ohdarlingplease

[ohdarlingplease]

Here is a link to my final project.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/letsseethatpositivity

[ohdarlingplease]

Changing topic again!

This has been quite an interesting journey with this project. At first I felt strongly about going in the direction of Unity. I like the idea of everyone being included and it dealt with social justice and even some mental health.

Next I looked to a project on the domestic abuse of women. Although I felt strongly about this topic, the more research I am doing on it, the more I realize I need to research. It is also taking a bit of a toll on my emotions, because onceI discover a story, I look into it. All these stories are awful and some are worse than others.

I’ve arrived back at my mental health issue and instead of creating a project on the darker side of mental health. I’d like to promote it by creating a website or Instagram the requires community participation through email. My request from participants will be to take a picture of something/someone that has gotten them through these curious times. I’d like the picture to be delivered with a description of what the picture is and why it was chosen. I think this will be inclusive and give mental health a face from several different perspectives. Not everything in mental health is negative, but sometimes things take a little nudge to bring them into light. I feel that this project will relate to people of different ages and they may find inspiration where there may had been none before.

I’m using a method that Miranda July used for the Learning to Love You More project. She had anonymous submissions from all sorts of different people and she had an assignment for each. Each assignment got it’s own link on a website and the anonymous submission would be posted. The website is still operable: http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/hello/index.php even though the project was completed in 2009.

I hope to create something similar to this on a social media platform. Here we go.

[ohdarlingplease]

Violence against women: a global public health issue!

G Krantz

Violence against women has an effect on public health

Violence against women is a significant health and social problem affecting virtually all societies, but often it goes unrecognised and unreported and in many countries it is still accepted as part of normal behaviour.1 The manifestations and forms of violence vary in different settings, but most of the violence against women takes place within families and the perpetrators are almost exclusively men who are or have been in a close relationship with the woman.2

Although reliable data on the prevalence of violence against women by their partners are scarce, especially in developing countries, a growing body of research confirms its existence. Forty population based quantitative studies conducted in 24 countries on four continents revealed that between 20% and 50% of the women interviewed reported that they had suffered physical violence from their male partner.2 In surveys of community based populations, students and primary care patients in industrialised countries, about 5%–62% of the participating women had a history of childhood sexual abuse.3 In a random sample of Swedish women, 40 to 50 years of age, 32% disclosed having suffered violence or abuse during childhood and 15% reported such experience as adults.4 Studies from Malaysia, India, and the Republic of Korea report that 22%–42% of the women interviewed had been physically assaulted by their husband.2 Worldwide it has been estimated that violence against women is as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.5 When comparing the industrial with the developing world, the burden of disease imposed by rape and domestic violence seems to be roughly equivalent on a per capita basis.2

Gender based violence defines violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion, and other deprivations of liberty.6 Gender based violence includes domestic violence, forced sex and other forms of sexual violence, trafficking in women as well as country specific forms, such as dowry related deaths and female genital mutilation.7 It occurs in different locations and situations, such as in the home, in prisons, in the community, in situations of armed conflict, refugee and displacement. In all of these situations gender power differentials and other inequalities play an important part and women are particularly exposed to these forms of violence.8

Violence against women affects all spheres of a woman's life—her autonomy, her productivity, and her capacity to care for herself and her children and subsequently also her overall health status and quality of life. Women who have suffered violence or abuse are much more likely to report somatic symptoms related to panic, depression, musculoskeletal disorders and chronic pain, genitourinary disorders, and respiratory illness.9 Furthermore, women with such experience are more likely to misuse drugs and to attempt suicide.10 The health sector has an important part to play, as women are regular visitors and frequently turn to it despite its poor record in most settings of providing sensitive care to victimised women. Health care staff, well trained in how to meet women exposed to violence, is a prerequisite for in the first place to dare inquire about such experience but also to be able to offer appropriate treatment and support.

However, gender based violence is not only a health problem of the individual. A public health approach is needed to tackle gender violence in both industrialised and in low income countries. To tackle violence requires collaboration between many sectors, such as education, health, police, social and legal authorities, the church, and non-governmental organisations (NGO) to find preventive measures and, for as long as gender violence cannot be prevented, also to provide care for women experiencing abuse, and their children. Support to victimised women needs to be easily accessible at the local level as counselling, self help support groups and women's shelters.

