JR Art

I recently received an email from my friend Steph and was happy that she shared an artist, a French Photographer, she found who created some work in Rio. The project was apart of a series of photographs he took in Favela da Providencia-the first favela in Rio de Janeiro. The project consisted images in which the photographer captured the facial expressions of women whose lives are infested with crime, a violent loss of loved ones and arbitary repression as apart of everyday life.

I am most impressed with the artist's intent to create work that engages the community and becomes apart of the space rather than exploiting the community which I think sometimes happens with photography. Why simply just take a photograph when you could use it in such a way those around you are involved? It makes so much more sense. The amazing thing is these structures his photographs are placed on become small components included in the "grand picture" which is inevitably the homes inside this community ad things going on around them. The colors and textures just add to it making it cohesive and creating a face to the favela.

His website has lots of great photos from the project as well as an impressive list of other pieces he worked on, all of which were not funded by anyone but created simply for his own desire.

When I was visiting Rio, I had really wanted to visit one of the favelas and actually didn't live too far from Rochina which is one of the largest in Rio. I drove by it every time I took the bus or a cab from Barra into the city and every time it was mesmorizing to just drive by this hill side that was just full of all these bright colors and seemed almost impossible that people lived in these stacked shacks and at night they like stars in the night sky, any many ways I found it beautiful. I just loved it and in some ways feel the same way about buildings throughout Baltimore. I was at a discussion group about Baltimore vacant lots a few months ago and someone brought up the fact that these spaces are often times bitter sweet because we are drawn to these decaying structures and how there is something about them that is asthetically pleasing but at the same times they aren't always benifiting the community. I guess this applies more to spaces in Baltimore more so than the favelas in Rio but either way, when he said that I had an "AH HA" moment because that was exactly my own thoughts. I think there are solutions to these vacant spaces that could prevent them from being demolished but instead refurbished into something new. That seems like the solution to me.

But back to the favelas...

They offer these tours where you can ride in jeeps like your on a safari in this "other place" and unfortunately people do it. I had wanted to visit a favela with a walking tour group where you meet people from the community and they have markets where they sell hand made things so you are actually supporting the community but unfortunately wasn't able to. My cousin Nalita was so confused as to why I would want to go visit the place and I didn't really know how to explain it because in some ways you are exploiting these people's community and lives. I think some of it was for asthetic reasons such as those I mentioned earlier. I think I was more fascinated by the means in which people are able to live and survive in relation to our culture which to some is considered decadent. I guess it all comes back to our consumption and how much less we could consume if we were just more concious of our actions.


On a separate note I had a wonderful time at the Carnaval party hosted by the Creative Alliance. Pictures and a post soon to come!!

Time Flies..

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be leaving Baltimore, and heading back to Columbus. It turns out I haven't made it home yet. I am still in Baltimore and working on getting started on a few temp projects that will keep me here for at least another month. It feels nice to finally be busy and back to my normal routine but also frustrating because I lost a lot of my free time for things such as this blog so I am going to try really really hard to start updating again. It just might not be as frequently for awhile.

I started working downtown at the Maryland Science Center for this cell exhibit. It is going to last for three weeks. It is nice to be actually working on a job that is related to my field. Today we used saws and angle grinders and shaped styrofoam all day. Kind of fun but really messy. It sticks to your clothes really bad. I am excited though to learn some new materials and techniques. It will be good for me. I also am freelance for my professor and friend Ledelle Moe and maybe working another job on the side. Busy busy busy! I hope I am not over doing it...I need to figure out how to balance my time between everything so I can enjoy it and not stress so much.

Last week, in the middle of all my job searching... I started looking into courses at JHU to learn Portuguese. I think it would be a lot of fun and really good for me. I want to learn Portuguese well and feel comfortable with it. I also started looking into the Fulbright and know the ones from Brazil want you to be more fluent in the language. It is really important to me so I know I will put the time into it. I also found someone on Craiglist, who lives in Baltimore and is willing to tutor me for a pretty reasonable price so I think we will start meeting soon.

Things are really looking up!! I just now need to figure out where I might be living for the next several months. Currently I am camping out at my friend's space. She lives in an old warehouse in the city called the Copycat. Kind of a neat space. I like it. A little dirty though but really large so it allows people to have a studio inside their apartment. Pretty sweet. Here is a few pics of the place.

Update

I'll be returning to Columbus after staying in Baltimore this past week. Baltimore has been really great and made me realize I want to be here for a bit. I actually think I might be back in a few weeks because there is an event going on that I really want to go to at this community center called the Creative Alliance. The event is called ¡VIVA BRASIL! and it is a Samba Dance Party! I thought it would be fun to attend with some of my friends from Baltimore and have our own little Carnival celebration here in the states.



