Lauren Kasmer’s Momenta is Truly of the Moment This Weekend Only

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Momenta, multi-media artist Lauren Kasmer’s solo exhibition presented by El Camino College Art Gallery is a rich virtual delight that runs online through May 9th. This weekend, the experience becomes even more immersive – and is one well-worth staying home for, even as the world reopens. Performances, readings, and special announcements are part of the program, curated by Susanna Meirs.

The exhibition’s five main moments, which I have written about previously, are: the lush visual narrative of a poetic video exhibition, Mount; Wardrobe, with its highly tactile photographically printed garments; Equipoise, a meditative photographic installation with personal collaborative and interactive elements; and the photography of Collaboration at a Distance, and Flourish from Fire, the latter of which is comprised from stills of the Blind Courier exhibition installation project that Kasmer presented at the Brand Library in 2019. 

Each of these unique elements of Momenta share the emphasis on social practice and viewer participation that Kasmer has epitomized throughout her artistic journey, and this weekend’s scheduled acts and spontaneous Moments is Alive interactions will bring virtual viewers into the artist’s viscerally realized world as she had intended it to do had the exhibition proceeded in a public IRL opening.

Kasmer will also unveil a new book based on the exhibition. Already available is a limited-edition Viewmaster which she says is “intended to evoke the feeling of being in the presence of the elements via the use of an art object that you can hold in your hands,  a contrast to this virtual exhibition.”

Between each scheduled act, there will be “Momenta is Alive” interludes. These interludes feature live spontaneous acts within the Equipoise installation including the musings, meditation, films, and performances.   

SATURDAY MAY 1

9:50 am: Space opening

10 am: teacher and practitioner of East/West Modalities Deirdre Woode leads T’ai Chi

11 am: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

12 pm: Rob Klonel gives us a Drumming experience

1 pm: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

2 pm: art critic and writer Shana Nys Dambrot reads from her book Zen Psychosis

3 pm: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

4 pm: Matthew Rich and Miriha Austin perform Mixed media

5 pm: Space closing & a Momenta limited edition View-Master giveaway

SUNDAY MAY 2

9:50 am: Space opening

10 am: Monthira Soonthorsarathool leads Zumba

11 am: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

12 pm: Clayton Bonura reads Ekphrastic poetry

1 pm: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

2 pm: Douglas Wilcox presents Table Manners 

3 pm: MOMENTA is Alive Interlude*

4 pm: Satoe Fukushima has Storytime with Misato & Chitose Iida.

5 pm: Space closing & Viewmaster giveaway

Exhibition viewable at https://www.laurenkasmersmomenta.com/

Momenta, Lauren Kasmer’s companion book for her exhibition, will be released in early June as a limited edition of 100 copies.

A small number of keepsake View-Masters will be available for sale on the Momenta website, each with a disk that includes  images from the exhibition.  A Momenta View-Master giveaway will be announced during this weekend’s livestream.

The link to the Momenta Livestream can be accessed at https://www.laurenkasmersmomenta.com/, the exhibition itself is viewable at the same location.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival Debuts for Earth Day Weekend

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From Kifaru

Mammoth Lakes Film Festival founder Shira Dubrovner has created a new film festival with Eastern Sierra Arts Alliance (ESAA) for which she is the executive director.

Just in time for Earth Day weekend, in conjunction with Eastern Sierra Earth Week, she’s debuting the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival April 23-25.

The virtual festival is viewable via free tickets at the EasternSierraArts.org website. Films are available for an extended viewing window once selected to watch, making them as eminently easy to view as they are timely and compelling projects.

Here’s a quick rundown of the environmentally prescient and visually astonishing films screening

Opening Night – Friday April 23, 7pm

KIFARU 

Director – David Hambridge (Run Time 80 mins)

Kifaru follows the lives of two young Kenyan recruits that join Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s rhino caretaker unit – a small group of rangers that care for and protect Sudan, the last male northern white rhino or kifaru in Swahili. 

The feature is accompanied by a 12 minutes short film following a group of local Maasai rangers educating their community about the importance of elephants, James Martin’s Being with Elephants.

Shorts Block – Saturday April 24,  7pm

THE PRODIGY 

Director – Lewis Rapkin (Run Time 3 mins)

Tyler “The Prodigy” Lau set out to be the first person of color to complete what’s known in hiking as the Calendar-Year Triple Crown, the 8000 mile journey of the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Appalachian Trail all within a year. 

ADA BLACKJACK RISING 

Director – Brice Habeger – (Run Time 6 mins)

In the pre-dawn twilight of an Alaskan shore, a young Native woman reflects on the story of Ada Blackjack, the sole survivor of a disastrous 1921 Arctic expedition, and the loneliness she must have felt waiting for a rescue through the months-long polar night.

