 I like chairs. I even curated an exhibit about chairs, well many were mine, and I was hoping to justify my not so small collection. This chair is made of tubing and has been outdoors for at least a decade. It fits my body nicely, so the fact that it was a wreck didn’t matter to me. The metal mesh that formed the seat and back was rusting away. The layers of paint were peeling in bubble shapes. I stitched some seat belt webbing on for extra support. I had some spring cushion samples and put that on the seat part. I had some memory foam that should have been tossed out, but now I had a use. A friend had given me old feather pillows to use in my compost- I used one in the chair. I had many old pairs of jeans that I use for other projects. I laid pieces on and hand stitched them onto the previous layer. I didn’t concern myself about its longevity nor aesthetic, but kept sit-trying it for comfort. This chair is small enough to go in my barn office and not make a bulky flow-block. It is great for grabbing a book and reading. This can be done even with dirty work cloths on! It is wonderful way to relax or research. This chair and library is now ready for art classes that I want to teach. Please watch for upcoming schedules. ‘Take Time’ 
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 I found this empty sign on the side of the road. I had seen it for years. Most of it still swirled steel glinting. Driving and thinking that what ever I could say on this sign had to be a short word to be seen while driving. Corner and big view is vying for a viewers attention. I wanted a word that would describe itself and its location.  It would cause me to turn around and come back to see it up close.
If you are traveling from Warner Springs to Temecula it will be on the right side of the road near Emerald Creek Winery, Highway 79 south. The bathroom re-noodle is complete! I had such a great time making this concrete sink with a one of a kind mold. This sink has heft, an inverted sculpture. Cool linear designs actually aid in water removal. It has a resin-suspended glass balls filler (very tiny and blue). It has been double sealed and has a coat of carnuba wax. I have not seen any seeping or dripping. It just feels like there are so many possible designs, that I have decided to offer a custom concrete sink as a commissionable piece of art for you, the home remodeler. Contact me for details! Please read the next blog post for info on the entire bathroom.   My design emphasizes the existing structure by making lines and forms more evident. Paint, some plaster and a custom sink that reflects those lines. I was challenged by my instigator friend, Robin Brailsford - “Oh sure, we can all remodel. Now let's see you use only the things you already have”. That comment made me decide to cast my own sink out of concrete. An inverted sculpture. I decided that two sinks were just in the way, so I made one big one instead. I purchased one faucet because that was just sensible (although in another bathroom design, they were all handmade and had rocks as the handles). My friend Anna Cabo made the amazing fused glass tile. They are luminous jelly bean beauties and all different. Seems we are all clearing our studios in the lull of the virus and perhaps considering the fast paces we used to have. Personally, I now drink coffee in bed while doom-scrolling the news. Never, never have I done that sort of decadent laziness! This remodel took longer than usual. Some things I designed are ruff, deliberately. The Ikea dresser that my friend's kids ditched got a new cover skin that was made from an old desk I made 19 years ago. I liked the contrast of brown shiny melamine and thin tan skin on 2 sides, held in place with copper washer/screws. The floor is the same from the time that flooring contractors owned this house and sampled all manor of oddities here. I could have installed some something snappy, but this floor has cracks and stains. Fine enough. I don’t have to change my body movements to accommodate anything ‘good’ and can just use what I have in that country sort of way. The light for reading while on the can (toilet): I did not want to put in new electrical lines, no, that would have stopped my creative forward-moving flow. Jerry-rigged discards and a puck light. Little chains support the hinge connection. Yes, you have to push it. Yes it wiggles when you do, but it has a nice mellow, directed light and cost nothing - I already had it in the barn. There had been an electrical outlet from the past, now only a hole in the drywall from the former outlet. It's bugged me for a long time, it was so different and yet so close to the other one, but not a "just right" match. A few years back, I changed it’s location, leaving the hole. I have never been a symmetrical designer, but there you go, the plug was somehow unacceptable to me. I made a little sculpted box and painted the interior the same color that dashes around the bathroom - a flamboyant electric turquoise. I still believe I gave the elderly paint mixer guy at the store a different color on the poetic-named paint strip. That mis-color and that he used a too big hammer to place the lid, thus smashing the can 1/3 down, well, I almost just left the store. Of course everyone loves that color and now it has grown on me. It ignited the mood of buoyancy and its insistence has kept me engaged - it's interior now matching the ceiling of the shower. The window trim sports the same color. All the other paint was from the storage. The little bling-thing was a big mess of a necklace that was my mothers, something I "yard sale" bought for her years back because she likes blue. I rewired it and hung it to an old plant hook. The plant died years ago, and yet the hook remained. The washing machine was purchased used and remained in that used category because this Maytag doesn’t drain well and molds up. At least the machine keeps on going. There is a dance of getting it to dry after every load. I can’t get rid of something that is still working. I use no dryer. I have a clothesline in this chaparral (high desert) climate, it very much so "does dry for a living". I just love a stiff, exfoliating towel! I'm stuck with a white particle board dresser that I would