I met Amanda Lopez on move-in day at San Francisco State dorms nearly nine years ago. We became immediate friends, and ever since I’ve been lucky to watch as she selflessly follows her dream and blossoms as a photographer.

Being that she is a native of Sacramento, a graduate of Sacramento High School, there are hundreds others in the area who feel about Amanda the same way I do. I know I speak for all those people when I say I’m blessed to be her friend, inspired by her work ethic, proud of her accomplishments and excited to see what awaits. And if you don’t know, now you know.
The following is an Instant Message conversation between Amanda and I in anticipation of her upcoming show Dec. 13 at Artifacts located at 907 K St. This particular exhibition will feature Amanda’s continuing self-portrait series, which documents all the places and situations she’s experienced in her checkered Vans. For a look into her portfolio you can check www.amandalopezphoto.com.

Amanda Lopez, originally we had talked about fueling this interview with a glass of wine. For our readers out there, what kind of wine are you drinking tonight?
Two-buck Chuck in a red plastic cup. And you, my friend?

Sutter Home, a 2006 Merlot.
Fancy.

Two for $8 regularly; $5 a bottle.
High roller.

Always.
I’m on budget. Saving for a new camera, son.

Oh word? What are you looking at?
A film camera, a Pentax 67, it’s what all my favorite photographers use. Waiting for the price to drop a bit. I’m sure it will since digital is all the rage.

Why do you keep it real and still ride for the film?
I like the process of shooting and not knowing what you’re going to get. Taking the film to the lab, getting proofs, plus the color saturation is better. Skin tones are truer to life. Digital blows out highlights to fast. Really, it’s just a preference. Digital has its advantages.

So you mentioned your favorite photographers used the 67, who are some of your favorite photographers?
Estevan Oriol is my all time favorite. He was the first photographer whose work I saw that floored me. He has this uncanny ability to capture both strength and sensitivity in people. I also love Annie Leibovitz. Her photo of Marc Anthony and Celia Cruz changed the way I looked at portraiture; the way the picture captured the moment.

You worked as Estevan’s assistant for minute. How did you get to that position? And what did you learn while you worked for him?
I saw his work in Fader when I was a sophomore in college, and the pictures were amazing. The story was about tattoo culture in Japan; actually it was more like tattoos, lowriders, girls and gangsters. It was so beautiful. I looked him up and sent him an e-mail, and to my shock, he responded. We stayed in touch over the years, and when I finally got the opportunity to go to Los Angeles I e-mailed again and he invited me to assist him. I was only supposed to stay in Los Angeles for a month, but ended up staying for about a year. I learned that you have to be on your grind 24/7 to succeed, and also that it’s not always about fancy set ups or fancy lighting…you don’t need them to take great pictures. You have to trust your instincts and not worry about what other people are doing. Also, you really have to love the craft and know that it’s not always about money.

You talked about how he captured strengths and sensitivity. When I look at your pictures, I feel like you catch people very happy and very serious. Is there a learned way to do that, or do you think it’s instinctual?
I think it’s instinctual. I look for those things when I photograph people and that is definitely inspired by Estevan. I know what I am looking for before I shoot, so I look for those expressions in people. If I’m photographing a friend I already know what those expressions look like so I direct a bit to bring them out. You have that.

Don’t butter me up! This is serious! But speaking of buttering up, in my intro paragraph, I lay it on pretty thick. I tie your personality into your ability to capture those emotions? Do you see a connection, or am I … trying to make a headline?
I think you’re right. Each photograph has a bit of me in it. I think in general I am pretty mild mannered, but I think I can also be “tough” when I need to be.

Alright, let’s take a second for you to brag a little bit. Who are some of the famous people you have photographed? And were there any funny stories from those?
Most famous…I photographed Terry Cruise for Mass Appeal. He’s on Everybody Hates Chris. I worked with the Federation; that was dope. David Banner was two hours late and made me miss an opportunity to photograph the Wu-Tang Clan… Or how about David Banner was a gentleman? He was super nice though.

My word count is running out. To end it, what can you tell folks about your upcoming show Dec. 13 at Artifacts on 907 K St.
I’ve been working on the Vans project for a minute now. It started in 2002 at a skate park in Davis and the project kind of snowballed from there. I’ll be showing 20 of my favorite pictures from the project, with shots taken in Los Angeles, Cuba, New York, Mexico, San Francisco…

I really thought this interview would be lot crazier, sorry I took it so serious.
Should have been more gangster and drank Bailey’s.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Clever, inventive and undeniably expressive, Cleo Cartel is a vocal, visual and creative artist with passion and conviction. It is an ordinary Sunday, full of sunshine, and Cartel is casually sitting in her salon where she joyfully braids culture and conversation into people’s hair. All around are vivid impressions that she recently designed. There are samples of hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind jewelry, a unique mixture of carefully made, brightly colored, poetically inscribed, wooden and stone earrings, bracelets and necklaces. Paintings with vibrant hues, full of people, scenes and meaningful images from Cartel’s mind enlighten the atmosphere. In a laid-back and relaxed demeanor, her voice warm and welcoming, she begins smiling and freely shares her joy of creating and tells the story of family, community and culture that inspired her confidence to choose art.

