art diva studios visuals and verbiage by Rachelle Díaz
culture
DON’T FREAK OUT
Sorry for the vulgarity — this is inspired by this Conan O’Brien version of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster my cousin posted on Facebook earlier this afternoon. #1) Sometimes I feel like I’m the only white person who’s annoyed by the ubiquitous adage. I mean, seriously? Would you truly do that in a [...]
Equations
I just had my first ever television interview on the local PBS station’s news magazine, Arizona Illustrated. I was really nervous because although I love to talk about art, I tend to clam up when put on the spot, particularly when questioned by “authority” (art institutional types, administrators, posh curators or artists, academics, media), so [...]
The Alchemy of Art
For the last few months, I have been thinking about the Artist as Shaman: a person who acts an intermediary between the People and God [via]. An oracle who can shed insight into the future, albeit not in the most direct forms of communication. Not to sound pompous or anything, but that is always how [...]
Passing the Buck
Downloaded clip art from Microsoft Office. I feel the world financial depression (which started in the U.S.) was caused by an ethical crisis more than anything else. We all say it at work: “not my problem.” But imagine millions of people saying it, over and over. And if everyone’s saying it, eventually it’s going to [...]
Velvet Rebellion
Prologue 1. Sametová Revoluce. The Velvet Revolution (Czech: sametová revoluce) (November 16- December 29, 1989) refers to a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government. On November 17, 1989, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration in Prague. That event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from November 19 to [...]
Vogueing Out
A couple of things caught my eye as I cracked open the March 2008 issue of VOGUE yesterday. 1) Is high fashion trying to angle itself with high art? Art has been what I would call “street hip” for a couple of years now, but for me, the deer heads, power lines and raindrops are [...]
Corporate Art takes on a new form
I packed in with scores of my closest fellow hipster doofi at the opening of the Scion Installation 4: It’s A Beautiful World at Gallery Lombardi on Saturday. The whole event rubbed me horribly wrong (not the gallery’s fault). 1. Why have an opening in an 18′ x 30′ gallery where hundreds of people are [...]
Beauty vs Decoration
Revisiting the bird silhouette that was a major element in my 2004 paintings has made me realize how much my experiences over the past 3-4 years have changed my approach to making art. When I first started using the bird silhouette, it was basically a copy of some hipster pop art I saw on Gallery [...]
Historical Correlations
I finally found what I was looking for in Culture and Society in Venice 1470-1790: the connection between the Postmodern and the Post-Renaissance (may be my own coinage). The Counter-Reformation was a conservative backlash against the Humanists and the Protestants in which the Church machine sought to regain control of the people through art, music [...]
The Greater Good and the Lesser Evil
The more art web- and paper-based publications I read, the less I want to read. Such a polarized landscape. The dumbing-down, super-mass audience camp has been reporting on the same type of subjects over and over for years. Then there are the upper-crust writers that because they self-publish their own blog or magazine feel entitled [...]
Things to Come: Country Escape vs Urban Immersion
Perhaps in 10 years or less, the artists loci featured in the Texas Biennial will not be the megapolisesesses of Dalls/Houston/San Antonio/Austin, but rather will sound like a litany of nowheres in the show catalog: Quanah, Palacios, Wied, Electric City, Mount Enterprise, Hico, Uvalde, Valentine… Artists will go on an exodus into the countryside for [...]
Things to Come: Realism
This piece is first in a series of opinionated forecasts about art, culture, fashion and business called Things to Come. Look for these posts in the oracles category, but don’t look for definitive answers. There is too much history to absorb. We only receive vague transmissions of our own culture, like watching a snowy TV [...]
Collage study
I like to draw and can draw well from life. But juxtaposing random images is so much more challenging, rather than just drawing what I see before me. You can do funny compositions, weird compositions, serious compositions. It’s a good way to process and reformulate the world around you, which is largely comprised of advertising. [...]
Notes: know yourself, fool
My writer husband and I got into a literary conversation a few weeks ago. His position as an educational program coordinator/editor for a small publisher gives him access to several erudite literary journals. A co-worker of his recommended he take home n+1, a hipster-y semi-annual publication of essays. We both read “The Intellectual Situation Against [...]
Sophomore slump?
Some wonder where all the fuss was in the art community was in response to the Texas Biennial. I think we all needed some time for everything to sink in, to watch, wait and see what direction it would go. Although I have no doubt the Biennial will continue to grow and surprise in the [...]
Throwing Bones
In a city that prides itself on being a supportive place where creative people can do their thang, the cost of living here is slowly killing that climate. Despite what citizens with Keep Austin Weird and No War in Iraq bumper stickers neatly emblazoned on the back of their SUVs/VWs/recumbent bikes seem to take for [...]
Veni, Vidi, Artsy, Fartsy: Continued
A year later, I have mixed feelings about the changes I’ve seen in this part of the city over a short amount of time. First, my rent has doubled. I’m now living in a new-construction townhouse 1/2 mile away from my former digs on Poquito—yes, it’s one of those hideous mini-McMansions. It’s not without some [...]
Veni, Vidi, Artsy, Fartsy: Part 1
Following is a rough essay I started writing for Cantanker magazine a few months ago, but I wasn’t satisfied with the way it was going. While I feel I can express myself well with the written word at rare moments, most of the time I get pen-tied, too many things spewing forth at once. My [...]