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Life has been incredibly draining past few days. I had to post one of the little things that makes me happy and reminds me to keep my head up and move forward (always). One of my favorite pastimes involves walking along the Valencia corridor in San Francisco’s Mission District and take pictures. With a lot on my mind and busy (like everyone else), I wanted to post portraits found on the store front of one of my favorite book stores, Dog Eared Books. What…
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“Most of us deep down believe that a person who is creative will prevail regardless of the environment,” Csikszentmihalyi wrote. “But the reality appears to be different…. No matter how gifted a person is, he or she has no chance to achieve anything creative unless the right conditions are provided by the field.” Csikszentmihalyi identifies “seven major elements in the social milieu that help make creative contributions possible: training, expectations, resources, recognition, hope, opportunity, and reward. Some of these are direct…
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La Pocha Nostra has been traveling the world, using performance as their primary method of conveying the current political, societal, and cultural nuances of the Unites States and its relationship with the rest of the world. In Corpo/Ilicito, statuesque performers, some on platforms and some on the same level as the audience, interact with viewers. Their unapologetic narratives address the displacement and marginalization that occur in this globalized world, with special attention paid to the illicit and corruptible body. From…
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Over the weekend, I went to Needles and Pens located in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. It’s one of my favorite spots to get a an art pick-me-up. From doodles to zines, Needles and Pens reminds me that DIY is a wonderful and necessary art movement. It’s, certainly, an important one. There’s a lot of value in other people’s visual musings of this chaotic world. Sometimes, all I really need is something straight forward and inspires me to pick up my journal or…
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Okay, I’m just going to get on my soap box so please feel free to move on if you’re not interested, I totally understand and won’t be offended. To forewarn you, this is a rant. At least I’m my own number one fan, eh? Here it goes… Having committed myself to writing everyday, I’m finding the Bay Area art world rife with events and happenings worth writing about. There’s so much going on and all types of genres within the arts and so many different venues. I’d…
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I’m trying to finish up a piece on the show currently showing at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, CA, titled, It’s All a Blur featuring the art of Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Dale Hoyt and Tony Labat. I’ve been working on this piece for a couple of weeks now. There’s so much to say about the exhibition but I’m trying to be as eloquent as possible and flesh out the salient points amidst all of the first impressions. If you’re in…
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Eggshells. Easily discarded but often associated with the idiom of not wanting to hurt one’s feelings (hence, walking on eggshells), Elyse Hochstadt’s Labour of Love installation of eggshells with a wooden swing hanging off to a corner of the piece provides the viewer with an identifiable reference – a carpet. Yet, the thought of walking on this eggshell carpet makes actually walking on it an impossibility, which proves the point that most, if not all, colloquial phrases have a sense…
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Art is supposed to be an experience. Don’t you think? Well, I do. These days, it’s not enough for me to look at something on a canvas or a neatly stacked collection of combs (okay, so if it’s Sonya Clark, I know the combs are ridiculously magnificent looking and rife with cultural subtext and history. Yes, I love her work but I just digressed, big surprise). In any case, I said it and I’ll say it again. It’s NOT enough…
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Who said beauty doesn’t matter? Similar to art, beauty’s ubiquitous and enigmatic nature is ever-present in our visual landscape. It is not just on billboards, in magazines, or the growing number of photographs we see of others (i.e., seeing our own ‘beautiful’ friends on social networking sites as we all re-define self-portraiture in this digital age) but even deep seeded in our histories, you will find how standards of beauty have been created. Our histories reside in our bodies. It is obvious in the way in which we care…
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Art / art community / conceptual art / ethnic studies / filipino / performance / performing arts / Philippines / poetry / San Francisco / writing¶¶¶¶¶
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I’m a huge believer in seeing art everywhere. Many people believe art must be an object (i.e., painting, drawing, etc.) exhibited inside museum and/or gallery walls and reserved for some elite group’s viewing pleasure. The contemporary artist must be well-rounded though (i.e., staying apprised of the arts and technology). Look at Takashi Murakami. Fans of Hip Hop artist, Kanye West, are probably very familiar with Murakami’s art and design for album cover, Graduation. Yet, I’m wondering if these same individuals know…
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writer | artist | scholar
Dorothy R. Santos, Ph.D. 