“I’ve never been scared to follow my first mind,” she says, “Art is what makes me feel good.” Born and raised in Oakland, Calif., amid an entirety of rich cultures, Cartel recalls, “We were immersed in art as kids.” Growing up part of an African-American, Latino and Asian community, Cartel felt, “There were no barriers to where you could go, what you could see, do and learn.” Her mom would take her around shopping and running errands, Cartel would observe all the different people, notice their different styles and absorb their art and cultural. Cartel specifically remembers one woman who owned her own business and was an innovative dresser. She stood out because of the clothes and culturally unique jewelry she wore. Cartel also thinks back to the Festival at the Lake, a local event where she observed people selling their own arts, goods and crafts. These were meaningful experiences because they served as early examples of “people like me, from where I’m from, being financially stable,” she says. Seeing creative and successful black-owned businesses especially, made her realize as a young girl, “Man, I can do anything. I can be in control.”

Cartel also had strong models and mentors at home. She credits a lot of her creativity, passion and drive to her father and mother. Her father was a gospel and jazz singer and memories of his jazz records playing when she was young nurtured her first love for art.
“He loved art but, he couldn’t pursue an arts degree; he had no choice as far as education.” She smiles, “He let us do what ever we wanted because he never could, but he always made sure you followed through and finished.” He’d say, “When choosing something extra-curricular,” because academics came first, “you have to think, is that something I can do as a career? And as an artist you need to be a businessman, because you need to feed yourself.” This proved to be a most valuable lesson.

Cartel’s mom, an activist and lawyer, passed on her own share of wisdom. She instilled in Cartel the importance of always having a voice, of being able to express one’s self, and having the ability to state her mind. “I think that’s where I got my poetry side, from my mom,” she reflects. An important contributor in Sacramento’s spoken word and urban poetry setting, Cartel has definitely been using her voice. Always a singer because of her father’s musical influence, she has also been involved with the Sacramento Poetry Slam Team and was an originating collaborator at the fondly remembered Blue Room, a weekly poetry series that was featured at Jazzman’s Art of Pasta many years ago.

It is King Jr. High School, however, where Cartel believes all these positive influences from her community and home first had the opportunity to manifest into the tangible art forms she creates now. It provided the perfect environment that allowed her good business sense, appreciation of art, value in education and the necessity to have a voice come alive. At King she had the experience of taking a wood shop class. Working with wood and using her hands is something she truly relished and soon she began working on her own.
“I was coming in after school and anytime I could,” Cartel says. “I had so many ideas, I never wanted to leave.”

Eventually, Cartel moved from the Bay Area with her family to Sacramento. She felt an immediate sense that something valuable was missing. The abundance of art and the community in which she grew up were no longer present. She thought, “There isn’t anything here that I’m used to so let’s create some.” Throughout finishing at Kennedy High School, Cartel continued to create using the skills first practiced at King. She began making earrings from wood she would shape by hand. She painted and colored the wood transforming each earring into a wearable piece of art. Always full of ideas, she added colorful stones and fabrics to her designs making them truly original in style and form. One very important aspect of Cartel’s pieces includes her own meaningful poetry inscribed on key pieces. Originally, she just designed for herself, but soon people would see her designs, and ask, “Can you do mine like that?” Inspired and encouraged, she continued to follow her passion and has created an entire assortment of accessories, not just jewelry.

Since then, she has worked hard to create freely, share her voice through art and support herself doing what she loves. “I know something about being clear and focused,” she says reflecting on her efforts. “Success that is lasting always takes hard work and perseverance.” Still at it, she admits, “There are times when I want to quit.” Cartel acknowledges that support from her husband helps to keep her on track and encouraged when she gets down. People who invest in her work are also definitely appreciated. She makes an important point saying, “If we can buy stuff that is mass produced and manufactured for stores then we can invest in art.”

She explains, “What is better than getting something made from someone’s own hands? There is nothing better than that!” Cartel is not only an artist, but an avid collector as well.

When asked about what she wants her work to convey, she says, “I want my style to represent freedom.” She says she likes to use a lot of vivid colors because, “colors represent a piece of heaven; they’re just something beautiful.” She hopes that in following her passions, maybe her work will continue to motivate that same feeling that she got as a young girl from observing the people in her community. She wants to inspire others to pursue their passion too. “Don’t be afraid to try something new,” she encourages. “You never know what comes with trying something new. You might create something beautiful that the world may need to see.”

Post from: Submerge Magazine

There seems to be an inherent marriage between the creation of art and the enforced destruction thereof by the powers that be. I mean, even John Lennon had an FBI file. So when local aerosol artist Paydirt7 first began his journey into the street-savvy world of writing on freight trains and buildings, he most likely had little inkling that he’d be targeted for the illegality of his work, despite its obvious radiance. But just as quickly, Paydirt7 hit…well, you know…and even has a commissioned piece hanging at City Hall. His work reflects both the vibrant urban decay of society and also the imaginary cartoon worlds of comics; but both breathe deeply with zeal, and there’s an irregular neo-tech tenderness to his work that separates the oil from the vinegar. Paydirt7 took some time out to chat with Submerge about his beginnings, his middles and why Beat Street changed his life.

I understand that when you started out, you encountered a bit of trouble due to spray painting on the sides of freight trains. Can you explain a little bit about that era of your foray into art?
Painting freight trains is an evolution of graffiti from the subways of New York. Instead of a train running just in one city, they roll across the country. To me, a piece on a train takes on a life of its own.

