Redwood Coast Creative Arts

Polymer Illustration-Fiesta Theme

This 12x12 polymer illustration on canvas piece was created for a contest.  The theme was Fiesta, There were prize categories for most these based, most California, and most child care resource and referral related.

Eve Ensler: Dear Mr. Akin, I Want You to Imagine...

Dear Todd Akin,

I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.

I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

"An insanely good reason to rise"! Eve Ensler

A Letter From Eve Ensler

Everyone should read this letter.  Everyone should read it at least once.  Especially everyone who has a daughter, or a wife, or a mother, a sister, a niece, or a girlfriend, or a heart, or any kind of care and compassion for women and girls. 

I believe that it is impossible to truly put the tragedy, the violation, the anguish, the humiliation, the dark and bitter evil of rape into words.  However, Ms. Ensler has done a proper job of it in her very powerful letter.      



 

Dear Mr. Akin, I Want You to Imagine...

By Eve Ensler, Reader Supported News
21 August 12

Dear Todd Akin,

I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.

I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.

Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.

As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking "off the cuff."

Clarification. You didn't make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.

You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

When you, Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow co-sponsors play with words around rape suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible, it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.

Now you want to say that you misspoke when you said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evil content? Or, were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us? It would seem you were saying that getting pregnant after a rape would indicate it was not a "legitimate" rape.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space. Imagine being tied up there and imagine some aggressive, indifferent, insane stranger friend or relative ripping off your clothes and entering your body -- the most personal, sacred, private part of your body -- and violently, hatefully forcing themself into you so that you are ripped apart. Then imagine that stranger's sperm shooting into you and filling you and you can't get it out. It is growing something in you. Imagine you have no idea what that life will even consist of, spiritually made in hate, not knowing the mental or health background of the rapist.
Then imagine a person comes along, a person who has never had that experience of rape, and that person tells you, you have no choice but to keep that product of rape growing in you against your will and when it is born it has the face of your rapist, the face of the person who has essentially destroyed your being and you will have to look at the face every day of your life and you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.

I don't know if you can imagine any of this (leadership actually requires this kind of compassion), but if you are willing to go to the depth of this darkness, you will quickly understand that there is NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE to have or not have the baby, but the person carrying that baby herself.

I have spent much time with mothers who have given birth to children who are the product of rape. I have watched how tortured they are wrestling with their hate and anger, trying not to project that onto their child.

I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.

Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.

And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.

Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo

EVE ENSLER is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues, which has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve's newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, was released February 2010 in book form by Random House and made The New York Times Best Seller list. The book was workshopped in July, 2010 at New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, moving towards an Off-Broadway production. She is also the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 80 million dollars. In the summer of 2010, Eve's newest play Here was filmed live by Sky Television in London, UK. Eve’s other plays include Necessary Targets, The Treatment and The Good Body, which she performed on Broadway, followed by a national tour. In 2006, Eve released her book, Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir, and co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer. Eve’s film credits include an HBO film version of The Vagina Monologues. She also produced the film What I Want My Words to Do To You, which won the Freedom of Expression Award at Sundance and was shown on PBS. She is currently working on a film adaptation of her play Necessary Targets with National Geographic, Independent Features which she will direct. Eve has written numerous articles for Glamour Magazine, Huffington Post, and O Magazine. She has won many awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting and an Obie Award.

Polymer Timeline at Ornament Magazine - Jewelry, Fashion, Beads

We've come a long way baby!  Check this out!:

Polymer Timeline at Ornament Magazine - Jewelry, Fashion, Beads

History of Polymer at Ornament Magazine - Jewelry, Fashion, Beads

ELISE WINTERS. Photograph by Ralph Gabriner.

Polymer Clay

A Modern Medium Comes of Age

Polymer clay has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a dollmaking and modeling material. In the decades since it was created, innovative artists have secured this modern medium a rightful place as a respectable form of expression in the art and studio jewelry movement.

via www.ornamentmagazine.com

I waited forever for someone else to present an all polymer art showcase in Northern California but, it never happened so, I did it myself!

  Adriana Ayala

 

 This is the truth!  I thought it would be the coolest thing if there was an all polymer art showcase that I could participate in.  HaHaHa, fat chance waiting around for that to ever happen!  The truth is that polymer art hardly ever gets featured in local galleries period!  No one knows what it is! 

Sometimes, I think that is one of the really cool things about polymer.  Because if people don't know about then there aren't very many rules around it.  If they don't know what it is they have no preconceived notions of what it should look like or what I should be doing with it!

So anyway, back to my high hopes for an all polymer exhibit at a local venue.  If you're thinking that it never happened and I had to hold my breath forever then you're partially right.  I waited around, just hoping it would happen, for a lot of years.

A few months back I took on the task of Outreach Chairperson for Clayville California (No. CA. Polymer Art Guild).  So now it is my responsibility to reach out to the community, to educate the masses about all things polymer and to encourage other members to do the same.  Great!  Now what?  How am I going to do that?  I'd love to teach more workshops but, to whom?  Through what venue, what forum?  Why am I doing this anyway?  Why do I even care?  Why can't I just sit back, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for someone else to do the work? 

The answer to that is, "I don't know"!  I don't know why I care, but I definitely do.  Why can't I just sit back and twiddle?  I don't know that either.  It's just not my way. 

So you know what I did?  I made the committment to have a polymer art exibit at Vox .  I invited Clayville California and a few other California polymer artists to submit work in this very versatile medium. 

It was really nerve wracking not knowing what would be submitted.  I wasn't sure if Id be able to fill the space until just a few days before the show.  I'll do that differently next time!  That's for sure.  However, after all is said and done I am very pleased with the end results.  The gallery space at Vox Sac looks great.  I do plan on doing this again.  I hope to make it an annual event, perhaps a traveling event!  Delusions of grandeur?  Perhaps!  But someone once said," If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough"!  Brilliant!

I would like to thank all of our exhibiting artists: Mary Fassler, Jacqueline Dodd, Michael J. Marx, Amy Fort, LaLa Ortiz, Marie Segal, Jennifer Erin, Mary Lu Ellliott, Maureen Thomas, Diane Redman, Rita Seale, Melody Steeples, Rachel Young, Yoli Rodriguez Manzo, Anita Sterling Winthrop, and Adriana Ayala of ClayCatShop.

Thank you to Vox Sacramento for hosting our exhibit!

OK, enough blah, blah, blah!  Here are a few pic's from the show...........         


Amy Fort

Mary Fassler

Jacqueline Dodd

Maureen Thomas


Michael J. Marx

 

Jennifer Erin

Yoli Manzo

Rachel Young


Rachel Young

 

 Adriana Ayala


Marie Segal and LaLa Ortiz


Clayville California Members; Melody Steeples, MaryLy Elliott, Maureen Thomas, Rita Seale

LaLa Ortiz

More photos will be posted soon.  So, come back!  Let me know what you think about our presentation. 

"You can ignore the galleries that are scared of your stuff, their reaction is understandable. They are selling pictures that are supposed to fade away behind the beige sofa into oblivion, and match the wall color. They select art to help buyers disguise the anguish they feel, the longing, the emptiness, not to reveal it and display it." -Eric Seligson

Polymer Art at Vox

Polymer art at Vox

 

Michael J Marx, Marie Segal, Me and my Muertos

 

Mary Fassler on the table and Maureen Thomas's marvelous wall piece

Diane Redman and her jewelry

 

Rachel Young AKA Devil Girl and her display of zombies and monsters

Rita Seale, Maureen Thomas, Melody Steeples, and MaryLu Elliott

Adriana Ayala

 

Adriana Ayala

 

Adriana Ayala and I at Vox Sac

Me and Brisa at Vox 2nd Saturday

Vox Sacramento presents "The Art of Polymer!" and "Memories of Betrayal

Saturday,  August 11th, 4:00pm until 9:00pm 1818 11th Street, Sacramento, California 95818

The Ghost in the Machine by Amy Fort

 

Clayville California and other California Based Polymer Artists will be showcasing the diversity of one of the art worlds newest mediums, Polymer. Featuring sculpture, jewelry, vessels, masks, and functional art objects.

Featured artists include: Mary Fassler, Jacqueline Dodd, Michael J. Marx, Amy Fort, LaLa Ortiz, Marie Segal, Jennifer Young, Mary Lu Ellliott, Rachel Young, Yoli Rodriguez Manzo, Anita Sterling Winthrop, and Adriana Ayala of ClayCatShop.

Vox Sacramento is also proud to present a solo pho tography exhibit "Memories of Betrayal" by local photographer Andy Brooks. All the images in this exhibit were shot in April 2012.

These exhibits will be up from August 11th through September 3rd.