June 24 - July 16, 2023
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“I curated Ancestral Connections around the premise of artmaking as a communal gathering place. I found a rich range of approaches and media that generates a dynamic coalescing of histories, moments and memories. Each artwork provides a field of entry — a family tree as an iconic grounding force that reminds us of roots yet points to the sky and the spiritual, assemblage works that tell stories of past momentos and narrative portraits that honor generations and cultural practices. The presence of fiber in many works also speaks to the multiple threads of connection amongst the forty-one Southern California women artists in this illuminating exhibition.”
Chelo Montoya June 2023 |
Ancestral Connections opening reception, June 24, 2023, Avenue 50 Studio, Highland Park, CA
Poetry Reading, July 16, 2023
Poets:
Lynne Bronstein, Jessica Ceballos, Nicelle Davis, Alicia Viguer-Espert, Jasmine Minchez, Robbi Nester, Hanna Pachman, CeCe Peri, Cindy Rinne and Marilyn N. Robertson
Lynne Bronstein, Jessica Ceballos, Nicelle Davis, Alicia Viguer-Espert, Jasmine Minchez, Robbi Nester, Hanna Pachman, CeCe Peri, Cindy Rinne and Marilyn N. Robertson
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The Universe is Within and Without
After “Vanitas” by Melissa Reischman Time endless. I don’t want the chronic condition to define me. I usually look okay on the outside so people don’t know how it is. I have a few friends I can share that today was rough. Spiral a river. Returning rain or snow. I have empathy. I have good days. Wild places. Ecosystems. I still try to function in the world. No trace. It took a long time to be diagnosed and to find solutions that help. Bathing. Heating pad. Stretching. Culture possible. I believe goddesses still speak and nature is alive. Sensation, by flowers. My spirituality has been a winding journey through many belief systems. The cycle demands. Land responds. Emotional experiences can set off the pain such as losing my house in a fire. I learned about grief. Plants reaching. I must pace myself and don’t always succeed. I try to see the positive in my situation. We descend to sync, waxing and waning, flowering, bursting forth, dying off. Simply carrying a suitcase up the stairs can set off spasms for days. It can be depressing, but I power on. Savor. Arc. I am an Aquarian with creative ideas. I write ancient / present stories. Touch patterns. It can be difficult to do the quilting I love. They reveal seeping into soil. I fear I will be seen as weak and undependable. Makes it hard to plan. Life of fleeting moments, self-reflection, mortality, transience. Decay—earthly. Flower. Hourglass. Shell. - Cindy. Rinne |
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Fireworks Show
After Ancestral Gold by Adeola Davies Ayeloja It’s the Fourth of July, and the narrow sky rises behind streets of two-story rowhouses, the butcher shop with its plaster cow, telephone poles, a sky purple as a bruise filled with fractured stars. A green cloud of smoke obscures the moon. On this night, every dog on the block runs through the streets, dragging its broken lead, while the cats creep into the closet or beneath the chassis of old Chevies, under the tailfins, flared as the wings of manta rays. The red, white, and blue rockets spin and sizzle, spitting sparks, a wheel seeded with light soaring over the highest rooftops before falling in a shower of gold, like Zeus. I bury my feet in the wet grass, thinking how each rocket rises up singular as a planet or a cloud, shaped like jellyfish, submarines, or flags, but they all come down the same,losing their shape, their colors bleeding into the night sky like chalk after a storm. – Robbi Nester |
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What My Mother Won’t Tell Me
After 1936 by Brenda Hurst Mama was a windchime Translating any worry about restless weather To a pretty tune to whistle to She won’t admit this So promise you won’t tell her I said it The doctor asked if the thoughts were going away I saw her nervous laughter I knew she didn’t want me to hear that She clarified to me that sometimes she just wishes she weren’t here It's not that she’d ever do it herself But sometimes the knot in her nerves got so unbearable she thinks maybe there is relief in feeling nothing and I do not say this to mark her weak Because she isn’t Because it was the first time I learned how silence is too often praised for strength How there is no body stronger in silence than a mother surviving for her children How her brain was sorting out the table scraps of