Violence against women is more than a health issue; it is also a violation of women's human rights, their bodily integrity, and their sexual and reproductive rights. The United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1978. The Convention encompasses all rights—civil, political, economic, social, and cultural—and as such it is a comprehensive treaty on women's human rights that lays down governmental obligations corresponding to individual rights and freedom.6 In this way pointing at gender based violence as a political issue contributes to viewing it not mainly as a cultural, private or individual issue but as a political matter that will require states to take action.

Violence against women also has a profound impact on development. It perpetuates poverty by reducing women's capacity to work outside the home, their mobility and access to information, and children's school attendance.

The “right to development” was introduced in the Banjul charter.11 The idea is that the economic development of the poorer countries of the world is essential to their social wellbeing and political stability and that without it, they would be in no position to guarantee the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights prescribed in major international documents. The significance of women's health and socioeconomic wellbeing is increasingly recognised and seen as a necessity for a sustainable development and it is now recognised that women constitute a major force for change. Gender based violence, however, is a major constraint to women's full participation in society.

The UN conference on HIV/AIDS held in June 2001 adopted a declaration stating that in the year 2005 all women in all member states should have the right to decide about their own sexuality. This is an important statement if it also requires states to take action not only on how to turn women into decision makers, but also on the male gender role and responsibilities. So far, the main focus in research as well as in projects and programmes has been on the woman, her economic situation, her coping strategies and on how to treat and protect women. Much less emphasis has been put on the male role, masculinity or rather masculinities, and why men exercise violence against someone whom they are in a close relationship with.

So research within this field needs to go on, continuing to improve knowledge on violence against women, gender roles and their interplay, but also on the role of the state, where for instance the degree of protection offered by the law seems to have preventive implications. In this issue of JECH there is an article on sexual assault among women in North Carolina where women in a household telephone survey reported a lifetime prevalence of sexual assault of 19%.12 The authors further investigated metabolic effects in the women exposed to violence and made some interesting findings.

Violence against women has an effect on public health

REFERENCES

↵ Heise LL, Raikes A, Watts CH, et al. Violence against women: a neglected public health issue in less developed countries. Soc Sci Med1994;39:1165–79.Google Scholar

↵ Heise LL, Pitanguy J, Germain A. Violence against women: the hidden health burden. Washington DC: World Bank, 1994.

↵ Mc Cauley J, Kern DE, Kolodner K, et al. Relation of low severity violence to women's health. J Gen Intern Med1998;13:697–91.Google Scholar

↵ Krantz G, Östergren P-O. The association between violence victimisation and common symptoms in Swedish women. J Epidemiol Community Health2000;54:815–21.Abstract/FREE Full TextGoogle Scholar

↵ World Bank. World Development Report 1993. Investing in health. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

↵ Mann J, Gruskin S. Women's health and human rights: genesis of the health and human rights movement. In: Gruskin S, ed. Health and Human rights – an international quaterly journal. Cambridge: Harvard School of Public Health, 1995;1:309–12

↵ Garcia-Moreno C. Violence against women, gender and health equity. Harvard Center for population and development studies, working paper series number 99.15. Cambridge: Harvard School of Public Health, 1999.

↵ Ellsberg M, Pena R, Herrera A, et al. Wife abuse among women of childbearing age in Nicaragua. Am J Public Health1999;89:241–4.PubMedWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

↵ Leserman J, Li Z, Drossman DA, et al. Selected symptoms associated with sexual and physical abuse history among female patients with gastrointestinal disorders: the impact on subsequent health care visits. Psychol Med1998;28:417–25.CrossRefPubMedWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

↵ McCauley J, Kern DE, Kolodner K, et al. Clinical characteristics of women with a history of childhood abuse: unhealed wounds. JAMA1997;227:1362–8.Google Scholar

↵ Richters JMA. Women, culture and violence. A development, health and human rights issue. Leiden: Women and Autonomy Centre (VENA), 1994.

↵ Cloutier S, Martin SL, Poole C. Sexual assault among North Carolina women: prevalence and health risk factors. J Epidemiol Community Health2002:56:265–71.Abstract/FREE Full TextGoogle Scholar

[ohdarlingplease]

Body Issues: Feminist Artists of the 1970s Used Art to Condemn Sexual Violence

Everyone has a body. Aside from all our biographical data—age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, religion—we’re all just structures of skin and bones, with blood coursing through us. This fact has long enchanted artists, who have responded to their bodies, and those of others, through painting, sculpture, new media, and performance. Art history is ripe with people making sense of the embodied experience: from stick figures in caves to Michelangelo’s David (1501–04), from Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present (2010) to video games that interrogate humanity. As our future on this planet becomes increasingly uncertain, ideas about the body—and what it can withstand—are ever more relevant. In this column, I’ll look at new publications and exhibitions and speak with writers and artists to analyze how art influences our understanding of the body. 

