean Brannan, Andrew Estrada, Claudia Mackey, a couple tailors, a boutique, a bike shop, and a poet in basement.
K.S. How long have you been painting?

B. D. I have been painting for about ten years now, 7 of those here in my sanctuary. I enjoy the community here. It is good to be around talented artists, it gives me access to what I most need; honest opinions and art supplies. I mostly hang out with Dan, Bret, and Sean, we have a lot of late night, nicotine, caffein, fueled painting sessions. It can put a weird spin on the world.

K.S. One of the pieces I saw in your studio, that I find most unique is the one... about the "ele-corn"? Can you tell me about that work?

B. D. The Elecorn is a piece that was inspired by Carl Demaio. For those of us who don't know he is a gay, republican, flirting with a run for the mayors office, here in San Diego. I thought "hmmm gay republican, you see that about as many of those as unicorns." That idea and a funny little elephant sculpture by my mentor Willy Whitten brought about the Elecorn. I can't send a picture until it is finished. I am painting on it after this today, so I may have a workable pic to add by Thursday or Friday.

K.S. Some of your work is overtly funny, some uses dark humor, and some are seemingly more serious, for instance, the (yet unfinished) self portrait of yourself on fire. Can you tell me a little about the state of mind that comes with devoting many, many hours of your life to these different kinds of paintings? It seems to me it would be more "fun" to paint something less serious, is that true?

B.D. You never can tell which will be the fun painting. They resonate in different ways. Some are pleasing, fun images, that due to some circumstance, become tedious or difficult. Some are enjoyable, because you get an idea and the whole experience is effortless and smooth and turns out exactly as you imagined. Some are enjoyable because you feel like you learn something about your self or the process of painting. "Out of the Ashes" was a cheeky idea that turned very personal. It became a painting about ridding myself of the socialization and inculturation of my upbringing, to allow the genesis of my life as an artist. As to "state of mind" I would have to say it is pretty much the same for every painting. A mix of zen and mania.

K.S. I want to ask you about the piece that I can only describe as "Hitler's Vagina", tell why you made this memorable piece?

B.D. That piece is called "Mein Kunst" I got a canvas from Sean Brannan. It was for a charity event for Synergy (www.synergyart.com) The title of the show is "Blank to Beauty" Nov. 17 6-930, at Mosaic Wine Bar. So I decided I would do this hot looking angel, I spent the afternoon looking at birds and babes. Meanwhile, Brannan is cutting up an old encyclopedia for a collage, on the back of one of his scraps is an oval cropped picture of Hitler, I looked up and there he is in this womblike oval, I thought " he was somebodies baby" I mean duh! That is a given, but we are presented Hitler as a fully formed arch type of all that is evil. I never really thought of him suckling a breast, and the idea of him as a helpless infant was compelling to me. This explanation did not go over well with my mother, who refused my offer of a picture to help clarify. She didn't want porn on her computer.

K.S. Tell me a little bit about the show coming up on Sat. What are you exhibiting?

B.D. Saturday will be Zepf Alternative Space's second show. The theme Daily consumption was Andrew Estrada's idea. Andrew is the founder and host of Zepf, in his large studio/gallery in the basement of this building. The first show revolved around the artists here with the addition of Janelle Carter, and Jason Gould. The second show has brought in artists from around San Diego to interpret their idea of daily consumption. There is a lot of fun work. My contribution is a portrait of Chairman Mao, and some, repurposed, plastic artifacts he helped bring to our shores.

See Bd Dombrowsky's work and Upcoming Exhibition at Zepf Zepf Alt, 11/12/2011

Artist Bret Barrett and Upcoming Exhibition at Zepf Alt, 11/12/2011

2011-11-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

This coming Saturday is the opening of Daily Consumption, a new show up at the Zepf Alternative Space in downtown San Diego. As is the case with many alternative art spaces, the Zepf Alternative Space is both challenging and fabulous. It's located in the not-yet gentrified section of downtown (7th and C, 1150 7th Ave)-- the gritty remainder of the real "downtown" that was pushed to the edges of the Gaslamp area. This basement space is part of a block-spanning, old building that I had once scouted for a horror film. True story. But now, the space (at least epf Alternative Space) is cleaned up, gallery-ized-- with white walls and visual art by some of San Diego's most talented and hardest working artists, and a success story for the creator of the space (and curator of this show) Andrew Estrada. Above, next to and around Zepf Gallery are artist studios.

I ran into two of the artists working in this building, Bret Barrett and bd Dombrowsky working in their studios last Saturday night, and I ask them if they would tell me a bit about their work, the building they work in, and the upcoming show that is will occur just underneath their studio spaces-- in the basement -- at Zepf Alternative Space.

An Interview with Artist Bret Barrett (B.B), interviewer K.S.

Barrett is a painter, sculptor, and kinetic artist whose work is frequently made from found objects with electronic and mechanized pieces. He automates these works to create breath taking, sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, typically beautiful art works that are novel, bizarre, and wonderful.

K.S. You are a multi-talented, multi-disciplined, multi-media artist, how many different kinds of work would you say you do?

B.B. Thank you, yes, I have been inspired by fibers and weaving, motors and paint, computers and virtual reality and all art materials in between. I like to think three. Kinetic sculpture and painting are the two main things I always do and then the third thing is usually a combination of those things or a different medium entirely.

K.S. What is your favorite at this moment?

B.B. The kinetic work is always a great mix of frustration and exhilaration.

K.S. How long have you been a working artist in San Diego?

B.B. I started my first paintings and sculptures here in the fall of 2000. First one person show in spring 2001.

K.S. Tell me about the building you're working in. It seems you have a creative, supportive community over there.

B. B. Working downtown in a space on the C street trolley line is perfect inspiration and energy. 630 C Street is the daytime entryway. The building is creepy and old, the other artists and businesses provide a serious, creative environment. bd Dombrowsky has referred to the place as the "ant colony", because it is kind of a tunnel from the entry at 1150 7th Avenue to the C street door and not easily visible from the street. Virtually underground.

K.S. Tell me about the gallery space below, Zepf Alt gallery space.

B.B. Zepf Alternative Space. 1150 7th Ave. Downtown. Andrew Estrada got the idea this past summer to turn his own painting studio in the basement here into an art show space. A truly underground gallery in San Diego. Andrew's excitement about art and being around artists and the creative process has led him to this venture. The first show took place in Sept. and was well attended, art was sold.

K.S. Tell me about the upcoming show. What are you puttting in it?

B. B. This next show is titled "Consumption". Andrew has opened the show to all artists and all media to interpret their ideas of things that are consumed each day. I have completed a kinetic piece titled "What The Nug?". It's all about chicken and egg riddles, jokes, sayings and convenient food.

K.S. Tell me about these two pieces (above)

B.B. "Titty Twister" and "Feminist Peace" from Zepf Alt. "One" show. Two collaborative pieces completed with Surly Gurly, an artist I met last spring who walks her talk and gets work done.

K.S. You have a piece in the front window at Alexander Salazar Fine Art, can you tell me a little bit about that piece?

B.B. Roost Turkey is one of the first kinetic pieces I completed in San Diego in 2001. It is a collection of materials I found here and brought with me. The main turning piece with the ball inside is made of wooden model airplane parts. The motor and sprockets are from an old film processing machine , the feathers are wild turkey. The metal parts are from my first walks on the streets of downtown.

See Bret Barrett's work and Upcoming Exhibition at Zepf Zepf Alt, 11/12/2011

Extraction: SDAWI - EPISODE TWO - COMING SOON

2011-11-06T14:14:00.001-08:00

Extraction: San Diego Art World Insiders
- EPISODE TWO -

COMING SOON

Extraction_Episode Two Promo

Episode Two Starring:
Starring Seth Combs, Dennis Paul Batt, Ian Ashley, & Anjela Piccard

Puppet Uprising @ The House of the Future, Oct 22nd

2011-10-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

FACULTY PLUS ONE at Mesa College Art Gallery

2011-10-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

Opening: Thursday, October 13 · 5:00pm - 9:00pm

Exhibition Open: October 13 - November 9

"Our biennial exhibition with a twist. Art faculty invite guests to exhibit artwork alongside their own."

Artists: Angel Adame, Kevin Winger, Nate Betschart, Jeff Irwin, Patricio Chaves, Richard Lou & Miguel Gandert, John Chwekun, Lisa Medlen, Randal Christopher, Spencer Rabin, Brian Dick, Wendell Kling, Lynn Engstrom, Brandie Maddalena, Christopher Ferreria, Patrick "Pato" Hebert, Ross Stockwell, Elinor Stockwell Jacobsen, Sandra Wascher, Barbara Fash & Ben Fash, Misty Hawkins, Linda Kardoff, Emiko Lewis-Sanchez & Robert Sanchez, Katherine Sweetman, Lisa Hutton, Hollis Swan, Georgia Laris, Yve Laris Cohen, Jim Machacek, Greg Bada, Alessandra MOctezuma, Stephanie Bedwell, Omar Pimienta, Esteban Martinez, Anna Stump, Larry Caveney, Leah Younker, Jeanne Dunn, Cindy Zimmerman, Natalie Rocre, Kraig Cavahaugh, Barbara Sexton, JAcqueline Ramirez, Mario Lara, Juan Carlos Toth, Amy Paul

Performance by Yve Laris Cohen, 5:30 - 6:30 PM in the Gallery

PECHA KUCHA at 7:00 PM in G101 -- Presentations in a 20 second-20 slide format about art, the collaborative process and community. Featured guests include Larry Caveney (Garage Gallery), Nuvia Crisol Guerra, Susan Myrland (Curator, ART LABS), Cheryl Nickel (Space 4 Art), Perry Vasquez (Southwestern College, Border Corps) and David White (Agitprop).

"This exhibition broadens our connections, not only presenting artworks by our faculty but also providing a glimpse of other artists that they admire, have things in common with, or that inspire them. Faculty members invited an artist to show a piece alongside their own. This resulted in some interesting combinations, including two professors who invited their children, now adults and artists themselves, and two teachers who asked former students, now pursuing their art professionally.

