Countdown to the solo show...

Coming up soon at Beep Beep is my solo show, "Falling in..."  I'm not nervous...not one bit.

When: Saturday, March 30th, 7-11pm

Where:Beep Beep Gallery- 696 Charles Allen Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30308

What:"Filling In..." New work by Jessica Caldas

"Just as any love story does, the stories of violent relationships each develop differently. Though a relationship full of love should not be violent there is indeed love. There is a very human hope and belief in love. There are lines of power, control and anger that should not be crossed but they are crossed. Violence should not be hard to see, hard to distinguish, hard to name and yet it is.

When we see violence from an outsider’s perspective and we want to understand it we place ourselves, or those we know, in the moment and we ask “What if it was me?” Why do we have to ask this question? When we don’t want to understand violence we push the stories away from us, and we say “that could never happen to me”. In this moment we are failing to understand that, like love, violence is all around us.

This work visualizes relationships I witness as a Domestic Violence advocate; their development through the cycle of violence, the perspectives surrounding the relationships, and the questions of what happens when love is pressured by violence and control."

WonderRoot CSA Project-yay commission time!

I haven't had a chance to write much about this, except in the brief timeline I posted yesterday but here's some more information about this project.  I was invited by WonderRoot to participate in their CSA, or Community Supported Art.

Here's how they explain it:

"What is the WonderRoot CSA? The WonderRoot CSA (Community Supported Art) is a new model for selling and purchasing artwork, adapted from the traditional agricultural CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).


What is the purpose? The WonderRoot CSA seeks to: a) cultivate a culture of art collecting for the local arts economy and b) support Atlanta artists by commissioning them to create work


Why did we create it? WonderRoot invites art curious individuals and seasoned collectors to invest in the local arts economy by purchasing a share to Atlanta’s first ever art-based CSA, The WonderRoot CSA. By investing in local artists, customers are helping to keep local talent in Atlanta, as well as claiming their share of our city’s most gifted creators. Artist contributors are able to immediately grow their collector-base to 50 individuals, in addition to a guaranteed commission before any work is ever created. The exposure to WonderRoot’s audience throughout metro Atlanta creates even more opportunity for participating artists to develop interested buyers.


How does it work?- 50 shares available to the public at $300/share
- Commission of 9 artists to create 50 works each
- Quarterly (total of 3) delivery of “art box” with 3 works within each delivery
- A “release party” coincides with each delivery with attendees as artists and shareholders"

Here's the really neat infograph they made (click to make it big):

Here's all the other artists participating (so neat, websites are linked):
Bethany Collins, Wret Rausaw, Henry Detweiler, Michi Meko, Patricia Patterson, Noble Beast, Jill Frank and Nick Madden
And here's the video of me talking about why I am excited to be participating in the project:

Finally, Floyd Hall, of WonderRoot, did a podcast interview with me.  I mostly meander about my moving around as a lot as a kid, my family, and my work with domestic violence victims but I also talk a little bit about the CSA.  Here's the link:
http://wonderroot.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-03T18_47_50-08_00

I'm super excited about the work, and in fact finishing it all up this week and weekend to be hand delivered on the 15th!

Here are some other articles/blogs announcing and talking about the project:
http://crusadeforart.com/wonderroots-csa-for-art-um-yes-please/
http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2012/12/20/wonderroot-announces-csa-style-art-subscription
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/a-csa-for-art-wonderroot-tries-a-new-idea

Two Openings Back to Back

The Framer's show opening reception is Friday, May 18th at 6:30.  Should be fun and the proceeds from all the sales go to APS which is killer!

In addition, my solo show opens that night as well and the reception starts at 7.  I'm pumped and nervous and excited and freaked out all at once.

Here is the brief statement I wrote for the facebook event page (I hate writing this crap) and the details for the reception:

"People interact with mundane objects every day. For some, objects can take on considerable meaning and symbolism and the mundane can be transformed into the significant. This can happen in different ways and to varying degrees. A person sometimes chooses to assign meaning to an object, such as a piece of jewelry which they feel has brought them luck, and often people will look on a nostalgic time and remember a particular object, such as the car they took on family vacations, and think of home and loved ones. In light of the past year, during which I have been working with domestic violence survivors, I am particularly interested in the portrayal of the experiences that are more overpowering, those that people can rarely control and that are often inflicted by outside sources. Within the context of violent relationships, I have watched the objects we use everyday become twisted into tools of fear, control, and cruelty. As merely an advocate I can never completely comprehend the experience of the survivors of these incidents but I continue trying to scrape the surface of understanding as my own perspectives shift and deepen with each encounter."


Object and Experience-Prints and Drawings by Jessica Caldas
Opening Reception: Friday, May 18th, 7-10
Show dates: Friday, May 18th-Saturday, June 16th
The Arts Exchange
750 Kalb Street, SE, Atlanta, GA 30312
https://www.facebook.com/events/138778076255575/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_user_joined

Color details from a few of the backgrounds-having camera issues and didn't want to wait to take pics of the finished prints.  Lovely though there is a slight blue tinge to them I didn't mean to add-alas I fail at the photography.