Above: Sea Grass, by photographer, and 2023 fall resident, Linda Wolf, hangs in the foyer of 3.1 ART, Saissac. This photograph appeared to be the perfect image to illustrate the concept of “LIMINAL SPACE.” The photo shows where the water meets the land, and that is the alchemy of liminal space.
LINDA WOLF, after studying photography in France, she had a ground-breaking career as a female rock‘n’roll photographer. Her work is beautifully chronicled in, Tribute: Cocker Power , published by Insight Editions. While in residence at 3.1 ART Saissac, Wolf paid a visit to the studio of Venice Beach/Saissac artist, Gary Palmer, and snapped the photo on page vi.
In the premier issue of 3.1 Liminal Space we examine the uncertain transition between where you’ve been vs. where you’re going, through interviews and art from both sides of the globe: Venice Beach, USA — the birthplace of this magazine — and Saissac, France, the new creative residency program for 3.1 ART 1
RESIDENT PROFILES
3.1 ART SAISSAC — An art residency program, born in a California beach town, is nurturing creatives in the Montagne Noire region of Southern, France 4 ART
Bill Attaway — Ceramicist, Sculptor, and Painter
Attaway in His Own Attaverse
Attaway dazzles us with his exhaustive range of talents. We attempt to pull back the curtain on the creative wizardry of our summer, 2023, 3.1 ART resident.
MB Boissonnault — Painter
Reinventing herself mid-career, after her summer 2022, 3.1 ART residency, MB finally slows down to reflect on why relocating to France was the right plan.
3.1 LIMINAL SPACE represents a few things to me philosophically which I would like to share with you here
I will start with the numbers, “3.1”. Many have asked what this represents, and the short answer is, it’s the approximation of Pi (π). It is also the length of the beach in Venice, California – a walk I have done many times over the decades while pondering the twists and turns of my life.
‘LIMINAL SPACE’ is a term that represents several things at once but all pertaining to how we hold space in this world:
• the space we occupy when we are not in the past but not in the future either
• the creative space we enter where we forget who and where we are
• the inventive space that creative people inhabit
• the space in time where we are globally and historically — not quite in the past but also not fully realized in the future.
CONTRIBUTORS
Léah Briqué
EDITOR, LMNL|SPC
Born in London but resides in Montolieu, France. She is bilingual (French and English) owing to her wonderful parents, Terri and Bernard. This issue could never have happened without her brains and brawn.
Chance Foreman
California based photographer, Foreman is also a poet and awardwinning filmmaker, cinematographer, and intrepid explorer.
IG @chance_foreman
Chaya Silberstein
Professional poet, writer, and editor, Silberstein has performed poetry internationally sometimes with Poetry Cookies, her delightful and tasty way to ingest some poetry.
IG @chayapoetry
Ian McDonnell
Based in Kilkenny, Ireland, Ian McDonnell has trained his camera primarily on musicians and musicial events. McDonnell shot the moody, black and white photos of musician, Richie Healy, in this issue.
IG @mcgigmusic
Merci
Tristan and Terri at La Montagne
Noire Bar & Restaurant, Saissac, France who kept us well supplied with grand crèmes and delicious pastries while we worked on this issue.
IG @bar_lamontagnenoire
Juri Koll
Artist, filmmaker, curator, writer and Founder/Director of the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (VICA), which is committed to preserve, protect and promote the legacy of Venice Beach, CA, art community. IG @veniceica
Boise Thomas
Actor and writer, Thomas is the author of How’s Your Heart?
A Users Guide for Building a Better Humanity. A toothsome collection of queries, toughies, and conundrums in poems. Boise Thomas is the unofficial “Mayor” of Flower Ave., in Venice Beach, CA. IG @boise.thomas
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
CONTINUED FROM PAGE VI
3.1 LIMINAL SPACE represents infinite possibilities, and the space where we pursue those possibilities. The publication is the voice of the 3.1 ART residency program, which began in 2022, in Saissac, France.
I first visited La Montagne Noire, in southern France, in 2018, after being invited to stay at the art atelier of Venice Beach painter, Gary Palmer. I fell in love with a village called Saissac. I had a dream of developing an artist residency program since 2013, which I envisioned as an extension of my career as an artist and a teacher. The former restaurant La Fage, with its sweeping views of the Pyrenees, and the medieval Château de Saissac, is a place where a person can easily fall into Liminal Space and suspend time for a moment. I sensed it would be the perfect home for the 3.1 ART residency.
The residency is entering its third year hosting artists and every time a former resident contacts me to say hello, or show me the work they are creating, I see our community widening its reach a little more.
3.1 LIMINAL SPACE documents the processes and ideas of creative people. We are casting a wide net, hoping to capture inspiration from all over the world. I see each art resident as a creative universe. They can, potentially, collide with one another and spark even more ideas — that is the dream and now it is becoming the reality.
—Taylor Barnes
Gary Palmer working in his Rue d’Autan atelier, Saissac.
IG @garypalmerart
Photo by 3.1 ART, 2023 resident, Linda Wolf
IG @mamalindawolf
Every event at 3.1 ART has been graced with exquisite cheese boards designed by Sophie, of Epicerie des Tours, Saissac. In Sophie’s store you can always find other culinary works of art such as; buttery French croissants, galettes, crêpes, café — all served with her beautiful smile!
Now, her shop displays another type of art, the work of 3.1 ART residents and visiting artists, which she has collected. We take this opportunity to thank her for her heartfelt support of the artists that come to Saissac.
Merci! Epicerie des Tours
You
Top photo, upper left: (drawing left), by 3.1 resident, William Attaway IG @attawayfineart
Photo, bottom left: (painting left), by 3.1 resident, MB Boissonnault, IG @mbbartworks (painting right), by 3.1 resident, Joshua Elias IG @joshuaelias57
Photo, upper right: portrait of Sophie Rice, by visiting artist, Elizabeth Decker, IG @elidecker
Photo lower right: painting by Taylor Barnes, IG @taylorbarnesart
can follow Epicerie des Tours on IG @epicerie_des_tours
LIMINAL SPACE
THE UNCERTAIN TRANSITION BETWEEN WHERE YOU’VE BEEN AND WHERE YOU ARE GOING...
LA MONTAGNE NOIRE, and the south of France, have always boasted a wealth of creative communities which have been incubators for writers, artists, and musicians. Recent history has illustrated how quickly we can become bound to our current situations and many creatives have chosen to migrate, in search of the ideal environment. In this issue we profile 3.1 ART in Saissac, France which, traverses the LIMINAL SPACE between a medieval village and becoming a creative mecca of the future.
PHOTO
Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating longterm artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.
Jerry Saltz
Art Critic, New York Magazine
3.1 ART Saissac
3.1
ART opened the doors to its first two residents in summer of 2022. Two painters, MB Boissonnault and Joshua Elias, braved the dust and noise of the final days of remodeling the former restaurant, La Fage, to work in our newly created studio space. Since then, we have had the privilege of hosting many talented people from all over the world. We would like to thank them for trusting us to provide a place of cooperative creativity. Just a few of the former residents are shown here.
In this issue we have attempted to provide a feel for the spirit of the residency. From a gorgeous Bastille Day concert with fireworks over the Saissac castle — to a dinner of traditional Moules-Frites prepared in our building by neighbor and friend, Marc Paule. These experiences have amounted to much more than we ever anticipated. A special thanks goes to the village of Saissac, who have embraced us with such warmth that it truly feels like home.
Some of the most memorable events have happened without a plan — just the chemistry of adding creative/talented people into a supportive environment, a
dash of incredible weather, beautiful food, and voilà! To all who have joined us on this journey, helped us with their building and carpentry skills, played music for us, braved Covid to be with us, recommended us to their friends, wrote about us, and believed in our mission...THANK YOU!
Saissac is a medieval village in the unspoiled Montagne Noire region of southern France. This is the movie-style location/backdrop for 3.1 ART residency. The convivial atmosphere of the old restaurant seems to remain in the building as we host art events and good conversation, built around wonderful local cuisine. For anyone mystified about the large metal sculpture of a crayfish/écrevisse on the front of the building, we chose to keep it in homage to the former history of the restaurant and to honor the local metal artist who created it.