never have purchased. It came when my parents, moved in with me. I won’t give such a non-desired item to a landfill until it collapses. The toilet makes a weird dripping sound. Two plumbers couldn’t find the issue. I had dreamed of getting rid of it in this remodel. It is mineral stained. Me, with my multiple pee per flush policy, - its just ugly. Maybe someday I will get a new, low flush one, but not this time - that wasn't part of the original challenge by Robin. The cabinets; original, made of dark wood that had an oily something on it. I tried lightening them by sanding, tried new crazy handles, I tried painting them. These were all failures that I even sent photos to friends. I finally pulled off the covers and painted the gnarly particle board shelves white. Then used a gauzy white cloth that I had just sorted in the studio (and thus able to find). Not wanting to buy a curtain rod, I used PVC water pipe with the print turned to the ceiling and made some wall hangers of scrap wood. There is silver chain, sewn to the cloth and a bamboo rod to slide the fabric and reveal things. All that white feels clean. I’m certain it's not clean, but I can live with that illusion. The plastic baloney sandwich on the toilet tank always reminds me why I’m a vegetarian. At the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, where the exhibit of Public Address artist are having the show called DesEscondido- a group of us were doing a special talk. Doris Bittar, Ruth Wallen and Nina Karavasiles. Gerda Govine was doing a poetry project just after our talk. The back story (scroll down) is that Gerda and I worked on the Rosa Parks Transit. We had a group of students in a life sized photo with roses over their hearts. I mean, scroll down and coincidentally the photo is just perfect, okay so I see this guy who looks familiar and I ask Gerda if its the guy from the image. She's not sure. I finish my talk and ask him. Indeed, it was Hermes Castro! Like a homecoming we were so happy to see each other again.   The Agency of Art, UCSD University, Mandeville Gallery, La Jolla CA
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 12, 5:30 – 7:30 pm In the Spring, Visual Arts @ 50, our two-year long series of exhibitions Anniversary of the founding of the Visual Arts Department, turns its focus from past to the future. The Agency of Art highlights the role of Visual Arts alumni/ae from the past two decades who are shaping the way art engages with social practice, the environment, science and technology. British social anthropologist Alfred Gell held that “visual art objects are not a part of language . nor do they constitute an alternative language” and thus should not be treated simply as illustrations or visual texts. Instead he argued that they are tangible indices of social interactions that act as social agents. To conclude the Anniversary series of exhibitions, The Agency of Art spotlights how the Visual Arts Department is committed to using art to reshape the world in which we live. The idea that art can change the world for the better not just by enriching the life and spirit of those for love it, but by proposing new solutions for problems uncovered by science, engineering, and social critique was a major theme of the work of Visual Arts faculty Helen Mayer Harrison (b. 1927-2018) and Newton Harrison (b. 1932). Their award-winning collaboration began at UC San Diego in 1969 -70, when Newton Harrison was an assistant professor and founding member of the Visual Arts Department and Helen Mayer Harrison was the Director of Educational Programs at UC Extension. It was then and here that they made the historic decision to form an artistic partnership, including sharing a professorial appointment, and adopted the principle that they would do no work that did not benefit ecosystems. To this end, they began to collaborate not just with each other but also with UC faculty experts in a wide range of disciplines: biology, ecology, engineering, history, architecture, urban planning, social activism, and art. The Harrisons’ commitment to collaboration, to making the world better through art, and to engaging with science, social policy, and the environment is foundational for much art today, and it might also be considered a precursor to the emerging artistic fields of socially engaged practice, Environmental Art, and Speculative Design. The Agency of Art places representative works by eighteen alumni/ae in juxtaposition with five panels from a major work by the Harrisons, Peninsula Europe, which has not previously been exhibited in San Diego. Peninsula Europe is an in-depth analysis of the fresh water system of Europe, which proposes transforming the highlands stretching from Portugal and Spain, over the Pyrenees, across the Central Massíf, to the Carpathians and beyond into a vast forest which would serve as a buffer against drought and global warming. This visionary project from the 2000-17 will serve as an introduction to the work of the younger artists who graduated from our program in the last twentyfive years or so, whose work in painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, performance, video, and new media proposes new ways to reframe and re-imagine the critical problems of the environment and society today and so to improve the world and our interactions with it and one another. Taking the Harrisons’ work as a point of departure, The Agency of Art explores how recent leading alumni variously contributed to the growing field of Conceptual Art and Speculative Design. Defining visual art as complex objects, UC San Diego artists have broadened tremendously our understanding of traditional art practices while insisting that visual art can fascinate, compel, and entrap the spectator. Katie Herzog, Jean Lowe, Heather Gwen Martin, and Jesse Mockrin, have challenged the expectations of painting in numerous ways by employing the traditions of figurative and abstract painting to reflect on the politics of identity, power structures, and knowledge economies through clever appropriation, humor, subversion of historic styles, and a unique synthesis of fashion past and present. Exploiting the paradigm that art objects can be effective as social agents, the works of Sadie Barnette, Igor