Reinforcing on the idea of the community, Mesa College will be hosting a Pecha Kucha (www.pecha-kucha.org) taking place following the reception. A Pecha Kucha is a 20 second - 20 slide presentation format that will focus on the city’s creative scene through a collaborative lens. Larry Caveney runs the Garage, a relational space that showcases artists who deserve a platform, but do not have the advantage of representation. When Nuvia Crisol Guerra isn’t in her studio, she’s involved in the San Diego community as a curator, promoter and lecturer. Susan Myrland, curatorial director for the ART LABS 2011, single-handedly connected over 150 artists and arts
organization to complement the Art San Diego Contemporary Fair. Cheryl Nickel, co-founder of Space 4 Art, has contributed to energize the Downtown area by providing a live/work space for artists. Perry Vasquez is a member of The Border Corps, a performance collaboration exploring the artistic process and the idea of mass creativity. Artist David White founded Agitprop whose goal is to blur the lines between the individual Artist, the Studio,the Gallery and the Neighborhood."

-https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=274205122600236&ref=nf

"3D Reality Series ‘Road to the Cage 3D’ in Post Production" --3dfocus

2011-09-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

photo credit: Josh Khron

3D Reality Series ‘Road to the Cage 3D’ in Post Production

Article on Road to the Cage by 3dfocus

http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/mipcom-3d/3d-reality-series-road-to-the-cage-3d-in-post-production/5504

reposted here:

PassmoreLab, the 3D specialists, have announced they are currently post producing a new natively shot 3D reality series – Road to the Cage 3D.

Road to the Cage 3D follows two opposing mixed martial arts fighters as they prepare to fight in an unsanctioned cage match at the Golden Acorn Casino in Campo, California. The show is said to give an insight into the fighter’s motivations, providing a rare glimpse into the world of the up and coming MMA prize fighter.

RoadToTheCage webposters 3D Reality Series Road to the Cage 3D in Post ProductionFilming for the second episode will commence this Friday (September 23rd) covering a fight of one of the fighters who is dating a ring girl who just happens to be married to another fighter. The husband found out about his wife seeing another fighter and will now be fighting the guy dating his wife – sounds like an episode of Jerry Springer in 3D!

PassmoreLab used a variety of cameras including a Panasonic 3DA1, side-by-Side REDs and a 5D camera to capture some 2D footage.

Michael Williams, Director of Content and Distribution, told 3D Focus, "Because our 2D to 3D conversion technology has been used on films such as Smurfs, Transformers 3, Pirates of the Caribbean (and more), we have the advantage to convert content into high quality 3D should the native 3D we capture not be acceptable. We never exceed more than 15% of our reality series converted from 2D to 3D."

Road to the Cage 3D is a 6 X 30 (22) minute format reality series. Episode one is soon to be completed and PassmoreLab are hoping to complete the entire series within half a year with the option of extending the show to 13 episodes if a broadcaster is interested.

Road to the Cage 3D will be available for pre-sale at this year’s MIPCOM event and a trailer can be watched here. If you are attending MIPCOM, the producers will be able to show you clips from the programme on a HTC EVO 3D smartphone or ASUS 3D laptop.

Road to the Cage 3D Screenshot 3D Reality Series Road to the Cage 3D in Post Production

In other news, PassmoreLab has recently joined forces with Warner Bros. Records and Nintendo. The company converted singer-songwriter Jason Derulo’s music video for hit song It Girl into 3D which is now available on the Nintendo Video platform for users of the 3DS console via SpotPass.

"We recently worked with Warner Bros. on the Linkin Park Iridescent music video which received global attention because of Transformers 3 ," said Greg Passmore CEO with PassmoreLab. "WB's decision to produce the It Girl in 3D is further indication of WB's commitment to being at the forefront of this emerging technology."

As part of 3d Focus MIPCOM 3D coverage, we will be interviewing two representatives from PassmoreLab to find out what else the company has planned for the future.

Undivided: Voz Alta Project Gallery presents an exhibition of 12 Tijuana artists and 12 San Diego artists in their first-ever Tijuana group art show

2011-09-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

Text stolen from City Beat:

Voz Alta Project Gallery presents an exhibition of 12 Tijuana artists and 12 San Diego artists in their first-ever Tijuana group art show. Artists include Dion Terry, Anselmo Juan, Pandemic Art, Ricardo Islas, Katherine Sweetman, Chris Konecki, Spel uno and others. From 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10. vozaltaprojectgallery.com. It's happening at Third and Revolucion, behind Tacos La Especial, downtown Tijuana

images not stolen from City Beat

Voz Alta video @ Art San Diego 2011, Contemporary Art Fair

2011-09-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

http://vimeo.com/22260995

http://www.artsandiego-fair.com/asd_films/06_voz_alta_promo.html

Voz Alta Promo
Produced & Directed by: Carlos Beltran
Starring: Bill Caballero, Dante Loaiza & Reg E Gaines
Shot & Edited by: Katherine Sweetman

Voz Alta Project is comprised of artists and individuals who have continually contributed to the neighborhood art space -- as community educators, artists, and performers. We are dedicated to providing both the people of our region and visitors with an honest and diverse cultural experience.

We are a grass roots organization based out of San Diego, CA. We are completely independent from corporate sponsorship. We are a gallery/workspace dedicated to promoting cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary art forms.

Voz Alta Project/ Gallery
1754 National Avenue
San Diego / Barrio Logan, CA 92113

Dante The Sea Monkey - TEASER VIDEO

2011-08-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

Dante's greatest sin?
Aspiring to be a famous artist.

Join Dante, the Sea Monkey, as he travels through The Inferno's portion of The Divine Comedy with his artist spirit guide, Miranda July.

In this version of The Inferno, everyone is an artist, actor, singer, writer, poet, or creative character of some sort.

This is the first 45 seconds of a long-term animation project that was inspired by my Sea Monkey, Dante (the 1st). I am currently on Dante III, "D3", the third iteration of single alpha male Sea Monkey and he continues to confuse and inspire me.

Sea Monkeys ARE really weird; from cryptobiosis to Space Shuttle Missions, they are perhaps not of this world...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-Monkeys

Miranda July's Newest Film - The Future - in LA Only (at the moment)

2011-08-08T17:24:00.001-07:00

Miranda July is on the short-list of my favorite contemporary artists. Not only is she an accomplished writer, conceptual artist, performance artist, and video artist who explores intense and evocative themes and formal styles, she's also an accomplished filmmaker in the Hollywood arena. She's now following up her debut Hollywood film, You Me and Everyone We Know, with a second venture into feature-length film making with new film titled, The Future.

I was thrilled to hear this film, that had previous only been screened at non-local museums and festivals, was making its debut in theaters. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's only screening in LA (and NY).

The Future opened in LA on July 29th and is playing now (screening times).
*The trailer can be seen here*

ALSO her work is on display at MOCA's Pacific Design Center: 7.23.11 - 10.23.11 in exhibition, ELEVEN HEAVY THINGS, showcases works created for the Venice Biennale.

Need a place to stay in LA?
Try airbnb.com aka couch surfing, of sorts. Looks like a great way to save some cash, maybe meet some interesting folks...

Read about airbnb in Maya Kroth's new Culture Lust article: Despite Concerns, Airbnb, Couchsurfing Gain Popularity In San Diego

Sweetman Presentation Videos: Panel on Media Infrastructure

2011-06-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

Americans for the Arts Public Art Preconference's panel on Media Infrastructure: How the Evolution of Media Culture Affects Public Art and Artists. Presenters:

-Cameron Cartiere, Dean of Graduate Studies, Emily Carr University of Art & Design
-Glenn Harper, Editor, Sculpture Magazine, Washington, District of Columbia
-Kinsee Morlan, Arts and Web Editor, San Diego CityBeat, San Diego, California
-Katherine Sweetman, Artist, San Diego, California

Sweetman Presentation Videos:

Part 1: Back Story -- AKA The Real Story

Part 2: My Story Start Here

Part 3: The Blog Post

Part 4: The Aftermath

'BROKEN BALLERINA' TraeLee Costello and Anjela Piccard

2011-05-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

Ballet Performance by TraeLee Costello

This one night solo ballet performance was a piece choreographed in partnership with artist Anjela Piccard to inspire those who appreciate the courage one must gather to carry on. Taking creative draw from the works of painter Irinia Negulescu, in recognition of the female form and the captivating beauty of the sea.

Performed at:
Colosseum Fine Arts
7946 Ivanhoe Ave.
La Jolla, CA.

The audio track used in this video was not the song used in the performance. Video's audio track: “Ballet In A Box” by Doyeq

Extraction: San Diego Art World Insiders - EPISODE ONE - COMING SOON

2011-05-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Extraction: San Diego Art World Insiders - EPISODE ONE - COMING SOON
An Agitprop inspired production
& Experiment in pop culture media production

In Episode One, we take April Game of the San Diego Fine Art Society to Voz Alta Project in Barrio Logan to see a show featuring the work of six tattoo artists from Studio 767 in Chula Vista.

Starring: April Game, Kenny Waizumi, and Leo Nava. Featuring: David White, Katherine Sweetman, David Correa, Carlos Beltran, Dante Loaiza and others.

Videography by Mike Jordan, Megan Willis, and Katherine Sweetman
Still photography/Production Stills by Megan Willis

Agitprop has a new Visual Arts Blog.

2011-05-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

Jesus Christ it took long enough...

http://agitpropspace.org

(just kidding)

Attack of the Lazer Bean - documentation, of sorts*

2011-05-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Voz Alta Project's Attack of the Laser Bean featuring new work by Ricardo Islas and Sergio Hernandez

Curated by Carlos Beltran

Music: Mundial Dub by Sonido De La Frontera

*sometimes I bring my camera

Voz Alta Project promo

2011-05-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Because we love Voz Alta Project...

Voz Alta Project promo from Katherine Sweetman on Vimeo.