Post-covid, the limits of our lives were exposed and ‘quality of life’ became of paramount importance. The Montagne Noire offered a less complex lifestyle which values nature, community and “la joie de vivre.” Southern France has always appealed to artists, such as; Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, Vincent van
3.1 ART Saissac
3.1 ART Saissac
Gogh, and Paul Cézanne, just to name a few who have lived and painted throughout the area. In this time of shifting climates, both environmental and political, it seems a new movement to recapture some of the romanticism of those times has emerged.
3.1 ART residency is a small, intimate environment with an emphasis on sharing ideas, conversation, and inspiration. The salon style atmosphere models itself upon some of the famous creative salon gatherings of other eras. But 3.1 ART is a modern program that embraces technology and science as vital elements to the development of art in this day and age.
Art residency programs are certainly not a new concept but the necessity for them may be increasing. The seed of the idea for a multidisciplinary program, was cultivated in Venice Beach, California, which has a history of nurturing modern American, West Coast artists. In the antagonistic atmosphere of gang violence, drugs, low-income housing, and a deteriorating neighborhood the California Light and Space Movement was born. Venice Beach may have been considered
the stepchild of Los Angeles, but its counter-culture environment was an incubator for several culturally influential movements, not the least of which was the surf and skate culture of Dogtown.
In this fertile environment some of the best known names in Modern American art set up shop; Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Gehry, Laddie Dill, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Peter Alexander, and too many others to name. However, rising real estate prices and gentrification gradually caused the Venice Beach artists to migrate, setting up shop in new and undiscovered locals. Just like that, the magical and alchemical combination of artists, musicians, and writers — combined with the sun and the sea — disappeared. The former residents of Venice Beach have carried that legacy to the four corners of the globe: from Joshua Tree, California, upstate New York, South Carolina, to Lisbon, Portugal, Gibraltar, Spain, Italy, and… Saissac, France. The idealistic vision of 3.1 ART residency, is that it will keep us connected — acting as a conduit between previous residents and new artists — broadening the creative conversation into many languages, and bridging many cultures.
3.1 ART Saissac
3.1 ART Saissac
PHOTO CREDITS
PAGE 4
Left: Yasmin Patel (@_yasminpatel), 3.1 Art resident, summer 2023. After her residency, she travelled to London, where Patel attended the art curation program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Right: Irish musicians practicing for the opening concert of the 3.1 ART/2024 season: (L to R) Brian Bayard; Renate Helnwein (@renatehelnwein); Irene Brewer-Joyce (@ibrewerjoyce); 3.1 ART partner/ Billy Keane (@loc.liam.ocathain); and Camilla Schmitt.
PAGE 5
Left: Amy Jackson (@zikova19), an American graphics and textile designer, came to us after touring textile design studios in Italy. Here she is working in the 3.1 Art resident’s studio.
Right: Dublin based, Irish musician, Aoife Wolf (@aoifewolf), was the music resident during summer 2023. Her Bastille day performance featured a song with a backing track of chords played on our fatally out-of-tune piano. That track, Beyond Saving , combined with her haunting voice, was mesmerizing. You can read more about Aoife Wolf in this issue.
PAGE 6
Left: Irish musicians kicked off the 3.1 ART 2024 season with a rousing concert and some Irish dancing: (L to R) Irene Brewer-Joyce (@ibrewerjoyce); 3.1 ART partner/ Billy Keane (@loc.liam.ocathain); Renate Helnwein (@renatehelnwein); Camilla Schmitt, and Brian Bayard.
Right: French artist, Francois Legoubin, seen relaxing on the ‘Green Sofa’ in the 3.1 ART resident’s studio. Legoubin was a guest at 3.1 Art in summer, 2022. As one of three artists
in Thomat’s film, Le Geste (which is covered in this issue), Legoubin was present for a Q & A after the screening.
PAGE 7
Left: American painter and one of the premier 3.1 ART residents, Joshua Elias, with French sculptor Hugo Bel @hugobel_ (featured in Gilles Thomat’s art documentary, Le Geste.) Joshua Elias is one of the resident artist profiles in this issue.
Right: Acclaimed rock’n’roll photographer, Linda Wolf and her husband Eric, enjoying the view from the main studio during their morning coffee.
PAGE 8
Left: Traditional Moules Frites provided by our neighbor Marc Paule, whose mother was a cook in the La Fage restaurant, seventy years ago! A meal cooked with love and enjoyed by all at 3.1 ART.
Right: Painter, MB Boissonnault, our first 3.1 ART studio resident (2022), relocated from Venice Beach, California to Saissac, France post-residencty. Read her profile story is in this issue.
PAGE 9
Left: 3.1 Art fall 2023 resident, Mexican painter, Dennis Miranda Zamorano @dennis_ mirandaa . Post residency, Zamorano had his first solo show in Paris, at the Galerie Marguo @galeriemarguo
Right: Accomplished Irish musician, Brian Bayard, seated with music aficionado , Storm.
3.1 ART Saissac
ATTAWAY…
IN HIS OWN “ATTAVERSE”
Bill Attaway is a sculptor, ceramicist, and painter, who spent his childhood toggling between New York, California, and Barbados. His artwork has been enriched by this variety of cultural influences, not unlike the flavors of the spiced sweet potatoes of the Caribbean.
His diversity of style and monumental artistic output has led him to coin the phrase “Attaverse” because he truly has developed his own unique, creative universe. With fearless confidence, no matter what medium or style he is working in, Attaway’s vision is always one hundred percent original. As a creative force, he has been a mentor, teacher, and inspiration for other young artists over the years who were lucky enough to have been taken under his wing.
Attaway was sixteen years old when he opened his first ceramics studio, in Venice Beach, California. The studio had a successful thirty-eight year run until it was torn down by developers to make way for an office building. He is one of many artists that has been displaced by gentrification. However, that wasn’t going to stop Bill Attaway. With a roster of clients such as the Los Angeles City planners, politicians, corporations, youth and community groups, he had a strong reputation for creating public art installations. His commitment to restore an
Bill Attaway’s creative workspace in the 3.1 Art residence studio.
BILL ATTAWAY
arts curriculum to the Los Angeles public schools contributed to his reputation as a socially aware artist.
Bill Attaway was in residence at 3.1 ART, Saissac, during the summer session, 2023. The residency came at a time where he needed a break from the struggle of city life and a moment to tune-in and redirect himself creatively.
“Living in five-star accommodations is an eye-opener for the nervous system of an artist who came through the ‘suffering is art’ point-of-view to creating.”
He states, “living in five-star accommodations is an eye-opener for the nervous system of an artist who came through the ‘suffering is art’ point-of-view to creating.” Attaway continues, “it gave me time to reflect, let go of the past, and see where I’m at in my life and career now.”
In Saissac, a small village in the South of France, he found a way of life which resonated with him; long lunches, naps and chats, better known as, “l’art de vivre,” (the art of living). The village boasts a thriving art community, which Attaway found to be an inspiring experience, he states, “exposure to each other as people is vital to be able to open one’s heart and soul to another and to let go of ego.”
Attaway recently celebrated a milestone birthday, turning sixty this year, which presented an opportunity to catch up with him and find out what the future holds. He’s far from finished chasing his goals. In his own words he feels, “fresh and ready to go.” His passionate dedication to exploring and experimenting with his work, has allowed him to draw inspiration from many different sources. One force in his creative development was his father, songwriter and novelist, William Attaway. But it was his mother, artist Frances Attaway, whom he confides, inspired him throughout his career. He credits both his parents as the greatest supporters of his creative pursuits. Artists who have influenced him would include architects Gaudí and Hundertwasser, who incorporated ceramics with architecture. Their work informed Attaway’s practice and helped him to formulate a method to translate his ceramic pottery into sculpture.
What is his creative philosophy after six decades of making art? Attaway admits, “I reflect on how casual I was saying ‘yes’ to projects that I had never attempted before. I feel that’s what made me a seasoned artist — fearlessly heading into the unknown.” Is this his superpower? Attaway’s portfolio borders on a superhuman level of artistic output. In 1993, he did his first public installation
PAGE 10: One of Bill Attaway’s sculptures of a new era Orisha.
RIGHT:
Bill Attaway demonstrating some of the methods he uses in his creative practice, during a gathering for his Vernissage at 3.1 Art.
BILL ATTAWAY
BILL ATTAWAY
BILL ATTAWAY
in Pomona, California, developing three impressive ceramic columns with the theme of Past, Present, and Future. Attaway created several monumental fifteenfoot paintings titled, Recycle, Restore . This was a series of works for the United Nations global conference on environmental sustainability. Some of Attaway’s other credits include; working on the set design of the 35th Annual NAACP Image Awards, or creating the interior artwork for Herbie Hancock’s Grammy Award winning album, River . Looking back on his varied career, Attaway says, “I have the want, and the need, to pull it all together now.”
