OPEN SPACE

………………………………. "Only dull and powerless artists defend their art by reference to sincerity" —Kazimir Malevich……………………………………..

Githinji with one of dozens of sketchbooks in his studio

While visiting Githinji’s studio at 1018 Pine street in West Oakland we talked about a lot of things, mostly about the notion of ritual and process. Like many Black/African artists the ritual process of creating the material art object is foremost in Githinji’s mind. The ritual of making is the “art” and knowing that makes seeing and experiencing the object that is the residue of his ritual even more rich. He describes the process with an earnest look on his face “…that is what we do. It’s like James Brown, you know, to get under it and sweat.” He describes his process as being in a certain rhythm with the energy around him. The energy could be in the visual field, something that he sees, or being in rhythm with an intangible presence. These things happen in a moment. He says “As artists that’s what we are. We surrender to rhythm.” Often times he finds that moment while in public and outside of his studio and that is when he works in sketchbooks. Here are a few examples of the hundreds of drawings that Githinji shared with me in one of my visits to his studio.
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Amiri Baraka, Drawing, Githinji Wambire

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Haitian Vodou Mambo Florencia Pierre drawing Veves

A Haitian visual artist named Florencia Pierre visited San Francisco this weekend and blessed the ground of a public park with her drawings. She is a priestess of the sacred practice of vodou. What may look at first glance like an outdoor scene from some rural part of Haiti actually happened in San Francisco’s Mission District Sunday, September 19th at about one O’clock in the Afternoon. That day I had the pleasure of experiencing a casually ingenious, seamlessly organic blend of dance, visual art, narrative and ritual theater in the form of sacred worship. The ritual veve installation was the highlight of the Haitian Dance and Drum Conference, which began Friday, September 18th in Oakland and ended in San Francisco on Sunday with this ceremony. A veve is a ritual ground drawing done in Haitian vodou ceremonies to invite the presence of divine spirits. It is a deeply African ceremony comprised of Yoruba and Kongo practices. The ritual engaged all of my senses at once. I smelled the Florida water and Rum sprayed into the air and tasted fresh fruits from an altar that was virtually glowing with primary colors in mid-day summer light. As I watched Mambo Florencia sprinkle corn meal on the ground to deftly create ideograms that represent the presence of African spirits, I swayed to the sound of drums and felt the presence of the Loas (spirits) that represent Love, War and the Ocean. She was drawing down spirits.
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African Diaspora, Afriscape., Djenane St. Juste, Drawing, Florencia Pierre, Frisner Augustin, Haiti, Veve, Vodou

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Visitors to the 2008 SECA Art Award exhibition will remember The Magic Window, a suite of drawings and video from 2007 in which Desiree Holman invokes the enticing numbness of sitcom family fantasies from her 1980s childhood. In her latest body of work, on view at Silverman Gallery in San Francisco through May 30, she digs deeper into the complexities of familial psychology, tackling the thorny territory of motherhood. Holman’s practice originates in sculpture, with costumes and props that actors then bring to life in her psychedelic video epics. Her interest is in the mediation of deeply personal ideas, such as the relationship between parent and child, through the lens of popular American culture. The genesis of this project, which she titled Reborn, was Holman’s discovery of a movement among middle-aged American housewives to create lifelike baby dolls, complete with breathing mechanisms and individually-rooted eyelashes.

Desiree Holman, Insecure, 2009

Holman spent more than two years researching the Reborning movement. She learned that many Reborners have already had grown children, and that many of them are devoutly religious. She found that they take their hobby very seriously, and that they have developed a strong online presence despite representing a demographic that has been slow to embrace the Internet. The process of Reborning is laborious, involving specialized tools and paints, and tremendous technical skill. Holman ultimately produced eight dolls as the starting point for this body of work. (more…)

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Desiree Holman, Drawing, Exhibitions, Feminism, Sculpture, SECA, Silverman Gallery, Video Art

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