Voz Alta Promo
Produced & Directed by: Carlos Beltran
Starring: Bill Caballero, Dante Loaiza & Reg E Gaines
Shot & Edited by: Katherine Sweetman

Voz Alta Project is comprised of Artist who have continually contributed as community educators, artists and performers. We are dedicated to provide the people of our region and visitors an honest and diverse cultural experience.

We are a grass roots organization based out of San Diego, CA. We are completely independent from corporate sponsorship. We are a gallery / workspace dedicated to promoting cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary art forms.

Voz Alta Project/ Gallery
1754 National Avenue
San Diego / Barrio Logan, CA 92113

An open letter to local art galleries

2011-04-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

To local art galleries;

As you may or may not be aware, a series of beautiful, large, colorful, nude paintings created by the artist Anna Stump was "censored" by the NTC Foundation and denied exhibition at the Martha Pace Swift Gallery in San Diego's NTC arts district last month. This mindless cancellation is a loss, not only for the artist, but for our local arts community.

And I call on you to help me find another venue for this show.

When censorship of this kind happens in San Diego, it perpetuates the ultra-conservative, sexist, anti-art stereotype that is, unfortunately, associated with our city. A suppression like this, left unamended, makes it OK for all public galleries to deny exhibition on the basis of irrational fear and self-censorship. An event like this, left unchallenged, helps make this an accepted, everyday occurrence, and it's a nail in the coffin of local artists interested in both showing in San Diego and taking risks in their work.

When this story broke in CityBeat, there was a public outcry, a panel discussion, and a demonstration of overwhelming support for Ms. Stump's work. The one thing that didn't come out of the whole ordeal was a suitable replacement venue for this particular show.

The most outrageous thing about this story is that the work, by no means, warrants any kind of censorship. And now the talented, well-spoken, former Fulbright Scholar, Anna Stump has been penalized for attempting to show her stunning, larger than life studies of the human body in a cautiously conservative section of San Diego.

Please take a moment to look at this work.
http://annastump.blogspot.com/

I am one of the many excited people waiting to see where this show ends up next. Please consider this artists' work for your upcoming exhibitions.

Thank you for your time,

Katherine Sweetman, MFA
me@katherinesweetman.com
619-838-7666

City Beat Stories:
More problems for arts at the NTC: Is the city's new Balboa Park censoring art in its public spaces?

Are these nudes 'too hot for the hallway?: An update on the canceled show at the Martha Pace Swift Gallery at NTC

Under Wraps: Controversy and Art in Public Spaces – a discussion

2011-03-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 30 · 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Expressive Arts Institute (NTC Promenade)
2820 Roosevelt Road, ste. 204

Under Wraps
Controversy and Art in Public Spaces – a discussion

Wednesday March 30, 2011
6:30pm
Expressive Arts Institute
2820 Roosevelt Road, Ste. 204
San Diego, CA 92106
Contact:
619.337.4891 or 619.239.1713 for more information
ajgsandiego@att.net
wes@arts4change.com

Panelists:
Ann Berchtold
Co-Founder/Director - ART SAN DIEGO Contemporary Art Fair

Wes Chester
Expressive Arts Therapist, Co-Director – Expressive Arts Institute
Curator – Martha Pace Swift Gallery

Scott B. Davis
Director of Exhibitions and Design
Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego

Kinsee Morlan
Arts & Web Editor – SD CityBeat

Robert Pincus
Art critic and writer

Anna Stump
Artist – San Diego

Alan Ziter
Executive Director – NTC Foundation

More panelists to be announced

Introduction:
Kevin Freitas

Moderator:
Katherine Sweetman

SATURDAY, APRIL 16th, 7-11pm -- FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ART MEETS FASHION -- OPENING AT PLANET ROOTH DESIGN HAUS

2011-03-25T13:58:00.001-07:00

Please join us for the culmination event of our ART MEETS FASHION team N-GOM exhibition and premiere of the fashion film, N-GOM IS THE FUTURE, shot by the MEDIA ARTS CENTER San Diego's TEEN PRODUCERS. This exhibition will double as a benefit for the Teen Producers Project developed by the non-profit organization, MEDIA ARTS CENTER San Diego, and will include live fashion show, art installation, and film screening.

Theme:
N-GOM is the future.

It is the battered future through the inescapable dystopic lens. Revealed is the degradation, overpopulation, and destruction. The setting for our story is in the afterward. It is in the confusion and the inevitable but fragmentary reconstruction. Our inspiration is nestled between the septic desert earth that refuses to bear crops and the polluted streams that refuse to hold fish but instead carry discarded plastic debris.

In the future, a new generation is born. They are scavengers, they are hunters, and they are alone. They fill-in the blanks with whatever is available. They invent histories and mythologies with broken, second-hand stories. In a time where salvaging and recycling are inherent, they re-build their lives with what is available. A new visual language arises to deal with the new visual landscape. The aesthetics of necessity begin to form providing a strange, horrible, and beautiful emergence of a new kind of culture, art, and fashion. New Ground Old Materials (N-GOM).

Art Meets Fashion:

SDVAN and FOCUS have embarked on a project to enliven the SD art scene by cross pollinating the fashion and art worlds. By putting together teams consisting of an artist, a fashion designer, a teacher and a documenter, we hope to encourage products with immense creative energy. - http://www.artmeetsfashion.org/

About The Teen Producers Project:
Since 2001, the MEDIA ARTS CENTER San Diego's Teen Producers Project has helped convert scores of at-risk youth into motivated young film producers. The program has helped them to create more than 500 short films that document their lives and their communities. These young filmmakers also learn the practical skills associated with multimedia production and build self-esteem while experiencing the thrill of creating something tangible.

-
title="http://www.mediaartscenter.org/site/c.dfLIJPOvHoE/b.1233763/k.5CFE/Teen_Producers_Project.htm" href="http://www.mediaartscenter.org/site/c.dfLIJPOvHoE/b.1233763/k.5CFE/Teen_Producers_Project.htm">http://www.mediaartscenter.org/site/c.dfLIJPOvHoE/b.1233763/k.5CFE/Teen_Producers_Project.htm

Teen Producers who participated in the creation of this video: Dulce Martinez, Paloma Arias, and Trevor Seines -- Teen Producers Instructor: Jodi Cilley

About the Art Meets Fashion Team:
N-GOM collaborative involves the work of artist Guy Lombardo, designer Anjela Piccard, and filmmaker Katherine Sweetman as part of ART MEETS FASHION a San Diego Visual Arts Network (SDVAN) and Fashion Opportunities Connect US (FOCUS) collaborative project.

Guy Lombardo’s background is in painting, printmaking, 3-dimensional design, photography, experimental video and film. After completing his dual-undergraduate studies at Southwestern College and SDSU; Counseling and Clinical Psychology and Applied Arts, he continued research into the Psychology of Color and Space in reference to; Micro motives /Macro behavior, the affect of primitive/ contemporary archetypes on social well being, Green Lighting and Design, Feng Shui, natural plants remedies and more. Guy describes himself as a “de-constructivist” undoing the “Prescribed” notion of art and the creative process in an attempt to discover and create in a new and exciting, innovative direction.

Anjela Piccard is an avant-garde jewelry designer, stylist, gallerist and partner of Planet Rooth Studios Gallery, the founder of ETT productions, an original visionary of "The new Factory movement", a social activist and speaker on behalf of Outsider Art. Her work as a curator and events planner ranges from International Fine Art Exhibitions to High Fashion Runway shows. As a fine artist and jewelry designer her work has been shown locally as well as internationally. Piccard continues to create innovative works in High Fashion through various mediums, bravely pushing the boundaries of ART & CULTURE to the brink of raw curiosity.

Katherine Sweetman is a filmmaker, writer, and nationally and internationally exhibited artist in the fields of new media art and documentary video. She has an MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego, a BA in Arts and Technology from California State University, San Marcos, and a certificate from the New School University, New York. She has taught visual media courses at UCSD, SDSU, California State, San Marcos, and Southwestern College. She is the former director of Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, and she currently works at the 3D Film Production company, PassmoreLab, in San Diego.

Planet Rooth Design Haus
3334 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92103
619.297.9663

Extraction: San Diego Art World Insiders - TRAILER

2011-03-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

The Trailer is Out:

Extraction: San Diego Art World Insiders. an Agitprop-inspired episodic reality-web video series coming soon to a website near you...

Manzanas - all female group exhibition @ Voz Alta, Sat March 5th

2011-03-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Manzanas @ Voz Alta, 3-3-11

In honor of Women's History Month, Voz Alta presents an exhibition featuring the work of (at least) 18 women of all ages, races, and working in all manner of genres from painting to sculpture to video.

"Voz Alta Project Gallery celebrates Women in Art by bringing together and showcasing over a dozen fierce female artists whose work varies from painting and mixed media to photography. Show includes works by Dolores Rios, Berenice Badillo, Selina Lugo, Mariana Raquel, Iris (Roots Gente), Dina Bedenko, Mariana Palafox, Analucia Ordonez, Patty Alaniz, Irene Castruita, Amberlee, Irma Aguayo, Claudia Gomez de Zepeda, Michelle Sierra, Ixchel Tapia, Tiffany Swenke, Ana Brown, Erica Ramirez, Katherine Sweetman, Carla Naden, , Aileen Reyes and more to be announced. Don't miss the opportunity to celebrate the power of Women in Art."
-www.vozaltaprojectgallery.com

Video is me. I will be exhibiting video.

N-GOM: Teen Producers Video Shoot

2011-02-24T14:34:00.001-08:00

Set against the backdrop of the art installation by Guy Lombardo, wearing the fashion designs (jewelery and gowns) by Anjela Piccard, the models were stunning in the post-apocalyptic-themed setting.

Team N-Gom was extremely lucky to get the MEDIA ART CENTER San Diego's Teen Producers to shoot amazing footage for our N-Gom is the Future fashion video (coming soon!).