On another note. My blog is way overdue for a post and once I get back into the swing of things back home, I hope to pick up where I left off. I also in the beginning states of designing my research book from my trip so I hope to start posting some pieces from that.

Nova Arte Nova

Ok. So. I decided to go ahead and start talking about some art I saw and experienced while in Rio.

I guess I should preface this by saying that my original intention of going on this trip was to learn about the thriving commercial industry that has developed in certain parts of the country. My hope was that it would inspire my work and build connections with the industry in Baltimore. I guess I was a little in over my head and realized I needed to take baby steps to get to that point in my searching. I came to this realization pretty quickly when it was nearly impossible for me to hold a conversation with someone who was a native speaker but I tried to not let it discourage me. I realized that there were plenty of other things I wanted and probably needed to learn prior to this in-depth research I want to do. It all takes time. Sometimes you just can't rush these things and honestly..who needs to..or wants to.

So..I began to focus on learning more about the artists in Rio as well as other parts of Brazil. I begin to ask questions such as: What type of work was being made? How is art a part of daily lives? What materials are used? What type of organizations or communities are formed in the city? Where do people study art? Classes?

Through all my searching I was amazed to find some really interesting parts of the city that offer a wonderful array of art and met many practicing artists, thanks to Katie. I think by far I was impressed by two particular places. One is an area in the city called Santa Teresa and the other located in downtown Centro.

I had the opportunity to visit Santa Teresa towards the end of my trip and am very thankful that my friend Dan was willing to take me there. It is located up near Corcovado where the Christ the Redeemer statue is located. It sits up on the mountain and almost feels like you aren't actually in the city but in a small little town. All the streets wind in different directions and the houses are all distinct, really historic. Here are a few pics of some of the buildings.

They had a welcome center so I met a nice man who told me about their open studio they have each July. All the studios in the area are open to visitors and people from the city come to see the new work that these artists have been creating. Last year over 75 artists participated in the event. It is hosted by Chave Mestra. Luckily they had some leftover programs from the event this past July and I purchased on to find out more about the yearly event. It has images of the work the different artists create and I was really impressed. Unfortunately it was all in Portuguese so I wasn't able to fully translate everything. I was told however, that we were welcome to try to visit any of the studios to see if the artist might be working that day, but just to phone ahead of time. We tried a few but most weren't available. One man answered and invited us in his place. He makes lamps using thin pieces of wood. They make really intricate and beautiful designs. Here is a scan from the program that shows a few samples of his work.

I am trying really hard to make it back in time for this event! Perhaps I can meet a few different artist and interview them for my blog?

If I end up living in Rio for a year..I think I would want to live somewhere here. I saw a few signs around the area looking for room mates and the cost was reasonable so it isn't out of the question. We shall see. The only problem would be getting home at nice safely. You have to take a bus down to Centro and then switch to get to areas like Copacabana or Ipanema or Barra. Who knows though.

Now that I have mentioned Centro. Let me start by showing you a picture I took lookinf down on Centro from Santa Teresa. I love this photo!
It would be a good time to tell you about this other place located in the Banco Central do Brasil. This show called Nova Arte Nova featured young up and coming artists from all over Brazil. I was so excited to have found this show because it offered so many different artists and work that was being produced by people around my age. I had originally planned on visiting the São Paulo Biennial and after research and reading about it in the papers, I became really discouraged about the show. Everyone and everything I read about said that is was a bust. There wasn't enough funding, the building was mostly empty, and a lot of the artists weren't Brazilian. This really upset me because it was something I was really looking forward to seeing. Then Katie took me to this show Nova Arte Nova and it made up for all my prior disappointment. This bank located downtown, has three or four gallery spaces that features different art shows. This show was created in hopes of presenting the output of young artists to the public at large. Except for the São Paulo Biennial, contemporary art is generally displayed only in small galleries. These images were taken in the space. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take photos anywhere else in the space.



I bought a book that features all the artists that were in the show. I intend on talking about a few of them in the next entry and scan some images of their work. It is took good to not be shared with others.

Old work. Rediscovered.

So..Lately I've been thinking about how to make this blog more unique to my interests and am thinking about focusing the next several entries around the art I saw and experience while in Rio as well as some additional research I have done since I returned. There are a lot of really good blogs out there that focus on Brazil and more specifically Rio. My favorites are listed on the left side of the page so be sure to check them out because they are all really interesting in different ways.

While I am gathering and compiling the next entry..Here is an image that I thought would be worth sharing.



