My other half-what is she thinking?

I am in amazing collaboration called "Art is Moving" with artist Lauren Odell Usher. We began our collaboration in 2008 and have had some great success. Every time we meet we think of more exciting things to create.We had a project for a year were we opened, curated, and ran a gallery with others in Oakland, called the Red Door Gallery and Collective. In that experience with a large group of people we found out how collaboration can be really dysfunctional. We also manifested the ARTcart, a community art reach project and we have our Blog. We have many different and powerful projects going at once. We both are obsessed with Art and we share the same core philosophy on ART'S function, which is service and empowerment.



Collaboration can be really hard and we have found a balance to make it work. It really is easy and fun! And I feel we are making a difference in the world of Art. The interesting thing is our own art is so different. It seems we come at things from totally different directions and meet at the same point in the middle. Like, Lauren's latest project she has made a call out for pictures of peoples living rooms. I am participating in this project the pics here are two images of my living room. I have no idea were she is going with this and I look forward to see what transpires. "Click Here to check out Lauren's latest project. Participate if interested!

Collecting Random Interactions with the other Series

It is interesting one of my professors in graduate school advised me not to air my dirty laundry in the conceptual explanation of my art. She stated it gets to messy and many folks might think you are trying to sensationalize it. After much reflection I think it is time. This creative series is my first in terms of conceptual art and it might become messy or not.
Collecting Random Interactions with the other Series sourced from a couple things. The first being my desire to heal my severe social phobia. Most people have experienced some level of discomfort in social situations. It becomes a problem when the phobia makes you evade situations or experience panic attacks within these situations. At times it is a form of self imposed torture.
I have been seriously working on healing for the past five years and it is time to let this old and very powerful friend go.
The second as I flip the coin, social phobia is really a disconnect with people. Through this project I seek to connect with people and to acknowledge their brilliance. We will see how this goes. This is evolving and I am excited.


3/11/10
"Lovely day"....
walking to the rock. A car full of teens passed. The very cute one in front said "Lovely day" in a fake British accent as he tipped his hipster hat off to me with a smile in his eyes. aww.... put'n that one in my pocket for a rainy day.
Collecting Interactions, Indian Rock, Berkeley, CA

2/17/10
"The first step after lunch is always the hardest"
Guy getting out of truck with workman ear phones on. Berkeley, CA


1/7/10
"Hello Beautiful."
Hot young man playing basketball with out a shirt on.I became a twelve year old. Meekly saying hi back.
Berkeley, CA

Art is Magic

Ever since I was a child art has been been my magic. I quickly found through drawing that I could create parallel universes of extraordinary imagination. As I mature as an artist I still believe art is about magic. In my site specific installations and my painting I transverse into a voodoo priestess,a neolithic cave painter, or shamanika. This work I took after it was in my show Caol 'Ait (thin places). The show was well received as my audience perceptions were altered by a multi sensory experience. After being in show for a month, this piece was in my studio. One day as I entered my studio there was this amazing light that was streaming through the window, merging and dissolving into my mixed media lotus piece. Magic it is! Thats what art is the merging and the dissolving of the artist and their audience, through the vehicle of their pyschic and physical imprint called Art.
Luckily, i had my camera to witness it all. That ties into what i think photography is, it is the Witness that stands within the artist.

Response to Art is Magic!

I had to post this comment of Vikrams words, he posted this on my Blog on Saturday. His words are so poetic and ring of Rumi. The web of connection. When I read this I was inspired that I am on the right path. I am so happy to connect with a fellow mystic. Namaste

phoenix said...
Hello Lisa

if I can have your ...a few minutes
Not more than I felt shall I'll express
To express self to selves; I carry the only fear
Of failure, of conflict; Of the lack of divinity
In my eyes, in words; in my visible self

Holding on to 'mysticism', I landed on your land
To find the right themes burnt in bright games
Not surprised I am to find a wandering soul
Wrapped in blue, red,pink brushes; living in the green abode

Burning with a desire to wish you a hello
Believing in words to hear, some skins to tear
I beg you to share your light of a Being
Who seems to be on the path I tend to begin

Why I'll write to you,perhaps, is mysteriously unknown
Like when mirage turns for a thirsty to an ocean of love

Only if the social fabric and the unsure strings be broken or redefined, I'd be much more of myself.
I'm a 23 yr old bachelor graduated (engineering) from the premier institute of India. I'm earning now and I am thoughtful. I am a believer, a traveller who believes in a purposeful living. And thus, extraordinarily attracted, in a dress of desperation, to anything which seems to associate itself with Truth. Though the inner waves have not yet manifested to my exterior domain to the extent I would have liked, a certain chain of events are accelerating its burst.

Your blog (description, about me) had enough life to grant me the breath to explode myself here. Thank you :)


Not a way is what I see here
But the 'light of bright passion' painted in colours

Vikram
PS: Animism is a faith which yields a reason to live

Hands of Creation

I pioneered the Transformational Art Program at Lincoln Child Center in 2006. This project is called the Hands of Creation. In this project I am honoring the child's creative abilities. I can only take portraits of my students hands because for protection of the child's identity. The children call the art room-the calm room. It is really a magical place were amazing things transpire.

First Eco Art of 2010- Tennessee Valley Cove, Mill Valley, CA

Created my first "Tree Shrine" of 2010.We had a nice trek to Tennessee Valley Cove, which is so beautiful. The views are extraordinary. We could not get onto the beach because a river had made its way to the ocean, blocking any bridges out to the beach.


I created the shrine around a rock and drift wood. The tree that had been submerged into the sea transforms into something ethereal. I felt really mindful and connected to the universe while creating this Eco Art.I woke up the next feeling balanced. I like this feeling!

Art Review

Caol’Ait
Lisa Rasmussen
11/7/08

Lisa poured out The Thin Places for all to see. And in her hand the bending spree, in wistful, flowing, calming traumic interface, the witness be. Thinness of distinction. Thinness of discrepancy. The space between, the space unseen, the space where the twilight and the knowing sheen, find in each other the harmonic mean.

Spices emanating upward from the nestled mandala-savory-space, lubricating the nostrils with memories chased from deeper places sight unseen. Light and scent (!), we enter the scene, diving in towards the hidden seam. Paintings cast in measured care, with wildness constrained by just the bare mounts in the frames ringing evenly the room, holding in each a lingering tune, of the place where spirit and thisness meet.

A lozenge for the eyes and mind. Symmetries nestled in fun-filled calling mysteries bind. Pneuma. Anasazi. Darknesses, incomplete, faint, whistling memories that you barely taste again. The deeper reaches of the mind, trickling away in kind. Lingering whispers haunting so, bartered through the colors claimed in Ka and Bardo, the journey from each piece to another bringing with it a glancing blow. A living, feeling, beautiful, explosion inward away from the evening glow.

Linearity in Lil, shocking still, organized and regal. Containment stressed on that thinness undressed thoroughly saturating the acrylic finesse of boundary and order on yet another sinking beckoning regress. Moving me back and out and around, to touch and caress, the space, the place, my girl’s soft press. The art, for me, is a seeping, see, from hand and thought outward, and in to me. The expressions from you are a simple plea, for a return, a dance, some part of me.

Art that inspires, art that plants a seed, art that pushes and bleeds.


-Cameron Thrash, 11/25/08