The Spring 2014 Quarterly Newsletter is in!

Visit www.carolaperla.com for contact details on how to receive the newsletter via email:

 

LITTLE TRIUMPHS: Winning Best In Show at the Foundry Art Centre

"Se Vende" is Awarded Top Prize and Solo Show in the "Paper Cuts" Exhibit!

Warning: Candid Observations of a Personal Nature Below...

Dear Readers: earlier this Spring, I felt a sudden urgency, as I had never before, to realize my artistic ambitions in a concrete way...oh, I had written the novel, made my art, held a reading here, a signing there, managed not without considerable feet-dragging at last to build a website...but my sporadic efforts quite plainly lacked focus, cohesion...I was keenly aware that for the most part I had dropped the ball these last two years, for a number of reasons, which were ultimately immaterial except for the fact that they had all conspired to distract me from my purpose.  I was left with no other choice than to face my failures and roll up my sleeves...

Going forth, my plan for 2013 centered on two main tasks: 1) to garner reviews for Gibbin House as a lead-in to my next book, and 2) to gain acceptance into art exhibits outside my gallery.

By April, my first task was well underway, and as I continue to work with a host of kind reviewers, I welcome readers to message me here or on my Carola Perla Website with any testimonials they're willing to share!

For the second, I scoured possible gallery and online exhibits.  It was not the easiest thing - my pieces were too large for most, the wrong medium for others.  Moreover, I was desperate to find an exhibit that celebrated paper and sculpture together - I wanted to see my work next to my peers, as a confirmation that I too belonged.  Naturally, when I stumbled across the Foundry Art Centre's Call to Artists for 'Paper Cuts' I instantly regarded it as 'the' event I wanted to join.  Cut-paper exhibits are shockingly rare, and the space seemed so beautiful - I told myself that acceptance here would be the ultimate sign of  accomplishment in the task I had set out for myself. 

By the time the center's response letter arrived in June, I had already placed in another group show and had won an art magazine prize, so I told myself that it wouldn't be the worst thing if I didn't get in.  The envelope was so thin, I reasoned its contents could have no other message for me.  But then it did.

Fast forward three weeks, the short time span I had in which to ship my pieces and arrange my own travel to St. Louis.  As I have confided to my friends, I flew over there with the sensation of never having traveled before, much as I had navigating my way around Tallahassee during college orientation when I was eighteen and away from home for the first time.  It was strange, to be getting dressed for the exhibit opening, as if for the prom, going to see my work in a new space, all grown-up, heading towards this seminal moment which I had awaited with such anticipation, validation of me as an artist...and I was doing it all on my own.  Once again I stood in Anka's shoes, a shy little thing, waiting for the reality of my situation to sink in. 

The space was indeed lovely, a converted train car factory that still had the original steel lifts - in the second world war it had assembled torpedoes - with lots of natural light and high ceilings.  Any worries for the state my pieces might be in (thank you, fedex) immediately subsided as I spied them at the end of the long gallery.  They had been installed with great care and lit with just the right degree of intensity...from here on out, I told myself, I could deem the experience a success.  Being there is all I had wanted, it's all I had worked towards.  I even managed to mingle, to ingratiate myself a little with fellow artists, pose for a picture, not drop my wine.  It was all turning out better than I could have hoped. 

And then they called out my name.  Going Solo Award for "Se Vende" by Carola Perla.  The piece I had done in honor of my family, as a tribute to Casa Marsano, an expression of my love for all things Peru.  The jury could not begin to imagine the deeply personal significance of the house motif or the Spanish poem, its allusions to Chabuca Granda, dust and garua, fairytales and broken dreams...they could not know and yet they thought it deserving.

Now, I know there are exhibits around the country every day, meaning that artists are winnings awards every day, and so I will not let this little triumph go to my head.  There is so much work...SO MUCH WORK ahead of me.  But I will keep the feeling of this first victory in a safe place, to call on when doubt sets in, as it always will.  Because it is a beautiful, necessary thing to work for yourself, to make art that feeds your own soul and gives you a pure purpose...I worked happily in the shroud of anonymity for nearly a decade, as I felt I should.  But every decade or so, it's nice to receive an accolade, a stamp of approval...the community of directors, curators, and artists at the Foundry Art Centre were wonderfully kind and welcoming, and for their support of my artist's journey I thank them...

On to the next one...


For those of you in the St Louis area: please note that the exhibit runs through until September 27, 2013.  It features beautiful work in cut paper as well as book art. 

Here are some photos from the 'Paper Cuts' opening event, which took place June 28th:

Paper Cuts Exhibit at the Foundry Art Centre, St. Charles, MO

"Se Vende" and "Spelling Bee" by Carola Perla at the Foundry Art Centre

"Se Vende" and "Spelling Bee" at Paper Cuts Exhibit

"Se Vende" and "Spelling Bee" paper installations at Foundry Art Centre

"Se Vende" and "Spelling Bee" paper installations by Carola Perla

Winning piece "Se Vende" by Carola Perla

"Spelling Bee" visual poetry paper installation by Carola Perla

Carola Perla and Director Angela Fowle

 

JOURNEYS: "Paper Cuts" Exhibit at the Foundry Art Centre, June 28, 2013

 

Ever since sending off my two large installations, "Spelling Bee" and "Se Vende",  to St. Charles last week for the "PaperCuts" exhibit, I have been experiencing terrible pangs of anxiety. 

