Seeing More Than 'Stars' in Provocative Jennifer Mawby Exhibit at Vancouver's Grace Gallery

“Most simply, I am interested in how the contemporary and the personal collide with mythmaking. Ultimately I am questioning what and who we celebrate and why,” says visual artist Jennifer Mawby about her work.


When asked why, Mawby responds “Rather than who we celebrate, I am interested in what we celebrate. This is because when we chose to celebrate something like a luxury object or someone like a pop culture celebrity we are really elevating what it is that they represent to us.” Could that be the reason that so many people’s identities are wrapped up in what they possess or what they wear?


“Across the board we attach certain personal significance to the people and the things that we celebrate. This meaning is a personal interpretation and integration of cultural memes,” she says. In Mawby's opinion, these things that humanity sets as paragons or archetypes, in their essence, have been consistent throughout most cultures in human history and have typically been documented through mythology or through religious metaphor and parable.


Therefore, someone akin to Paris Hilton, for example, represents a “Persephone” figure, a character with meaning well beyond herself in terms of our culture. Mawby chooses to look at archetypes that span many global cultures in her work.

Jennifer Mawby’s latest solo project, which opened on September 9 at Vancouver’s Grace Gallery, is entitled “The Sun, The Moon & The Stars.” The show is part of The SWARM Festival, which is now in its eleventh year in Vancouver. The SWARM Festival is essentially a gallery hop for local artist-run centres and independent gallery spaces. According to the artist, her exhibit is “a cautionary tale about love, romance and conquest of all kinds.” The title refers to the cliché of giving someone all that they want-- “The Sun, The Moon & The Stars”-- and is a warning to both be cautious of someone who offers you these things and also to be wary of wanting these things as they are typically not the route to fulfillment we at first believe they are.


With technology leading the way in how people digest news and media, this year the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres (PAARC) allowed participants to sign up for the event via Twitter, which basically became the event listing. The feed caught the attention of the mainstream media and gave the Festival and Mawby’s show a great deal more visibility than in the past.


In the first public viewing of the new direction her art has been taking, a year-and-a-half in the making, the exhibition features work that is representational, with multi-media elements incorporating painting, drawing, photography, installation, and animation. Overall, the body of work creates a narrative allegory around her larger themes of mytheopoesis, or storytelling as a myth-making device, and celebration.


Finding connection with her Anglo heritage, the work is very personal and is a collection of imagery collected through appropriation (mostly from the Web and print media) put together in bricolage style to create a narrative thread. “There is a cast of characters and a set of objects. The cast of characters are somehow in pursuit of a flag or pennant which represents the object of desire and obsession,” Mawby says.


There are also pop culture references thrown in for good measure, interspersed with references from European art history. For example, a painting called “The Flip Side,” which shows light passing through a prism and breaking into the full spectrum, represents the early scientific objects and experiments that were included in Wunderkammers, the precursors to what we now call museums. It also looks strikingly like a famous Pink Floyd album cover, and those who have that image in their library of visual culture are sure to notice, which is intentional on the part of the artist. Since many of the early Wunderkammers contained fakes or forgeries, Mawby, in her work has created homages to the known with a twist to suit her own needs. For instance, a Dutch master’s flower in still life form is combined with an incandescent light bulb lying on the table next to the floral arrangement. “The light bulb motif represents the dawning of a dying technology and therefore the passing of time and the folly of hanging on to the once ‘greatest’ thing,” she explains.


Mawby saw the work itself as a huge challenge, to test her artistic boundaries, especially where use of light was concerned. “All of the images and paintings have a strong element of light in them - the rendering and reproduction of light on canvas which I believe is one of the most difficult things to which a painter can aspire.”


“The Sun, The Moon & The Stars” is on view at Grace Gallery in Vancouver, B.C. through September 26th. The work will remain at the gallery and will be available for viewing both online and upon appointment. To learn more about artist Jennifer Mawby, visit the gallery web site at http://www.grace-gallery.com/ or http://www.jjtmstudio.com/.

New Memoir ACOSTA Tells Story of Family Behind Legendary Major League Pitching Coach Oscar Acosta

In this era of the self-proclaimed “web-lebrity,” and reality television stars with big personalities and little talent cramming the pop-culture landscape, real people with talent and big heart seem dwarfed by the lobby of the fleeting. One true personality who has touched my heart in recent months is Yolanda Acosta, the author of the new book ACOSTA. Published by U.K.-based O Books, ACOSTA is the story of a family in rural New Mexico, the struggles of Mexican immigrant parents, who came to the United States on the Bracero Program in 1950. The Bracero Program, which was a function of the Farm Bureau, brought thousands of migrant workers into the United States and essentially set the groundwork for the beginnings of agriculture in North America.  Along with them, Juan and Concha Acosta brought hopes and dreams to the U.S., which would eventually be fulfilled by their children.

In order to write a book about her family, Yolanda had to start with her mother Concha--the rock of the family--who, through it all, including a successful battle with breast cancer, stuck to her strong faith and sense of family loyalty. It would seem that nothing would keep this woman down. Yolanda’s father Juan was a very honorable and traditional man, who believed that women should not go to college. He was a loving man, who wanted the best for his family, but his strict nature, at times was hard. He surprised the family by unknowingly getting involved with, as Yolanda refers to them, “very unscrupulous men” from Mexico. This would later be Juan’s downfall.

Yolanda Acosta’s brother Oscar Acosta, fought hard to make it into the Major Leagues of professional baseball. While in the Minors, Oscar faced an injury that led him to coaching. He worked his way up as a pitching coach for teams like the New York Yankees, the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers. In fact, Oscar, with the help of his pitchers turned the Chicago Cubs around. He was, perhaps, the most loved pitching coach of all time for the Cubs.  

While the pitchers whom he coached loved him, he sometimes clashed with owners over his style on the field. After all, here was a man, who was raised with strict cattle ranching values and a tough work ethic. Oscar expected his players to perform with the same ethic and he oftentimes took extreme measures to elicit it. Regardless, Oscar received respect where it mattered to him, and some, like pitcher Kerry Woods, name him as a huge influence on their careers.

In many ways, Oscar fulfilled the American Dream, being the only Mexican-American in history to wear two World Series championship rings, but it was cut short when he was tragically killed in the Dominican Republic in 2006 while managing the Yankees’ Gulf Coast League. He leaves a legacy and a story that became his sister’s obsession to tell.

At first Yolanda wanted to have a movie made. Over fourteen months ago, at the advice of colleagues, who said it was better to write a book first, Yolanda began the task of compiling family stories. Multiple through lines came out in the process and they are the backbone of ACOSTA, which is a story of a baseball pitcher, but the family behind the man as well.  Yolanda is now seeing her dream of a movie-version of ACOSTA realized.  Meira Blaustein, Executive Director of the Woodstock Film Festival is currently working on adapting the book into a screenplay and top directors are being sought to lead the project.

As I read this book, I couldn’t help being moved at the beginning and end of each chapter. It reads so much like a soap opera that one can scarcely believe that it is nonfiction. But the story is true, with its accounts of Oscar’s battles to gain respect, Yolanda’s constant battle with domestic abuse in a dynamic marriage to the love of her life, and finding out that her father was involved in shady dealings with the Mexican mafia.

ACOSTA is set to be released on Saturday, September 25. There will be an official launch party in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Hotel Albuquerque on the same day, which is, coincidentally “Oscar Acosta Day” in Albuquerque by proclamation of Mayor Richard Berry. The reception will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and will feature hors d’oeuvres, music, readings and a book signing. Local retailer Bookworks will be there to offer books for purchase with 10% of the proceeds benefiting S.A.F.E. House New Mexico. The book internationally is available at http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.borders.com/ and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Yolanda Acosta about her book ACOSTA. Her passion for her brother and family comes out in her responses. Watch the video HERE:

***Chicago Cubs Photo Used Courtesy Associated Press

ALT Delivers Delicious Piece of 'Chicago' Pie to Albuquerque Theatre Audiences

It's no secret that while the Albuquerque theatre community possesses a robust talent pool, shows can be hit or miss. Lately, it's been hit after hit, and the Albuquerque Little Theatre, with Artistic Director Henry Avery at its helm, has been thriving. Last season at ALT was particularly stellar, and on the musical front, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was superb. ALT's 81st season kicks off with the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago and Avery has hit paydirt by assembling a powehouse cast comprised of some of the best talent Albuquerque has to offer, including some seasoned veterans along with some up-and-coming young talent who will blow your socks off.