What made you gravitate toward aerosol as your preferred method of creating your art?
Before I had even touched a can of Krylon, I was drawing comic book heroes and doing watercolors—you know, that first set of watercolors they give to kids. I’d sit around for hours painting dinosaurs, drinking red Kool-Aid and eating saltine crackers. My first exposure to hip-hop was watching Beat Street as a kid. I think it was around ‘85 or ’86, and it was playing on the VCR at a childhood birthday party. Back then it was more about break dancing, and I remember hanging out in front of the supermarket trying to spin on my back on a flattened cardboard box. I think shortly after that we upgraded to a sheet of linoleum. That feeling of fun and creativity is what attracted me to hip-hop style graffiti. I started using an airbrush but got annoyed changing out all the cups of paint and being tethered to an air compressor. When painting murals 20 feet by 20 feet, it’s much quicker with spray paint. I can blast large areas of color with a fat cap and climb to the top of ladders with a papoose full of spray cans. I just like the mobility it provides. Also there is a sense of adventure and interaction with your environment painting outdoors with aerosol.

Your work reflects a lot of different influences, from comics to urban street art to pop culture; do you enjoy working outside of a presumed theme for your pieces?
There are so many styles and subject matters to explore. Some times I feel like Bob Ross, other times I feel like painting ridiculously exaggerated cartoon characters and graffiti letters. No matter what it is, I think my underlying technique and touch shows through.

What did it mean to you to be commissioned for a piece at City Hall after having so many speed bumps with legal issues?
I grew up in Sacramento and it’s a pretty small community, so it’s kind of hard to hide from the po-po. I started writing in ‘93 and shortly after that began receiving commissions by local businesses. I always wanted to go to art school but did not have the rich parents to pay for it. Also, I was already making a decent living painting murals so why go into debt paying back student loans? When I turned 18, I began teaching computer graphics and mural painting classes to kids in the day, and at night I would be painting freights in the yard. Shit was nice for a while, but when five cop cars show up at your house with a search warrant and you find the FBI has been watching you for the last year, things change. So I guess starting in the street and ending up with a painting in City Hall is a great irony.

What piece of yours are you most proud of?
Top of the list would be when I went to Europe and painted passenger trains in Switzerland. Watching the train I painted five hours ago roll in to the station bustling with people had me jumping out of my sneakers. I imagine it’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing what the original writers in New York must have felt when they saw their pieces running on the subway.

About how many pieces do you create in any given year? How prolific of an artist are you?
Now days I’ve been doing lots of commercial work and it’s hard to find time to paint just for me. I tried for a long time to do two to three paintings for every commissioned piece, but when your hobby becomes your career, you need to find some time to walk the dog. I have some real radical pieces that I’m working on right now—a 12-foot by 8-foot canvas that’s going to disturb some people. Also, I’m becoming more involved in animation and making video of graffiti inspired letter structures that bounce and pulse to music.

To whom or what do you owe your dedication to perfecting and progressing your craft?
My father was born in Hawaii and learned to carve traditional style tikis from a native Hawaiian. So having 5-foot-tall, meticulously detailed sculptures around the house while I was growing up showed me what could be achieved with patience and concentration.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Lawrence Argent is a professor at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Denver. Though he has only paid one two-day visit to Sacramento, in 2011, he—and his long-eared accomplice—will leave an indelible mark on this city. And though Argent’s sculpture hasn’t even been built yet, it is already causing quite a stir with locals, and the reaction isn’t all that positive.

Argent is one of three selected from a group of over 100 artists to create public art works for the new Sacramento International Airport Terminal B. The airport renovation will cost $1.27 billion; $8 million has been set aside for art. Argent’s installation will serve as the centerpiece of the new terminal—a 56-foot red-orange rabbit leaping into a suitcase with a swirling vortex on top. His piece alone will cost $800,000—a figure that doesn’t sit too well with Sacramentans.

“$800,000 for a fiberglass red rabbit? Come on Sacramento we can do better than that!” wrote one perturbed citizen in response to an article about the sculpture on Sacbee.com. The commenter added, in reference to how a big red rabbit is supposed to represent Sacramento, “Ever see a red rabbit—[anywhere]?”

Others, however, have been more accepting. “Believe it or not [$800,000] for a giant, CUSTOM, red rabbit is pretty reasonable!” retorted another commenter to the same article.

The artist welcomes such debate, however. In fact, it’s the sort of thing he strives for. More than just decorating architecture, Argent wants his public art to inspire conversation and make an impression on those who look upon it.

“I understand the sense of negativity,” says Argent from his studio in Denver. “I think that’s part of the discussion about art; art doesn’t necessarily please everybody. I’m not here to please everybody. I’m just hopefully engaging people in a dialogue that can stimulate them in a different way than what they perhaps may have originally thought.”

Though the rabbit may seem like a lighthearted subject—and it is on some levels—the artist ensures that it is by no means a haphazard decision. The journey Argent took to his choice of subject in this particular piece is similar to his life’s journey. Born in England, Argent received a B.A. in sculpture from the Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. He later came stateside to receive an M.F.A. from Rinehart School of Sculpture, in Baltimore, Md. before finally settling in Denver.

“I came here to go to graduate school, and I wasn’t really planning on finishing,” Argent says. His plan was to attend graduate school for a year so that he could come to America “to have people I’d read about in books talk to me about my artwork,” and do so a lot more cheaply than it would have been to move here outright and “actually try to find those people.”

