i can't stop thinking as i look at these little bits/remains of someone's days about the history embodied in these fragments. i wonder if my objects, the one's i pay no attention to now but that are so basic to my life and the ones i cherish will someday end in a landfill and be collected as a treasure by someone and if we not only recycle objects but also the energy and memory they contain and retain.

 

some of my objects are now washed so i sarted playing around with them...

i could do this the whole day, but i also want to make some drawings and watercolors soon...

i have spent the morning bleaching and washing my objects from dead horse bay, as i did so, i couldn't help thinking about my grandparents. they were from the glass generation and while i handled these objects i thought about tato and tati, as we lovingly called them and found some brands i recognized in the bottom of some jars: noxzema, jergens, vick vaporub... i had a flashback to my grandfather's night table with little bottles, many of them with pipettes like one of my little treasures. i spent a large part of my childhood with my grandparents, maybe these bottles take me back to them and to the comfort i felt in their company, among their objects.

yesterday i went to a secret place/beach that i was dying to go to for a long time: bottle beach in brooklyn. it was an amazing trip and the place has me in awe. here i had the perfect combination of nature and man-made in solitary beauty. when i'm truly moved by somehting i cannot write about it and that is what i'm feeling now, but i also think it's important for me to document this moment as projects will come from it/it's part of my work process. my photos will tell the story better than my words:

this is the place

and this is partly what makes it so special

wherever i looked, i saw beauty and nature sculpting the man-made detritus

and of course, i also tried making my own small interventions

it was a day of wonder and amazement, i felt renewed and so happy and full of possibility...

back in the studio, i took my precious treasures from the heavy bag i carried them in and lay them on my work table

today will be a day of bleaching and scrubbing; i have an idea for what i'm going to do with my objects, it involves boxes and watercolors. i'm beyond happy :)

 <note to self: take my polaroid camera the next time> 

there are more photos in my flickr page in this set http://www.flickr.com/photos/takeout/sets/72157624619722004/

 

 

i just saw this film http://jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com/ and it made me very quite. i didn't really learn anything new about basquiat as i have been following him for a while but it made me think again about what happens when you're an artist and not cut for this world-like i feel is the case with me.

the film starts with the poem genius child by langston hughes

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can -
Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child.

Can you love an eagle,
Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle,
Wild or tame?
Can you love a monster
Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child.

Kill him - and let his soul run wild.

i can relate to it, it takes me back to my childhood full of expectations from everyone, i was demanded to excel, to shine, to be the best one... so now i have huge problems dealing with moments when i'm not shining, not in the limelight.which is the current moment in my life, although it's a very interesting and rich moment in other ways i will not discuss in this post.

the film sets the scene of new york in the 80s, i will never get tired of repeating that that is the moment i would have liked to live in new york and that is also the new york i mistakenly hoped to find when i moved here. but i didn't. maybe i romanticized new york, i got to see the last places still existing from that era but i also saw them die in front of me (and actually because of this made an installation of the death of new york at el museo del barrio). i saw the pop shop close, the cbgb too, st. mark's became touristy, the bowery became funky and distant... and when the towers fell i think new york became a different place altogether.

i don't feel an interest in beloging to the current art scene, i don't connect to it, it does not excite me. however, i do want to keep showing my work but as diego cortez says in the film, not in places with 'white walls and white people drinking white wine.' i need to find the spaces that make sense for me and where i will honestly be happy exposing myself and my art.

 

some of the scars the public left me...

here's a link to a new york times note that came out before the event: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE3DF1E3FF93BA15753C1A9639C...

i'm thinking i can try an online version of this project, but i need to figure out how to trade, it has to have an element of trade, in mission cultural center it was a cup of soup (cooked by me) and in el museo a cookie, what can it be if i do it online?

i will have to post this in several parts as i'm doing it though email and have a lot of images to show. i decided to post about this installation i did in 2005 at el museo del barrio for two reasons, one because i owe it to  the piece and two because i was reminded of it by looking at the i wish your wish piece by brazilian artist rivane neuenschwander at new museum.

eat a scar/donate a scar was a participative installation i first did at the mission cultural center in san francisco. in the later new york version, i installed scar cookies in a room at el museo, i was invited to create this installation as part of the day of the dead celebrations.

each cookie had a hand drawn scar on it (by me) and was signed on the back. each cookie was placed inside a zip loc bag and behind it was a piece of color cardstock. i invited the public to donate me their scars by writing them on the cardstock. if they did so, they could take the scar cookie and eat it. the idea behind this was of healing, by containing their scars in a bag and leaving them hanging on a wall, they could let go of something painful in their lives and eat something sweet and comforting. the piece was a success, it was moving to participate in it for the public and for me to see it transform and grow as more and more people gave me their scars.

by the end of the day, i had a roomful of scars and so many things to think about; i wondered how you see people walking in the streets and you don't know what they're made of or what their circumstances are; we all carry pain but we can let go of it too or transform it into something else. i spent some time alone in the room, when the public had left and felt the heaviness the piece had acquired with all the pain it had absorbed. museum staff came in and spent time reading all the scars, many cried, some could find their own scars mirrored in the piece.

i would love to develop a similar installation again, the question is always where, how... but i know i'll be able to do it if i really want to.

when i first saw myh zine was in the nypl's online catalog i was beyond happy and excited. i'm putting the link here to bookmark it for me, i feel my work is way too dispersed and am trying to 'collect' it in this blog.

http://catalog.nypl.org/iii/encore/search/C|Schio+flores?lang=eng

and in printed matter http://printedmatter.org/catalogue/search.cfm?email=&cookie1=FB11FB61-1C4.../index.cfm

time to make a zine (or two) again!

flags seem to always be a touchy subject, a friend of mine, artist cherman kino ganoza, recently got arrested in Peru for adding an image he created of the historical figure tupac amaru (hip hop singer tupac shakur was named after him) to the center of the peruvian red and white flag where the national shield usually goes. tupac amaru is portrayed with a red face. the problem? tupac amaru was used as a symbol by a guerrilla group in peru and the ignorance of the police in determining what is art and what an apology to guerrillas is huge.

this act against freedom of expression, reminded me of the flag i created (see photo) before coming to new york, it's made of salami and white ham, replicating the red and white fields in the peruvian flag. it was shown in an exhibition criticizing the then government of alberto fujimori. i invited the public to eat the flag, eat the patria, the nation, in an act of cannibalism and protest to the abuse and oppression by this government.

it saddens me to see the situation has not changed much in Peru and i'm wondering how much more work we need to do to educate the population and cut down the authoritarian ways of the government.