For centuries, artists celebrated rape in allegorical paintings. Roman mythology, after all, cites two stories of rape as absolutely foundational to Western civilization. A member of the Etruscan royal family decided to rape Lucretia, inciting a rebellion that led to Rome’s establishment. And Roman men raped the Sabines because there weren’t enough Roman women with whom they could procreate. The Sabine women’s offspring allowed the republic to thrive. Artists including Titian, Rembrandt, Nicolas Poussin, and Jacques-Louis David commemorated these violations in their paintings. Looking at their canvases, and considering the tales behind them, you’d be forgiven for thinking rape was a romantic, dramatic encounter that ultimately led to the betterment of society.To the contemporary reader, that is (or should be!) an infuriating conclusion. The implicit lessons—that women must be pawns in men’s political games, that women’s lives and desires should be sacrificed in favor of a common cause—are the purview of proud misogynists. Yet throughout much of Western art history, women’s objectification was both aesthetic and legal. “Rape was a crime of property, and specifically a crime against the woman’s husband or guardian,” writes Nancy Princenthal in her new book, Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art, and Sexual Violence in the 1970s (2019). Princenthal explores how feminist artists, from the 1970s through today, have offered alternately grotesque, funny, vulnerable, and media-savvy counternarratives. Through radical performances, paintings, and photographs, artists including Yoko OnoYoko OnoJapanese, b. 1933FollowKnown for her experimental art, music, filmmaking, and feminism, as well as for her marriage to John Lennon, Yoko Ono was a major figure in the 1960s …, Suzanne Lacy, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, and Naima Ramos-Chapman, among others, have developed revolutionary new ways to speak about violence against women’s bodies.

Throughout the 1960s, the emergence of performance art offered women a potent new medium for discussing rape. Ono took both vulnerable and predatory positions in her work. In Cut Piece (1964), she sat on a Kyoto stage and invited audience members to snip away her clothing. While the piece may sound like an invitation for harm and an encouragement of passivity, Princenthal believes otherwise. “To shine a light on environments of sexualized threat is, at least implicitly, to refuse unquestioning acquiescence,” writes Princenthal. By taking control of dangerous environments, “artists help conceive a safer world.” For a 1969 film, Rape, Ono and collaborator John Lennon filmed a young woman as they chased her around London. The title underscores the boundary between a bodily threat and a violent actuality as it turns the camera into a weapon. Filming and chasing someone is not the equivalent of raping her, yet an artist—or anyone, for that matter—who wields documentary equipment can be a fearful aggressor. Ono’s protofeminist work anticipated the burst of feminist art throughout the 1970s. In California, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro co-founded the California Institute of the Arts’s Feminist Art Program and organized the legendary projectWomanhouse (1972). Situated in an abandoned Hollywood home, the installation gave its female participants space to make work and discuss gender-related struggles. Theatricality and spectacle reigned. Women adorned themselves with exaggerated stage makeup, wielded genital-shaped props, and acted out the process of giving birth.

Lacy, a student involved with the Feminist Art Program, took this dramatic, fit-for-Tinseltown approach a step further. She harnessed the camera, and media attention itself, in a brand-new way. Her socially oriented project Three Weeks in May (1977) featured performances, self-defense demonstrations, and artworks about Los Angeles’s rampant rape epidemic—in 1977, the LAPD received 2,386 reports of rapes and attempts. Lacy actively sought media attention and issued press statements. Six months later, she and fellow artist Leslie Labowitz staged In Mourning and in Rage, an explicit “media event” that comprised a symbolic funeral for the women who were rape and murder victims of the recent “Hillside Strangler.”Princenthal writes that each detail—“the literally larger-than-life actors; the anger-fueled sound bites; the clear symbolism of the funeral cortege; the control of the scene so that every photograph would capture what the artists intended”—was chosen in order to “carry a clear meaning via mass media.” Perhaps the first artist to ever harness the press in this way, Lacy took complete control of her messaging and its public image. Though women discussed violence and victimhood in her work, they ultimately appeared powerful and potent to the camera lens.

