post update: i was testing uploading a photo straight from instagram to my blog and it worked. i´m set on finishing painting my empanada today no matter what. just taking a short break to calm down this nasty back pain i´ve had all day... 

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i have almost finished this piece and i´m quite happy with it. the very ornate frame is one i bought in my recent trip to cusco and it mirrors the ones used in the escuela cusqueña painting schoool from the viceroyalty. my father is from cusco so that´s the more direct connection but i´m also using it as it gives me the feeling of my very surreal childhood. i used very muted colours for the piece, like the colours of my dreams maybe, and also of a distant childhood. the frame has about 5 layers of paint and patinas which may not be obvious but without them i would not have achieved that very beautiful old and stained look.

the box is covered with pages from an old english anatomy book for school children my brither rescued for me, it was being trashed by a family who was moving away. the paper was then gessoed and i added a patina  and then i used my new electric sanding tool (love it!) to sand it which gives it a better, in a way used up texture.

this is a detail of my little portrait inserted in a page from a medicine book, i added a microscope slide with jasmine flowers, the smell of jasmine from my grandparent´s house is still so present in my memories and actually, the old jasmine plant is still there!

i chose one of my grandfather´s surgery tools to place inside the box, below my portrait. i had a complicated childhood, physically and emotionally and that medical instrument reminds me of that..

here´s the piece with both parts placed together; i still don´t know if they will be hanged from the wall or if i will add hinges and place them on a table.

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i have almost finished with this part of the box for the child

i have had a very long process with this piece, trying to find the right textures and colours and making sure the material spoke properly

using dad´s old ledger books, like i said before, felt pretty weird, it was hard to use the electric sanding tool on the layer of paper i had collaged to the box...

i also had to cut this x-ray print from my grandfather´s stash, i had to fit it in the little slide frame...

i´m quite happy with the way it´s looking and feeling, i´m now working on the second part which is giving me a bit of a headache still...

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i've changed this piece so much in the past few days... here´s one more option. i´m now turning it into a diptych, i might hinge them-so many possibilities floating in my head...

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i just realized my exhibition opens on friday, april 13th, which means i have about one and a half months to complete the work and i´m beginning school again in a week.

...

while i am stressed, i´m going to choose to be more practical and organize my time to the minute so everything works out as it should. also, i cannot begin any more new pieces or i´ll never finish the work i have started already.

breathe!

oh, and i think the name for the exhibition is decided: 'god only knows'; it´s the title of a beach boys song that takes me back to my childhood and especially to my brother george, he loved the beach boys, the lyrics are also appropriate for what the exhibition is about:

if you should ever leave me
though life would still go on believe me
the world could show nothing to me
so what good would living do me

when he died i listened to this song non stop and cried forever...

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yesterday i took a canvas piece i had basically just played with and experimented on when i first arrived to lima and stenciled it with the symbols i´m using now.

i also took some pages from dad´s ledger books and stenciled them too.

as i did this i could not help having the feeling you get when you´re a child and you get in trouble from scribbling all over dad´s work papers... i felt i was getting in trouble for doing this, it was a weird yet pleasant feeling...

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this is from an afternoon i spent in williamsburg putting my website stickers everywhere... it was fun and i´m glad i wasn´t arrested for doing it. i just recovered the photo from myspace, i´m trying to consolidate all my work here...

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this box in progress is a series of happy accidents (or maybe it´s me paying attention to things around me...), the image of the child is from a bad xerox transfer (but i still saved it for some reason), the book page is one i cut an eye for another piece out of (i saved it because i felt it could be useful somehow), the microscope slides are my grandpa´s, i found a whole box of them in his house in my latest visit there, the flowers inside it are jasmine and this other one (forgotten the name) that grew in my grandparent´s home, the lace is similar to the one from my toddler dresses that i bought yesterday without knowing for what and the sea urchin was found by me in our long gone beach house... it´s more evocative than trying to describe an actual memory. i´m trying to build poetic images of memory.

the book page is also me remembering my grandpa and his medical books, the ones i grew looking at over and over again...

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swallows lived in the inside patio; i would often find babies that had fallen from their nests lying on the floor and rescue them. i would pick them up and put them in little boxes which i took with me everywhere i went but they usually died...

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i´m using some of the same doily images that i´m using in my artwork and just testing the waters to see how people respond to them... i personally love them!

See the full gallery on Posterous

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mixed media on paper

details

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other than this blog (which actually helps me with my process and acts like a virtual sketchbook of sorts), i´m using pinterest to help me curate my upcoming exhibition. i have just created a board for this purpose and it´s becoming a very helpful resource as i can clearly see what the work is looking like as a group.

http://pinterest.com/chioflores/exhibition-draft/

i will definitely have my students do this for their own work!

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i took two photos of this today

and

not sure which one i like best; also not sure if i like it more as a photo or as an object. i´m being very wishy washy about my work lately. today i woke up (similar as yesterday actually) in a very down mood (with myself, my art, my job, my life in general...) and talked it over through email with g and that helped me see more clear. and also this andy warhol quote:

don’t think about making art. just get it done. let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. while they’re deciding, make even more art.

so i´m just making more art...

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p.s. the frame came in that colour, but i will probably repaint it, although i like it that colour too. i know, i´m beng wishy washy again...

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always keeping in mind the 'what if?...'

i made this background with a ton of different materials and had not decided how to use it yet; i´m really liking how it works with the medicine book eye collage but i haven´t decided to glue them yet. i might have to go buy another old medicine book just to not care about ruining these experiments...

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this was the last journal i did in new york, as i was leaving to come to lima... it has a special meaning for me, i´m glad i documented those very difficult and confusing days...

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a short while ago, while g was still here, we went to a place that sells old books and i bought an old medical book, because it reminds me of my grandfather tato. i chose one with illustrations similar to the ones of his own medicine books from when he was a student himself (ones i would not dare cut!) to cut some images out from but i wasn´t sure for what type of project. today i felt compelled to try adding one image from the book to my watercolour of tato´s gauze tin. i like it. a lot. however, i´m not sure if it would make sense to display it like this or if i should use the book images for something else.

i´m still thinking about this and also trying cutting out some other images but i don´t feel that well so i might not really reach any conclusion today...

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