“But I saw our world
and your world
and another.”
— ("Malinche" by Carmen Tafolla)
Esta entrevista fue realizada el pasado diciembre de 2020, para el programa digital Transborder, conducido por Benjamín Anaya. Escúchala aquí mismo, en su versión completa.
Interpreting Old California
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Book Arts
Hay una parte del cerebro que se conecta directamente con nuestras manos. Si las dejas hacer ellas trazan, cortan, tallan, moldean, imprimen./ Book Arts. Making books with your hands is the most therapeutic of arts. Books are the medium to tell stories. The minute you put the pages together and select the design, the binding style, the covers it is because you already have a story to tell.
Miniature books to demonstrate the different structures to build.
A book is a miracle of meaning and creativity. I make books from scratch, that is from fiber to page, and to the design of pages, covers and binding. Part two entails defining what to fill your book with. What story do you want to tell? Have you heard the medium is the story? Books are sophisticated containers. What’s in them? Our memories, our stories.Wish You Were Here - The Postcard
The project “Wish you were here” (WYWH) was possible thanks to the stay home orders that brought us all to a new form of socialization via Zoom. WYWH involved seven organizations devoted to book arts and paper and print related arts, to include Bay Area Book Artists, New England Book Artists, Santa Fe Book Arts Group, North Redwoods Book Arts Guild, Puget Sound Book Artists, PaperWorks, and San Diego Book Arts.. Through carefully organized phases, we created and swaped postcards in groups of 16 participants each. I was in two groups, and I created 16 original postcards made of hand carved prints over ink oxide, enhanced with gouache. My theme was what you would see if you were in La Jolla, my coastal community. I depicted the flora, the architecture, and, of course, the Pacific. Here are the postcards:
Wish You Were Here - The Books
As this wonderful assignment evolved, I was in charge of creating two books, for the two teams I signed up to participate with, Group 2 and Group 4. My team mates were really inspiring, meeting online, conducting various workshops, gathering generously so we could all learn from each other and round up our assignment from the postcard swap to the creation of a book with the postcards received.
Summing up the two phases of the project and looking back at all the workshops I made available to me, joining San Diego Book Arts has been the best decision ever made in my life. I have found through my participation with this association many artists with whom to engage in meaningful dialogue and to grow in the field of Book Arts. Here are my contributions.
The carved stamps
To carve a stamp helps you use the same design or drawing more than one time. I love carving. It is a therapeutic way to create your own tool to reproduce an idea. Here are the stamps I created recently to do postcards.
Crafting Histories - Craft Contemporary Museum of Los Angeles
Crafting Histories was made possible by funding from Aroha Philanthropies. To me, as a participant, it was an opportunity to interact with other book artists while staying home during the Pandemic. This workshop focused on telling stories while using books as the medium. It was nice to share in this experience with valuable artists such as Penina Finger, Odilia Galvan, Jimmie Carole Fife, and Mitch Chen, among others. Their endless creativity was an inspiration to the group and to every individual in it. Here is a link to the page created by Craft Contermporary, and here some samples of my contributions.
Pride Mail Project - Fluxfest.net
In 2019 I created a series of postcards based on the border and my visits to several border crossing points, from San Ysidro to Brownsville, and from 2010-2011. I completed the series to participate in the exhibition Fluxfest.net where the theme was “diversity.”. These postcards try to depict the confluence of gender, nation and diversity. I used photography and captions to go from vantage point to the definition of self and testimony. Part of this work focuses on the self through self portraiture and humor. Follow this link to the Fluxusfest.net And here are my postcards.
Madrecitas 2016. Fallbrook Public Library
Madrecitas is a small format art exhibition originating in the Mexicali/Calexico area. In 2015 I contributed my collection of miniature hats to Madrecitas. This year I had revamped my miniature book collection, first appearing as part of my Museum in a Box piece, selected to participate in the Student Art Exhibit at the Mesa College Gallery, where I was getting my Museum Studies Certificate, in 2009-2010. So the collection travelled to the “Madrecitas” Fallbrook show, that year curated by artist Daniel Márquez.
