These are two suitcases of a triptych that was created for an exhibit curated by Judy Chicago called “Envisioning the Future”. I called this triptych ‘American Manufactured Vacation’, where I envisioned the American traveler creating tragedy in the world due to excessive consumerism. In one suitcase, a golden sewing machine in Lima spins money and clothes for the American family. The painting in this suitcase depicts brutal work conditions in the name of commerce. In the pink suitcase, the factory time cards of the women who worked and were disappeared under NAFTA sanctions are buried in the sands of Ciudad Juarez.
Nowhere in the world are food fights and the use of food as an aphrodisiac normal, but in America. Having the ability to waste food is a decadent luxury and elitism. In this 2 artists exhibit we explored the sensuality of desserts. Above, one woman is tortured and burning in a fire created by donut-desire, she says “I cannot resist”. Another woman holds a seductive wedge of pie.
These two collage paintings were adhered to aprons. In one a poster of a Mexican missing woman diminishes in the everyday goings-on. In the other an LA woman is being brutalized by the police as helicopters land on her head. I began attaching my paintings to shopping bags, painting on fabric, sewing pieces of canvas together with embroidery thread, heavily gelling canvases in a cake-icing manner, using my sewing dummy
as my principal model, recreating a boudoir installation out of painted card board, film set designing with life size paper collages and thrift store costumes. I wanted my art to be dimensional, but not in the traditional way. I find myself now–somewhere between paintings and installations. Through this series of apron pieces, I have commented on the world as I see it. Using my girlfriends as models, I painted their portraits mixed with collages and embroidered them onto an apron that is hanging on a clothes-line. The apron and clothes-line are familiar to working class people. I used recycled fabric for the aprons, because I wanted them to look as if they had been worn by someone who had lost a child, been beaten by the police, or had a son in the war. The portraits look as if thoughts are sprouting out each woman’s head, in the form of buildings, police, a garden trellis, or musicians. These are moments in someone’s thoughts, absorbed into their old work apron, now stored in a pristine white shadow box.
I like to experiment when I print. This was created with a series of passes through a roller press. One pass was of inked up rick-rack binding and transparent Japanese paper applied over a sheet of archival paper that was watercolored. The second pass was Chine-colle gold foil, pink embossed paper, with a brassier linocut inked in black. The press was very tight on the last run, giving an embossed square around the bra.
A simple linocut printed in black. The theme was Mictlan, the underworld in Mexica mythology. All souls must make the perilous journey to Mictlan, that is why their families anoint them at the burial with blessings and magical powers to ensure a safe journey. Here I have arrived, greeted by a singing bird, fish swimming upstream, a crown for my head and a welcoming cup with my name on the table.
In this experimental print, photocopy transfers are pressed onto paper with the roller press, then embellished with printed linoleum circles. I was eating alphabet soup one autumn day and placed the mug/spoon in the kitchen sink when I was done. Later my brother looked in the sink and said that I even ate artistically, pointing out that the soup letters L & A remained on the side of my cup. We documented it as an important sign.
UP-CYCLED ART
From 1. performance art to 2. protest to 3. installation to 4. repurposed protest art—and 5. to inspire others!
1. 2004 Sangre y Arena – Lote Bravo performance
2. 2004 V-Day Protest in Ciudad Juarez
3. 2007 Exhibicion de Protesta Para las Mujeres de Guatemala
4. 2009 Social Justice Summit at Cal-State Fullerton
5.
Join the fabric of dialogue (image 5) Bordamos por la Paz