While Lacy took a hyperlocal approach to her subject, Holzer adopted an international view in her photography series “Lustmord” (1993–94). The German title of the work, which means “sex-murder,” “names an act of homicidal violence that is converted into sexual satisfaction,” Princenthal writes, “an inversion of the common understanding that rape is sex converted into a gratifying (for the assailant) act of violence.” A genre of German Expressionist work in this vein, by artists including George Groszand Otto Dix, glorifies these acts. In a particularly disturbing picture, Dix’s Sexual Murderer (Der Lustmörder) (1920), a diabolical man in a checkered suit holds a bloody knife in one hand and a leg in another. Hacked off, female body parts ooze blood around him. “They are among the nastiest things I’ve ever seen,” Princenthal told me. The sheer ingenuity and number of ways that men have delighted in depicting violence against women truly boggles the mind. Holzer, a poet of an artist, reclaimed both the concept of “Lustmord” and the visual and written language used to discuss rape. Addressing the rapes against Bosnian women during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, Holzer created texts from the perspectives of a victim, a perpetrator, and an observer. She projected them on walls, photographed them as tattoos on skin, and etched them into metal bands that circled human bones. “I AM AWAKE IN THE PLACE WHERE WOMEN DIE,” reads one. Arguably as visceral and disturbing as depictions of violence itself, Holzer’s work reconsiders what kind of visual language we need when considering rape—must we show the act itself to convey its horror?

For a counterexample, one might look to Kara Walker’s black-and-white silhouettes, which regularly depict slave owners violating their charges. Both bodies of work are powerful; the divergence of Walker’s and Holzer’s aesthetic strategies evidences the growing plurality of voices and perspectives addressing rape. These complications may ultimately be a good thing. While feminism fractures, a growing number of women are able to enter the conversation. “Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, the artists and writers who represented sexual violence were almost entirely men. And it was men whom they addressed,” Princenthal writes. She notes that these men’s work entirely elided the victims’ experiences. Over the past 50 years, daring, creative women have changed that.The #MeToo movement has similarly helped women find language for their experiences, though Princenthal is careful to note its limitations. The hashtag hardly helps elucidate what “sexual violence” actually means, and entirely omits the fact that women living in poor, minority communities are the most vulnerable—not white women on college campuses, who are the most vocal about such issues. For artists, these gray areas aren’t problems, but invitations to address an endlessly complicated subject with unique, individual points of view. One of the most recent artworks Princenthal includes in her book is Naima Ramos-Chapman’s short film And Nothing Happened (2016), which follows a young woman struggling to explain her assault and its emotional repercussions. The video exemplifies one of the greatest challenges, and most important issues, still facing women artists who want to address sexual violence in their work. “It’s still about finding language,” Princenthal said. That’s the point.

Alina Cohen

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Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. When Lorna Simpson emerged from the graduate program at San Diego in 1985, she was already considered a pioneer of conceptual photography. Feeling a strong need to re-examine and re-define photographic practice for contemporary relevance, Simpson was producing work that engaged the conceptual vocabulary of the time by creating exquisitely crafted documents that are as clean and spare as the closed, cyclic systems of meaning they produce. Her initial body of work alone helped to incite a significant shift in the view of the photographic art’s transience and malleability.

Lorna Simpson first became well-known in the mid-1980s for her large- scale photograph-and-text works that confront and challenge narrow, conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history and memory. With unidentified figures as a visual point of departure, Simpson uses the figure to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences of our lives in contemporary America. In the mid-1990s, she began creating large multi-panel photographs printed on felt that depict the sites of public – yet unseen – sexual encounters. Over time she turned to film and video works in which individuals engage in enigmatic conversations that seem to address the mysteries of both identity and desire. Throughout her body of work, Simpson questions memory and representation, whether in her moving juxtaposition of text and image, in her haunting video projection Cloudscape and its echo in the felt work Cloud, or in her large-scale video installation Momentum which recreates a childhood dance performance. Using the camera as a catalyst, Simpson constructs work comprising text and image, parts to wholes, which comment on the documentary nature of found or staged images. In Simpson’s latest works, characteristic ambivalence is presented with hazy ink washes to present isolated figures amidst nebulous spaces– a return to and departure from her earlier unidentified figures in a deepened exploration of contemporary culture.

Her works have been exhibited at and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Haus der Kunst; Munich amongst others. Important international exhibitions have included the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany, and the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. She was awarded the J. Paul Getty Medal in 2019. Lorna Simpson is represented by Hauser & Wirth

[ohdarlingplease]

Social Issue Continued

Franceska Gámez (Sacramento). Black and white portraits of diverse people with overlapping blue-toned images of nature, produce and communities. Topic: Community improvement through art.