Aside from his accomplishments, the man is an artist that holds his community dear and wishes to give back to it. He has always been interested in helping the at-risk youth of Los Angeles. He created a job training program through the Venice Clay Works. According to Attaway, “student participants of the program had grown up in a ‘system of oppression’.” They found their way into
“exposure to each other as people is vital to be able to open one’s heart and soul to another and to let go of ego.”
beneficial community programs such as: VCH (Venice Community Housing), Lennox Schools, or Sankofa Foundation. As part of those programs, Attaway taught the students ceramic and mosaic skills. The curriculum resulted in public installations of colorful and beautifully designed mosaics and murals, which can be found in many of Venice Beach’s public spaces today. Attaway has left his mark on the city, punctuated by one of his best known pieces, a Totem sculpture titled, A Dream Come True The twe nt y-five foot ceramic sculpture, inspired by Los Angeles’ journey to find its own identity, sits in a place of honor on the Venice Beach boardwalk, where it is seen by thousands of visitors to L.A. every year.
Attaway feels that his path to making art was orchestrated by destiny. When he was sixteen-years-old, computers were first introduced into the LA school administration and tasked with assigning class schedules to students throughout the entire Los Angeles Unified School system. That year, Attaway’s list of classes were: 1. ART, 2. ART, 3. ART, 4. ART, 5. ART, and 6. ART! A full day of nothing but art classes. He proclaimed to his classmates, “This is an Act of God!” Attaway may very well be right about that, because the computer glitch that assigned him nothing but art classes also opened the door to the idea that he could and should become an artist. Since that fateful year, he has continued to leave his mark on the streets and communities of not only Venice Beach, Los Angeles, but New Orleans, Barbados, New York, Chicago… and now Saissac, France.
PAGE 14: An Attaway sculpture constructed of found objects on the grounds of 3.1 Art.
IG @attawayfineart
AOIFE WOLF
In
h er ownwords
Her voice fills every corner of the room with a hushed cloud of darkness.
“Spellbinding ,” is one word that describes Aoife Wolf’s music. It envelops you in a fog of otherworldly sound, traversing several octaves, or breaking into an exotic, unexpected howl. Wolf leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting to be pulled into that strange and beautiful experience again, and again. This is the quiet, transformational power of her music. The
out-of-tune piano used by Aoife Wolf in her song, Beyond Saving.
AOIFE WOLF
In the summer of 2023, Wolf was living in Belfast and had just finished a tour in Germany. She wanted to get away from the stimulation of the city and work on her personal compositions in a quiet environment, but wasn’t sure where to go. 3.1 ART needed a musical resident for its annual Bastille Day celebration and reached out to Aoife Wolf — serendipity did the rest. The concert was a success, and it is fair to say that Wolf felt her residency was also highly successful. In the following conversation, we ask Aoife Wolf about her journey to Saissac, France, and what personal transformations may have taken place there.
Two days before the Bastille Day concert, Wolf wrote a song using the outof-tune piano at the residency. The song was called Beyond Saving , as a reference to the broken piano, from which she recorded a backing track of mysterious chords that seemed to open the door for more musical exploration. The residency gave Wolf time to think, soul search, and read.
“My brain is in overdrive most of the time, except when I write, then it slows down. When it’s a good one, it always feels like a blackout, where an hour has passed and somewhere in that, a song has arrived.”
After she wrote the new piano piece things changed, “I had a gig the day I came home from France, and I was thinking (referring to her composition, Beyond Saving ), ‘will I do it?’ Then I was like, ‘I’ll do it!’ It went down pretty well when I played it that night, another big boost of confidence. All of that got me thinking in a different way about the sound.
“When I was in Saissac, I realized that I was drawn to a Gothic sound, with a little bit of Rock. I noticed, when I lean into the macabre it resonates with people. Which made me think, I wanted a Gothic tone to the album I am currently recording, and after the residency I knew ‘this is what it is.’
“I’m really influenced by rock music. I’m a big, big Nirvana fan, big Pixies and Sonic Youth fan. I’m very attracted to those kinds of sounds. When I play my music with that kind of sonic landscape I feel like my songs get washed out, because I don’t know how to arrange it in a dynamic way.” Aoife adds, “I felt that after France, I had a new sense of what I was going for because, up until that point, I had been playing with a band; it was bass, drums, and guitar.”
After returning to Ireland, Wolf decided she didn’t want to play in a band anymore. Instead, she decided to play with a cellist and maybe two vocalists, which seemed to resonate with her better. She said the shows she did after reorganizing her arrangements, were the best shows she has done.
However, Wolf’s song writing process is not something she can easily define. “I used to think that my songs were born out of an emotional excess but I’m not so sure anymore. I think it depends, if the song is good, then it’s very fast
AOIFE WOLF
to write. It feels like all the verses, the chorus, and the lyrics — everything, all comes together at once. I write most of my songs in one sitting but I’m feeding my subconscious constantly. My brain is in overdrive most of the time, except when I write, then it slows down. When it’s a good one, it always feels like a blackout, where an hour has passed and somewhere in that, a song has arrived.”
Aoife Wolf grew up in the Irish countryside of County Offlay, which contributed to the rich interior world that seems to inform her music. When asked if there were any musical influences in her family Wolf said, “Well, there’s really no musicians in my family. My dad would sing, …My brother does as well. But I wouldn’t really think that my family’s been terribly influential in my musical journey. As a musician, I still feel like a deer in the headlights. That’s why I have a fascination with all these women in music. I’m always reading rock autobiographies, like the one by Patti Smith, Just Kids . That book was one of the reasons that I started playing music. I guess when you’re reading a book, you get really into the world of it.
I read Just Kids when I was about twenty-four or twenty-five, and in the book, she was the same age. She hadn’t started performing yet, whereas I thought I was too old to start performing. I got so much out of that book. There’s a bit in it where she says that she just started calling herself a poet, even though she was working in a restaurant. If people asked her what she did, she would say, ‘I’m a poet.’ When I read that, I started doing the same thing. I started saying, ‘I’m a musician.’ I think it worked. I passed that book around my friend group at the time and we were all just obsessed with it.”
“I’m always reading rock autobiographies, like the one by Patti Smith, Just Kids. … There’s a bit in it where she says that she just started calling herself a poet, even though she was working in a restaurant.…When I read that, I started doing the same thing. I started saying, ‘I’m a musician.’ I think it worked.”
What is in the future for Aoife Wolf? Has her manifesting propelled her into the life of a musician? All seems to point to her succes. After a few years living in Belfast, she is back in Dublin again and focused on honing her upcoming album. “One of the decisions I made while I was at the residency was that I would strip back the set so it would be guitar, vocals, and cello. …That’s been the basis.” With a new sound, an album in the works, and her reinvigorated focus, we can expect some surprises from the ever original Aoife Wolf.
You can follow Wolf on IG @aoifewolf
MB BOISSONNAULT
Images of stealth bombers rest beside canvases depicting luscious waves of water, brilliant abstract sunsets, or distant landscapes of cities that once were. These disparate images are rendered from the highly accomplished brush of artist, MB Boissonnault.
For twenty-three years, Boissonnault has been a vocal and committed resident of Venice Beach, California. So it came as a big surprise to Venice friends and neighbors when she decided to undertake a total relocation of her life along with her husband, Evan Calford. Moving her artistic practice to a small medieval village, in an obscure area of the south of France, raises so many questions…
‘’Why would a city artist go to the country at this stage in her career?’’
‘’Has Boissonnault abandoned her activism for a quieter life in isolation?’’
‘’What inspired this sweeping change mid-career?’’
MB Boissonnault
For Boissonnault, leaving the United States began long before she and Calford, pulled up stakes in Venice Beach, California, to move to Saissac, France. According to Boissonnault, the turning point for her was Covid lock-down in Los Angeles, 2020.
“For me personally, it (Covid) changed everything because I didn’t have an art studio… for the first time in my life as a career artist. I couldn’t possibly keep it open given the circumstances,” said Boissonnault.