Teen Producers, Dulce Martinez, Paloma Arias, and Trevor Seines participated in two all-day Saturday workshops with their fabulous instructor, Jodi Cilley, and organizer, Katherine Sweetman, to create the vision for the video, organize the shoot, and film our lovely and gorgeous models: Anna Weeks and Kla-Bada.

About the Teen Producers Project

"Since 2001, the Teen Producers Project has helped convert scores of at-risk youth into motivated young film producers. The program has helped them to create more than 500 short films that document their lives and their communities. These young filmmakers also learn the practical skills associated with multimedia production and build self-esteem while experiencing the thrill of creating something tangible." - from MEDIA ARTS CENTER San Diego webstie

Also on hand for the shoot hairdresser William Williams with assistants, Mirza Batanovic and Mary Sinnett. Make-Up Artist Luisa Fernanda was in charge of make up, and of course Anjela Piccard was there to help oversee shoot, arrange fashion, and direct designs.

Photographer and Designer, Michelle Bassler helped us out with stunning photographs of the models.

The shoot(s) video and photo both went extremely well.

Venereal Narratives and Other Cautionary Tales at Planet Rooth Design Haus

2011-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

Visual artist Daphne Hill has the uncanny ability to take particularly disturbing subject matter and turn it into contemplative and beautiful visual art. Parasitic twins, Harod Immanuel Vashti HIV, and Chole E-coli are just a few titles of the works currently on display at Planet Rooth Design Haus in Hillcrest. As the titles suggest, these works graphically depict parasitic twins, the virus HIV, and the bacterium e-coli (as it would be seen under a microscope). Other titles include the words (seldom heard at art openings): Syphilis, Candida, HPV. Troubling subjects? Perhaps, but there's something thought provoking, enticing, educational, and sexy about these works. They invite you to draw close and at the same time, they remind you that getting too close can have nasty consequences.

At the soft-opening on January 15th, Hill explained the works, her motivations, the decisions to use some of the graphic imagery, and she gave me a tour of the show. If you missed the first openings, don't worry, you can still get a tour from the artist on the two remaining openings, Feb 5th, 7-10pm and Feb 25th, 7-10pm.

"I must make work about these things, attempting to make them more beautiful and palatable. If I don't, I feel that my mind may spin and spin and tangle in on itself with dread and worry," the artist explained.

The anxiety-producing, yet stunning, works that fill the Planet Rooth gallery space are dominated by the large, colorful, "Parasitic Twins", acrylic on canvas paintings. The work was created, in part, as an examination of what could go wrong during pregnancy-- in the hope that it does not go wrong.

"I want all the bad things that happen to be represented in my work and never manifest within us," She told me.

Perhaps my favorite works in the show are a clever sub-set included in Hill's Venereal Narratives series. Black silhouette of figures, typically one man and one woman, are placed in a mysterious background--sometimes a romantic setting, sometimes an abstract colorful setting. Once we are given the title, for example, Mark Chloe Chlamydia. We are forced to invent our own narrative of the depicted situation.

When I first encountered Daphne's work in her studio/gallery space in North Park, it provoked a very visceral and bizarre reaction in me-- that I think I will always remember. A building-wide opening was in progress, and as I wandered into her studio, I found myself confronting the demons of attraction and repulsion. I was drawn to a set of mixed-media collages starring 1950's calendar pin-up girls. I noticed they were sometimes partially obscured with with black, organic-looking designs. Upon closer inspection, these pieces also revealed little diagrams, diagrams of female reproductive organs like one would find at the local OBGYN, and as I came close enough to examine these diagrams, I also noticed the titles of the works.

I found myself wanting to reach out and touch the slick, resin-coated images, in part, to examine the cleanness of the resin-coating. I had my hand in mid-air, and then I saw the titles of the works. My hand, as if controlled by someone else, withdrew from the image and went immediately into my pocket. I just stood there captivated by the art work and its subject matter.

Venereal Narratives and Other Cautionary Tales is on display Planet Rooth Design Haus Jan 14-February 25

Openings:
5th on 5th Community Art Walk, February 5th, 7-10pm
Closing Reception, February 25th, 7-10pm

Planet Rooth Design Haus
3334 5th Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103
(619) 297-9663

Excerpt from Sol Lewitt's Paragraphs on Conceptual Art (may be helpful today)

2011-01-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Sentences on Conceptual Art

1. Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

2. Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.

3. Irrational judgements lead to new experience.

4. Formal art is essentially rational.

5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.

6. If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results.

7. The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego.

8. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.

9. The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.

10. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.

11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.

12. For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.

13. A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.

14. The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.

15. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.

16. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.

17. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.

18. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past.

19. The conventions of art are altered by works of art.

20. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.

21. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.

22. The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.

23. The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.

24. Perception is subjective.

25. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.

26. An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.

27. The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.
28. Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.

29. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.

30. There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious.

31. If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist's concept involved the material.

32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.

33. It is difficult to bungle a good idea.

34. When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.

35. These sentences comment on art, but are not art.

full essay: http://www.ddooss.org/articulos/idiomas/Sol_Lewitt.htm

N-GOM Preview @ AGITPROP, Jan 22nd 6-9pm

2011-01-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

NEW WORKS BY N-GOM @ AGITPROP
Opening Reception:
JANUARY 22, 2011 6-9pm

AGITPROP
2837 University Ave.
(behind Glenn's Market on Utah)
San Diego, CA 92104

N-GOM collaborative involves the work of artist Guy Lombardo,
designer Anjela Piccard, and filmmaker Katherine Sweetman
as part of ART MEETS FASHION a San Diego Visual Arts Network (SDVAN) and Fashion Opportunities Connect US (FOCUS) collaborative project.

Join us Saturday Jan. 22nd for a preview of work in progress. Featuring RAW fashion film footage by the MEDIA ARTS Center San Diego’s Teen Producer’s Project.

Wait, what is N-GOM, you ask? N-GOM is the future.

It is the battered future through the inescapable dystopic lens. Revealed is the degradation, overpopulation, and destruction. The setting for our story is in the afterward. It is in the confusion and the inevitable but fragmentary reconstruction. Our inspiration is nestled between the septic desert earth that refuses to bear crops and the polluted streams that refuse to hold fish but instead carry discarded plastic debris.

In the future, a new generation is born. They are scavengers, they are hunters, and they are alone. They fill-in the blanks with whatever is available. They invent histories and mythologies with broken, second-hand stories. In a time where salvaging and recycling are inherent, they re-build their lives with what is available. A new visual language arises to deal with the new visual landscape. The aesthetics of necessity begin to form providing a strange, horrible, and beautiful emergence of a new kind of culture, art, and fashion. New Ground Old Materials (N-GOM).

N-GOM is the future.

Guy Lombardo’s background is in painting, printmaking, 3-dimensional design, photography, experimental video and film. After completing his dual-undergraduate studies at Southwestern College and SDSU; Counseling and Clinical Psychology and Applied Arts, he continued research into the Psychology of Color and Space in reference to; Micro motives /Macro behavior, the affect of primitive/ contemporary archetypes on social well being, Green Lighting and Design, Feng Shui, natural plants remedies and more. Guy describes himself as a “de-constructivist” undoing the “Prescribed” notion of art and the creative process in an attempt to discover and create in a new and exciting, innovative direction.

Anjela Piccard is an avant-garde jewelry designer, stylist, gallerist and partner of Planet Rooth Studios Gallery, the founder of ETT productions, an original visionary of "The new Factory movement", a social activist and speaker on behalf of Outsider Art. Her work as a curator and events planner ranges from International Fine Art Exhibitions to High Fashion Runway shows. As a fine artist and jewelry designer her work has been shown locally as well as internationally. Piccard continues to create innovative works in High Fashion through various mediums, bravely pushing the boundaries of ART & CULTURE to the brink of raw curiosity.

Katherine Sweetman is a filmmaker, writer, and nationally and internationally exhibited artist in the fields of new media art and documentary video. She has an MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego, a BA in Arts and Technology from California State University, San Marcos, and a certificate from the New School University, New York. She has taught visual media courses at UCSD, SDSU, California State, San Marcos, and Southwestern College. She is the former director of Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, and she currently works at the 3D Film Production company, PassmoreLab, in San Diego.

Art Meets Fashion
http://artmeetsfashion.org

AGITPROP, The Blog

2011-01-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

AGITPROP, needs a blog.

Rather, San Diego needs an online visual arts hub, that AGITPROP, The Blog, wants to fill.

In the midst of my Union Tribune blogging scandal, or whatever that was, people ask me to propose a solution to the lack of critical arts coverage in San Diego. Some people ask me what I was going to do next. I think the answer to both could fall onto AGITPROP's blog -- coming soon. San Diego needs a new alternative space for arts coverage, videos, images, thoughts, ideas, etc. With Art as Authority gone, and so many little splintered factions of visual arts, it would be nice to have a place that at least informed those interested in what kinds of things of varied were happening in San Diego. A place for artists to write about themselves, about shows, reviews, opinions, debates. The larger goal is to link the work happening here with the national and international contemporary discourse of visual arts.

Although only in the preliminary stages, AGITPROP, The Blog, is coming soon. Spring we think. Please get in contact with me if you're interested in this idea me@katherinesweetman.cm

Attending the San Diego Car Show... for the Visual Art?

2011-01-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Somehow I ended up with free tickets to the 2011 San Diego International Car Show, and so I figured I would go. Cars are somewhere in my blood-- my grandfather ran a few car dealerships in his days, and my grandmother used to come to San Diego specifically to attend this yearly convention. I always kind of wanted to go but never got around to it-- until this year.

I anticipated bubble cars and hot girls in little blue mini skirts and thick blue eyeshadow showing the latest innovations in electric cars... or something like that. At least I figured there would be a lowrider section or a strange car section or a custom car sections.

Nope. Just a bunch of boring 2011 models. Nissans, Hondas, Fords, blah blah blah. Well, ok, some old muscle cars, some antique cars, but overall pretty boring. Except for the company. Guy Lombardo kept yelling out funny things.

"I can drive this car to my tea party meetings!"

The American Pride Chevy was one of the more memorable things there... A Chevy dedicated to WAR.

yay for war

But I saved the best for last.