Sarah Nobles and Kei Deragon of Creative Crossing (Kern County). Two-color depiction of a human heart, representing Kern as the heart of California, pumping produce. Topic: heart health, activity.

Sally Deng (Los Angeles and Ventura counties). L.A. farmer’s market with produce and flowers, and shoppers enjoying the outdoors, despite their masks. Topic: Community improvement through art.

Hanna Gundrum (San Diego County). Collage of San Diego neighborhoods and their creativity, outdoor lifestyles, and enjoyment of healthy foods. Topic: Mental health awareness.

Belen Ledezma (San Bernardino and Riverside counties). Colorful portrait of Belen’s grandmother with produce and flowers framing her face. Topic: Nutrition and food insecurity.

Harumo Sata (Santa Clara County). Colorful abstract of two women enjoying an abundant basket of fresh food, sitting outdoors against the backdrop of mountains. Topic: Focusing on healthy living situations.

[ohdarlingplease]

Social Issue

Healthcare There are so many obstacles when it comes to receiving quality healthcare. Even with the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, there are tons of gaps in convereage ESPECIALLY for mental health resources. The United States spends more money, inidvidually on healthcare than any other country. Psychologists and Social Workers offer help to individuals, groups and entire communities, so it definitely matters if one person is struggling or an entire community is struggling to find proper, necessary care. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved just how essential access to healthcare is. Still there are communities that can't obtain proper tests, treatment, or access to mentel health professionals. 8 Artists, 9 Counties: Blue Shield of California’s Community Outreach Campaign to Promote Health During the Pandemic OAKLAND, Calif. (August 11, 2020) – Blue Shield of California is teaming up with artists in nine counties to create original artwork as part of an education and awareness campaign that offers support and encouragement during the COVID-19 pandemic to members who face health-related challenges. More than 200,000 Blue Shield members, ages 35 to 64, will receive customized-art postcardsover the next two weeks that encourage them to build healthy habits, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. For example, taking advantage of the nonprofit health plan’s Wellvolution program to better manage stress, treat existing conditions, and improve mental and physical health. Wellvolution offers members more than 50 digitally driven health programs to choose from, which address specific health goals, conditions and health risks, and the program is available to most Blue Shield members at no additional cost. This outreach campaign is the latest example of Blue Shield’s efforts to help members prioritize their health from the convenience and safety of their homes to prevent, treat or even reverse chronic conditions. Eight artists are participating in this initiative. Their artwork reflects the local identities of the nine counties they represent and interprets the theme “food is medicine.” The artists for this program were chosen for their community engagement as artists and advocates for a wide range of causes that include mental health, diversity and inclusion, and ending homelessness.

“With this art collaboration, we’re stepping outside our ‘clinical’ engagement with members,” said Angie Kalousek, director, Mind-Body Medicine at Blue Shield. “We’re tapping into local pride and the power of art to help inspire and give comfort to people during this pandemic, which is having profound effects on the physical and emotional wellbeing of us all. Art chronicles our lives and experiences and reflects cultural values, beliefs and identities. Our theme that  food is medicine is intended to support members and inspire them to use healthy food as a strong, shareable source of connection with each other.”

Kern County- Sarah Nobles and Kei Deragon

Bakersfield is home to muralists Sarah Nobles and Kei Deragon. Each  has a life story that has a profound influence on their art. Kei is a veteran of the U.S. Army; she served as a combat medic and now uses her art to navigate service-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Sarah survived homelessness at a young age and discovered that art was a haven and healthy outlet for her experiences.  Inspired to community activism  by hate speech painted on a neighborhood wall, Sarah and Kei co-founded Creative Crossing, an art group working to beautify and create safer spaces in Bakersfield’s Oleander neighborhood. They don’t accept payment for their murals; instead they reinvest profits and donations from their projects in artists and the community. In May, Creative Crossing partnered with Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services for the purpose of spreading awareness for Mental Health Awareness Month, creating a socially distanced chalk-art scavenger hunt for residents.

Los Angeles and Ventura counties – Sally Deng

Sally Deng was born and raised in Los Angeles to Chinese immigrant parents who owned a restaurant in the city’s Arts District/Skid Row. That’s where she taught herself to draw. Sally graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena with a BFA degree. Her talent and hard work have led to many successful projects, including creating illustrations for Stanford Medicine, The New York Times, Vice, Barron’s, and The Atlantic that tell stories of  immigration, the outdoors, and women. She was included in the 2020 Art & Style List for “Forbes 30 Under 30.”