For all three of you who haven't seen either the Broadway production or the film version or a community theatre production of Chicago, I'll explain the plot. The show opens with with Roxie Hart, a seemingly dainty flower, shooting her lover who dumps her. She tells her husband Amos to take responsibility because he's sure to get off. Of course, the truth is revealed and fast forward to the Cook County Jail, where Roxie is one of several of the "merry maidens" to be put in the slammer for murder. There she meets Velma Kelly, a circuit performer, who, so far, is the most famous "chicky" in Matron "Mama" Morton's coop. Roxie arrives with all her ambition to become a celebrity, and through enlisting the help of the slick, silver-tongued lawyer Billy Flynn, manages to outshine a much dismayed Velma. Knowing that her days in the limelight are limited because "that's Chicago," Velma tries to woo Roxie into joining forces for a vaudeville act. Roxie, who is now fully obsessed with her fame and has gotten too big for her britches declines the offer. In a back and forth with Billy about her defense, Roxie concedes to let Billy run the show to help get her off of the murder charges. Roxie quickly learns that fame is an all too fleeting thing when an heiress attracts the media's attention for shooting her lover caught in an act of sexual deviation. In a last-minute effort to regain her newfound fame, Roxie fakes a pregnancy. This, of course, rekindles Billy's interest in her case and the puppet act of her defense ensues. In the end, Roxie finds herself acquitted of murder, only to be upstaged by a bloody murder down the hall. Roxie is left to contemplate life's possibilities, and in her own effort to stay in the public eye, joins forces with Velma for a hit act which closes the show with the fabulous and hopeful ditty "Nowaways."


I had the opportunity to attend Thursday evening's preview performance at ALT. In spite of the "museum piece" staging and choreography, which were almost carbon copies of the 1990s Broadway revival production, which starred Bebe Neuwirth and Ann Reinking as Velma and Roxie, this production, indeed is "great and grand" and will no doubt woo Albuquerque audiences. It was by far the best musical I have seen here in the last two years, and some of the performances were professional house quality. Stephanie Burch as Velma proves why she is easily Albuquerque's best musical theatre performer. She is a true triple threat and her portrayal never lost its luster. Her voice was by far the strongest and her dancing and acting superb. Speaking of voices, one of the biggest delights of the evening was Tahirih Koller who plays Matron "Mama" Morton. Koller has a smooth stage demeanor and sexiness that combined with her rich robust voice made her the perfect Mama. Rebecca Turiciano has a cutesy yet slightly diva-esque way about her onstage, which made her portrayal enjoyable. As Roxie, she proves that she is a very adept actress. Michael Finnegan makes a believably smarmy Billy Flynn and he uses humor to win the audience's admiration. His renditions of "All I Care About" and "We Both Reached for the Gun" were both quite good. Dehron Foster, a permanent installation on the boards at ALT gives a spot-on performance of Amos Hart, a man who always seems to get lost in the shuffle. His sensitivity as an actor makes him soar in any role he plays. O. Benenati Tenorio as Mary Sunshine makes a very interesting addition to the cast. While we're always aware that "she" is a man, Tenorio makes for good comic relief.


The ensemble is an amalgamation of different levels of hot--from the boys to the girls. Lisette Herrera, a ABQ stage veteran looks hot, dances hot and sets the bar for the ensemble, as does Jonathan Ragsdale, who brings the perfect amount of le jazz hot to the production, which is reminiscent of most of the dancers I have seen in the Broadway production at various times. It is also obvious that he is a very capable actor and singer as well and we'll, no doubt, see him on Broadway very soon. Nicole Dozier, just a high school senior, brings a sophistication and sex appeal to her chorus role and cameo during the "Cell Block Tango" that reminds me of a young Lauren Hutton...minus the tooth gap!


From start to finish, Chicago is paced very well. And, while some group musical number endings were, at times, less than precise with both vocals and choreography, undoubtedly, they will be tightened up by the end of the first week of the run. Highlights of the show were "All That Jazz," "The Cell Block Tango," and I especially enjoyed "Class," which gives Stephanie Burch a chance to show the more vulnerable side of Velma Kelly.


This Chicago is a show not to missed. I'm guessing it will sell out, so book early and often to support local theatre. The production runs from September 17 to October 10 at Albuquerque Little Theatre. For more information about the show or to buy tickets, visit http://www.albuquerquelittletheatre.org/.


Watch a promo video HERE!