The most interesting thing I saw was the sculpture on display fromThe Device Gallery, the local gallery known for exhibiting mechanical, robotic, and metal arts. Inside the velvet ropes, near the display antique cars were these wonderful metallic robot and automotive sculptures, looking as if they had just been created from the cars around them. These delightfully placed works were created by artists: Greg Brotherton, Dan Joens, and Paul Loughridge.

What a clever way to insert visual art into an event that would typically have nothing to do with it.

Good job Device Gallery.

The San Diego Fine Art Society and Rebecca Goodman's Artist Talk: A Learning Experience

2010-12-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

It's good to get out of one's little comfort zone and see other avenues of local visual arts. With 10 years in the San Diego area, working as an artist and arts educator, dabbling in curating and arts writing, I imagined I was fairly inaugurated into most aspects of the art scene. I realize, now, that was wrong.

For one thing, I had never attended a San Diego Fine Art Society (SDFAS) event until last Tuesday-- for a talk and presentation of work by artist Rebecca Goodman. I had heard of SDFAS, but somehow I imagined it must be related to Modern Art, museum acquisitions, or maybe even blue-haired old ladies collecting Renaissance-period paintings... I didn't know. I filed it in one of those "not related to me" categories and kind of blocked it from my consciousness.

I have to now apologize for this misinterpretation.

SDFAS, run by the young, smart, opinionated, and powerfully present April Game (recently nominated for San Diego Business Journal's "Women Who Mean Business Awards"), is not at all what I thought. The mission statement, "Strengthening the art pulse of the community through education and collaboration" is a solid, honest, message backed up by programs and resources that help artists engage with San Diego. It was good, for me, to meet April, see the SDFAS gallery filled exclusively with work by contemporary local artists, and have my misguided assumptions of SDFAS realigned.

The main event of evening was the presentation by spectacular public speaker and artist, Rebecca Goodman. She opened with a video of a performance piece where a dancer engaged with both an installation backdrop and the audience, and she then spoke about how the piece came to fruition. Her presentation included her influences, her early work, and her background-- all of which helped situate her work in a very clear, contextually-relevant, and articulate way. Her presentation was delivered from a place of sincere and open positivity.

But something bothered me.

I began to realize that this artists' work is almost diametrically opposed to my own. Her influences were straight forward, upbeat, and new-age-themed (dance, transformation, crystals, chakras, and Burning Man all came up in the talk). My influences are... lets say the opposite of those. Her performance-based work was related to a theater-informed, theatrical kind of spectacle. That particular type of performances generally makes me feel antsy and uncomfortable, but I have to admit that is largely because it is so unfamiliar. Rebecca looked very "California" as she explained herself. She had blond hair and perfect posture. I suddenly felt very "New York" slouched in my seat, with my dark hair, wondering why I was such a horrible public speaker. I don't necessarily think I go around comparing myself to every artist out there, but one could describe both Rebecca and me as artists who make objects, use performance, and use video. How could we have such different outlooks on art's purpose, procedure, and explanation?

Rebecca Goodman graduated with her MFA from SDSU in 2008. I, Katherine Sweetman, graduated with my MFA from UCSD in 2008. Was I the cynical UCSD counterpart to this optimistic SDSU artist? Did I think all performance art had to be in dialogue with Allan Kaprow? ... maybe I did.

I like artists who can stand-up for themselves. Those who have reasons for doing what they do, and are able to speak about their work, get my respect and praise, and for that Rebecca Goodman absolutely deserves respect. She was able to back-up every item used in the installation (from the red clay birds to the live sprouts growing from the mound of soil), and her presentation left me no doubt that she believed in everything she said and everything she created. I found myself quite jealous actually. I guess I always leave my own work with questions and unanswerable, unexplainable reasoning.

Like I said, we should all get out of our little comfort zone from time to time and see the world. I think a little piece of my cynicism died in me that Tuesday evening. I left the NTC neighborhood feeling optimistic about San Diego's diverse interpretations of visual arts. Actually, I left feeling optimistic in general.

(Gringos) Living in Tijuana Screening @ La Casa del Túnel: Art Center

2010-11-20T17:52:00.000-08:00

Comunicado en Ingles y Español

SCREENING: GRINGOS LIVING IN TIJUANA AT:

LA Casa del Tunel: Art Center
Tijuana, B.C., Mexico –
Katherine Sweetman’s documentary, Gringos Living in Tijuana, will be screening on
Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 3:00 p.m.
GRINGOS LIVING IN TIJUANA provides a glimpse into the lives of seven, very unusual inhabitants of the City of Tijuana, Mexico. Derrik, Gerda, Jodi, Jason, Michael, Iana, and Jenny are not Hispanic, and they don't exactly appear as though they would "blend in" in the Mexican border town that has been called one the most dirty and dangerous cities of North America. Yet this film follows these gringos, in their daily activities, while they show and explain why they chose to live in the City they love--Tijuana.

Katherine received an MFA from the University of California San Diego; a BFA in Arts and Technology from California State University, San Marcos and a certificate from The New School in New York. She studied electronic media at the University of South Florida and graphic design at the University of Florida..Some of Sweetman significant projects include a collaboration for Art Meets Fashion; the Freephone project, a collaboration with Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Chris Head, Camilo Ontiveros and Felipe Zúniga, and Lucent a public art collaboration with Owen Mundy for The Office of Graduate Affairs on the campus of University of California, San Diego. She is the former Director of Lui Velazquez, alternative art space/art gallery, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico.

For more info:
Luis Ituarte, (323) 574-9197
Director, Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura (COFAC) in Mex. 01152664 682 9596
La Casa del Tunel: Art Center
www.cofac101.com
www.casadeltuneltijuana.blogspot.com

ESPANOL
El documental de Katherine Sweetman,

GRINGOS QUE VIVEN EN TIJUANA,
será proyectado el domingo 21 de noviembre de 2010 a las 3:00 P.M. en La Casa del Tunel: Art Center, en la Colonia Federal, de Tijuana. B.C., México.
GRINGOS QUE VIVEN EN TIJUANA proporciona una ojeada en las vidas de siete, habitantes muy inusuales de la ciudad de Tijuana, México. Derrik, Gerda, Jodi, Jason, Michael, Iana y Jenny no son hispanos, y ellos no aparecen exactamente como la mayoría de las gentes que viven en la ciudad mexicana de la frontera que se ha llamado una las ciudades más sucias y más peligrosas de Norteamérica.

Con todo esta película sigue a estos gringos, en sus actividades diarias, mientras que demuestran y explican por qué eligieron vivir en la ciudad que aman--Tijuana.
Katherine recibió un MFA de la universidad de California San Diego; un BFA en artes y tecnología de la Universidad del Estado de California, San Marcos y un certificado de The New School in New York. Ella estudió medios electrónicos en la Universidad de Florida del Sur y diseño gráfico en la Universidad de la Florida. Algunos de los proyectos significativos de Sweetman incluyen una colaboración para como el arte se acopla a la Moda; el proyecto del Freephone, una colaboración con Micha Cárdenas, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Chris Head, Camilo Ontiveros y Felipe Zúniga, y “Lucent” una colaboración pública de arte con Owen Mundy para The Office of Graduate Affairs on the campus of University of California, San Diego. Ella fue directora de Lui Velazquez, espacio alternativo del arte/galería de arte, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, B.C., México.
Para mas info:
Luis Ituarte, (323) 574-9197
Director, Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura (COFAC) in Mex. 01152664 682 9596
La Casa del Tunel: Art Center
www.cofac101.com
www.lacasadeltuneltijuana.blogspot.com

Original Post Comments

2010-11-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

I did collect comments made on my original Introduction/Resignation post on the UT site:

My First and Last Article for the Union Tribune

2010-11-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

An Introduction/ Resignation (A Small Gesture)

In an effort to step up the appearance of supporting the visual arts, The Union Tribune has graciously offered a handful of artists, scholars, and arts professionals the opportunity to write for them-- requiring only one blog post per week (52 per year). And the pay? Oh... no pay.

Arts are very important to the Union Tribune but... so is money.

I accepted one of these positions. It was exciting. There were no rules, no journalistic constraints, no editors, no... tech support. We knew right away we were special.

We were a small army of of advanced-degree carrying practicing artists, college professors, and arts writers ready to take up the challenge of solving the lack of arts coverage in San Diego and fixing the mess the Union Tribune created when it laid off its only Art Critic, Robert Pincus, last June.

We were assured that we were not taking Pincus' place. He had, in fact, been replaced by James Chute, formerly the Music Critic and Special Sections Editor. Chute had never written anything on art before, but he did have a Music degree so... he was clearly qualified to handle visual arts too. But we decided to help him anyway.

And then it hit us.

We hate the Union Tribune.

We hate the way they abruptly ended the tenure of the most important arts critic in San Diego's history. We hate James Chute's pathetic coverage of artists-- which just makes us look bad (seriously, read his stuff).

We hate editor Jeff Light and the private equity corporation pulling his strings.

AND we also hate their conservative politics of the Union Tribune (endorsements of John McCain for president 2008, Whitman 2010, Fiorina 2010, etc.)

It seems, to me, visual artists should be boycotting the Union Tribune not writing for them-- for free!

When I say "we" in the text above, I may only mean me, but you may want to include yourself in the statement "We hate the Union Tribune" if you value paid and knowledgeable arts writers, like having an arts critic, think the people of San Diego are smart enough to want art criticism, or even if you hate their political values.

Yes, it's true it's hard to find a writing gig that pays well. It's hard to find a writing gig that pays at all. But I personally will be taking my all free writing elsewhere.

Katherine Sweetman

Dante's Inferno

2010-10-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some research on the The Divine Comedy... because at some point I decided to incorporate the setting of The Inferno into a screenplay I am writing ... called Dante the Sea Monkey (that involves Sea Monkeys). Um... I'll leave it there.