He adds, “Through many routes of possibilities, the journey made me end up here in Denver, Colo., which is actually a very nice city.”
Though he hasn’t spent much time in Sacramento (he’ll be making many more trips as his project progresses), he was instantly impressed with the California capitol.

“I think the energy was very positive there,” Argent says. “I see a change, perhaps, in what’s going on in the dialogue of downtown and the urban environment.”

Argent hopes his piece will contribute to and spur on more dialogue. In fact it already has. Though the big red rabbit element steals the headlines, Argent says the piece actually began with a more mundane idea—the suitcase. Suitcase imagery has appeared once before in Argent’s work. His sculpture Travel Companion—an “old suitcase with a rubber mold of a teddy bear, embedded in concrete and covered in polyester resin”—plays with the idea of travel and its effect on the self.

“I’m interested in our voyage, whether that be physical area that we move through in our life, or the spiritual domain that we walk through,” Argent explains “In that particular piece, it was a sense of possession that we have, that we have comfort in the suitcase, this archived version of something that didn’t quite make it, and that’s what that piece is about.”

Starting with the suitcase for the Sacramento Airport installation put Argent in a precarious position. He needed to connect it to something. He began by considering what goes through a traveler’s mind when he or she exits the plane and heads toward baggage claim.

“When we arrive at baggage claim, what we’ve come through to where we’ve been, that journey that we’ve been on is full of angst, it’s full of anxiety, it’s full of joy. We have all these elements that add up to an amazing component of [when] we start to feel whole again when if perhaps our luggage gets there, which is not always the case,” he says with a laugh. “But when it gets there, there’s this sense of reconciliation of joining yourself with yourself—joining with your stuff.”

In the end, it was the environment that surrounded the Sacramento Airport that helped lead Argent to his final design. He says that the “green space” outside the facility is unique in that “you can walk outside and you’re in a landscaped environment, and you have the possibility of breathing fresh air—or jet fuel, however you want to look at it,” he jokes. The airports surroundings coupled with the traveler’s anxiety and his/hers desire to deplane and reconnect with his/hers luggage as rapidly as possible pointed toward the image of the rabbit.

“It’s such an animal that I’ve had so much fascination with,” Argent says. “It’s held charge of a powerful symbolism through out civilization—that connection to fables and stories, past and contemporary mythology as well. In it, I sort of sensed a vehicle for an element of paradox that I was interested in.”

To those who are still critical of the piece, Argent hopes that they might change their minds once the installation is actually completed.

“How much can we judge something, by just an image, that’s not even in place yet?” he muses. “When you’ve got this thing leaping at you … when you’re on your way to baggage claim, you may get a different feeling… That’s a very different experience than what you’re seeing in a rendering.”

Argent is no stranger to public art projects. He gained notoriety for creating a three-story blue bear that peers into the Denver Convention Center. He is currently also working to create a Holocaust memorial for the University of Denver’s Center for Judaic Studies.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

By Catherine Foss

Go ahead and laugh. No, seriously—when it comes to her work, local artist Liv Moe intends to entertain. Drop all textbook philosophies and art-school vocabularies at the door, and prepare yourself to confront a hodge-podge of ordinary objects set against each other in such a way as to make you reconsider the objects we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. “My work really revolves around the environments that we construct for ourselves,” Moe explains. She says that although not all of her individual pieces have a specific meaning, there is a central theme that runs throughout her art, which is: “What American culture surrounds itself with. We’re a culture of stuff. We’re packrats; we have so much junk.”

Hair Chair

Her current show at The BrickHouse Gallery will run until Oct. 31, and is entitled Giggles. The show is titled after a particular piece bold and assertive enough to coax a nervous laugh from just about anyone: large male genitalia fashioned from a comic-print sleeping bag that Moe picked up at a thrift store. She was originally attracted by the cartoon pattern, but once she brought it home she noticed that this was no ordinary sleeping bag; it zipped up the center instead of the side, and the top was meant to be folded over on both corners so that someone could wear it “like a little cocoon,” she says. “When I put it together in my studio the way it was intended to be worn, I realized that it looked like a giant cock and balls,” she laughs. This phallic symbol created from such a light-hearted print makes for an interesting juxtaposition. “For me it references that nervousness that happens when kids are confronted with sexuality. It’s something bigger than they can understand, so the way that [they] address it is to giggle about it.”

Moe had been waiting for about a year for just the right opportunity to show this particular piece, and it all came together while planning her current show. Many of the pieces were previously shown during her thesis show at Sacramento State last April, and she remembered hearing a lot of laughter from people who viewed her work—and so, a theme was born.

“In some cases an uneasiness happens with some of the work. I think that’s why people nervously giggle when they see things that are odd or funny but they don’t totally understand them, so I thought it was appropriate to name the show Giggles,” Moe says.

In a conversation with this amazingly articulate artist, Moe shares the inner-workings of her artistic mind.

Spring Air

Tell me a little about your current art and how it came to be what it is. Did it start with an idea of something that you wanted to express, or did it just come to be on its own?
Once I started working with materials, I was so compelled to work with materials. It was all I wanted to do. Suddenly I was so excited about art and wanted to pursue a degree in it. It was like, this is what I want to do. I’m not totally sure how I’m going to do it or what my focus is or what I’m specifically interested in expressing through it, but this is what I want to do. I realized over time that I have a sensibility that when I approach objects, there are things that I just find humorous or culturally interesting.