ALPHA MARE 

Director – Victor Tadashi Suarez & Mimi Wilcox – (Run Time 10 mins)

A dreamlike meditation on mental health and the search for self-love, Alpha Mare is the story of Karin Dilou,a sage elderly woman who lives a solitary life above the Nicasio Reservoir in California with a herd of Danish Warmbloods, told from the horses’ perspective

MOTHERLAND 

Director – Emily Mkrtichian & Jesse Soursourian – (Run Tim 19 mins)

The documentary short focuses on the the women who shake tradition to rid their country of landmines leftover from a devastating ethnic war. 

LOVE IS THE WAY 

Director – Jeremy Là Zelle – (Run Time 45 mins)

Love is the Way brings together the voices speaking in defense of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, highlighting the generations of stewardship by Gwich’in and Iñupiaq people inspired in part by footage of the late photographer Michio Hoshino. 

From Anchor Point

Closing Night – Sunday April 25, 7pm

ANCHOR POINT

Director – Holly Tuckett – (Run Time 90 mins)

Women have been a force in wildland firefighting since 1942. Still, they remain outnumbered 10-to-1 on the fire lines and do double-duty battling both the infernos that scorch public lands and the smoldering embers of discrimination, misogyny and sexual harassment. Told in cinema verité, ANCHOR POINT chronicles the 2019 fire season through the eyes of two women, generations apart, as they push to change the culture of wildland fire. Much of the film was shot in and around the Eastern Sierra.

Watch the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival Friday, April 23 through Sunday, April 25 at 7 PM by reserving tickets on the Eastern Sierra Arts website, www.EasternSierraArts.org

  • Genie Davis, images and film information provided by Easter Sierra Mountain Film Festival

Artist Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman Reflects on Pandemic Times

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Magical realism has always been a strong component of Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman’s light-filled work, and if ever there was a time for the glow of her images, it is now.

Daemons and dreams, young girls and delightful animals are most often her subjects, in work that she terms “always introspective” and which the amount of time she spent alone with her thoughts in this past year made even more so.

“I also think that global events have forced introspection from
everyone, and observing that has informed my work too, since my subject
matter is focused on the human subconscious. Also, the totally surreal
nature of everything that happened brought up a lot of esoteric
thoughts and feelings for me. I kind of felt like I was working in
slow motion and while that was uncomfortable at times, I also think it
all also helped the work,” Sullivan-Beeman says.

The pandemic has also enhanced the relationship between all species, something that ties into the magical quality of shared feeling that the artist often represents.

“I definitely think that the communication between animal and human is
especially poignant right now. People are desperately searching for
things to connect with and ways to find meaning, and animals have
played an important role in that,” she explains. “I see animals as an eternally important source of soul connection for humans, and I think more
people are coming to that conclusion as they are dealing with intense
isolation.”

The comfort, wisdom, and companionship of animals in the world has long been expressed in the artist’s work. “Animals, which in my work are spirit guides, share all of our emotions, they feel what is happening in the world around them, and for that reason they are an incredibly powerful comfort, both consciously and subconsciously.”

Sullivan-Beeman is currently creating a new body of work, and has solo shows coming up nationally – one in May of 2022 with Bert Green Fine Art in Chicago and the other in the fall with Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville. She will also be a part of several group shows with WOW x WOW and has pieces from that exhibition showing on line at present. Currently, she is also one of a lovely three-artist exhibition at KP Projects in Los Angeles, where she will also be signing limited edition prints Saturday, April 24th.

“The prints of Flamingo Girl are a Limited Edition of 25, signed and
numbered. I think that piece makes a great print because of its lush
colors and Static Medium really did an incredible job with them,” she relates.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Ruby Vartan Offers Jeweled New Work

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Mutable and mysterious at first look, Ruby Vartan’s artwork represents a figurative abstract exploration based on the feminine form. Working in a wide range of mixed mediums such acrylic, oil, charcoal, and fabric, as well as with oil on canvas, artist Ruby Vartan weaves powerful, emotional images.

Her work expresses both her own inner world and experiences. It evokes the liquid as well as flame, revealing both what Vartan terms messages of peace and love, as well as a flood of highly emotional, evocative images that express her own generational and intimate trauma.

The artist describes her layered and poetically physical work as the process through which she feels most free, where no boundaries exist to arriving at her destination of expression.

From inner emotion to the external body, Vartan uses her own presence to represent a vital life force, light and renewal. Her process often includes painting, tearing, sewing, and the incorporation of unique mediums that resonate with love and pain. Works include elements of empty space which she views as a way to create and uncover and exciting new world that she makes her own.

Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Lebanon, Vartan moved to the U.S. in 2008, and currently resides in Los Angeles. She says that her strong use of color reflects her heritage and identity, as well as symbolizing her dreams, desires, and emotions. She takes her work and her viewers into a world of volatile honesty and fragile self-expression.

Some images include canvas slashes the reveal a gold texture below, similar to the Japanese technique of Kintsugi that repairs the broken with the use of a precious substance such as gold, silver, or platinum. Other works include text, and intricate patterns.

Regardless of image, Vartan’s work exudes the aura of survival, resurrection, and resilience, shaping an experience of artistic and soulful redemption.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist