Studio Notes September: Give me something to control

This past month I had a birthday and next week I am eloping. I spent my birthday in the best way ever: at an art opening with close friends followed by a socially-distant park hangout. I'll be eloping also at a park and then celebrating with close friends on a boat with Manhattan in the background. It is not what I imagined for one of the most significant moments of my life, but it is also a very welcome surprise change of plans that I am thankful to be able to have. 

I am extremely lucky and happy at a time when so many people are suffering, struggling, dying, or depressed. Despite my good luck, I still feel out of control and confused about my future in regards to my art making. I don't really know yet how my art practice will unfold -- the gallery scene is not only changing, but has also historically undervalued or overlooked people like me; the online art sales scene is booming for the well known (and often dead and male) artists; and self-branding oneself as a personality with artwork that looks more or less the same seems to be the secret to success for many artists selling work online. 

Anyone who wants to be an artist has to be realistic about how they are going to make money and take care of themselves. Many artists, if you dig deep enough, have either family money, spousal support, or other sources of financial or moral support that allow them to live a seemingly free and spontaneous artist life. I did not come from money and while I am now marrying a man who has a growing business, I also started my own business to be able to support myself, my future family, and have time to spend making art. A few years ago I did not think that I would ever have what I have now, but I made steps to make it happen. Meeting a romantic partner was something I assumed would never happen -- I had planned to do this alone (which is why I planned to move to Berlin, which is much cheaper than NYC). Working towards something while still being open to the seemingly impossible is perhaps the smartest thing we can do right now. It has worked for me before.

Anyway, here I am in Brooklyn living and working and charting a path. I consider myself a full-time artist, but I am also a full-time business person. I need both to support myself and to support other artists. My business, Distill Creative, exists to make me money while also promoting the work of other women and people of color who are doing excellent work.

Why make art? What is the point? For me it is part therapy and part (hopefully) to inspire others to think differently about the world. The systems we have in place and the way we live are not the only ways to be. We can have a world where everyone is treated fairly and everyone has enough money, time, and space to live well. Many people do not want this to happen. This is why part of my life, which most people do not see, is the part engaged in local organizing. I am still figuring out how best to help out in my own community and city, but I am actively learning and participating in groups like my local Mutual Aid, DSA, and Art Against Displacement. Voting, all year and not just for the presidential election, is the bare minimum. Being an engaged citizen means actually being engaged in your local community and working with others to make the world a better place for everyone.

Some days I think I should only be making artwork that is explicitly political. Other days I think I should only be doing outrageous public interventions to promote radical social change. But most days, I remind myself that for me, a woman of color who did not come from money, did not go to art school, and who does not want to simply get into a gallery so my art will only be seen and bought by the 1%, just being able to make art sometimes -- however and whatever I want -- is radical. And I'm going to continue to make and stop worrying about what I should do. 

See rest of my Studio Notes in my latest newsletter and sign up for my art newsletter!

BWAC Wide Open 11

A few installation shots of my work up at BWAC for the Wide Open 11 show. I was thrilled to be able to see this show in person and also on my birthday! I love Red Hook and the BWAC community. Check it out here: https://bwac.org/wide-open-2020/.

Stephanie Echeveste with her artwork at BWAC

Live Wire: Materials of a Revolution at Form & Concept

I am excited to share I’m in the Live Wire exhibition at Form & Concept!

The show is online, but for artists local in Santa Fe, New Mexico, their work is installed so go check it out! There are so many amazing artists in the show!!!

Live Wire: Materials of a Revolution at Form & Concept

July 31 - October 18, 2020

435 S. Guadalupe St. Santa Fe, NM 87501

5 Images

Sharing five images I am thinking about right now.

Visita al Pasado by Remedios Varo

Grey Fireworks by Helen Frankenthaler

Birth of a Sun by Emeteria Rios Martinez

Sueño y Presentimiento (Dream and Premonition) by María Izquierdo

by María Berrío

Whitewashed II on Display at Site:Brooklyn | In the Abstract

I am very excited to share that one of my weavings is on display at Site:Brooklyn for the show In the Abstract, juried by Gail Levin.

I have been working on improving my artwork and my artist statement, so I was really happy when I got into a show at one of my favorite galleries here in Brooklyn! Due to COVID-19, there is no reception and no one can actually go to the show—yet—which is really sad as I finally have friends and art friends here in NYC who would probably come to the opening. A friend is actually in the show in the other part of the gallery, Realism: Encountering the Real.

I am very thankful that Site:Brooklyn still installed and photographed the show. At least I can view it online.

You can view the full show via installation images here.

On view:

JUNE 4, 2020 – JUNE 27, 2020

Site:Brooklyn Gallery 165 7th Street Brooklyn, NY 11215

Nellie Campobello's Cartucho and Thoughts During the Beginning of A Pandemic

I discovered Nellie Campobello as one of las siete cabritas in Elena Poniatowska’s book Las Siete Cabritas, which honestly I am still reading. While I have pretty good reading comprehension in Spanish, it is still hard for me to read books in Spanish. I usually read at night, but I think when reading in another language I need to read in the morning, when I’m more aware and it doesn’t feel so exhausting.

Because of this, I decided to read Campobello’s novel Cartucho in English. I finished reading it the day after Gov. Cuomo announced PAUSE, NY’s version of shelter-in-place, and a day before it actually started: all non-essential business stopped in NY. 

In my journal on Saturday, March 21, 2020, I wrote:
Oh my God, what if this goes on for a year?

So much uncertainty.

So much sadness. 

So much poverty — already and to come. 

It’s funny when I reread it today I thought it said ‘poetry’ but it says poverty. I wrote this before the 808,702 cases and 44,120 deaths in the United States (stats as of 4/21/20 via Wikipedia). We're now on PAUSE until May 15, 2020. 

Anyway, I was clearly anxious and reading Campobello’s prose before PAUSE started. I was waking up to the BBC on NPR announcing the latest COVID-19 news in China, Italy, and Spain. Reading Cartucho was a strange but comforting way to prime my brain for the constant stream of dire news that is still going on today. I no longer wake up to the news, I now wait until 10am to let that come into my brain, but the news is never far from my mind. 

The three sections of Cartucho are:

I. Men of the North

II. The Executed

III. Under Fire

Not exactly a beach read. The titles in her novel My Mother’s Hands, which were also in the e-book version I read, include:

She Was…

The Men Left Their Mutilated Bodies Awaiting the Succor of These Simple Flowers

She and Her Machine

Again, not light stuff. But, somehow, it was helpful to read Campobello’s somber words on the days leading up to the days we have now. The days when I was reading the news late into the night on my phone in my bed and panicking on the phone to my mom, who somehow has kept very calm throughout all this even though she knows me and my sister (one of three of my sisters) are in the middle of the current hot spot, NYC. 

I miss seeing my mom and my nana. FaceTime and Zoom video calls aren’t enough. I miss hugging my nana and then sniffing around the kitchen to see what she has made. I miss her enchiladas, which I can’t even make because I can’t find Las Palmas anywhere (I heard they sell it at Target, but I’m not going to go there now). And maybe that’s why this book was comforting—for  a small period of time I got to be a part of Campobello’s family sphere. 

Nellie and Gloria Campobello, circa 1932. Photo: Archivo Alberto Dallal

Something I learned in the Introduction of the book, by Elena Poniatowska, is that Nellie and her sister Gloria traveled throughout Mexico learning and practicing “indigenous rhythms” — dance steps, but also the way people walk in different places. 

Poniatowska writes “The native of Mexico State,” they (Campobello’s sisters), “walks with the body weight over his heels, like the people form the Yucatán except that unlike them, he doesn’t stretch his body up nor tilt backward, rather he leans forward, although not so much as the Michoacán Indian . . . With his eyes always fixed on the ground and with his arms tucked tight against his body, he gives the impression that as he walks he is embracing himself.”