When I was about 13 years old my cousin Nalita and her son Nelson moved to Westerville, Ohio from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was a new exciting addition to the family that we already had in Westerville. When I was in high school I did a painting from a photograph I found in an old National Geographic Magazine of Copacabana Beach not really knowing much about Brazil at that time. Little did I know, 8 years later I would see it in person. I guess I was probably 15 or 16 years old when I painted this.

In addition I wanted to mention how much I think this trip has helped me learn more about my family in Rio and also become closer with Nelson and Nalita. I am fortunate to have such a loving and welcoming family. Since Nanny and Poppy's passing I think my parents, sister and I have been trying to build new traditions and hold onto the family we have left as well as work towards getting to know some relatives better. We started some new traditions this past holiday and it turned out to be really great. I am sure Nanny and Poppy were really happy to see us all together.

Mr. Jorge

I am working on gathering some research for my next post and thought this would be a good time to post some drawings I did while I was in Brazil. I bought a sketch book to use and also kept a journal. I ended up using the journal more and made mini sketches most of the time and did a lot of writing and collages with images from the paper and little things I had collected.

These are some drawings of Mr. Jorge. Mr. Jorge is my cousin Katie's father in-law. He is a very sweet old man. I lived with him while I was in Rio because he lives in Katie and Victor's house. I would see him every morning because we got up around the same time..but occasionally I would sleep in later then him! He would say good morning to me and I would do the same. It was one of the few things I could say to him because I couldn't speak very good Portuguese and he couldn't speak English plus he was a little hard of hearing. Occasionally he would start talking to me in Portguese..trying to have a real conversation and I would attempt to listen but usually couldn't make out what he was asking me.

These drawings I made of him are from when he would sit in the family room and watch television. He liked watching futebol with Victor or sometimes novelas (soap operas). He was probably one of the best models I have ever had because he didn't move much unless he fell asleep. He is over 90 years old! He is a very kind man and I am glad that I met him. He loved to smile and seemed to fill the room with happiness.

Obama Everywhere!

I recently subscribed to one of the many Google ad ons...Google Alerts. Google has taken over my life! I get daily updates about websites and articles that discuss Rio. This one came up this morning in my email and I thought it was particularly interesting because it touches on something that I witnessed a lot while I was in Brazil.



For the first month I was in Brazil before I really knew how to get around and felt comfortable, my cousin suggested I take a cab to get into the city. Unfortunately taking a cab back in forth became pretty expensive because I was traveling from Barra to Botafogo and with traffic it took awhile. Ended up being around 40 heis each way but this is really besides the point. During these trips often time little communication happened amongst me and the driver. Usually only a couple things were asked or discussed. One being who are you voting for..Obama or McCain and every time I would say Obama, they could cheer or give me thumbs up. It happened on practically every occasion in which I told someone I was an American.

There was one specific incident I wanted to share..I met this woman named Beth who is a relative of my cousin Katie's husband. She and I had an interesting discussion about the effects this election will have on our country. She was talking to me about the problems with their President Lula which I knew a little bit about but not much before visiting. There is a book that I have been meaning to read that was released recently in the US that tells the story of his life. It is called Lula of Brazil: The Story So Far From what I have read about the book, it is a positive look at what the president has a accomplished for the country but the majority of the people I talked to while I was in Brazil, about Lula, talked really negatively about the President so I am very interested in reading this book and sharing it with my friends in Brazil to get their opinion.

But back to Beth, she works for an American company based out of Baltimore, Maryland! which was crazy to hear and made me really excited to talk to her about what she thought of the city because I love it so much.

She also had a lot to say about Americans and the upcoming election.

It was always really hard to hear someone talk about people from your country, while I was in Brazil, because often times, or at least in my case, they had negative things to say about Americans and often times I think it is a little unfair. I mean I guess it is all relative to who you meet and what impressions you cast on someone. Sometimes that impression can become someones one stereotype of people from that area which really is unfortunate. We all are different. Beth however had a positive comment, she told me she thought Americans were the most hard working people she has ever met. That was really nice to hear and made me proud to be an American which commonly doesn't happen because sadly often times the negatives are highly more publicized.

She did however talk to me about her concerns about Obama becoming president. It was pretty intimidating. I guess for me because, here I was visiting another country and experiencing all this chaos my country was going through, through a television and newspaper and I guess for many Americans back home it could've been similar. Beth flat out told me, people who aren't from America typically don't like it. They don't like Americans. They are laughing at you right now because your country is falling apart. I didn't really know what to say. She doesn't have much confidence in Obama but I beg to differ. I think he offers something Americans need right now which is hope and with that we can bring change. I know that he has a lot of pressure on him and honestly I know it can't be all done but any change right now for the better is what we need. Optimisim is the key.