Orange County – Larissa Marantz

Illustrator, cartoonist and educator, Larissa Marantz creates visually appealing images and teaches students young and old how to do the same. She has taught art to elementary school students for more than 15 years and has been an adjunct faculty member of Laguna College of Art & Design for 12 years. After earning her BFA degree at California State University, she worked as a character designer for Nickelodeon’s Rocket Power and Rugrats shows. Inspired by her family life, she began illustrating children’s books, and continued drawing Rugrats for Simon Spotlight Publishing.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties – Belen Ledezma

A Chicana artist raised in San Bernardino, Belen Ledezma studied art San Bernardino Valley College, but mostly is self-taught. An artist and teacher, Belen uses her creativity to influence her community and teach art basics to young children. She is involved in work related to inclusivity and the diversity of San Bernardino and the Inland Empire, especially for women. She is deeply focused on her Indigenous/Latinx roots, which are reflected in her art. Belen has been a featured artist with San Bernardino Generation Now, a community-driven network that leverages the arts to educate the public on local socio-political issues and create civic engagement opportunities that embrace San Bernardino’s diverse cultural demographics.

Sacramento County – Franceska Gámez

Born in Manila, Franceska Gámez was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned a BFA degree from Sacramento State University. She now resides in Sacramento and her murals are featured locally and across the world. She is a co-founder and the owner of 1810 Arts Gallery, established to create a space for local artists to showcase their work. Franceska is also a founding member of the nonprofit M5 Arts Collective, which creates free art experiences for Sacramento residents and is a member of Trust Your Struggle, an artist collective dedicated to social justice, environmental sustainability and community activism.

San Diego County – Hanna Gundrum

Hanna Gundrum is a San Diego transplant who earned a BFA degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her artistic style bloomed out of a need to create art from her tiny apartment on a student budget. Socially minded and with a sense of civic responsibility, Hanna is involved with Art Reach San Diego and puts her creative talents to work creating murals with youth at schools and community centers. In addition to her studio art and mural creations, she also works as an artist mentor to adults with developmental disabilities. Hanna uses her creativity to encourage people struggling with mental health to speak about their experiences.

Santa Clara County – Harumo Sato

A Japanese visual artist from Mountain View, Calif., Harumo Sato has lived or traveled in Japan, France, Morocco, Tunisia, Italy and Spain. After experiencing sudden illness and severe natural disasters in her early life, Harumo now creates work that promotes coexistence with nature and creates peace in viewers’ minds. Her art is owned by public and private collections and she has exhibited in solo and group shows in California and New York.

[ohdarlingplease]

Thank gawd for Zoom

Working at a TK- 8th has me talking to children, co-workers, parents, and whoever else I need to. Though I love those little kids, I crave stimulating conversation like you would not believe. I work at a catholic school. The vast majority of my opinions are kept under wraps. I have a tendency to share bits and pieces of my personal life, but I remain cautious of what I can and can’t say. I’ve found myself very conflicted through these 13 years and mostly keep to myself and let other people share.

As crazy as school is this day in age. I genuinely look forward to the Zoom meetings with my classmates. I am taking 5 classes and 3 of them meet on Zoom. 2 of them every week. Even though I am on Zoom majority of my day, it’s until I can actual talk with my peers that my brain is really being stimulated and I feel a burst of energy. 

I would love a classroom setting, but I am so glad we have this option. 

I love knowing I’m not the only one that is lost, or that I’m one of the people in the group that can explain it. I love sharing ideas and opinions, even if they are differing. I love laughing and getting the jokes with people on my same playing field. I love that people get as pissed off and worked up as I do.

Stimulate my mind, man.

Man, it took me 5 weeks of online classes to find the positive in this situation.

This song is too damn good.

[ohdarlingplease]

Do I let my voice speak for the people, or let their voices speak for me?

Is there a way to decenter myself from the topic, even if my opinion might be a part of it?

Unity is one thing, but how? Maybe it's not enough to show what unity is to someone, but more what brought them to feel that unification needs to be a part of the conversation.

The beautiful side to life is always significant and well-imagined. But what about the ugly bits? The bits that make the beauty worth the turmoil. The bits that make the beauty the end goal.

I think all too often these are the moments that are not shared. 

We can make everything peachy keen, but it rarely starts in that way.

This reminds me of Tupac’s poem, “A Rose that Grew from Concrete.”