Post-covid, she and Calford were being harassed by their landlords, who hoped they would move — but there was nowhere to go, the rents were sky high. The noise, congestion, and homeless are the dominant characteristics of present-day Venice Beach, a place Boissonnault has held near and dear to her heart for almost twenty five years. “Where do you go when you never planned to leave?” Boissonnault poses the question that many Venice Beach artists have been asking during this time of rampant gentrification. “The beauty of being a creative person is that you are a bit of a snail, you can carry your home on your back if you need to.”
The art community of Venice Beach, which was a vibrant and inventive force in Los Angeles was at least one hundred professional studios strong a decade ago, it has now dwindled to less than twenty-five. Many of those artists dispersed all over the planet; from Joshua Tree in the California desert, to South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the UK and Ireland – just to name a few places where the Venice legacy has taken root. MB Boissonnault is part of the creative diaspora taking place in the US now, as they seek affordable workspace and a humane cost of living.
Boissonnault reflects on her experience, “It wasn’t possible to keep a place in Los Angeles, it was getting more, and more, expensive. Even during Covid, they were not giving any breaks on rent to artists for their studios. You would think that in an art community, geared toward artists and a creative class, they would look at that and say, ‘oh, you can’t open your studio, you can’t sell any artwork, you can’t have any openings, you can’t have clients visit? We’ll give you some help.’ Instead, artists fell into that gray space where the landlords didn’t see us as legitimate businesses.”
MB Boissonnault has never been one to shy away from a good political fight and much of her work is inspired by her pain and indignance towards the plight of the less fortunate, the climate, the hypocrisy of our governments, and other insults to human dignity. When they were harassed, it was obvious to Boissonnault and her husband that their landlords had no investment in the culture of Venice Beach, only the land they had bought. In response, MB and her husband decided to fight back. The battle for the roof over their heads shifted their priorities to securing a permanent space, wherever that might be.
Boissonnault commented, “…we are fortunate enough to have done the pivot when I think it was a ‘sink or swim’ moment.”
In 2022, when the world reopened to foreign travel, MB Boissonnault came to Saissac, “I loved being able to come here to do residency at 3.1 Art,” she said. At the time she was the premier art resident, “… 3.1 Art offered the space and the opportunity for me to look at things differently. It was time to start thinking about my career and the future. Where was I going to spend the next part of my life? It wasn’t going to be L.A.. Coming
here helped me reconnect with a basic, simple, quiet lifestyle. To have the opportunity to see green, to see birds, to see the light in a way that you don’t see it in L. A.,” Boissonnault, referring to the ten years of drought in California, “… and to hear water! This whole place is a water feature!”
Another equally strong pull to the south of France, was the French people and their enthusiastic support of the arts. “They talk a good game in the States,” says Boissonnault, “about how much they fund the arts, and appreciate the arts and culture. Of course they do, tons of money is being funneled into that but when you are just one person at the end of the chain, you don’t really see that funding or those grants.”
MB Boissonnault is no stranger to the contrast between how the arts are funded in the E.U. vs. the U.S. having attended Kunstakademie, in Düsseldorf, Germany, for her fine art undergraduate degree in painting. She also trained at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, in the U.S.. Both experiences uniquely equipped her with insight into the business of being an artist and what the pitfalls and benefits can be. At this point in her career she has extensively shown in group shows, as well as solo exhibitions. She boasts a loyal roster of collectors, which includes the Matisse Family Collection, Deutsche Bank, Tennessee State Museum, and others. In 2020, Boissonnault was presented the Legendary Women Artists of Venice award for her leadership in the arts in Venice Beach, California.
Her career has been growing stronger and stronger over the years, which leads to the question, is MB Boissonnault taking a risk leaving the city of Los Angeles, and the Venice Beach community? Or, is Venice Beach no longer able to attract and hold onto the next generation of art luminaries? In previous decades the beach community has
boasted art residents such as: Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha, Laddie Dill, Clyfford Still, John Baldessari, and many more famous west coast artists, musicians, actors, and writers. Their legacies have fallen to the wayside in the wake of rampant gentrification and overwhelming development projects.
“A family bought the first African-American, mid-century, modern church on the Westside of Los Angeles (referring to the Black Baptist church in the historically black neighborhood of Oakwood, in Venice Beach). A valuable piece of city history which the family intended to rip down and turn into their single-family home. That says it all. There was no protection for anything. I lived in a house that was from 1926, a beautiful little Spanish adobe, very indicative of how they were building all the houses in Venice around that time. There are only a handful of them left. They should be protected.”
Having seen the devastation of Venice Beach at the hands of developers, she became a social activist for affordable housing. MB Boissonnault has extended her commitment to retaining local culture to the village of Saissac, and made that a guiding principle as she sets up her new life in France.
“A lot of people in America think you are a liberal-hippie-freak when you talk about these things (overdevelopment, etc.). They say, ‘that’s not going to happen here,’ but it does happen and once it’s gone you can’t get it back. I lived in Germany for a long time and I know you cannot terrorize people out of their homes there. It’s just not done.”
Boissonnault comments, “The last year has been phenomenal for American artists in Paris — for example, the Henry Taylor show. It’s a big collective wave of respect, which I like because it’s not just status quo, it’s not just showing Penault’s collection. The Dana Shutz retrospective in Paris was one of the most inspirational shows I have ever seen in my life.” Regarding the potential migration of more American artists to France, she feels the French people are positively responsive because of their commitment to the preservation of culture and creative development.
That could be the strongest reason why Boissonnault moved to the remote village in the mountains, which she fell in love with during her stay at 3.1 ART residency. Not only did the charm of the medieval village capture her imagination, but she also found a place of peace, surrounded by luscious greenery and the ever-present trickling of water. A place where Boissonnault felt heard, respected, and supported as an artist — by the locals, the businesses, the community, and the government. In contrast to the U.S., it stands to reason for Boissonnault to take the leap of faith and go for a new life in Europe.
MB Boissonnault has always been defined by her strong opinions and her instincts. She comments, “Whatever we’ve been through as a country (the United States) our flavor of political and social nightmare, however bizarre, always provides gems of inspiration. For artists, these are the fruits of surviving those hard moments. That is what I am hoping to be a part of.”
“We are fortunate enough to have done the pivot when I think it was a sink or swim moment once things started to open up again.”
MB Boissonnault
Boissonnault cites the famous American conceptual artist, John Baldessari (1931- 2020), as having found greater appreciation in Europe as opposed to his home country, the United States. “Baldessarri is huge here. I don’t think Americans realize how popular he is in Europe. His success and respect is much deeper here than it is in the States. Venice Beach is letting Baldessari’s personal property, built by Frank Gehry, be sold. It’s in the market for $7,000,000. That is a pittance to the City of Los Angeles.” Referring to the many private home museums that preserve the history of famous artists Boissonnault said, “Los Angeles should be buying the Baldessari property and preserving it. This is what they have done in France, for example, Delacroix’s home and studio, in Paris. That museum was one of the most divine interactions I’ve had with an artist. The Peter Paul Rubens home museum, in Antwerp, is life changing. But you can’t convince Los Angeles to take $7,000,000 for John Baldesarri’s ‘Gehry designed’ home/ studio and create a significant museum experience.”
As MB Boissonnault continues to establish her new life in France, anticipation abounds and we can expect to be dazzled by her next period of work and activism. Maybe one day her home/studio in Saissac, France, will become an homage to this talented, multi-faceted, and dynamic, artist.
Below: Some experimental paintings which Boissonnault did during residency in Saissac.
You can follow her on IG @mbbartworks
Right: MB Boissonnault working in the 3.1 ART studio.
GRAPHICALLY SPEAKING... ALEXIS NOLENT IS ‘THE MAN’
Matz, French slang for “the man,” is the pen name of French author, Alexis Nolent. He published his first graphic novel in 1990. At the time, he took the pen name of Matz because he was also writing a more literary novel and didn’t want to be labeled a comic book writer. “In the 90s, in France, it wasn’t such a hip thing to be a comic book writer,” he continues, commenting with a laugh, “the second reason being, I thought it was a cool sounding name taken from French slang.”
With over forty-five graphic novels to his credit, he is one of the most prolific French novelists in his genre. Nolent is best known for his series, The Killer, illustrated by Luc Jacamon. The books are characterized by their dark, brutal and introspective look into the mind of a hired assassin, who is unencumbered by scruples or regrets. This series of graphic novels has been an international best seller for years with a large cult following.
His work pace would be daunting to most other writers, with several books in the works at one time. “I think it is the best way to write because when you get stuck on one you can work on another one, … it unlocks something and when you get back to the first one, it flows better. There is no time wasted.”