Many of the items used in your art would be considered junk by most people; when did you begin to see these items as art?
It’s one of those things that you just 100 percent have to believe that what it is can be art, and push it as far as you’re comfortable pushing it…I’ve realized with my own art that once I start the questions, I’m over. I should just stop making the piece, [or] you start feeling that you’re just fooling yourself, and that what you’re doing is just silly or odd or dumb, and you can’t develop your idea any further than that.

Do you set time aside to collect the items used in your work, or do you just gather things as you come across them?
It just depends…. When I’m in my practice, I usually go looking for materials a couple times a week… Sometimes something will start out really organically, like I’ll find one material, then I’ll find this object, then I’ll start putting them all together, and I’ll realize that in order to make this successful, I need a ton of grapes. So you mine the thrift stores as far as you can, and suddenly the piece becomes going to all the dollar stores you can find, and going on the Internet, researching how much rubber grapes cost…Once something comes together, you’re on this really funny journey.

You’re both a writer and an artist. Do your left-brain and your right brain always get along, or is it hard to find a balance between the two?
There is a part of me that is overly analytical and I ask too many questions and I think too much about why I’m doing something without just letting myself do it. So there’s really a balance for me between over-documenting what I’m doing or writing about what I’m doing or photographing what I’m doing and just letting it happen.

You use a lot of items from the domestic sphere; do you consider yourself a feminist artist?
I identify myself as a feminist very distinctly, but I don’t perceive what I make as feminist work… The work is something that is accessible to everyone and it’s not about furthering a feminist philosophy.

If you could have viewers understand just one thing after going to one of your shows that they didn’t think of before, what would it be?
It really is simple. It’s about the components you’re looking at, and then suddenly all that work became more accessible to me and more interesting, and so I think that that’s really the thing that I hope people will take away when they look at it is that it’s OK, you can really just look at what’s actually there and make your decisions based on that.

We Need Each Other

Post from: Submerge Magazine

By Jonathan Carabba

A slice of watermelon, a coffee pot, a steaming train; these things may mean nothing to you, but to the person on your left the same random objects could strike a nerve. In a good way.

Before heading to his current show entitled ABSURDA (an anagram of abstract, surreal and dada) at Inferno Gallery, Duarte graciously took some time out of his Second Saturday afternoon to speak with Submerge in his Midtown studio on topics ranging from “fast food art” to mocking reality.

Were you introduced to art at an early age?
I was born into a family of artists in South America. I am the youngest of seven; four of them are painters and artists. When I was 4 or 5 years old, I used to go to the art school with my brothers. I have no notion of anything else, I don’t know anything about accounting or medicine it was only art in my house. I had no choice; I had to become an artist.

Now that you’re a full-time artist, do you think of it as a regular job the way most people think of their jobs?
Yeah, it’s just like when you’re a monk or something, you cannot be an 8-to-5 monk [laughs]. I try to paint, draw and do prints daily. I go home, I sketch. If I’m at the studio, I sketch. Even if I travel, I sketch.

How did you come to settle in Sacramento after spending so much time in the Bay Area?
When I had kids somebody told me, “Davis is great.” Basically that was the first move years ago, back in ’80-something. I got divorced and moved back to the Bay Area but my kids were here, so they were the main reason to be in this area. Eventually I started working more in Sacramento and knowing more people. And when the economy is so crazy in San Francisco that not even the mayor can pay his own rent, they push you out: From San Francisco to Emeryville and from Emeryville to here. You pay per square foot [for a studio], so I told the guy, “Give me a square foot, I’ll do a 1-foot by 1-foot painting [laughs].” They brought in all the dot-comers and heavy industries. This is what happened everywhere I had been.

Back in ‘05 you were quoted saying, “I see a lot of potential in the Midtown area.” Now that it has been a few years, what are your thoughts?
It’s amazing, it’s getting better and better. I think Second Saturday is a little bit cuckoo. It’s becoming what I call “fast food art.” But it’s good; at least it brings people out in the streets. What the people need to learn now is to divide the art, food and music. Sometimes people go into the galleries just like it’s a meat market for the wine and food and that’s it. Art becomes secondary. It still has great potential, though.

Is that why you had the ABSURDA reception before this Second Saturday, to avoid the crowds and the madness?
I did the opening last Friday because tonight I don’t think I will have time for buyers. People came from the Bay Area mostly, along with friends from Davis and friends from here. I like to be with them for one particular day without the whole crowd because I start to lose it. I don’t like openings anyways, but I do it because you have to do it. It becomes like a zoo, you’re like an animal in a cage and they analyze you and check your work. Now what they need to learn is to really understand art. People spend $200 eating sushi but won’t spend $300 on a print that will last forever. It’s an investment for yourself and for your future. Every time I sell something, I invest more than half of it back into art.

So you consider yourself an avid art collector then?
I have over 65 pieces. If I don’t do this stuff, who is going to do it? If you’re a musician, you buy music, you know? If I’m tight on money, I still buy art. It’s important.