[ohdarlingplease]

What is the function of art?

There is the physical function of art, where the art itself is meant to serve some physical function.

Art has a social function when it addresses aspects of (collective) life, as opposed to one person's point of view or experience.

The personal functions of art are often the most difficult to explain. There are many types of personal function, and they are subjective and will, therefore, vary from person to person.

I feel like all of these terms can be umbrellaed under communication, or to communicate.

Art is a form of expression and doesn’t necessarily have to have rhyme or reason. Some can just start creating something and think, “hey, this looks nice!” and continue on.

For the purposes of this class, all three of these functions will be used to communicate the view of unity in other peoples lives.

Physical- Instagram, or some other social media platform to get people to join and to display my art.

Social- Social media is going to open up a gateway of other people’s opinions and merge them into my art.

Personal- I’m choosing the topic of Unity, because I think it’s something society, as a whole, really needs. However, I believe that everyone’s concept of the word unity is definitely different.

[ohdarlingplease]

Unity

I know for sure my project is going to be centered around the idea of Unity. 

BUT HOW!?

During today’s lecture, it was suggested to me that I consider different ways to unify and to consider different materials and how they can unify. I was also recommended to possibly create an instagram that would tie it all together.

As I’m typing this, the Instagram idea sounds like a fantastic method. 

I probably won’t give everyone the login, because if I’m considering my students, they would do something like delete posts or say something inappropriate, and I am not trying to deal with any nonsense.

Granted, this won’t be just for those kids, but the branches would extend to them, people in the ART 3000 class, coworkers, family, my PEOPLE and their people. 

I’m thinking I can post after every nth post to show how my idea of unity has possibly changed.

I think I should start considering how I’m going to approach this. I need some sort of write up or message to send to all of these people so I can get the ball rolling.

[ohdarlingplease]

Socially Engaged Artist Report

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist, community arts educator, and a filmmaker who uses her art to provoke a different perspective toward people and communities of color who are often misrepresented in history and current events. Her works can be viewed through paintings, documentaries, public art displays and community art projects. Her  work has created a space for conversations regarding critical issues in said communities. Ortiz has created over 50 large-scale public works around the United States and internationally. She has also led public arts projects centralized around community building and social change.

In response to ICE deportations that have taken place in 2013, Michelle Angela Ortiz created a project entitled Familias Separadas (Separated Families). This project focused on the countless families that have been affected by deportations and detention centers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The goal of this project was to shift the focus from the negative and statistical references of these families and show that they people; mothers, fathers, and children, that have been ripped aways from their families.

There are three phases to this project. Phase one of the Familias Separadas was displayed in 2015 around the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ortiz conducted workshops and interviews that told the story of five families affected by ICE detention and deportation in the city. Each story  was depicted in different, temporary locations around Philadelphia that included City Hall, Love Park, 9th Street Market, 6th and Tasker, and the Immigration Customs Enforcements Building (ICE).

The first installment of this series is depicted in picture R1 is taken outside of the ICE building, this is the first in the deportation process that families are taken to. On October 12, 2015, Indigenous People’s Day, a group of volunteers and undocumented families painted the words from Ana, an undocumented mother. The words were printed at an exit of the facility where families are taken to other prisons to process their deportation. The second installment of the Familia Separadas series was at City Hall (R2). “Eres Mi Todo” showed a picture of another undocumented mother, Maria, and her daughter painted ontop of a Compass Rose by Edmund Bacon. Maria’s story serves as a symbol of migration, because the constant search for a better life and navigating through the different systems with little to no direction can seem almost impossible.

The second phase of Familia Separadas was developed between 2017- 2019, spread across the state of Pennsylvania, and brought recognition to the stories of fourteen mothers that were detained at the Berks County Residential Center for two years. Berks is a county run facility that detains children and has a long list of human rights violations. Ortiz spent five months visiting families that were detained and created eight large-scale public art installations and a documentary “Las Madres de Berks.” The first installment was a temporary mural (R3) created from a vinyl reproduction of a painting. The painting depicted Karen and her son’s eyes and was installed on the steps of the Capitol building. Karen and her six year-old son were detained for 651 days at Berks, then deported to El Salvador. Picture R4 comes from a statement Karen made to Ortiz, “What would you tell your son if he asked, ‘Why can’t I be free?” This sign was strategically placed under another sign on Capitol Hill that says, “There is a time to pray and a time to fight.” Phase Three of the Familia Separadas series is currently in the works.