Vamos, and Ruth Wallen address root causes of epic-in-scale social and environmental issues and urge younger generations to work proactively towards solving emergent problems related to the issues of human rights and social justice. Artists such as Rob Duarte, Nina Karavasiles, Virginia Maksymowicz, Roy McMakin, Roman de Salvo, and Allison Wiese have also employed design, installation, sculpture, and language to reveal and challenge social hierarchies, hidden political ideologies, and technological determinism. Others like Owen Mundy, Tim Nohe, Tim Schwartz, and Nina Waisman have furthered the concept of art made with technical expertise and imagination of a high order, art that exploits the intrinsic mechanisms of visual cognition with subtle psychological insight. Curated by Tatiana Sizonenko, Ph.D., ’13 PARTICIPATING ARTISTS Professors Emeriti Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison Visual Arts Alumni: Sadie Barnette, Roman de Salvo, Rob Duarte, Katie Herzog, Nina Karavasiles, Jean Lowe, Virginia Maksymowicz, Heather Gwen Martin, Roy McMakin, Jesse Mockrin, Owen Mundy, Tim Nohe, Sheryl Oring, Tim Schwartz, Igor Vamos, Nina Waisman, Ruth Wallen, and Allison Wiese For more info http://www.visarts.ucsd.edu Ralf Willruth took the photo of Nina's eyes and we laughed about it for weeks. Talmadge Gateway is a senior complex in San Diego. It is special housing for homeless residents who have illness. An amazing demographic that really needs this special architecture (Studio E). I’m happy to be involved with it through Wakeland Housing and Jonathan Taylor as the Project Manager. The piece is located between two bioswales and is visible from many locations within the complex. Its brightness catches and holds attention and for me, its a great focus to train the mind into a calm yet somehow vibrant state.  COMM22 -Public Art Public Art for a new affordable housing-mixed use development and for the city of San Diego. Along the trolley tracks on Commercial at 22nd (hence the complex’s name, COMM22) this community – based project boasts a large mural and a large sculpture. 30 feet long, a double-sided painting by master muralist Mario Chacon along with his assistant Hector Villegas. Titled “Flowers for My Loved Ones”. They mentored students from San Diego Unified School District, who created a number of offshoot images, maintaining the same sentiments. The back plaza has a liveliness and welcome. In fact, many gatherings happen in front of this art. Out on the front face corner is a large sculpture by the de la Torre brothers (Jamex and Einar), “COMMTRON 2000 “, a 16 foot tall robot. Not just any post ww2 toy robot, but one that is clad in carved stone with a cross between Mayan glyphs and contemporary image. What? So picture this classic Mayan profile of a guy who is watching TV, like that. “COMMTRON 2000” has a backpack, gauges, lights and a feeling of forward, innocent movement. The optimism of that time gone by is back. We collectively reboot. er robott, pardon me. There are two plaques that read; “Everything good that has happened to me is a direct result of helping others” Danny Trejo, Actor and “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” African Proverb. They are on a wall that complements the student work and then there is something else. There is a keyhole shape cut through the wall. Kids go through it and when they do, their entire dimension changes, they become tiny. Their mothers see it too, by the exuding joy. Okay, so maybe it’s the joy of doing laundry, which is really close by. Mums sit on what looks like tumbled concrete cubes and wait for the tumble to finish. A flash of orange paint flickers through the cluster. So then there is also the input from me, Nina Karavasiles, who was technically, the arts consultant. Benches and sidewalk plaques. Safe territory, but here I partnered with an off the shelf bench factory to produce this limited edition bench that sports a stainless steel half moon shape that has a special graphic. Sizable round sidewalk pavers set a stage for the bench images. 8 benches, 25 word phrases. A walking poem if that’s acceptable to say, but the cool thing is that everyone got the chance to vote on both the graphics and the word play. A Facebook voting page was established and accepted the curating votes to mold the neighborhood feel. BRIDGE Housing, MAAC, MVE+ Partners Architect, Cannon Constructors and Hazard Construction. Project Manager Jeff Williams. Ivy Landscape. Art Consultant Nina Karavasiles Quilting Bee at Poway Villas 13001 Bowdon Road, Poway, CA 92064 California Based on the theme of The Quilting Bee, I created this sculpture for the garden. It stresses the importance of honey bees for our future. The top piece moves in the wind on a bearing. The platform is made from 3-Form environmental resin that shimmers in the sunlight (like honey) the honey comb steel is cut to reveal this honey.   A stone motif starts at the front gate (metal with a single rock), pebble mosaics in three places, and metal and stone arches to enter the motor court.
I did a reverse pebble mosaic due to ADA concerns (pebbles cut in half with the flat side up). The imagery in all three locations is of DNA double helixes. I wanted a long term record of what science was thinking about now. The motor court has a cell division. The arches are metal with the rock held in place with a X. I think the light contrast from the darkness of the motor court to the center of the complex really works with the arches. It was great luck. |
Welcome to Nina’s Blog. I am quickly classified as a public artist, generally meaning art for the public realm. It is different than a gallery/museum way of thinking. My way of making public art has manifested more traditionally as a site specific sculpture for a fire station. It encompasses some gorilla installations, some home and environmental designs and most recently many apartment developments. Usually having a theme, like; solar powered, low income, green, and educational. Apartment complex art is not interior design. The viewing audience is a hybrid of the general public and private art in a public space. I enjoy the variety. Archives
May 2023
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