I’m curious as to how you would explain your artwork to someone who had never seen it.
In words it’s hard to say. But I would say that it’s just mocking reality a little bit. I try to make a painting more real than reality sometimes, even if it doesn’t exist. I love the metaphysical or surreal point that you fake reality in a way. Reality can be anything but I like to play with the ambiguousness of reality and non-reality. You have to understand I was born in a town in a country where reality was so crazy. You can walk down the middle of the street and see a horse walking by.

When you’re painting are you thinking about how the piece is going to make people feel when they see it? If so, does that affect your work?
Yeah, sometimes when I’m painting I have this brainstorm in my head about everything, except money, honestly. I am even thinking about the person who is going to frame this work. I am thinking about how is it going to be looked at, how would it look upside down? What are the people going to think, what are they going to say? Painters forget about this, they become so involved with the painting, and that’s good but at the same time you have to think, “How are people going to react to this?” I’m not trying to please everyone and I’m not thinking about if it’s going to look good or bad in their living room, or if it’s going to look bad in their office. I don’t care about that. But I do care about feelings.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Self-trained, Blackburn began showing her art in 2005. SaraJane & Co. will host her latest exhibition and mark the occasion with a three-day opening from Sept. 11–13. The four-person show will also feature Netherlands, Ed Phelps and one of Blackburn’s favorites, Mark Fox. Blackburn will be showing works from her current series of paintings titled Controlled Chaos. In a recent interview with Submerge, she shed some light on her latest series and explained why she feels she’s blossoming as an artist.


Does your professional life ever influence your creative life?
You know, that’s a good question. I guess the fact that I get to be surrounded by all kinds of interesting people from different cultures, and be with beautiful, happy, healthy children all the time, I think that definitely finds its way into my art.

Do you think that since you didn’t have any training, you were able to develop more freely?
You know what? I wish I did have more training. In fact I’d love to go back to school—back to the Academy of Art or something—and get someone to teach me all the techniques, because I do layer after layer to get what I want. There are quicker ways to do it if you know what you’re doing.

Also, at that time I was what they call a bilingual teacher, even though I wasn’t bilingual at all. I spent some time in Mexico taking language classes. All the art that I saw when I was in Mexico—all the bright colors and the folk art and the big murals—all that really influenced my art. My first paintings were of suns and moons, like you might see in Mexican folk art, and all that still influences my work today.

When you first sat down to paint, and you had the blank canvas in front of you, did you have an idea of what you wanted to do?
That first one I mapped out pretty carefully. I made a sun surrounded by four moons, and remember getting plates out and little dishes so I could make sure I had perfect circles. But you know what’s cool for me right now is that I’m at a phase where I don’t have to map out things carefully. Once I know what’s coming next, which takes me a while sometimes, I’m not having to make initial sketches. I just go right at it.

I wanted to talk about your current series, Controlled Chaos, is this the first time you’ve ever worked in a series?
Not really, but not on purpose, really. I did the suns and moons, and then I started doing a lot of portrait work and figurative work, which I still like. I still get commissions for that now and then, and I still put a lot of that into what I’m doing right now. But what happened was, I was doing all this figurative work, and a collector said, “I want you to make these paintings. I want them to be really large, I want them to be these colors, and I want them to be totally abstract.” And I had no idea how to go about doing that. I know the person liked Gustav Klimt, so I made made these big organic tubes and I filled them with all this patterning and gold leaf and stuff. That series is what led to the Controlled Chaos pieces, because now I have this structure where I can contain all my composition in the tubes, but all the figurative and portraiture stuff is coming back in. You can see that there is a lot more representational stuff in the paintings.

There’s a collage aspect to your work as well.
I experimented for a while with having the collage and having some realistic elements like that portrait of Einstein that I painted, because I wanted people to wonder, “What does she glue on and what does she paint?” But my most recent work has been a lot more painting and not just collage, so I don’t know if I’m moving on into a new phase or what.

What inspired you to experiment with collage in the first place?
I just think we’re so inundated with all these interesting images. Every time I open up a magazine or anything, I don’t look at the articles. The first thing I do is think, “What would be a good painting? What can I cut out and glue on something?” I have stacks and stacks of magazine, and I subscribe to weird things like Biblical Archaeology. Even now, when I kind of want a mental break, I do what I call collage therapy where I just randomly cut things out and find out what happens instead of making a real elaborate painting. One night, just get it done, and see what happens.

Why do you find yourself moving away from collage in your more recent paintings?
I think that’s what happening is that I’m feeling that my technical abilities are growing, so I feel more confident making a wide variety of images with the paint, and then of course I have more control. I can look at a picture I found in a magazine or on Google or whatever, but I can make it my own size or exaggerate features, or whatever. I think it’s just an extension of my powers growing.

You mentioned in your description of the series that the skulls were the focal point for Controlled Chaos. Were those images that you really wanted to use going into the painting of the series, or did you just notice skulls popping up in your work?
I made one big skull in the first painting I made in this series, and I just felt like the whole skull thing was a universal image. If I’d used your face or my face, you know there’s a man, there’s a woman. That person’s young, that person’s old, whatever. But that skull, that’s everybody’s future. That’s a much more universal symbol for all of us. That’s what I’m trying to explore: the mysteries that we all have to deal with all the time—the mysteries of the spiritual and the afterlife, yes, but also all of the myriad of things we have to deal with right now. That’s why skulls are the focal point, because it’s not about just me. It’s about all of us trying to figure out, “How do I live a decent life and be the person I want to be?”

