Friday, June 09, 2006
The Arroyo Arts Collective http://arroyoartscollective.org and artist Edith Abeyta invite you to view I Miss You at the Acorn Gallery on Saturday, June 10 from 7:00-10:00 p.m. Contribute photographs of women you miss to the installation. A limited edition screen printed poem by Linda Hoag will be exchanged to those who bring cakes, as well as bubbly for all. The Keep-a-Breast http://keep-a-breast.org Silent Auction with work by John Gill and Sophia Pottish, Merry-Beth Noble, Lisa Romero, and Porous Walker will end at 9:00 p.m.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
I Miss You Exhibition
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 13 2006 from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.
in conjunction with
Keep-a-Breast Silent Auction
with casts designed by John Gil & Sophia Pottish, Merry-Beth Noble, Lisa Romero and Porous Walker & Carrina DiMarcellis
Bring photographs of women you miss to add to the installation.
Bake a cake and contribute it to reception and receive a limited edition handpulled print of Linda Anne Hoag's poem, "For Maellen".
Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.
in conjunction with
Keep-a-Breast Silent Auction
with casts designed by John Gil & Sophia Pottish, Merry-Beth Noble, Lisa Romero and Porous Walker & Carrina DiMarcellis
Bring photographs of women you miss to add to the installation.
Bake a cake and contribute it to reception and receive a limited edition handpulled print of Linda Anne Hoag's poem, "For Maellen".
Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Ann Louise Sullivan
from Tricia Moran
"My grandma (Ann Louise Sullivan) was an amazing woman. She had diabetes before it was very well known. If I had the opportunity to write an entire book about her, I would still need more room to write.
She worked with Mrs. Knott making pies (but she never got the secret recipe for the chicken!) and the famous boysenberry jam.
Ann went blind when I was about 2 but made my first baby dresses with tiny trim using a jeweler's glass to see the stitches. I still have all of those dresses, and my daughter, Amber, had her 1 month picture taken in one of them."
Teana Prater-Leap
(photo coming soon)
from Denise Ritter
"This is a picture of my Grandmother. She was born in 1891 and died in 1950. I am the daughter of her daughter, Leata Mae Leap-Ritter."
from Denise Ritter
"This is a picture of my Grandmother. She was born in 1891 and died in 1950. I am the daughter of her daughter, Leata Mae Leap-Ritter."
Aunt Caroline Leap
(photo coming soon)
from Denise Ritter
"This is my Aunt Caroline Leap. My middle name is for her. She died at age 35, in 1965. She used to baby-sit me when I was a little girl. I have been told wonderful stories of her, though I don't remember her presence in my life, I do remember her in pictures."
from Denise Ritter
"This is my Aunt Caroline Leap. My middle name is for her. She died at age 35, in 1965. She used to baby-sit me when I was a little girl. I have been told wonderful stories of her, though I don't remember her presence in my life, I do remember her in pictures."
Maellen Staub Hoag Combs
from Linda Anne Hoag of Los Angeles, California
"I miss my mother, Maellen Staub Hoag Combs. I last saw her on October 23, 1984, when she died in my arms at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. My mother died after a fifteen year relationship with breast cancer. Maellen was one of the first to benefit from Tamoxifen.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
I am gathering photographs of women who are missed for an installation at the Acorn Gallery in May 2006. The project originated in September 2003 as a way to address the pangs or aches one feels when a person one loves is not near. Conceived as a small altar and installed at a fundraising event I asked friends for photographs of women they missed. After receiving many profound contributions I gained a new respect for the photographic image, having a context for these photographs gave me a deep appreciation for the picture on the mantle or the snapshot in one's wallet.
To participate send a photograph of a woman you miss to:
imissyouphotos(at)gmail(dot)com
or
Edith Abeyta
1873 Echo Park Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Include your name, the name of woman in the photograph, and the last time you saw her.
Deadline: March 31, 2006
All photographs will be posted on this blog and included in the I Miss You exhibition, May 20 - June 24, 2006 at the Acorn Gallery.
Cast Yourself or Design a Cast
Keep-a-Breast will be participating in the I Miss You project. They are looking for three women to cast (click on the title of this post to see a casting in action) and three artists to design the casted busts. The busts will be displayed during the exhibition and will be raffled off, all proceeds benefit the Keep-a-Breast organization. Please email me if you are interested.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Matrilineage by Deborah Thomas
This simulated quilt is composed of digitally reproduced family photos and a brightly colored baby quilt made for me by my great-grandmother. Five generations of women in my family are represented in this quilt/offering: my great-grandmother, who made the original quilt, my grandmother, my mother, my daughter, and me.
While cleaning out my mother’s house after her death last November, I discovered two suitcases full of family photo albums and photographs that I had never seen before. A number of the photos include my maternal grandmother, Ella Elizabeth Firestone Brooks, who died when I was two. Creating the “quilt” has provided me with the opportunity to sift through photos, memories and feelings, and has helped me especially to get to know and appreciate my grandmother, whom I barely remember.
Ellie, as she was called, was born at the turn of the twentieth century on a farm in Springfield, Pennsylvania, “up the mountain” on Chestnut Ridge, the last ridge of the Appalachians before they flatten into Ohio. She spent her childhood on the farm, where she worked hard helping her mother. To her deep regret, she was pulled out of school prematurely to care for her baby brother Clarence. Soon after, she married my grandfather Hess Lewis Brooks, who grew up on a neighboring farm. When Hess got a job, they moved to town. They had four children --Raymond, Madeline, Gladys (my mother), and Jack – between 1917 and 1934.
My only personal memory of Nana is of standing next to her at about knee-level, a toddler and a stroke victim learning to climb stairs together. Just a few weeks before she died in 1954 she gave me a puppy, Tiny, for Easter. She thought that I should have a puppy because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. In many of the photos I found of Nana she is interacting with animals or surrounded by family. She was visibly fond of a horse she cared for as a teenager; cats and dogs were daily companions. Three generations later, my daughter also loves the company of animals. My grandmother became a mother at a very early age and appears to have been delighted by her children as well.
Nana showed a particular radiance and grace in many of the pictures I discovered, often in quite ordinary settings – on Sunday outings with her family, feeding the chickens, doing the laundry. Even after she left the farm, her life was shaped by work – she cooked and kept a meticulously clean house, took in boarders during the Depression, and studied to be a practical nurse during the 1940s. She and my grandfather shared an affectionate and devoted relationship until she died at 54 following a series of strokes.
“Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are. . . .”
T.S. Eliot