Everything’s Coming Up Frida

Last night I ventured to Oakland to participate in an artist talk for The Many Faces of Frida. Rachel-Anne Palacios, the exhibit’s curator, led the public throughout the exhibit and introduced each artist. It was the first time I’ve had to talk about the work collectively instead of discussing just the individual pieces.

I wrote about my last artist talk and being stymied by having to explain what a Chola was to someone who had no context for understanding what one was. This time around I stumbled through answering questions describing Eazy-E and the significance of a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor. I think my public speaking is getting a lot better but I’m still struggling to give accessible explanations of the tropes I use to an audience that is new to me. Seeing my friend (and collector of my work) Valerie Schlafke in the audience was reassuring and put me at ease.

After the event I was ready to party my face off. Rachel threw a shindig at her Frida-inspired crib and I was blown away by all the great artwork she had on her walls. I promised her that I’d create some artwork for her so I could be amongst the ranks of artists on display in her home. At the party I got to know an inspiring couple, Zitlalix and Eddie, who got me crunked and shared their creative visions of painting, bartending, and industrial design. Good lookin’ out peeps!

In Ghetto Frida mural news, three blogs have already given me good mentions that I’m very grateful for. Mission Mission and my fellow artist Martha Rodriguez have both chimed in on the piece and I’m taking it as a good sign that some people out there can relate to it. Amy Kweskin and Frida Kahlo in San Francisco have also shown me some love.

I though I’d share the original image used to create the mural. Click on the image below for a large view of it.

And lastly I want to give a shout to local sex-positive heroine Violet Blue. Her latest project, just launched yesterday, is vb.ly which presents itself as the internet’s first and only sex-positive url shortener.

Blue’s description of vb.ly on her flickr page includes:

it is the Internet’s first and only sex-positive link shortener service. meaning, links are not filtered or groomed, and we’ll never pull your links because we decided to become “family friendly.”

That sounds pretty good to me.

Peace,

Rio