Art Showcase
Visually Speaking – An Artists’ Showcase
Jeanne Cόrdova, Feminist Butch – Activist, Publisher & Author – has devoted her life to activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community. She began 39 years ago as L.A. President of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), opening the first lesbian center in L.A. in 1971. She founded The Lesbian Tide – the national newsmagazine recognized as “the paper of record for lesbian feminist decade (1971-1980).
Córdova was a key organizer of the first National Lesbian Conference (at UCLA, 1973) and also worked in the campaign to defeat the anti-gay Briggs initiative (Prop. 6, 1977-1978), which would have purged LGBT teachers from public schools. Córdova went on to become president of the Stonewall Democratic Club, and served as Media Director for STOP 64, the campaign that defeated the statewide AIDS quarantine ballot measure.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Córdova continued publishing as a form of activism by founding the Community Yellow Pages (CYP), which was the nation’s largest LGBT business directory in the USA. She is now co-founder of LEX – The Lesbian Exploratorium – a cultural guerilla group, which created the 2009 L.A. art exhibit, GenderPlay in Lesbian Culture. Her extensive journalism and writings appear in many anthologies including the Lambda Literary Award winning
Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, and the trail-blazing anthology, Dagger: On Butch Women. Córdova is currently completing her third book, Rebel Dyke: Love & Revolution in the 70’s.
LEX/The Lesbian Exploratorium – the creators of GenderPlay – are a cultural guerilla activist cell born & raised in Los Angeles. The GenderPlay exhibit was produced and curated by LEX co-founders Jeanne Cordova & Lynn H. Ballen in the spring of 2009. Its narrative honors genderbending dykes of the past. The LEXbian team includes: designer Alice Hom, associate producers Sue Sexton & Ivy Bottini, exhibit researchers Joy Novak & Loni Shibuyama, design consultant Marsha Salisbury & film research/editors Betsey Kalin & Yvette Sotelo. Installation duo Margaret Smith & Carr Blasé, round out the crew of this traveling ode to lesbian history.
Giovanna Capone, Giovanna has been making and exhibiting her mixed media visual art for many years. She is also a published poet and fiction writer. For her, visual art captures and expresses what the written word cannot. In her visual art, she uses various types of media such as acrylic paint, photographs, fabric and glass to address themes of politics, spirituality, sexuality, and the environment. Making art for her is meditative, relaxing, and aesthetic. It’s less cerebral than writing tends to be.
Arlene Diehl is a working San Francisco artist who has managed, through stubbornness, nerve and financial sacrifice to keep her work central in her life over the very long haul and is reaping some of the benefits of that commitment now. She was recognized early for her work, is collected widely, and is the current acting president of Red Umbrellas, an artist’ non-profit, which is making it possible for other local artists to show and build a following for their work. She sometimes thinks “god, how the hell am I managing to pull all of this off?” She was raised atheist in the woods of New Hampshire, came out at seventeen in 1974 and identifies as lesbian and as femme.
Her work has evolved from a lifelong fascination with, and reverence for, the human form. She has also been deeply committed over the years to the process of drawing, finding in it time and again an emotional and visceral immediacy that has served my deeper purposes.
In these charcoal drawings of Lea, she finds a powerful conjunction between subject and medium. Where typically in recent years she have explored light, speed and negative space, here she has the opportunity to go deeper into an exploration not only of shadow, form and darkness but also an exploration of substance, power and vulnerability, the juxtaposition of male and female, and the excitement intrinsic in exploring beauty that finds no reference in societal norms. Arlene wants to acknowledge the very real courage, work and generosity that is represented in her subject’s willingness to give herself as a gift in this public way. As an aging, fat, menopausal, masculine appearing, chicana, two spirit lesbian of color, she is shattering every proscription she has been handed against showing herself and making all those parts of herself visible which life-long she has been expected to hide and disown.
To view more of Arlene’s work:
http://www.leftcoastgalleries.com/artists/diehl/index.htm
Lisa L. Everly , a self taught artist, photographer, author, singer and performer, has spent most of her life working traditional men’s jobs. From security to maintenance/home repair and long-haul trucking, her work has always been known for its attention to detail. More recently she published Flashback Artist—The Amazing True Story of One Woman’s Life and Spiritual Journey, to much acclaim. She has also performed as a Drag King since her 20’s. Lisa has a keen sense of artistic design and a quick eye for isolating the best of her subject matter whether it be people, objects or nature. She enjoys isolating elements of the whole which lead the viewer into a different and sometimes overlooked aspect whether it be through line, texture, emotion or perception. Lisa brings to life the personal empowerment she’s found in her ability to communicate her passion and love for art, photography, writing and singing by using her own experiences to express herself. She hopes that her self-expression encourages others to follow their own heart to use art, writing and music as a transformational tool.
To view more of Lisa’s art and photography go to: www.BlueAngelStudio.biz.