Nolent believes writing graphic novels is a great field to try new ideas and structures. His method of work varies, “The illustrator may come to me and say they don’t like the way a particular sequence is written, and they can’t really do it right, so can we do something else, something better? There is no routine.”
Sometimes Nolent pitches his own ideas to a publisher, or an artist may come to him with an idea and he then writes the story for the artwork. He adapts the way he works to fit each process of collaboration.
PHOTO
“We tackle any subject we like… Nothing is offlimits, anything can be spoken about in the French comics.”
Making a living as a graphic novelist can be a little tricky but as Nolent notes, “France has a long history of using comic books and strips to farcically criticize the government, even incite revolutions. Comic books and graphic novels were once exclusively categorized as “kid’s literature.” Now, they are considered a serious art form and a valuable means of expression. Over the last ten to fifteen years there have been some very good books about the politics of the time.” He refers to Quai d’Orsay, the 2010 comic book by Abel Lanzac (aka, Antonin Baudry) and illustrated by Christophe Blain, which was inspired by Baudry’s experiences as a senior diplomat in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not exactly the subject matter that American readers expect in their graphic novels but it was a huge hit in the French market.
His opinions about French vs. American audiences were honed while working in the United States. Nolent was scripting video games and had ample opportunity to observe the differences between the two comic book markets. “What’s interesting
about French comics is that we tackle any subject we like, any kind of story, any time period, any style — fiction, documentary, non-fiction, adaptations from movies or books. Nothing is off-limits, anything can be spoken about. Writers and graphic artists have complete freedom to tell whatever story they like, in whichever way they like, using whichever structure they like. I think this is probably connected to the fact that graphic novels are not a ‘big money’ industry in France, so there is room for experimentation and innovation. It is the opposite of the TV or movie industry which are big money in the US. French publishing is free from the intervention of marketing. That’s why it’s fun; we pitch an idea, the publisher says, ‘OK let’s do it,’ we do it, it’s published, and it exists.”
The Killer , was recently released as a feature film, directed by David Fincher, starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton. Alexis Nolent and David Fincher first collaborated on the graphic novel, The Black Dahlia, based upon James Ellroy’s acclaimed book. In collaboration with Illustrator Miles Hyman, they portrayed the real life, brutal and baffling murder mystery of Elizabeth Short, in 1940s Hollywood.
Alexis Nolent was born in Rouen, France and spent his childhood on the Caribbean Island of Martinique. Eventually, he moved back to Paris where he studied law and political science. History has always been an area of fascination for him and the noire crime story became a natural genre for Nolent to work in. “I have always regretted that I didn’t study history. I wanted to be an archeologist. I read history books constantly, books about World War II, Rome, and Ancient Greece.”
Nolent is fascinated by the motivations of certain historical characters and how they justified their atrocities. He notes, “the first step to fascism, whether it is left wing or right wing, is to dehumanize people we disagree with — people we don’t like.”
His close examination of this thinking has informed the plot lines and characterizations in many of his graphic novels — particularly the anonymous
“If you dehumanize your enemy it is OK to kill them… I think when people say they come from a good place it is a big mistake morally.”
hitman of The Killer series. “If you dehumanize your enemy, it is OK to kill them,” says Nolent. “The Japanese and the Germans, in World War II, thought they were superior, different, or better. I think when people say they come from a good place it is a big mistake morally speaking.”
As he ponders the moral structure of his own writing, he references the famous book, The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang, as a perfect example of human conscience. The book recounts the forgotten Nanking Massacre and the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after it captured the city. The psychology of the morally bereft, and the toll they take on humanity, is a recurring theme in his writing.
Nolent states, “A lot of people seem to have no conscience. That’s not a problem for them. They might have an advantage over others that have one. These are the kinds of things I am interested in. Pretty much all the stories I write deal with the same issue of conscience. The Killer is the best example of it. My favorite writer is (Franz) Kafka because he is psychological but also darkly humorous. Some
people say I pretty much always write the same book, which got me thinking, and I realized I am always dealing with the conscience. Man is a weird creature.”
Alexis Nolent has spent much of his career deconstructing the thought processes of the morally bankrupt. His work is grounded in reality and in history but it is his reference to real human atrocities that resonates with the reader. His characters are relatable despite being devoid of a moral conscience and this trait is what plagues you when reading his books. You know you should not connect with the thought process of an assassin, for example. But you do and you have to question why.
Nolent is a captivating writer who shows no signs of slowing down and with his fascination for history there is no end to the stories that will capture his imagination.
The compilation of all thirteen books of The Killer, by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, was released through Archaia in 2018 and is available on Amazon in English or French.
You can follow Alexis Nolent on IG @matzbdofficiel
WAR AND PEACE
Embracing dualities with Sunny War
As her name implies, “Sunny War,” is the embodiment of duality, sometimes reflecting the optimism of the laid back California lifestyle or the adversity of homelessness and addiction. She would sit on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, her unique sound captivating people as they cruised the beach or stopped to dine at the Fig Tree Café. The year was 2013, Sunny War was busking to survive. Her tremulous voice and original guitar style, described as Folk-Punk with a dose of Nashville blues, stopped people in their tracks. Ten years later, she is still stopping people in their tracks but now all over the world, in sold out music venues.
We recently managed to catch up with Sunny — not an easy feat — when she came to do a residency at 3.1 ART. She was taking a much deserved and needed break from conquering the E.U. as the opening act for George Benson. Even though she was supposed to be taking some time off, Sunny gave an impromptu concert at the residency. It was a remarkable evening for the French and English speaking audience, because they had just witnessed the Bastille Day fireworks over the medieval Saissac castle, only to be followed by the heartfelt melodies of Sunny War.
2023 also saw the release of Sunny’s latest CD, Anarchist Gospel , which has gone on to earn her the title of, “…one of the best new voices in Roots Music …,” from Rolling Stone magazine. The album has the classic Sunny War duality, from the cover to the songs themselves, which vary from upbeat instrumentals to moodier ballads with emotive lyrics.
“I feel like there are two sides of me. One of them is self-destructive, and the other is trying to keep things balanced.”
She confides, “ Anarchist Gospel, represents such a crazy period in my life,” one where she was dealing with heartbreak, a move, and the sudden loss of
SUNNY WAR
You can follow Sunny War on IG
her father. Sunny continues by saying, “what I learned, I think, is that the best thing to do is to feel everything.”
On the album she let her voice shine even though there was a time when she didn’t consider it to be her strongest musical asset. Originally, she developed as a guitarist and singing came second — she didn’t imagine she would become a solo artist. Ten years ago, she was one of many talented musicians, living on the street in Venice Beach and playing with local bands. She had already seen a lot of life by that point and that experience has proven deep inspiration for her transformational lyrics. You cannot listen to a Sunny War song and not be moved by the raw emotion and honesty of her words. Despite the rough beginning, Sunny is as resilient and talented as her steel guitar.
2023 saw her touring all over the U.S. and the E.U. — Sunny’s schedule would make even the most seasoned musician weep from exhaustion. She has received rave reviews and constant recommendations as “the one to watch.” Possibly one of the highest honors a young musician can receive these days is the endorsement of Bonnie Raitt, who invited Sunny to join her on stage this year at SXSW (South by Southwest), in Austin, Texas.
Sunny has honed her sound and her musical influences as well. Her CD, Anarchist Gospel, puts all of her hard-earned talent on full display. Sunny has an insatiable need to constantly expand and push past any limits of her musical gift. Proof positive that you just can’t keep a good woman down!
Next page: Sunny War during a sound check before performing at 3.1 ART for Bastille Day 2022.
Right: Anarchist Gospel, by Sunny War. 2023 New West Records
sunnywarmusic
“WHAT I LEARNED, I THINK, IS THAT THE BEST THING TO DO IS TO FEEL EVERYTHING.”
MUSE OF THE MONTAGNE NOIRE
On any given day in Saissac, you may hear the captivating sounds of a baby grand piano drifting out into the cobblestone street of the Rue d’Autan. The music you hear is probably Argentinian pianist, Mariana Bevacqua who is one of the few living, female Tango composers in the world today.
Mariana Bevacqua, moved to La Montagne Noire of France in 2012, far from her native Buenos Aires. She created the DMTF School of Music where she teaches children and adults a wide range of music including her beloved Tango. Her courses cover, piano, ensemble music, and musical awakening. She formed the ‘Black & White’ choir while in collaboration with the cities of Castelnaudary and Carcassonne.
