Yesterday’s Manilatown event was pretty standard fare, good stuff. I think the strongest part of yesterday’s program was the impromptu talk of the artists as Evelie Posch, the feature musician, ended up not being able to make it to the event. The artists were able to talk, albeit briefly, about process and politics. I was happy to see work by Jennifer Wofford both as an individual artist and as a member of the performative art group/collective, the Mail Order Brides (MOB).
Jennifer discussed her individual pieces depicting the Filipina nurse, and in particular, her own mother as a RN specializing in wound care. So her pieces are illustrated on this kind of sterile hospital-looking green paper, and she depicts the white pastel colored Filipina nurse up against these gigantic blobs of wound and flesh. As well, the Mail Order Brides’ Always a Bridesmaid Never a Bride ™ project is loaded, ironic, and pretty fuckin hilarious, and I highly recommend witnessing the spectacle of it for yourself!
Carla Catalina’s naked woman figures in dancer poses painted on found/discarded screen or banner mesh materials were grotesque in their being disembodied, impaled, extended to the point of extreme physical pain and disfiguring. In her discussion, she confessed to having mixed feelings about her own work being so painful and grotesque, though in the end, her woman figure, despite disfigurement, is still standing. I thought about how cliché an explanation that might have sounded, but in the end, I think Carla Catalina really pulled it off.
The benefit of having a number of women artists in one space is the intensity and depth of individual conversations. I took a good close look at Choppy Oshiro’s piece, which lists the names of companies employing Filipina garment workers in American territories such as Saipan, so that when we see a “Made in the USA” label on our clothing, we have the luxury of erroneously assuming American labor laws were obeyed in the employing of these garment workers. In Oshiro’s piece, she has woven together images of the Philippine and American flags, listed these companies by name, and created her own barbed wire, framed and encased in glass. She and I were able to discuss whether or not the weaving together of both flags, such that from up close, you can view the stitches, was perhaps too obvious, to which I responded that since the piece is about the work of the garment workers, then the weaving and stitching is important if not central to her piece.
I also had wonderful conversations with Nancy Hom on the challenge of integrating our work into our every day bill-paying lives, and with Jennifer, who teaches a Filipino American visual art course at USF. As she was looking for ways to discuss Marcius Noceda’s art with her students, she came across my blog entry in which I try to understand the bayong as historical and institutional structure.
I am happy to say Jennifer found my blog entry rich and quite useful for her and her students, and this got us talking more about who in our communities is doing the critical writing on contemporary Filipino American art movements. The quick answer to this question is that we artists are writing this criticism, perhaps because we are best equipped to do so, but also because we are many of the only ones willing to do so.
Now I am thinking of two things.
(1) I am thinking of mining my blog for these critical posts and essays on contemporary Filipino American art, compiling and polishing them all into a publication worthy manuscript.
(2) I will be composing an email letter to local educators of Asian/Filipino American literature, asking them to consider adopting either Gravities of Center or Poeta en San Francisco for their courses, and once again offering myself as a resource for their students, and as a guest lecturer.
Just some thoughts.
We’ve just come from the farmers’ market at Jack London Square, from which we’ve returned with kettle popped corn, sugar peas, organic yellow and red bell peppers, organic fennel, tangerines, and fresh organic butter from Jersey Farms. We will be off to Barry Picazo’s restaurant Patio Filipino in San Bruno for dinner with the family later this evening. So that’s the food report for now.
Tags: Carla Catalina, Choppy Oshiro, Jennifer Wofford, Mail Order Brides, Manilatown, Nancy Hom