Photo via Referente

Nellie Campobello was a dancer, choreographer, and a writer. This practice of observation is evident in Cartucho and her history is inspiring to me as a writer, a dancer (not professional, but I grew up dancing and still do it as a hobby), an artist, and as a Mexican-American/Chicana/person of Mexican decent. I did not learn about Campobello in school, but I am glad I am learning about her now. 

Cartucho was published in 1931. It includes over 50 vignettes describing soldiers and family acquaintances from her perspective — as a young girl surrounded by the war, death, and the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. “Children’s lives, if no one imprisons them, are an uninterrupted film” Campobello writes in My Mother’s Hands, and Cartucho reads almost like a screen play. There are short scenes with subtle enhancements that give you just enough to imagine the rest. 

When describing a man in front of their house in the Chapter The Dead Man, Campobello writes: 

“Look how yellow he is,” said my sister with a squeal that made me remember Felipe 

Reyes.

“He’s really white from the fear of dying,” I said, convinced of my knowledge in the 

matters of death.” 

One of my favorite sentences is about José Díaz, a neighborhood heart throb who, according to Campobello, is a future love interest of her doll: 

“He got bullet wounds so he wouldn’t hate the sun” 

On the cotidiana (the everyday): 

“No, I never drink water. My whole life, coffee, only coffee. Water tastes bad to me,” he said, learning his throat. … the man who drank coffee all his life. 

On fascination with death:

“Guts! How nice! Whose are they?” We said, our curiosity showing in our eyes. “They belong to General Sobarzo,” said the same soldier.

“…blood pouring out of him through many holes” 

“That dead man seemed mine.

“That night I went to sleep dreaming they would shoot someone else and hoping it would be next to my house”

On the beauty of death: 

“I think his arms fell asleep alongside his rifle after a song of bullets.”

“The cigarette kept on burning between his fingers drained of life.”

“…at least they’ll know that I ended up among the mounds of dirt in this cemetery”

On the realities of war: 

Pablito López had ordered some Americans shot one day. “Don’t shoot them,” some 

men told him. “Can’t you see they’re Americans?”

The young general, laughing to himself like a boy they were trying to scare, said to 

them, “Well, until we know if they’re apples or pears, charge them up to me.”

And then and there the Americans were shot. 

Check out

I also found these passages interesting, which are from My Mother’s Hands:

“She was alone; her companion live in her memory”

“Sequins and ears of corn are different. If rain falls from the sky onto sequins, they disintegrate. Grains of corn swell up and offer themselves to empty stomachs…

“They were happy little rags, made with the songs she sent out into he night in memory of her companion!

“For us she ransomed the happiness we owe her today”

“She, the flower to which we clung like bees; we, the ones who drank everything from her and left her nothing.”

“Were the laws of men trying to spoil our world?”

“Men’s law is good as long as the weak have their place within it.”

“She formed us that way. No one who does not give us love can ever give us anything. We shall always be the masters of our footsteps.”

“These people thought with their hearts, judge them accordingly.”

“Life was like that: a bit of information and a man spurring his horse.”

“…not being when you should have been is not to be when there is no need to be.”

“You must do things quickly. That way you don’t feel frightened”

"Poor little machine (referring to the sewing machine) that gave us hems while the cannon gave us dead bodies, lots of dead bodies!”

“…gentle hair on your adorable head. By the clouds that dance under the motion of the sun.” 

Poniatowska, in the Introduction of Cartucho, gives us a helpful list of Campobello’s contemporaries of María Izquierdo, Frida Kahlo, Lenora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Lupe Marín, Nahui Olía, María Asúnsolo, and Dolores del Rio — “extraordinary women” from a “Mexico in the process of discovering itself and fascinated by itself and a fascinating other seers”. I’m excited to dig into this list — more thoughts to come!