Symbiosis V…
The journey, the process, and the final presentation…
Yes, the above work is a discarded artwork. As in, I did not like it and will be probably cut off or disposed of some way. It was part of my presentation.
What an incredible creative journey! After nine months working on my project, it has come to an end. These last two weekends were full of artists’ presentations and demos along with the opening and closing live sessions. I tried to attend as many as possible live but if not, I watched the recordings. To get an idea of how many of us were involved here is a summary of today’s closing video:
The SYMBIOSIS V EXHIBITION CLOSE meeting reviewed the culmination and impact of the nine‑month Symbiosis program and online exhibition—celebrating over 110 submissions from 70+ artists, robust international engagement (5,300+ page views, 882 unique visitors from 44 countries) and 20 sharing sessions—while highlighting mentee growth, mentorship successes, and concrete outcomes such as artwork sales, library adoption, and plans for small‑business ventures…
Because you have been following this blog you have read other posts where I talk about Symbiosis V. Below are some of the posts starting with the most recent:
On each post I either talked about my process, challenges, and influences as well as the mentorship and exhibition project that is Symbiosis—currently on its fifth year, by Dorothy Lim from The Art of Letters.
To finalize the project every artist and mentor had to do a Meet the Artist Live Presentation. All of them have been recorded and can be found on The Art of Letters YouTube channel. Mine can be found here. It was a treat to see everyone’s unique works and processes; how each person engaged with the project and developed their ideas. I consider myself very privileged for having had the opportunity to be part of an international project such as this one. I met so many people from different countries united by their love of letters and words. Yes, I am totally geeking about it! I was able to meet calligraphers who otherwise I would have never met or become acquainted with and some have become good friends.
The projects of our group, mentored by Gabriela Soba:
And you can see my pieces here as well on The Art of Letters’ website but I will post pictures below too. The site says my works are not for sale but they actually are if anyone wants to buy them. I think things got mixed up in the process.
My pieces are Hide and Seek, Rebel, and TicToc. I will explain each below. If you remember, I might have mentioned earlier that the black ink layer was created by me dancing on the paper with headphones and a brush attached to a yardstick. Then I added the colors and calligraphic text.
Hide and Seek
Ink layer
Color and text
Details: You can click on each for a larger view.
The text is simply free writing or stream of consciousness. The work evoked in me the idea of hiding and seeking.
Rebel
Ink layer
Color and text
The text is based on the first verse of Habanera from the opera Carmen by George Bizet. The first verse is:
“Love is a rebellious bird
that nobody can tame,
and you call him
quite in vain…”
The rest of the text is free writing responding to the lyrics in one way or another. It is mostly based on the tension between Don José and Carmen. Her free spiritedness and his rigidity. At the end, he kills her.
TicToc
Ink layer
Color and text
This composition was inspired by Tiempo de Vals performed by Chayanne and written by Jose Maria Andres Cano. Chayanne released this music video in August 7th, 1990. Pretty much the entire country was watching it. It has become part of our culture. And it reminded of my Dad.
When I layered the pieces the songs were playing on repeat until I felt they were completed. That of course happens when I either call my husband or my daughter to take a look.
There is much to say about this experience and I would certainly love to do it again. But I will take a year off because I have another project in mind that I need to start research. I will keep you posted once I get more ducks in a row.
I want to express my gratitude to Dorothy Lim. There is a lot of logistics to coordinate and keep straight to put this together. The time zones alone are mind blowing and all of so get confused but she is a genius at it. Not to mention her generosity and dedication to the art of letters. Each one of the mentors are incredibly generous as well. It is really and truly a labor of love. And I hope this keeps growing and taking shape.
If you want to take a look at my PDF presentation, I am including the file here as well.
Thank you for coming along in this journey with me.
PDF presentation below.
Love,
Alma