Lenn Keller – The portraits displayed here are from a work-in progress entitled Gender Warriors. They are large format black and white digital portraits of people who are gender non-conforming. The selected prints are of women who self-identify as butch (i.e. masculine females) at a point in history when it appears that that specific gender identity is an endangered species.
This work is looking at the cross-sections of race and gender identities, and poses many questions. They include but are not limited to; what is the definition of woman, how does race impact a non-conforming gender identity, why is there a societal need for appropriate gender presentation? Who and what do prescribed gender presentations serve, and finally, why do those who do not conform to prescribed gender identities and presentations become targets for discrimination and violence ? More of my work can be seen at my website: www.lennkeller.com
C.D. Kirven , is a nationally known Author, Artist, Activist & Filmmaker, best known for her Lambda Literary nominated debut novel What Goes Around Comes Back Around and for making the first GLBT cell phone documentary about same sex domestic violence The Dark Side of the Rainbow: The Price of Inequality. Guitar-player Kirven is a well-respected visual artist with 5 years experience; her artwork will be featured in the 2009 Sept/Oct. issue of Curve magazine and will be auctioned in October 2009 at the HRC Black Tie Dinner event. Kirven has an upcoming art exhibition entitled “Life through the eyes of a Southern Blue-Necked Dyke.” The exhibit is about equality, music, sexuality & acceptance, and explores the production of art with music, artistic & political content. It allows the audience to see the world through the eyes of an African-American lesbian reflecting on her racial and sexual history then expressing herself with contemporary images. “Blue-neck” is a spin on the term “Red-neck” which is paying tribute to her deep southern roots. To view Kirven’s artwork or to contact the artist: http://www.facebook.com/cdkirven
Sherley Olopherne, As a Haitian born, butch, lesbian, educator and educated woman Sherley Olopherne is well aware her identities formulate her perspective on life amongst women, life amongst men, life amongst Haitians, life in the many localities of NYC, and ultimately the life of compromised visibilities. In many parts of the city, the nation, and the world, marginalization has become commonplace, black lesbians have become invisible. As an artist, her social responsibility lies in the realms of visual representation to engage mainstream communities in a dialogue about what a “lesbian” looks like. To view Shirley’s art work: http://sherleycamilleolopherne.com/home.html
Joie Rey – Jana Lynn Cohen, a gender artist / activist who questions the binary gender paradigm through multimedia. Joie uses visually stimulating techniques of photographic animation, overlapping sounds, high contrast imagery, and video collage to represent the fluidity of “others,” while bringing viewers on a journey beyond the binary, forcing them to question the societal structures in place. The work is educational, self questioning, controversial, compassionate, risky and needed. Joie has screened their film GENDER? at TrannyFest in San Francisco, London Trans Film Festival, Homo A GoGo in San Francisco, and has been the featured artist at both K’vetch and Smack Dab queer open mics in San Francisco. Joie has shot photos for Frameline LGBT Film Festival in San Francisco, TransMarch, Fabulosa Music and Art Festival at the Russian River, and has done both promotional photography and studio work for the last 15 years. Joie obtained a BA in Humanities with an emphasis on Gender Studies and is currently working on their MFA in Creative Inquiry and Interdisciplinary Art. To view Joie’s work: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joierey/sets/72157613776277219/show/
Takeya Trayer – My art is an expression of love, life, and my relationships. I use intense bold colors with two things in mind, representing my personality and eliciting intense feelings from the viewer. I am attempting to create art about, not only the physical connection between two women but also the mental and spiritual connection. Most of my art is abstract because life is abstract. There aren’t answers to everything. Sometimes you just need to feel it, soak in the experience for what it is, and live the answer. So don’t ask me, “What is this piece about?” You tell me.
J.S. Walls, a Butch two and three dimensional artist and film maker, was born and raised in Texas. Jay moved to Seattle in 2001 after she received a BA in Fine Art/Art History from Texas Women’s University. During Jay’s career, she has been accepted into several juried art exhibitions, and she has been displayed in various galleries, restaurants and coffee shops. She has also been commissioned for art work, published in travel guides and has sold many of her works across the country. Jay creates art using photography, graphite, conte, maker, watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media. Her work includes both realistic and abstract styles using various methods of application in the creation of her work. Jay’s work encompasses a variety of subject matters and ideas including the concept of her evolving identity through a series of self portraits she has created over the last 10 years. To view Jay’s artwork or to contact her:
Angela White studied photography at the University of California, Santa Cruz, receiving a Bachelors Degree in Art in 1994. She focuses on finding beauty in things that go unnoticed, and has had a lot of fun photographing architectural details, flowers, and everyday objects. Her current project, AND: A Queer, Masculine Terrain Of Gender & Sexuality, features images that embody the handsomeness found in people of a queer gender. As a butch lesbian, she is particularly interested in female masculinity. However, this project intends to celebrate a wide spectrum of possibility and beauty. Angela seeks to increase the visibility of women, men, neither, both, and others who are generally left out of positive representation.