L | S: You’re a Tango pianist, can I ask what drew you to that specific genre of music?
MB: Well, in the beginning I studied Classical music but, when I was a teenager, I told my parents it just wasn’t for me and switched to a popular music school where I took Jazz, I just love that genre. I came to learn Tango piano because it was obligatory, it went hand in hand with Jazz, it was a Tango school after all. I quickly came to love Tango piano though.
L | S: How long have you been composing Tango music and playing the piano?
MB: Music has always been part of my life. I started playing when I was eleven. As for performing, I’d say its been thrity-seven years, give or take a year. I began
MARIANA BEVACQUA
playing in Argentina, where I was born, in Buenos Aires. I lived there for twentysix years. My mentor was pianist Susana Bonora. After that I moved to Milan, I was there for three or four years.
L | S: What prompted you to leave Argentina and move to Italy? Did you go there to study?
MB: Yes. At first, I studied in Argentina at a school for Tango pianists — it was the first of its kind. I studied Jazz but specialized in Tango. Then, I went to Milan to study composition at the conservatory. After that, I moved to Paris to finish my studies at the University of Paris and I ended up staying there for nine years.
L | S: You mentioned that you studied Jazz and Tango at the music conservatory. These two musical genres seem very different. Could you explain the roots of combining these two types of music into one program of study?
MB: Tango is a melange, really. The music itself is classical European but the rhythm is African. It bears the mark and influence of immigration, and the meshing together of various cultures.
L | S: You have said there aren’t many Tango pianists in the music world (in comparison to jazz or classical pianists). What about women specifically, are there many women tango composers?
MB: Oh, I don’t know, a hundred maybe. I got a surprise this summer actually, an Argentinian Doctor of Music stumbled on some of my work, when researching women Tango composers. She asked me if I’d be interested in putting my Tango in a song book, the first edition of female Tango composers, Women Tango Composers, from the Beginning to Today. There’s about thirty of us in it, all 20th Century composers, but not all of them are still alive. I’ve taken a step back in writing music since my father passed away. I sometimes compose with a friend who I have known since I was eleven.
[Bevacqua was selected in 2022 to be included among thirty-one compositions for the song book, Women Tango Composers, From the Beginning to Today Grito Final was reborn in 2023 in a video shot last October (photo on page 43), in the south of France. This is the starting point of a new solo album by Bevacqua, De Aquí y de Allá , piano and voice, and a show in tribute to her father, Hugo Dante Bevacqua, with whom she composed this Tango.]
L | S: I understand your father was a singer, would you say you inherited your musicality from him?
MB: Well, he started off as a political journalist, he covered hard news. That was a bit dangerous though, so he stopped. He didn’t do TV news anymore, so the military approached him to do some filming for them, but he refused. I vaguely remember that he was all set to move to the Falklands but it happened when I was very young so I don’t have much memory of what happened. He got sick after that, I think it was from worry. He started writing poetry and singing.
[ Grito Final, has been played in concert hundreds of times, and received first prize for composition, in the Hugo del Carril competition organized by the Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Buenos Aires, in 1997. Grito Final was recorded in 2002, on the CD Buenos Tangos (Hallidon, Italy).]
We composed two or three Tangos together, and one of them received first prize for composition: Tango Grito Final as part of the Hugo del Carril
Above: Mariana Bevacqua playing at the Croix-Rousse Theater in Lyon during the contemporary circus show, Toccata by Cie Cirque Hirsute in November 2010.
MARIANA BEVACQUA
competition organized by the Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Buenos Aires. I think that’s the song the Argentinian Music PhD picked up on, I play it a lot in my show.
L | S: You’ve played mostly in Europe and South America, have you ever played in the US?
MB: No, not that I didn’t want to. Actually, I was asked to do a master class at the Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA), they wanted me to play and teach. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a visa in time. I tried to go through the American embassy but I came up against the language barrier.
L | S: I think it’s safe to say you obviously thrived in city-life, so I have to ask what brought you to the village of Saissac, France?
MB: My partner, Paolo and I, traveled for our show. We had a performance in Béziers and decided to stop in the Montagne Noire. I enjoy architecture and it’s an area of France that boasts several Cathar castles. I fell in love with the view in Saissac, and this building, which I now live in. It was the first Catholic Church in the village and it’s dedicated to Saint Ignacio. This building, and the lavoir in front of it, were built in the 16th century. I absolutely fell under the spell of this place, of this area, and the rest is history.
L | S: You work with your partner, Paolo, could you tell us more about Paolo’s background?
MB: Paolo is a dancer and an actor. He’s worked with the opera in Milan. He’s Italian, which is hard to miss with the last name Ferri. He also worked with the opera in Paris. Nowadays, he’s taken a step back from working on the stage and is more focused on his work as a choreographer. We have two children together — Romeo and Fiona.
L | S: What is your long range plan? In 10 years time — when the children are grown and you can create to your heart’s content — would you like to compose more Tango music in the future?
MB: I’m not writing a lot of Tango at the moment but I do compose for the theater and the circus. I’ve been working with Cirque Hirsute for about four years. I have a video online where you can see me playing the floating piano while the trapeze artist is in the air performing.
I like composing with an objective, or with another artist. An example would be when I find a line I like in a show and I compose the music for that line, I really enjoy doing that because you’re conveying the same message only in a different language. I need an input basically, something to draw from. I find my students help open my mind up to things.
L | S: Could you explain your passion for teaching and what it does for you as a musician?
MB: Absolutely, it’s so exciting to me, each class is a new moment. You never know exactly how things are going to unfold. Take yesterday, we experimented
playing for people and making a story speak. Playing a story line, it was the same music, but with a different intent each time.
I love teaching at the conservatory so much. I have a small school at the moment, the DMTF school of music, where I give piano lessons to roughly fifty students a year, children and adults alike. I enjoy spending a long time with the students, developing their love for music and their talent. I want to inspire them to play and compose. When I’m giving lessons, I don’t guide them all in the same way. I try to adapt my methods to my students’ needs. I teach in the way that my heart tells me is right for a specific person. I strive to find a way to reach them.
In a way, I always thought (about teaching), “what a great way to make a living.” I simply want to cultivate my students’ passion for music by whatever means I can.
Above: Mariana Bevacqua in concert at the Château de Rieux-Minervois during the filming for Grito Final in October 2022.
You can watch this performance on YouTube: https://youtu. bedU7xb0JkuXw
You can follow Mariana Bevacqua on IG @mariana_bevacqua_
le Geste
A CONVERSATION WITH FILMMAKER, GILLES THOMAT
by Léah Briqué
Above: Neighbors and Art Residents of 3.1 ART view the film, Le Geste
Left: Filmmaker, Gilles Thomat PHOTOS
GILLES THOMAT
During a screening of the art documentary, Le Geste or T riptych Opus 1 , it is not uncommon to almost hear the audience hold their breath, with expectation of what will happen next. The silence is pregnant, waiting for the artists portrayed in the film, Francois Legoubin, Hugo Bel, and Bao Vuong, to apply their next artistic move in a wordless environment. The viewer is now a participant in real time with the creation process.
The film opens on a scene of François Legoubin in his Pyrenees cabin/studio, the only sound is the water dripping from melting snow outside the window and the artist determinedly scraping and applying paint to his medium. The magic of creation unfolds before our eyes and we are immediately captured by the vision of French filmmaker, Gilles Thomat, who is based in Toulouse, France. This opus is a part of a larger project that Thomat has been
Above: A scene from the documentary film, Le Geste when painter, Francois Legoubin takes a moment to refelct on the work he is creating.
le Geste FILM REVIEW
working on since 2015, Le point de vue des artistes, or The artist’s point of view . The latest addition is a short documentary on Toulouse artist Patrick Pavan. He is the son and grandson of Italian, immigrant masonry workers and has used his family’s history in construction to influence the materials he choses to make art.
In Le Geste, Thomat follows three artists; Legoubin, Bel, and Vuong from the beginning to the end of their creative process. The live production of each artwork creates a sense of mystery and anticipation. He chooses his angles, color palette, and lighting with care and the audience is given the impression they have an artist’s eye view — like a fly on the wall. Critics have said of his short films that, “there is a raw truth in his representation of the artists, the colors, the materials and the meaning the artists wish to put into their work.”