Michelle Angela Ortiz's work aligns with my my practice, because not only am I a first generation Xhicanx, but my major is Psychology. The people depicted in Ortiz’s art installments have gone through so much turmoil in search of a better future. There is no doubt in my mind that after being held in a detention center for two years, at age six, and sent back through the grueling process of deportation, that there will be some major psychological trauma going on. These are mothers, fathers, and children, that we all are familiar with and they need help from people that can connect with them. The entire concept of deportation is running rabid in the USA and art installments put in public places, such as Philadelphia's City Hall (R2) or at Capitol Hill (R3 & R4), make it so people cannot look away. The issue is here in everyone’s face, so what are we going to do about it?

R1.”We Are human Beings” Installed at ICE, Photo by Steve Weinik

R2. “Eres Mi Todo” (You Are My Everything) Installed at the Compass Rose in Philadelphia City Hall

R3. Karen, Capitol Steps, Harrisburg, Photo Credit Colibri Workshop

R4. Karen, Capitol Steps, Harrisburg, Photo Credit Colibri Workshop

Works Cited

About 1. (n.d.). Retrieved September 01, 2020, from https://www.michelleangela.com/bio/cv

Michelle Angela Ortiz. (2019, September 26). Retrieved September 01, 2020, from https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/programs/grants/ArtistasActivistFellows_2017_michelle-ortiz

Ortiz, M. (2020, August 26). Essay: Stories of detained immigrant families and the fight to shutter Berks. Retrieved September 02, 2020, from https://whyy.org/articles/las-madres-de-berks-stories-of-detained-immigrant-families-and-the-fight-to-shutter-pa-s-oldest-family-prison/

Phase One: Philadelphia. (n.d.). Retrieved September 02, 2020, from https://www.familiasseparadas.com/phaseshome/phaseone

Phase Two: Harrisburg. (n.d.). Retrieved September 02, 2020, from https://www.familiasseparadas.com/phaseshome/phasetwo

[ohdarlingplease]

NEW AD: Second Trump DHS Official Comes Out For Biden

I’ve been quite consumed by our current political climate. 

One of my friends just sent this short clip to me just a little while ago.

Elizabeth Neumann served at the Department of Homeland Security and became the Assistant Secretary for Counter Terrorism and Threat Prevention.

The conversation of white nationalism/ white supremacy came up and Neumann was asked if in the past, “the president’s rhetoric [made her] job harder?”

She says, “Yes. The president's actions and his language are in fact racist. Things like, ’there were good people on both sides,’ or ‘send them back to where they came from.’ Those words gave permission to white supremacists to think that what they were doing was permissible.”

I have moments where I want to say so much about this topic and when it comes to speaking, the wheels are burning in my brain, and my words become a jumbled mess in my mouth.

Our president is a racist. Where he should be using his platform to progress the country, he is using it to divide it. Many of his followers have welcomed hate speech and he has done nothing to stop it. 

As a brown female in the USA, I find myself doing double checks, walking faster, being more aware of mu surroundings than ever before, my stomach hurts about it. 

Here I’m trying to smile at everyone and this goddamn mask won’t let you see that, “Hey, I’m nice and peaceful.”

When my partner talks about arming our house, because as he says, “You never know,” I feel an emptiness at the pit of my stomach,

I wonder what the hell this world has come to I’m sad a pissed all at the same time.

I fear that Trump will win another four years, because people are still not ready to have a woman as VP. I don’t even really care for Biden and Harris, but damn. It’s got to be better than this.

I feel as though my project does have to revolve around peace. Perhaps unity is the word. 

Peace through unity? Unity through peace?

[ohdarlingplease]

Project Idea #1

I’m considering reaching out to my people on all social media platforms, classes, work, etc. and having them send me a picture of their idea of peace. This could even be just someone holding up the two finger peace sign, the symbol for peace, or what have you. I’m debating it being in color or black and white. I think I could pull a decent number of photos to get a decent sized community together.

Still not sure what I would do with all of these photos, but I think I can pull it off.

Maybe I’ll incorporate the photos to make a sign that says “COMMUNITY” or “ALL IN THIS TOGETHER” or “F*** TRUMP.” 

You get where I’m going with this.

So many possibilities!

I realize the song doesn’t align with the peace theme I have going on, but hey it’s Friday and I have had a hell of a week. So Biggie’s Party & Bullshit will have to do.

[ohdarlingplease]

This is the song I described in my first post.

[ohdarlingplease]

Too rad