her memory and making meals of the leftovers How I melt between gratitude and survivor's guilt Thinking my life would lay indebt to a war I never fought If a woman did not cross a border at the age I am now with an infant son My mother who spit her dreams down the drainpipe so we could live any other iteration, My mother who is the first to pray for those who made her body into bread for sacrifice, First to betray the exhaustion in her bones if nobody’s eaten yet, My mother who won’t tell me she too is terrified She too was a daughter who hoped the world would be sweet to her So she does tell me, if you’re scared You stand firm in your place Look them straight in the eye And lie to their face – Jasmine Minchez |
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Vascular Horizons
After Electric Oak: Fall Equinox by Linda Vallejo, I. I stare up into the sky—the body flayed and open—vulnerable and pulsing. Light through the branches pools and tunnels like human cells under a microscope. All viewed from a hammock as I swayed same as when in the womb. Was I ever really born? II. My father visited the site that will be his grave. On the drive back, my parents visited every home they ever owned. You wouldn’t believe the size of the trees, he tells me, trunks so bigyou can’t reach arms around them. From saplings—do you remember? III. My grandmother planted a tree for every member of our family. If a tree died, she’d forget its name. By the Ome she was buried the remaining trees had two or more names. I liked the trees better that way—multi-spirited. Can one body hold a father / daughter? IV. Under a sky like this can anyone really die? – Nicelle Davis nicelledavis.net |
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Towards The Light
After Ghost in Salon by Lisa Bahouth Your eye goes towards the light, then the shroud, something big, hidden, draped. The ceiling is red. An atelier, like Picasso’s, the one you saw in Antibes, a painting but without a painter. No one there. Surfaces hard. Your footsteps would echo in that space, the place empty, hot ceiling, cool floor, black to one side, not encroaching, threatening, but like a piano tipped on its side, no one playing. Lines geometric, hypnotic, shapes like a ghost, haunting. And yet, the eye always goes towards the light. – Marilyn N. Robertson |
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The Sun is Exploding and We Are Killing Fish
After Myth, Muse, and Metaphor by Nancy Goodman Lawrence How do you keep the planet blue when you can’t breathe under water? Fish with maps as skin try to eat worms, before flying dead into the ocean. Over 32,000 different species of fish swim under water. What temperature leads to creation? Inside of the ocean is a military field. You pretend to be more than nutrients for larger fish. Your head is a dark time of running into heat. You catch and release blood and plastic debris. The sun burns to a crisp. Once, humans did not overfish. Once, there were patterns of earth. Fish are skeletons with traces of place. There is always competition for land or prey. The rougheye rockfish can live for more than 200 years. Is the sun the mother of fish or death? A deadline keeps you from playing with family. No one has time to stop repeating their lives. No one has time to see what they kill. A grid beckons you with pastel shades of blue. Fish with muted colors stampede for your attention. The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is becoming extinct. A tea party with the same banana you pretend to eat over and over. Your niece asks, Will you play with me? –Hanna Pachman |
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Where the House is Safe
After House of Generations by Monica Marks I know everything I want is upstairs. A chair for me to relax in. A clock To remind me of when and now. Keys and tickets, Religion, politics, decorations and declarations, All that speaks of safety and comfort Just a few steps away! I am not accustomed to the world of upstairs. I lived my life in apartments. How I longed for an attic, A place I could climb to And find the relics Of a family life That I only knew through hearsay. Somewhere there is a house, In the collective mind of my people. An attic of all our pasts, all our gifts and dear Possessions that cannot be destroyed. It is accessed By a difficult ladder, Each rung a testament to Research and patience, And the fragmented memories Of a grandmother or an aunt once removed. Careful now. The memories also include What is down in our collective basement. The ladder lies as if it cannot be lifted. The objects are things best left unseen. It is indeed a miracle that some of our kind escaped And we never stop seeing the unseen. It is because of those things, too dark to think about That I must climb constantly upward. That I must build also, another floor upon the roof Where tomorrow will live And trinkets from the present Will tell the children About the many steps And many floors We climbed to get here. –Lynne Bronstein |
