Artgasm

my last few days have been rife with sensory-titillating artworks.
consider this an e-dossier of this week's artgasm-worthy work.

when: Sunday morning
where: Ashby fleamarket, Berkeley
who: Goldiloks
what: a collection of wearable and visual art based on collage. goldilocks dresses old windows, shadowboxes, and woodblocks in stimulating color palates. conceptually, she incorporates elements of pop culture and the idea of lost memories (dare i say both reflective of the broader concept of inherited cultural histories) into her work. she also decorates baked goods! talk about mixed media. you can read a little article about her at ill-literacy dot com, or you can look at her flickr account to see all of her amazing work. she is most definitely working it.




when: Sunday afternoon
where: Gallery Route One, Point Reyes CA
who: Pam Bolton and Cindy Cleary
what: an amazing collaborative installation piece which focuses on our interactions with and connections to trees. in addition to trees, stumps, and rocks carefully placed throughout the space there were paintings which incorporated some element of trees - leaves, natural bark dyes, whathaveyou - and which were an equally stunning addition to the space. i wish i had taken some pictures. but this brief and inadequate video will have to serve as your glimpse into a show that can really only be taken in using all five senses. i know, it's not fair to you.



when: Tuesday evening
where: Yoshi's Restaurant and Jazz Cafe, Oakland
who: José González
what: "José González from Sweden" is how this classical guitar virtuoso (as jazmine describes him) introduced himself to us at the beginning of his set. he then proceeded to lull my mind into a melodic, lyrical trance while simultaneously managing to galvanize my body through his percussive inclinations. some of the songs would work well as lullabies, while others were torrential in their vibrant angst. and yet throughout, his fingers and hands worked with ease; only the curve of his neck, the crooked focus of his face on the fretboard, gave any indication of how consumed he was by the instrument. also, one of the percussionists played a mouth piano! (also called a melodica.) i just can't get enough.

100 Butches: welcome to crushlandia

Elisha Lim has a special place in my heart, partly for her self proclaimed experiment with "sustainable unemployment," but mostly for her comic series 100 Butches, where she details many influential lovers, friends, crushes, and admiration-worthy women from her childhood to adulthood. It's reminiscent of those crushed-out notebook scribbles from middle school, albeit a more detailed (and perhaps thoughtful) creative process is involved.

100 Butches is a perfect example of what inspires me: it's an artistic expression of the personal, handmade with lo-fi techniques (all elements of my beloved DIY movement) and thus necessarily frames the artist in a political context because inevitably, her positionality in the world is reflected in her art. (in this case, the paradigm is gender complication and women. butches - a personal favorite.)

you can read a short interview with her at the blog Art Threat.