Have you put any thought into a series you’d like to do next?
It’s interesting, because I’m still doing a lot of skull stuff, but I’ve noticed a lot of roses are coming in. I think I’m getting ready to bloom a little bit [laughs]. I’m not sure I can say. I can see some transitions happening.

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A beautiful blonde plays with her dog in the park—wait, does that dog have a human face? A young couple takes in an art gallery pose for the camera—hold on, looks like the boyfriend has morphed into a gargoyle! Enter the colorful and sometimes bizarre world of local artist Eli Trujillo. Most of his paintings begin with a real person in mind, either a friend or family member, or perhaps a recent celebrity infatuation; but when the genius begins, Trujillo starts making changes.

He describes his sometimes funny, sometimes serious twists on real people as “not exactly a remix; more like a cover toon.” Growing up on a diet of comic books, Trujillo cites comic book painter Simon Bisley as the artist who sparked his interest in painting. Add the influence of Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum, and what emerges are unlikely portraits that morph ordinary humans into two-headed women, dogs with human heads and bug-eyed cartoon beauties.

“One of the major things that comic books did was give me a strange idea of what humans should look like, as far as guys being super buff, having six packs and being able to punch through walls,” Trujillo said.

Unfortunately, the real-life Trujillo does not possess superhuman strength, and spent many years working regular jobs, including a brief stint blending Caramel Machiattos at Starbucks, which he quit after watching Fight Club too many times.

“I just started hearing about consumerism and the corporate world. I was going to try and do with less and see if I could make it not working,” Trujillo explains.

His days of corporate freedom lasted two glorious weeks; then, it was back to the daily grind and another mindless job. Eventually, though, the small boy that used to draw cartoons spoke up, and he began to take his art more seriously. In 2007, Trujillo quit another job to pursue a degree in Art Studio at California State University, Sacramento.

Since moving to Sacramento in 2004, Trujillo’s work has been shown mostly in smaller, more alternative art spaces like Greg Pond Photography in 2006 and Studio Yes in 2007, as well as A Bitchin’ Space in 2007 and the Brick House Gallery in 2008.

Beginning Sept. 13, Trujillo’s paintings will be part of a circus-themed group show at A Bitchin’ Space. The various paintings will make up a circus train, but it’s doubtful that Barnum & Bailey would approve. This show is “a protest for animal cruelty,” Trujillo says. And don’t expect participating artists to spoon-feed their message to the public. Trujillo explains that it’s up to local Sacramentans to decipher their protest message: “We tell people it’s just a circus show,” he said.

Although Trujillo’s paintings pack a powerful (and colorful) punch, most aren’t intended to make a statement.

“I’m just letting people know what’s going on in my head,” he said. Movie buff and self-proclaimed junk—TV watcher, many of his paintings highlight celebrities.

“It’s interesting that you can get infatuated with people that you don’t know,” he said. “Most recently, I have been working with the ideas of celebrity worship, idealism and the unreasonable expectations they create. In conjunction with these works, I am beginning to use photos from my family archive in the same manner, creating an interesting juxtaposition when shown together.”

Trujillo also creates what he calls “personal propaganda” pieces, which serve as good advice—directed toward himself. For example, he’ll paint a picture of himself with no shirt on.

“I’ve got a nice gut going on. [The pictures] make me not want to eat ice cream so much,” he laughed.

Trujillo says that these paintings are meant mostly for himself, but it’s quite possible that others could learn from them as well.
“Almost all my paintings are personal and autobiographical, so I think it’s hard for people to really get a hold of them,” he said.

Formal instruction in art has greatly improved his ability with techniques like space and volume, and he’s noticed that his paintings have become increasingly more realistic as his skills improve.

“I’ve recently been making a conscious effort to place the figures in an environment rather than, say, a red or gray background, to create a more believable space,” he explained. Looking back on work that was completed in the past, he notes that some paintings are much more juvenile than others, and oftentimes he’ll change or alter these paintings. “Something I’ve just started doing is not being afraid to change things…even two years after its finished,” he says.

On the other hand, though, he hasn’t lost his love for goofy-looking superheroes. “Although I take my paintings seriously, I also try and inject a bit of humor into them. I would love to see someone fall over laughing at one of my works, but this has yet to happen.”

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Whether you’re a nerd, stoner or activist, Skinner’s art may speak to you. The Sacramento-based artist has had his work adorn local architecture ranging from the Sacramento City Skate Park to Big Brother Comics, and now with his upcoming show at Upper Playground, entitled No More the World of Man, Skinner hopes to “raise the bar” for himself.

No More the World of Man opens as part of Second Saturday on July 12 and runs through August at Upper Playground on J Street. In anticipation of the event, Skinner gave Submerge a brief window into his “weird ass brain” during a recent interview.

I’ve heard the term “lowbrow art” used to describe your work, and I was wondering how you felt about that.
See, I think that’s an interesting term. It’s an interesting term, but it can be used in a negative way. It marginalizes the message or the effort of something. When something is considered lowbrow, it marginalizes what it’s capable of doing and what it’s capable of being. I personally think my artwork is fantasy art, even though it’s not traditional oil painting stuff. It’s fantasy art. There’s so many mixtures of influences in my art, but primarily I would say it’s fantasy art with tendencies toward socio-political commentary. I think the term lowbrow art doesn’t necessarily apply to what I’m doing, because I may smoke a lot of weed, but I’m not stupid.