Above: A detail from the painting which French painter, François Legoubin, produced during the making of the documentary, Le Geste
GILLES THOMAT
His films in rapture his audience, a phenomenon visitors to 3.1 Art had the pleasure of witnessing during a screening Le Geste /Triptych Opus 1 . Thomat manages to capture the intimacy, silence, and essence of an artistic creation. “These are essential elements in the creative process,” according to Thomat, “…key in imparting the artist’s experience to the viewers.” These films are completely wordless which allows Thomat to reach a wide audience because there is no language barrier — only the language of art.
Thomat discloses, “I’m not looking to explain the why, I only wish to provide the audience with a sensory experience around an artistic intent. I’ll leave the interpretation up to the viewer.” He delivers an immersive experience as the only sounds to be heard are that of a paintbrush on canvas, charcoal on paper, or an intake of breath. The film is a powerful rendering of the solitary, liminal space, an artist steps into while in the throes of creation — no matter the medium.
Above: A scene from the documentary film, Le Geste when Hugo Bel reveals a foot from the sugar sculpture he has made of a plaster casting.
Thomat is a passionate filmmaker often playing the roles of director, editor, and cinematographer, as well as projectionist and maintenance technician. His love for his craft is manifest in his relentless work pace, he is currently filming a piece on Stephen Marsden (sculptor), writing a feature film on Jeanne Lacombe, (who is creating a piece for a subway station in Toulouse), and in the editing stage for two more documentaries of painters, Marc Desarme, and Jin Bo.
You can view Gilles Thomat’s film series on the Frac Occitanie Montpellier channel on YouTube. He is often selected for screenings at various film festivals around France. The latest screening took place during the 10th edition of MIFAC (International Film Market on Contemporary Artists) in Angoulème. With surely more to come, Thomat is truly going full steam and we have a lot to look forward to yet.
To view the film Le Geste and other works by Gilles Thomat visit: Youtube https://m.youtube.com/@fracoccitaniemontpellier9921
Above: French sculptor, Hugo Bel, relaxing outside of 3.1 ART on the Rue d’Autan before the screening of Le Geste. Bel was one of the artists featured in the documentary. You can follow Hugo Bel on IG @hugobel_
THE Ghosts WE CARRY WITH US
BY CHAYA SILBERSTEIN
People get together and others fall apart. People move in, others move out. Some find homes others search the street for reminders of what had been there before. Through it all, ghosts hover in the air and dance between us.
You can travel the world with only a backpack yet arrive at every destination with baggage full of everything you’ve ever known.
So, it came to be, when I arrived in Venice, CA, I carried bits of my Brooklyn childhood with me.
I can still hear R roller blading down the street, a gentle rhythm on asphalt. Long dirty blonde hair, small slight frame, she floats past homes where children huddle around a dining room table doing homework and mothers clatter in the kitchen preparing supper. She is that face on the other side of the glass. The face you no longer see when you flick a light switch in a darkened room and a window becomes a reflection of your own life.
I attended grade school with R in a community entrenched in old world values, enforced through strict religious dogma. One day, on a bus ride home, she showed me her school mandated journal. It was full of cuss words. She asked for my thoughts on showing it to a teacher. Reading between the lines, her cry for help was blatant, or so I thought.
Her baby brother had recently died of crib death, her rag-bone mother was onto husband number three, and everyone in the neighborhood was frightened of her hyena-like older sister.
I thought that surely a teacher would know how to help her but my trust was misplaced for some problems are simply too large to tackle. R got reprimanded for her
words rather than consoled and resentment left an imprint on her troubled shoulders.
She did not follow my class into high school but became a whisper between shuffling books. We felt her absence and presence simultaneously. We’d see her on the street from time-to-time but like a living ghost, it was as if she no longer existed.
How many people do we pass in the street that we as a society don’t see at all? How many people live stories so tragic, we are afraid to let them in lest they make us part of their nightmare?
Eventually R’s story came to an end when she died of a drug overdose. She never had the chance to discover that there are places in this world that will accept you for who you are. By the time she made it past the community’s gates, she was too far gone on addiction to get very far.
I stare at the place she inhabits in my memory and as if conjuring up a ghost, release her on the bike path along the Venice Beach Boardwalk. I tell her, “You are free,” as cyclists and electric scooters wiz by.
I acquaint her with those selling incense and CD’s, with those carving pictures and castles out of sand, with those singing their heart’s desire to be free.
I lead her to the drum circle, to the skate park, to the bathrooms where poetry is etched into walls. I sit her down at a cafe where a stranger buys her a meal and gives her money for cigarettes.
For the first time in a long time, I hear her contagious laughter overflow with the ocean’s breath and everything becomes light again.
“Now a raven looks down, from the perilous tree and I know he knows well, it could only be me.”
Lyric
from The Perilous Tree , by Richie Healy
RICHIE HEALY
…the dark bard of Kilkenny, Ireland
Ireland has spawned countless artists, poets, and musicians inspired by the lush land, centuries of storytelling, and ancient mysticism. Richie Healy, an Irish musician from Kilkenny, spends his days as a farmer, and the rest of his time creating music that is as dark and haunting as the hill country he hails from.
Healy’s lyrics are poetic and shaded with Celtic mysticism. With a voice as gravelly and dark as an Irish country road in the evening, his songs are laced with emotive cries, which will leave you on the edge of your seat, wondering if he’ll reach the next note. Listening to one of his songs stretches the boundaries between your world and his. Once inside his musical universe you experience Healy’s solitary wanderings and the dark secrets that nature confides in him.
Richie Healy talks about his creative process and influences in his own words –and he’s left us wanting more.
L | S: Any family influences that led to you playing music as an adult? How would you say being Irish has shaped your musical preferences? Have you always lived in the countryside or did you spend any time in the city? If so, what did you think of it?
RH: I spent my childhood on a hillside farm about 5 miles up country and northeast of Kilkenny city, a deep rural setting, in an eighteenth century old stone farmhouse. Remnants of cobbled yards were still visible in my very young years. Nestled under a steep hill, footed with huge and ancient beech trees, a place of combine men, rolling fields, hard work, meadow sce nts, buttery bread, winter fires and a radio which let you know there was music out there. We twisted the dial and looked for rock and roll.
In my late teens I got me a guitar, a pawnshop thing. It looked like a guitar, never sounded like one, that was probably my fault. By then I was listening to the usual, Neil Young, Dylan, Deep Purple, Peter Green and all that was going on then.
I was never locked into a particular artist or genre, no posters on teenage walls, never bought into pop much. I need to hear honesty in what I listen to, always have, and for that reason Rory Gallagher was probably my strongest Irish musical influence. I found, and still find, the old delta blues guys can not be touched, burning emotion on a stick, brandished by a whiskey fire, you cannot walk away from that unmoved.
I have lived city life too, albeit way back. I spent a short time in London around the age of twenty, and lived for a full year in Den Haag, in the Netherlands, in my mid twenties — a year I very much enjoyed. The anonymity of city life appealed hugely in contrast to the valley of squinting windows. I watched and I listened, hours of railway station coffee, boots and faces with places to be getting.
L | S: Who are your musical influences? I have noticed that you have a heavy American Blues structure to your sound. I am sure you have heard comparisons to Tom Waits and I get a little Leonard Cohen in there too. But I’d like to know who were the early influences that you hoped to aspire to be like... if anyone.
RH: I didn’t have any idols along the way. Fanaticism, in all its guises, always strikes me as jaundiced and arthritic, as it hobbles through time. I was always very aware of music becoming increasingly formulaic through recent decades.
Inevitable I imagine, as music lay itself before the whims of corporate control. A producer is called in to ‘fix’ a failing sound, if successful, called to fix another one. It’s unavoidable then that the number of mainstream producers could only decrease dramatically, the fallout being the beginnings of a sense of sameness to the sounds throughout the commercial structure of selling music. The snowball has just found a steep and happy descent at this stage with emerging artists terrified to stray, holding tightly to the rails of formula.
This cannot be one hundred percent true, of course, and you will find very worthwhile songwriters and musicians blazing a back room trail of authenticity, dancing blind on a pontoon bridge, the giants know too well most will fall quietly to the waters. I dance this bridge too, not for the giants, I dance because of them. An awkward lone tango of mixed traditions maybe.
L | S: Were you encouraged to be a musician or did you have to carve your own way? You have a very unusual style and I am wondering what shaped your approach and confidence to hold onto your unique sound.