Anyway, I purchased a series of audio lectures, and I've been listening to them in my car driving around for the past few months. I've also been watching lots of moving picture adaptations and contemporary interpretations online (animated, live-action, historical docuemntary etc) while attempting to read different versions and footnotes of some of the translations of the original.

I wanted to write something about these two excellent contemporary works that I've come across:

1) Dante's Inferno the movie (http://dantefilm.com)

Although this came out in 2008, it was only today that I came across it. Dante's Inferno is an animated (in a sense) puppet film. Created by Sandow Birk Sean Meridith (and others). It's a puppet show, made out of drawings that are cut out and put in painted landscapes. From time to time there's a hand that comes in. One time, a human comes in. He plays the devil.

The film is in in the style of In Smog and Thunder: Historical works from The Great War of the Californias, which I own. So I was suprised I hadn't heard of this one.

2) The Ninth Circle short film (on youtube here)

I'm in awe of these folks who make no- and low-budget films that are exquisitely beautiful and extremely professional and polished. They describe The Ninth Circle as a ZERO budget film shot in 2 days. It seems the one in charge is a young man named F.C. Rabbath ( filmmaker/graphic designer/ photographer/engineer says facebook) out of Tallahassee, FL. If I still lived there I would go meet this amazing cinematographer, editor, producer, ... who makes tons of short films, some with very elaborate story lines that stick with you. Pretty neat that it's done with no/extremely low budget.

Check this stuff out:
http://www.vimeo.com/fcrabbath (on Vimeo)
http://www.youtube.com/fcrabbath (on YouTube)

ART SD 10 --- ART SAN DIEGO Contemporary Art Fair: Sept 2-5

2010-09-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

It's THE Contemporary Art Fair in San Diego... that lots of artists didn't know about...
It's the commercial art fair that all the major galleries in San Diego participated in...
It's the commercial art fair that many local artists shied away from...
It's the art fair that many other venues piggy-backed on...
It's the reason that September is San Diego Arts Month...
It's an art convention that only the elite galleries could afford to participate in...
It's The San Diego Art Fair that exhibited art work by Tony Oursler ...
It's a high-end art fair for rich people...
It's an interesting afternoon of art...
It's a medium-sized convention room in the Hilton by The Bay hotel filled with overpriced art and overpriced booths from which to exhibit art...
It's a great opportunity to sell work to collectors and the public...

I don't know what ART SD 10 actually is/was. Even though I attended. I volunteered at the San Diego Visual Arts Network booth, or perhaps it was 2 booths that exhibited the work of the San Diego Art Prize recipients: Gail Roberts, David Addey, the de la Torre brothers, and Julio Oroczco. I had a little speech that I gave to the passers-by.

"Are you familiar with the San Diego Visual Arts Network and the San Diego Art Prize?"

"No?"

"These booths are exhibiting the work of the 2010 San Diego Art Prize recipients. Every year two established artists are selected for the prize, and they each select an emerging artist to mentor and exhibit with. Here, take a flier."

Something like that anyway.

I also wandered around. The most interesting work that I saw was probably the least saleable. Tony Ourlser's video projections, for instance. I only saw two video pieces in the fair.

I don't really have any kind of good closing for this, or even opinion on what the hell I actually experienced. Maybe I need to go back today.

Did you know Dennis Hopper was dead?

2010-08-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't know Dennis Hopper was dead.

I also didn't know Dennis Hopper was an artist. Rather, I didn't know he was an artist who was inspired to make work for a gallery-setting --I didn't know he was that kind of artist.

So I was surprised by that:

THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES (MOCA), PRESENTS THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE U.S. MUSEUM SURVEY EXHIBITION OF THE ART OF ARTIST, FILM DIRECTOR, AND ACTOR DENNIS HOPPER (PR)

The show, at the Geffen building of MOCA, was pretty damn fascinating.

I'll have to steal an image from the LA Times because "ABSOLUTELY NO PHOTOGRAPHY [was] ALLOWED".

The whole thing was bizarre, for me, since, again, I didn't know he was down with the Assemblage-making art trend. Not that I found his assemblages very interesting, but honestly, I don't even find Rauschenberg's that interesting, so maybe it's just not my thing.

When you enter the Museum, you walk into an overwhelmingly empty Geffen Warehouse. The whole front show is absent. So, the Hopper show is off to the right, separate from the HUGE emptiness of the rest of the museum. It's a strange entrance experience.

Then you walk into the show, and you see two giant guys like the one in the image above. In between them was a strange life-size statue self-portrait of Hopper. I can't remember exactly, but it was like, "self portrait with rock and cactus" or something, and a young Hopper stands between these two objects. I'm just thinking, "wtf?" "Did he make these?" "What's going on?" No where do they say who made these statues. I overheard from the gallery attendants, "he commissioned these as works of art".

There's his painting inspired by graffiti and assemblage sections, which are underwhelming, but then I found myself in a theater space with highlights from this films. Fantastic. All the best clips of his acting and directing, and some documentary moments of him speaking about being a director.

But the best part was the photography and select photographs that he had commissioned someone to make into huge paintings. One of these clever images shares its name with the title of the show, Double Standard.

GRINGOS LIVING IN TIJUANA

2010-08-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

GRINGOS LIVING IN TIJUANA is a feature-length documentary film that provides a glimpse into the lives of seven, very unusual inhabitants of the city of Tijuana, Mexico. Derrik, Gerda, Jodi, Jason, Michael, Iana, and Jenny are not Hispanic, and they don't exactly appear as though they would "blend in" in the Mexican border town that has been called one the most dirty and dangerous cities of North America. Yet this film follows these gringos, in their daily activities, while they show and explain why they chose to live in the city they love-- Tijuana.

¡Jesus Cristo!
I have been working on this film for way too long... over a year. Last spring, sometime after I began thinking of moving to Tijuana, I became fascinated with those other non-Hispanic individuals who lived there. I think I got the idea and started filming in June. I shot the film very quickly. I think it took about 2 weeks in total. And I intended on editing it that fast as well. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. Months past... then the one-year anniversary rolled around. I had it more-or-less edited, but I still felt like I needed a few more shots, some man on the street interviews in San Diego, some more pick-up shots. I did those and then I kept wanting more. I suppose as some point you just have to let go. So I decided to let go. Call it finished and start to show it.

The film is about 55 minutes. I am looking for venues to screen it. The first screening will probably be at La Casa del Tunel sometime in August.

This is a 15-minute cut.
1,197 views in the 5 days that's it's been up.

Gringos Living in Tijuana from Katherine Sweetman on Vimeo.

Lucent Revisited

2010-07-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

Years later... I remember Lucent, the public art work that's still up at UCSD (because they bought it!).

Lucent at the Office of Research Affairs, University of California, San Diego from Katherine Sweetman on Vimeo.

It began in 2007... I was interested in getting Owen Mundy and his programming skills to help me on my YouTube Relevance Projects. We decided to jointly enter a competition for a public art installation for the Office of Research Affair on the UCSD Campus.

Robert Pincus the ONLY Art Critic in San Diego... Laid Off

2010-06-20T01:14:00.001-07:00

So, I'm watching Micha and Elle having cyber sex... at the Performance Opening for the Here Not There exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, and Tom Driscoll informs me that the only (paid) art critic in San Diego has been laid off from The San Diego Union Tribune.

This is shocking and very tragic for the established San Diego art scene. Not that is is good for the emerging San Diego art scene, but Pincus was important for covering museum exhibitions and shows at the major galleries around the city. His reviews were the most prestigious form of press coverage that local art exhibitions could hope to achieve, and Pincus has been with the local arts community for decades. This is not good news for anyone.

Image on the left of Pincus stolen from a blog by artist Vicki Walsh whose amazing paintings we all happened to be standing in front of when I heard this news.

Does the world value arts writers? But Pincus didn't just review art but books as well. Does the world value literature? Another casuality of the internet's no-pay-for-writers policy?

Here's another personal reason this hits close to home-- I wanted to be Robert Pincus. I secretly imagined that someday perhaps I could be THE arts writer for a local paper. I imagined it as a fantastic, high-paying, powerful position in the arts world of the second largest city in California. I imaged he was untouchable.

Who is Guy Lombardo?

2010-06-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

It seems everyone knows him. Or at least knows of him.

This month the eccentric local San Diego artist turns curator as he takes over the very handsome gallery space in Escondido know as Gallery 262-B. His first show, Impending Anarchy, opened Saturday with a very successful turn out.

Impending Anarchy features artists: Brenda Salamone, Petey Deitz, Brittany Heskett, Anna Zappoli, Chris Vannoy, Bettina Heinz, Wendy Wilson- Gibson, Guy Lombardo, Dan Adams, Philip Petrie, David Beck- Brown, Jon Loren Bazan, Marsha Boston, Renetta Happe’, Francesca Lombardo, Ellen Deiter.

There's a new show in the works for July's Art Walk (July 10th).

"I'm all about change. Me and Obama," Lombardo told me.

I was impressed by the number of people out for the monthly art walk, and the audience was very engaged with the work on the walls. The event had a decidedly different feel from gallery openings and art walks in San Diego.

I can't wait to see what Guy Lombardo does next month.

I wish I was in DF, Postopolis!DF

2010-06-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Some of the most interesting (and well known) bloggers in the world converge in Mexico City for Postopolis.

One week, presentations streaming live online.
http://www.postopolis.org/

Billed as: "public five-day session of near-continuous conversation curated by some of the world’s most prominent bloggers from the fields of architecture, art, urbanism, landscape, music and design"

Probably my favorite coverage so far
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/06/postopolis-df-kumbia-queers.php

Organized by
Daniel Perlin & Joseph Grima
Storefront Team
(César Cotta & José Esparza)
Tomo
(Jorge Mungia & Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa)

Summer Thursdays at SDMA

2010-06-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.sdentertainer.com/arts/events/san-diego-thursday-night-events-museum-of-art/

This Thursday, and every Thursday night throughout the summer, The San Diego Museum of Art introduces The Summer Salon Series. This brand new weekly event will feature a handful of local contemporary artists each Thursday. The emerging and established artists will engage visitors in conversations, happenings, performances, readings, and displays set alongside the museum’s exhibition of work by the legendary Parisian artist, Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition, Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris: Selections from the Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection, features a significant collection of Latrec’s infamous, sensual, and iconic illustrations that depict, among other things, such racy subjects as the women of the Montmatre and the Moulin Rouge.

It was the Lautrec exhibtion that inspired this reinvention of the Salon, taking it from turn of the century Paris to the heart of Balboa Park and the San Diego Museum of Art.

“I honestly was just as attracted to the artist’s biography as much as his work,” said Alexander Jarman, Public Programs Manager for the Museum.

“This is one of our most important programs planned for 2010 and gives us the opportunity to educate through experiential learning. We want to turn the Museum into a platform, a stage if you will, to showcase the immense talent in our local art scene. The Summer Salon Series allows people to learn about the legacy of Toulouse-Lautrec and understand the connection of contemporary, emerging art to the 3,000 years of art at the Museum.”

Each Thursday night, May 27th – September 2nd, the museum stays open late (until 9pm), serves wine and beer, and invites viewers to become participants in San Diego’s own art Salon. Inspired by the great bohemian Parisian Salons of the 1800’s and 1900’s, the SDMA Summer Salon will also be a space for conversation, poetry, debate, and a new level of engagement with the artwork.

This is not a traditional, quiet museum experience. At the Salon the audience plays an important role. Conversations are had. Libations are consumed. And with the exquisetly beautiful Balboa Park as a backdrop, something fantastic always takes place.

Don’t miss the work of contmeporary artists like Jordan Crandall, Michael Trigilio, Michele Guieu, Brian Dick, Chris Warr, Zac Monday, Sheryl Oring, Eddie Miramontes, Susy Bielak, Cauleen Smith, Tristan Shone, Lynn Susholtz, May Martinez, and many many more featured throughout the summer at Summer Salon Series.

The events run each Thursday, 5-9pm

A Schedule of artists can be found at:  http://www.sdmart.org/calendar-summer-salon-series.html

For more information contact:  Alexander Jarman, Manager of Public Programs

ajarman@sdmart.org

The StoreFRONT project revisited

2010-05-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

The StoreFRONT Project: revisted

Today I am meeting with Alexander Jarman to discuss the continuation of The StoreFRONT Project.

San Diego, California 2010 -- The StoreFront Project aims to help stop declining neighborhood property values by improving the appearance of empty storefronts while giving local artists the opportunity to exhibit their work with a prominent and public display.

In an attempt to solve two important and diverse problems: 1) Vacant store fronts driving down property values of both the neighborhood and of the vacant establishment, and 2) Local visual artists lacking sufficient exhibition space, The StoreFRONT project will negotiate terms and conditions for temporary artist exhibitions in empty storefronts around San Diego. These exhibits will improve the appearance of the vacant business; decrease the chances for graffiti and vandalism, and improving the marketability of the property. The StoreFRONT project will also facilitate minor repairs to the facades and interiors of the empty buildings.

The StoreFRONT project will improve the appearance of local neighborhoods, communities, and individual properties by inserting interesting work into the windows of vacant properties. It will engage the local arts community by calling for site specific works that conform to the needs of the space and the business owner. It will also reduce the chances for graffiti and vandalism on vacated properties. Having active displays in local storefronts properties helps keep a neighborhood safer, more lively, and will keep the property value from unnecessary decline.

The StoreFONT project can help businesses:
1) Improve the marketability of a vacant property
2) Do free minor repairs and painting to the vacant property
3) Get the space noticed!
ALL FOR NO COAST TO THE BUSINESS

Low Risk for Businesses:
The StoreFRONT project will find artists with the skills and desire to fix up the storefront facade and exhibit their work. The work, installation and de-installation will all be completed under supervision of leading members of The StoreFRONT Project. Except for installation and de-installation, no one will be on the business premises. The artwork will be viewed from the street only.

Benefit for Artists:
San Diego lacks sufficient gallery space for local artists. And unfortunately, many local galleries are forced to show only work that they think will sell. With this type of exhibition space, other types of non-commercial works can be shown. Depending on the type of storefront and the wishes of the business owner, artist could display diverse types of work including video, audio, sculptural, installation, and other types of work that is not traditionally "marketable" art.

About The StoreFRONT project:
The StoreFRONT project was begun in May 2009 by a group of local artists, gallery owners, and arts writers in San Diego. We are passionate about arts promotion and about our city. We are contemporary visual artists, curating and creating compelling exhibitions for storefront windows of temporarily vacant San Diego storefront windows. We have a respected and accomplished Board of Advisors including architects, professors, public artists, and legal counselors, and we are fully insured.

We are presently seeking vacant storefronts and businesses that might be interested in our free services.

New Contemporaries III at Project X in Solana Beach

2010-05-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

This year I had the privilege of nominating an emerging artist for the 2010 San Diego Art Prize. I chose to nominate artist and MFA candidate at UCSD, Lesha Marie Rodriguez. A panel discussion was held on May 15th at the New Contemporaries exhibition at Project X gallery in Solana Beach, CA. The participants included nominator Kim MacConnel with artist Heather Gwen Martin, nominator Tom Driscoll with artist James Soe Nyun, nominator Tom Noel and/or Larry Baza with artist Robert Nelson, nominator Robin Clark with artist Stephen Tompkins, nominator Debra Poteet with artist Julio Orozco and me, nominator Katherine Sweetman with artist Lesha Maria Rodriguez.

---------------------

In preparation for the event, artists and nominators were given the questions below. These are my text-based responses in support of my nomination of Lesha Marie Rodriguez. How do you define your role: as supporter/fan, advocate for the arts and artists, defender, promoter, friend, champion, commercial, etc.?

I identify as an Arts Advocate, and today I especially identify as a San Diego Arts Advocate. Like many of you, I may end up living in San Diego for the rest of my life. And therefore I have a vested interested in the health welfare and betterment of the San Diego arts community.

But you are probably also asking about my credentials. So they are:
-I have an MFA in Visual Arts from UCSD.
-I ran an alternative art space, Lui Velazquez, in Tijuana and acted as a curator for a couple of years.
-For the past five years I have taught at local the universities UCSD, SDSU, San Marcos State and Southwestern College. I have had the privilege of working with many young emerging visual artists, and I have also been around the faculty academic art world of those schools.
-I am a freelance Arts Writer. I have written for Artweek, San Diego City Beat. I write for the San Diego Visual Arts Network and San Diego Entertainer Magazine. Almost everything that I’ve ever published has been about artists in San Diego and Tijuana, so I am very invested in promoting the local arts scene.

I am also a participant in the arts scene. I am a practicing artist and a filmmaker.

Please describe the work of your nominated artist on the wall of Project X: Art? What specific ideas, themes or tendencies (movement, if at all) do you detect in the artist's work you chose or in general?

There are three very interesting themes in Lesha’s work that I would like to talk about:

1) Her search for beauty in chaos and disturbing imagery

2) Her ability to play and experiment with her work

3) Her need to put her work in historical, contemporary, and social context

In order to speak about the work on the wall of the Project X gallery I would like to back up and speak about the first body of Lesha's work of that I ever saw.

Selected pieces from Lesha’s Oaxaca Series, 2006

This work (some of which is pictured above) is the first body of Lesha’s work that I ever encountered. It is a series of photographs taken with a Holga camera in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006, during what was at first a non-violent teacher’s protest that turned into something else entirely after the police, with government authority, opened fire on these peaceful demonstrators. A kind of amazing grassroots effort by locals and demonstrators ensued. They ended up taking over city (keeping the police and goverment troops out) for many months.

Lesha was in Oaxaca in anticipation of the famous and festive Day of the Dead celebrations that occur there annually. Now that the celebrations were interrupted and their meaning perhaps even changed. Lesha turned her camera on the city and its demonstrators. With her Holga camera, a small plastic camera (sold as a toy in the 1980s), she didn’t look like a journalist. The camera she used lent itself to a method of non-invasive documentary photography.

Leasha then turned these photographs that are very documentary in nature, into something very painterly and beautiful. And she did this through the use of strictly analogue techniques like in-camera double exposures and in-darkroom manipulations. She turned these images, of disturbing content, into very beautiful large prints.

The photograpm series which includes the piece on display at Project X. Is also a search for beauty, and the work's beauty can be found in the sometimes strange and disturbing imagery. I see this series, the photogram/lumen prints series, as a very personal exploration of self.

What qualities did you look for when choosing the artist you nominated? Why did you choose this artist over all other good emerging artists who exist here in San Diego given your knowledge, experience and professional background working and living here?

When Patricia Frisher of the San Diego Visual Arts Network ask me to nominate someone as an Emerging Visual Artist for the San Diego Art Prize, I was trying to arrange a show of Lesha’s Oaxaca series. So she and her work were on my mind, but also I was really excited about this work, and it was the work that I wanted to show the world-- more than anything else.

The qualities that one searches for in an artist, just like the qualities one searches for in art, are subjective. I think that can this be seen throughout this very diverse show (The New Contemporaries III at Project X).

I personally need to know that the artist has a WHY. WHY they made it. WHY they are doing what they’re doing. And I also think that an artist, if they want to be taken seriously, should be invested in the field they’re working in. They should be aware of the history of the medium as well as what their contemporaries and peers are up to.

Lesha is a an example of an artist who has a WHY. Her work is grounded in the history of the medium of photography. She has taught photography and is well versed in historical and contemporary photographers and photography techniques.

Within these two bodies of work, she has explored and played with two very different tools.

1) The Holga camera, popularized in the 1980s and taken up by artists who liked the camera's quirky aesthetics. The vignetting, the colors, the lens flares and other distortions are recognizable in this work. Yet she plays with these recognizable traits by using double exposures and darkroom manipulations.

2) The Photogram, popularized by Man Ray (the Rayogram) in the 1920s and 1930s. But used by a number of contemporary artists as their sole medium. Her work photograms instantly brought to mind the work of contemporary artist Martha Madigan. Both artists use traces of human bodies as well as materials found in nature.