I keep wondering if it's because I'm worried about the state they will arrive in (being they've never traveled that far)?  Have I provided the right materials to display them?  Will they be hung correctly? Will they will make it back to me safe and sound in October?

And then I again, I wonder if my mind is really on something much more deep-seated...am I worried about how they will be received?  What would I do if someone wanted to buy them, would I be happy about it, or spin into another spiral of worry altogether?

And what if it's not any of the above?  What if it's because I am entering a new phase of my artistic life, which is my life essentially?  Starting this July, I will be participating in two separate gallery exhibits, in addition to unveiling a second piece for my upcoming novel "Humboldt's Riches" at ATELIER 1022.  I have left the safety of my own studio and have ventured out into the world.  I have no idea what reaction to expect.  There is as much responsibility in success as there is in failure...will I look back on this summer and see it as the monumental shift in direction as if feels to me now?  Is this the start of something or just a wave, a swell as occurs from time to time only to see things die down again?

 

I deliberate on all this from my seat at the dining table/computer desk in my living room.  Slanted rays of afternoon sun play on the palm fronds outside my window, balmy air pulsates through the mosquito mesh.  I am stationary, yet in motion...I am, I realize like my Anka in "Gibbin House", traveling without moving...Again, as so often in the past ten years, I find myself in her shoes, and it is brought home to me how very real my heroine is, and I love her all the more for it.  She understands what I feel just now.  As I enter this next chapter, I offer these lines:

"I pulled the covers over me, but my skin prickled from the inescapable chill that comes from lying alone.  I could not gather myself tight enough to feel solid and whole.  My stomach still seared from the coffee and now the astringent gin.  All the fluid in my insides rocked with the forward motion of the past week.  I lay inert, and yet my body was on a train, on a ferry, in a subterranean car, traveling without moving.

 

"I now feel most intimately that the process of traversing distance is an erosion of the spirit.  The thrill of change that accompanies the onset of a journey is a deception, the fearful attachment to outcome which makes adrenaline kick in a way not entirely un-pleasurable propelling the lie.  For a moment one feels positively alive.  One is duped into committing to the chaos.  One inhales the fumes, joins in rigid attack stances near sliding compartment doors.  One holds on feverishly as stuttering wheels grind to a halt.  One is titillatingly taunted by visions of missed connections, rerouted trains.  One presses on.

But after hours of vigilance and wide-eyed awake-ness, one adopts patience.  Or as it ought to be known, the self-congratulatory brother of fatigue.  Patience then gives way to indifference, and in time one becomes a heretic to the creed of goals and ends and satin-ribboned resolutions.  One stops caring about the names of foreign cities, stops seeking out their hearts from window seats.  Eventually one realizes they are all disfigured, all the same sketch of blasted glass and ruins and fire-retardant weeds, anonymous to the fickle gazes that graze them.  One drifts among them, a shipwrecked figure on Gericault’s raft, gaunt and delirious, running one’s arm through the air outside without hope or aim." (p. 36-38)

 

 

 

 

Homage to Casa Marsano: "Se Vende" Visual Poetry Installation by Carola Perla Unveiled

This May 11th, I unveiled my latest visual poetry installation "Se Vende" during ATELIER 1022's 2-Year Anniversary event.

 It was a special evening for me, as it also marked 2 years since the launch of Gibbin House.

How strange, I kept thinking to myself as I stood posing for photos, that a work I had once lived with behind closed doors for nearly nine years was no longer a private thing, indeed for two years already it had aged, shaken out its skirts and petticoats in the public eye, gotten all adult on me like a teenager graduating college.  It gives you that feeling of "when did I get so old?".  And yet, I also felt relieved.  Relieved, realizing that two years into the completion of Gibbin House, the reason for its existence, the need to exorcise and 'verarbeiten' (as the Germans say) which drove me to write it in the first place, remained the same force behind my work today.

I realized that, although I had never admitted it to myself as I tinkered away at my novel, I was afraid of finishing the book and having nothing left to say.  Perhaps it's why I worked on it for so many years...but looking at the emotional investment in "Se Vende", I knew that wasn't the case.  One way or another I have found projects to express my world views. I have looked for ways to lay things bare, expose ironies and elevate beauties, as an artist ought.  "Se Vende" is probably most emblematic of this impetus - it addresses the sudden and controversial tearing down of Casa Marsano, a known Lima landmark from 1941-2002 and a house that holds a special place in the history of my family.  The building, which was far from dilapidated, could not be saved because it was deemed by authorities to hold no cultural or architectural value (when I see photos of Ocean Drive from the 40's and the row of Art Deco palaces that used to stud that street, I am reminded that Casa Marsano is not the only house to have been so disregarded.)  Judging by the websites, articles, and blogs dedicated posthumously to Casa Marsano, it's clear that the landmark was not only significant to my relatives, but to a city at large.  It's destruction begs the question of what we value in ourselves when we destroy the monuments to beauty that promised such permanence, such continuation.  The poem in "Se Vende" does this by repeating 'for sale' and using cultural references to ask how far we go in selling our patrimony.  The accompanying voice recording of me reading the poem add to the echo effect.

I'm proud of this piece, this examination of a house, my second 'house' as it were:) From Gibbin House to Casa Marsano, I will continue to strive for authenticity and illuminating expression.  Here is to another two years...

And thank you to the Miami SunPost for the great write-up in anticipation of the unveiling.  Follow the link here to read the article in full: http://miamisunpost.com/art-visual-poet-carola-perla/