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A Poem for a Falling Sky
After Big Valley by Mary Sherwood Brock Act 1. It all started on top of a hill, with a tree, and the stars, or maybe it was the many suns, or maybe I closed my eyes to sleep for seven days and I woke up to never remember that history also runs away from me. Intermission. Maybe this is what mother felt: a halfway reminder before emptiness of a hole that once was where everything once lived. We’re left to trying to remember how it all started. Act 2. It all ended with a scream, a howl, or maybe it was a yawn. “Everything dies,” she says simply. What she meant was that everyone feels the change of their own climate. The hill becomes a valley, the tree becomes an empty house, the stars explode into the far away sky, the suns return home on the seventh day. Act 3. What’s left are remnants of silicon carbide slightly draping from the muddled sky. The time before could never come back however hard we pray or beg. A photo of each step, each window, each landscaped trail—a last vestige, of all of us whole again. - Jessica Ceballos |
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This Tree
AfterElectric Oak: Spring Equinox by Linda Vallejo is exactly the one my mother drew in a letter dripping honey and mystery. Thank you for the moon, the California wines, my left arm hurts, “see this maroma keeping us tied together even through the distance?” The tree’s five branches stood in green ink, every blue ink pen dried out; the trunk gleamed with silver; she continued waltzing with light from five children born of strong oak wood, like her, who lost brothers to war, and endured. Our sacred connection offered her hope, knowledge that an ocean will not separate us. Between oranges, and pain, she took a week to complete the letter, the drawing of the tree, like herself, took a quiet space on the margins. She couldn’t draw, but the splendid tree was full of life, and longing; her left arm hurt. Cosmic energy from stars nourished her. Grandchildren got bikes, guitars, computers, trips, whatever they wanted on January 6. Exhaustion claimed her after the holidays, the effort of lighting so many candles made her perfumed breath falter; her arm hurt. She delighted on the love of my adoptive family, my sunny cave, my blooming roses, my hair. It was Wednesday, fleeting butterflies marveled at the fruits of the tree. My husband asked me, “a love letter from my mother,” I answered, glowing with pleasure, sipping a glass of wine. The phone rang. Soaring on the wings of the letter I welcomed my older sister’s voice from abroad, “Sit down,” she said, “mom….” Leaves from a tree exactly like this one trembled, fell loudly. Her left arm hurt. Nobody knew but me. It was too late. - Alicia Viguer-Espert |
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Odessa: Betrayal
After Homeland: Odessa Ukraine. Susan Spector , A path through a trellis of memories took them to a home built with cold hands, sweat, and laughter from ancestors. Feet stepped firmly on the crisscrossed rungs leading to their wheat fields. In the open spaces one could find gloves lost, or discarded by previous generations. Bubbles of snow, their ice cream balls, rolled down the white hills playfully. Winter kept them in indoor silence, but swaying beech trees sang for them. There were no shepherds, no flocks, no cows, no leaves on the trees. The naked landscape invited neighbors to gather at eventide. The storyteller brought dry cherries, the baker loaves of warm bread and butter, chestnuts and sunflower seeds roasted in the fire. Children gathered at the adults’ feet sitting on the worn carpet, full of faith in a future rich with the love of friends. They didn’t know, couldn’t imagine, but as twightlight shone through the single window cracks appeared where ghosts would enter. Eighty years later, we returned carrying grandpa’s ashes to spread at the barn. The façade painted with pomegranates brought by uncle Jacob from Turkey, had fallen, a skeleton of the farm haunted the meadows; the beech trees, witnesses of the joy and pain of the family living in the red house, stood holding inside the stories of what it had been, and what it was. - Alicia Viguer-Espert |