It seems like a condescending term.
Well, it was a direct rebellion from the pretentious fine art movement, which is so fucking lame and boring.

What kind of things politically do you hope to express with your work?
There have always been these struggles in society between the upper class and the lower class. I provoke a lot of those influences in my art. Also, the idea that we are struggling in this society, especially since this is a capitalist society where the people with the money have everything—the conveniences and the luxury—and basically everyone else is making sure that that happens by working very hard for very little pay. There are some gender inequalities and social inequalities that I find to be totally infuriating. I’m trying to provoke some thought with my art without standing on a soapbox.

Since your art features a lot of monsters and other fantasy images, do you think viewers pick up on the messages or is that not something that concerns you?
I think people pick up on whatever they’re going to pick up on in art. A lot of people like looking at a character doing nothing in a painting, and I think that’s fine, but it’s just not for me. I provide the influences and creativity that I’m a part of, or that I see is relevant in my life and put it out there. I feel like even if people aren’t catching on to whatever knowledge I’m trying to kick out there, or whatever thing I’m trying to share, that they see there’s a level of sincerity to it. I’m grateful if anybody can feel that way about what I’m doing.

When I first saw your paintings I picked up on the Dungeons and Dragons influence because I used to play myself. When did you get turned on to D&D?
I was like 15. I just got into it. There was no social pressure; there were no sports. It wasn’t anything fucked up. You could just draw and get weird and eat pizza with your friends and get into something that’s escapism. I think the reason I try to maintain that level of naïveté or innocence in my artwork is because that’s the part of myself that I see that I love in other people. When I see someone who’s hella old or in a business suit or something like, but then there are these little moments when they act like a kid or you can see how they must’ve been like when they were little, that to me is the magical shit right there. How you were and who you were before you were influenced by social pressures and our social structures, which kind of steer you into column A, B or C. I’m just like fuck all that. That shit doesn’t make me happy. Competitive capitalist ideology—I can’t flow with that shit.

Your work is really psychedelic also. When did your fantasy influences start to merge with the more hallucinatory stuff?
I started to research a lot of these Mexican and South American tribes and their usage of psychedelics. I noticed that their awareness of the color spectrum and their ability to use colors to create optical illusions and create a level of intensity that I found very spiritual and strange. I introduced that into my work; a lot of artists now are using low tones and mid-tones, tans and dark greens and stuff, but I just got brighter and brighter. I just like it. It looks really good to me. Plus, I did a lot of acid in high school and I would take a lot of drugs. It was really hard for me to exist with my weird ass brain in Auburn.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

By Terra Lopez

Animal instinct, electronic fury and a plethora of neon—Vagas Hawk is no stranger to color. She may be a stranger to most, however, being that her two art shows (at newcomer Thunderhorse Vintage and Old Soul at the Weatherstone) on June 14 were her very first. Sixteen pieces of neon splattered canvas, humanistic portrayals of wolves and elephants and lengthy titles make up her first series, entitled Electric City. Inspired by her deep passion for ambient electronic music and love of animals, Electric City is a portal into nature’s futuristic realm.

Vagas Hawk (named after her grandfather) seems to have always been drawn to both electronic music and animals, citing her experiences with her mother and also her time while in high school as the pinnacles to her introduction to nature and music.

“My mother introduced me to nature by taking long walks with me,” Hawk says. “I think she helped develop my attention to nature because we would take walks and solely focus on the animals around us.”

At the age of 6, Hawk’s first sketches were of 10 horses because, as Hawk recalls, “I would watch my mother draw in this journal she had. She drew a lot of different things, mostly nature themed, so I know that her art was a huge influence on me back then.”

She continued drawing into her high school years, when she enrolled in Sacramento High School’s VAPAC art classes. Primarily focusing on portraits of friends, she remembers, “I was not really experimenting with color at all back then. I used mostly pens and pencils in black and white. I was still trying to feel comfortable with myself and with drawing.”

It was in high school where she discovered electronic music, a variable that would help Hawk find her comfort in creating.

“I had just found Portishead when I entered high school and I was listening to other types of electronic music as well, and I felt that that type of music really helped me find emotions that were real,” Hawk says. “I was able to put on my headphones and draw.”

After several years of traveling all over California, feeling “deprived of any cultural or art bond” from her previous residences (which included South Lake Tahoe, Chico and a brief stint in Pismo Beach), she decided to move back to Sacramento. She has been here for less than five months. In that time, Hawk has started creating art that most resembles her upbringing: chaotic urban mazes of color and depth. Her art harkens back to the ‘80s, a time when neon windbreakers and New Kids on the Block were heralded. Hawk is a spray paint addict, adorning all her canvas works heavily with neon greens, oranges, pinks and blues, but her art is not what you’d expect from a spray can; it’s surprisingly precise, clean and even mathematical. Each piece is created “within a three-step process,” Hawk says.

“I use spray paint for the first step. I then use paint pens and acrylic for the last two steps.”

Electric City is intense, bold, and creative. It is fun, abrasive and a little crazy. It is work that represents her desire to create electronic music on canvas. Accordingly, Hawk admits that her art can be “a bit much at times. It normally is all over the place because I am influenced by so many different outlets. I love electronic music but I also love hip-hop. I love urban styles and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Post from: Submerge Magazine