Where do you see these artists in five years? Why do you think it is important for this artist to be noticed in our community?

In the only two years that I have known Lesha, she has been awarded some very extraordinary grants and opportunities.

She received TWO pretty major UCIRA Classroom Challenge grants that enabled her to design her own course and teach it as the instructor of record at UCSD while she was a graduate student. And she won this two times. She invented a course called Social Documentary and had her students engage in hands-on and out of the classroom research projects that took them to places like a tour of the Maquiladoras in Tijuana.

Last summer she volunteered in Oaxaca at a human rights organization and then also took a course on enthnohistory, in Oaxaca, through UCLA.

She was just awarded a FLOSS grant, an opportunity, with stipend, to go to Oaxaca again this summer and study one of the many indigenous languages there.

As an artist She’s also recently exhibited at the Oceanside Museum of Art and at a few exhibitions on the UCSD campus.

In five years, she will no doubt be doing something very interesting. If I were to speculate, I would imagine her in a research position at university.

Can you tell us a personal story about your relationship with the artist?

Well at the time of the nomination. I felt that was an important kind of boundary --not to just nominate a good friend, but Lesha and I have become friends during this process. We’ll get some margaritas and guacamole sometimes, but I don’t have any antidotes --none that I can share.

As a nominator, can you tell us one good thing about the SD Art Prize and one suggestion of how it could be improved?

Spotlighting artists in the community is very important, and if you look at the people who have been nominated and won The San Diego Art Prize in the past, they all seem to be doing well and working successful artists. There are a lot of great artists involved in this. And I really have nothing constructive to add.

I mean I wish that it was a larger event— l wish 10,000 people came to the opening and it had Union Tribune and TV coverage, but it’s pretty good. The opening was well attended.

We should all thank Patricia Frischer for all her hard work in organization of these exhibitions. And thank you to Chris for hosting the show and these subsequent events.

FRINGE THEORIES: Ideas that Depart Significantly from the Prevailing or Orthodox Views

2009-11-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

FRINGE THEORIES: Ideas that Depart Significantly from the Prevailing or
Orthodox Views

An Art Exhibition Featuring the Work of Artists: Tony Allard, DJ Brejle, Noah Doely, Keith Engeron, and Mark Van Stone

“A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

In 1633 a weak, despondent, seventy-year old Galileo Galilei, was brought before the Roman-Catholic Inquisition to defend himself against charges of heresy. Facing the possible sentences of permanent imprisonment, torture, and death, Galileo was forced to kneel and abdicate his belief that the earth revolves around the sun.

Those who enforce the status quo, enforce it hard. Forcing those of us who question these prevailing theories into a category of outsiders, extremists, conspiracy theorists.

FRINGE THEORIES considers the work of artists and scholars that exist outside of the traditional and accepted rules. The work of these artists forces us to look forward and keep an open mind.

Agitprop Gallery

2837 University Ave.
(behind Glenn's Market on Utah)
San Diego, CA 92104

http://agitpropspace.org/

THE YES MEN @ THE GASLAMP!

2009-11-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

____________EMAIL FROM THE YES MEN________

Dear San Diego friends,

Our film, The Yes Men Fix the World, is coming to The Gaslamp Theater
(701 5th Ave between G St & F St) beginning this Friday November 20th.
The only way we can fill the seats is if you tell your friends. Email,
Facebook, Tweet! This is a date movie: take a date! Take ten dates!
Here's why we need your help: We made a film that racked up awards
(Berlin Film Fest, Grierson Award, etc) and great reviews. But when it
came to distribution, we were faced with a devil's bargain: get a
modest advertising budget and lose control of the film, or distribute
the movie ourselves, with nothing but sweat and goodwill - but use the
film however we want to promote a movement. So far, we feel we've made
the right choice. The film did great in New York, and we've been
working with activist groups nationwide to promote their causes with
the film - and they've even led audiences into the streets on several
occasions:
(http://theyesmen.org/blog/theweekendinreview). We can't lead a riot
after each screening, but we do still hope the film and its message of
inspiration get out there... so please do check it out starting
Friday! Our website for the film is
http://www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com.
One more thing: if you know the photo editors of the local papers, or
TV/radio people, perhaps you can help us by encouraging them to run
stills from the film, or to give us some extra ink! Feel free to pass
on their contacts or hand them our email. Or, if you happen to know of
local mailing lists we should ask to send out a notice, please do
tell.
Thanks!
Mike Bonanno
The Yes Men
ps. to sign up for direct action on climate change see
www.beyondtalk.net, there is much to be done soon!

Turista Libre : porque Tijuana es libre

2009-11-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

Turista Libre 1.1: Hosted by Mr Derrik Chinn
(now on Twitter) http://twitter.com/turistalibre

While trying to get funding for this project, I wrote this introduction:

Strolling through the downtown tourist strip of Avenida Revolucion, one will notice the unmistakable absence of turista drinking in bars, eating at local restaurants, and purchasing goods. The Los Angles Times reported that tourism plummeted by 90% from a high in 2005 to a miserable low in 2008. The media’s portrayal of the violence in the city has frightened even some of the bravest would-be turista and kept them from coming to Tijuana. As the violence fades, the city is becoming a forgotten tourist destination.

In the United States the dominant emotion surrounding the city and even the word “Tijuana” is FEAR. Our neighbor city, pressed right up against us, is not something to be afraid of, avoided, or swept under the rug and ignored. It is a city of problems, as all cities are, but it is a city of great beauty, flourishing creative communities, and amazing resilience. Turista Libre tours will show people the city’s great treasures and hopefully, with each visit to Tijuana, they will transcend the fear and come to enjoy all the of this great things this great and complex city can offer a visitor.

Bringing back the tourists, one group at a time...

Turista Libre was fantastic.

It began on foot. We talked up Santiago Argüello, that cool street with no cars next to Revolucion. There were a lot of people out, a lot of decorations, etc. Looked like lots of people were out enjoying the summer-like afternoon.

Then we took a bus over to somewhere in Zona Rio. We ran into a tour bus that took us to see Proyecto Público/Privado (article on the project) a series of public billboards around the north side of the city.

(The tour bus)

(Charboogie one of two pieces)

(Charboogie artist)

(Alfredo Gutierrez in front of his amazing billboard)

Next, we headed to the Hildago Mercado. (I had never been here before). It was beautiful.

(mercado)

Then we walked to La Cacho... and no day Baja California is complete without fish tacos and beer.

HIT Southwestern Biennial Faculty Show (2009)

2009-10-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

(When Google is used as a verb it should it be capitalized?)

Sometimes, I google things to check on their credibility.

Google tells me nothing about "HIT Southwestern Biennial Faculty Show (2009)", and yet it was the best attended art opening I have been to in... a while (and I go to a fair amount of art openings)

ALL the faculty seemed to be there. ALL their students seemed to be there. There were young kids, teenagers, and old folks. Perhaps the most interesting thing was everyone was was TALKING and INTERACTING with the work. The on-lookers laughed, pointed, took notes, chatted with each other and chatted with the artists too.

Geroge Essex was a show stealer.

An artist in full garb (of some kind).

His work humorous piece, Making Myths 101, was also a show big hit.

Michael Jackson as the virgin mother-- a delightful and frightening experience...

The oil painting has a ceramic kind of frame and is covered in glitter. Below was a shrine.

When I took the artists' photograph he ask me if I worked for the school newspaper.

Some other highlights?

Who knew that Brian Dick taught at Southwestern?

I told Brian I was teaching at Southwestern too. He said, "Katherine, we need to get out of San Diego."

Tony Allard set up a piece that was a smaller version of his huge installation that was up in the same gallery last year, The Media Stream.

There was pretty much no publicity for the show, but given that the school has also just cut 25% of their classes (and faculty), that's understandable. It may also be part of the reason the show is conspicuously absent from Google's grasp.

As part of the opening festivities, Lynn Susholtz gave a great talk about her work and how she maintains being an "artist" in many aspects of her life.

Who knew I taught at Southwestern?

(had to throw that in there, right?)

I finally edited a video project I have been working on --- a full video taxonomy of the penises at the Louvre. ALL of them (from the Permanent Collection). It took me the good part of 4 days to do that.

2001 a San Diego Odyssey

2009-10-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Oh, San Diego.

In 2001, I moved here by chance-- flipped a coin. It was here or Santa Barbara. My friend Anna said I owed it to her. She had lived in Tampa Florida with me for a year, and now it was my time to pay up. I was required to move with her to California. She wanted to be near her LA boyfriend... but not too near. So the decision came down to SD or SB. A coin was flipped. A quarter, I think. And a decision was made.

I landed in Pacific Beach. I think a lot of people make that mistake when they first move to San Diego. It sounds like a nice place. The other newbies in our apartment complex had made a similar defective judgment on cool neighborhoods in San Diego. They were from the East Coast somewhere, and I am pretty sure they moved right back to where they came from after their PB experience. But upstairs there were some regulars and long-term PB residents. The kind that belong there. For instance, the really short and anxious bill collector who always had a 72 oz diet soda attached to his face. There was also the very strange (and frighteningly stupid) part-time father dude who couldn't hold a job because if a swell came in he would be out surfing.

Great I had moved to some sort of big, tan, fat, frat-boy-retirement party explosion... or something just as terrible. I remember going by my self to a hookah bar because it looked like the coolest place around then returning home to our lonely little apartment. As I had to listen to Sublime pumped down on me through my ceiling, all I could do was cry. Why had I left Florida? At least in Tampa they had super divey dive bars with punk rock jukeboxes and beer specials. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to go back to The Brass Mug", I sobbed, snot dripping from my nose. "I aint got no Santaria. I aint got no crystal ball..." the music got louder. "I fucking hate San Diego," I thought --outloud. I pulled my pillow over my head a cired.

Somehow, I think though some online research like, "Cool bars in San Diego" (or some such thing). I found the Livewire, and from that day forward I decided San Diego wasn't all that bad...