RH: I don’t feel I was encouraged or discouraged. My guitar playing was a sort of no man’s land except if I was found playing it when work needed doing on the farm, that could draw a particular type of fury from the man with the hat. I am very much self taught, I looked for books where I found basic chord shapes and to my horror discovered how everything must be counted. This did not play well in my head. Counting applied only to real life and I took a stance to never count in how I played.
As I fumbled along, I decided I should lose playing with a pick and eventually felt most comfortable with a mixed bag, kind of picking, kind of strumming, with a sometimes percussive feel. I wouldn’t know. I have been told by other musicians, I have a penchant for playing odd harmonic sounds that can feel between keys. This all adds up to a definitive style and sound
RICHIE HEALY
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possibly, all very accidental on my part. I’m sort of lazy on it, always looking for cheating ways to find a sound I like.
Oddly too, and very much so, quite a few classically trained musicians seem to really get what I’m at, one told me it’s got to do with the natural freedom in how I play. In the end, I was never interested in impressing others, my guitar was for home use only.
L | S: You have expressed that your song-writing is random, the songs seem anything but. The ones on your album each have very distinct messages with their own emotional tone. Can you elaborate on the song-writing process for the music on your album? For example Fallen In , has a beautiful message of falling for someone emotionally and being out of your depth. Is there more to the lyrics — something that may have triggered the development of that song?
RH: I write very instinctively, very difficult to articulate it as a process, there is certainly no pen and paper with a ‘let’s write a song today’ going on, alarm bells would ring and brakes would screech. It could only be a fakery then, as I see it.
You used the words ‘emotional tone’ in your question, very perceptive, I write from the inside out, primarily for myself. I had managed to keep everything inside the walls of home for so long. I had no reason to ponder what I was up to.
Word is with some that my writing style is a hint cryptic and esoteric, thoughts and words are my only guides. A lot of my writing is a form of inner quest, some of it observational too, those songs are probably easier to pick up on as a listener. I see them all as happenings, an emotional journal or diary if you will. I’m not much for de-constructing what I do.
You speak of the song, Fallen In . It is straightforward but may have an undercurrent of loss and addiction. I’m happy the songs are not cut and dried and are very open to personal interpretation. I have been asked too ‘what’s that song really about?’ I always refuse to answer as they are almost always born of a momentary stream of consciousness which often means I am uncertain myself as I move further from their birthplace.
L | S: You stated that you did all the arrangements for The Perilous Tree . The use of the accordion, and the backing vocals, were a perfect compliment to your voice and lyrics. The entire album has a plaintive, haunting quality because of it. Can you elaborate upon your partnership with the accordion player, Gerard ‘Ger’ Moloney, singer Elise Ramsbottom? How long have you been working together and how you work together? Is this your first album? How long did it take to produce The Perilous Tree?
RH: The album itself was recorded very, very quickly. A couple of days all in. It was recorded at Crossroads Studio, in Kilkenny, owned by Jed Parle. He knew how I liked to work. First hour in, we turned on a click track and listened to it count for a bit. I was very unhappy with that counting sound so we turned it off. We decided it was best if I go to the recording booth and sing from the soul. So it was all live, loose, and real.
I met Gerard Moloney along the gigging trail and asked if he might play accordion with me for a live gig, he agreed and we played it (no rehearsal). The feedback from the audience was so positive I asked if he would play on the album. He arrived in the studio, closed his eyes and played all the songs without a break. A very gifted musician. Elise Ramsbottom
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likewise on backing vocals. She just did her thing perfectly, no fuss. My only regret being that she didn’t feature on more tracks. That is now resolved for the future as we play as a trio live. All three of us have a wonderful and natural connection together, as friends, and as we play, I am very grateful for this. From my heart, thanks guys.
Ger has recorded with many musicians in the ‘trad’ field and other genres, Elise released an EP of her own wonderful songs last fall, These Thoughts (listen to it on Spotify).
As for producing the album, I was actually going to credit it as unproduced but felt that might be picked up as pompous. We did request on mastering to leave dynamics as they were and not to square up the sound as is normal on most recordings of recent times. In the end, it’s a very simple, natural, and unpretentious album — suits me fine that way. There is a previous album Last Taxi Home. Out of print now.
I had a video type thing on YouTube of a song called Changes, it was found by a man from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Stephen Eric Berry. He got in contact with me and asked if I had any more recordings. I had — again — one take stuff. The master tapes were lost. He asked if
“My childhood was spent on a hillside farm… a place of combine men, rolling fields, hard work, meadow scents, buttery bread, winter fires and a radio which let you know there was music out there… We twisted the dial and looked for rock and roll.”
we should try to make an album out of what we had. Stephen is also a very accomplished musician. He put hard work, lots of time and money, into getting it out there as an album. Again, yet another person to be grateful for. It’s quite different from The Perilous Tree, brighter maybe?
L | S: When do you find the time to create and perform music? Can you tell me about your life on the farm?
RH: Time is tricky with work on the farm and with my job at the steel plant, I have no choice except to try and weave my music — writing and performance — through the residual hours that do not always exist.
Farming offers everything except financial reward is how I see it. Our farm is small, approximately 70 acres of mostly sloping fields. We rear calves mainly and it has become a hobby fitted in around full-time work. The farm offers a welcome distraction from the mundanity of an 8 to 5 existence. It also provides the glory of the great outdoors and working with nature. Crossing an early morning field, all wet with dew, misted cobwebs, in the slant of silent sunrise — gets me every time.
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“THE OLD DELTA BLUES GUYS CAN NOT BE TOUCHED, BURNING EMOTION ON A STICK, BRANDISHED BY A WHISKEY FIRE, YOU CAN NOT WALK AWAY FROM THAT UNMOVED.”
“...Recorded at Crossroad Studios in Kilkenny and coproduced by Richie Healy and Jed Parle, The Perilous Tree is a slow burner which offers a cryptic set of songs, challenging, spellbinding but ultimately extremely rewarding.”
Declan Culliton, Lonesome Highway
His EP, The Perilous Tree, is available on Bandcamp: https:// richiehealybandcamp/album/ the-perilous-tree
RICHIE HEALY
L | S: How does your somewhat isolated life in nature influence your work? You have commented that you rarely watch TV, or see movies, and don’t read books or follow politics. That leaves nature and your surroundings to influence you. Can you describe how that has changed you over the years as a musician?
RH: I pulled back ‘round the time of the global crash. I found myself getting overly angry with the blatantly obvious financial heist taking place, subjecting citizens of so many countries to penury for the foreseeable decades. A state and media collusion exacerbated any hopes of reasoned culpability. Social media too, has all the hallmarks of a herding place, cultivating a sheep like mentality.
Freedom of speech, it’s the weapon they are wielding. I felt I needed a new perspective, an ancient place of just being human. A need to unlearn for fear my education may well have been a systematic cloning process. I had always been very aware of nature’s ability to soothe, our hunter-gatherer past I suspect. From a music perspective, that translates in how often I lie on the grass, or a woodland floor, close my eyes and listen. I marvel at the sounds, the rhythms, the long distant dog barks, cracking twigs, creaking tree limbs, clicking insects, chirping birds, buzzing blue bottles, — all of it an awkward intersection of natural, out of time, individual goings on, yet — harmonious to the core.
L | S: In your own words (which I am sure will be eloquent) can you describe how music makes you feel and/or the essential purpose it serves in your life.…
RICHIE HEALY
“I’m small and I’m out of here. A bucket chain of well water, scooped, spilled and splashing when the cattle call,
A ‘bedsit’ mosaic, a teenage tear, a tightening pillow of words just for you.
Clinking cups of people leaving, a rookery of late crows, a celebration, a fed day.
A humming, calling you home, when you don’t know where you’ve been.”
Richie Healy
A SENSE OF PLACE
JURI KOLL, Founder of the
Venice Institute of Contemporary Art, pays tribute to Venice Beach, California
A Sense of Place, that’s what “community” means – it’s a group of people living in the same place, having a particular characteristic in common. Its original root is the word “common,” which means, “found or done often; or showing a lack of taste and refinement; vulgar, ill-bred, uncivilized….”
With cyclical, repeating, and devastating regularity — every ten years or so — artists, creatives, and their families are forced out of Venice, Santa Monica,
PHOTO OF VENICE BEACH BOARDWALK
JURI KOLL
Culver City, or downtown Los Angeles, to search for studios and homes in East LA and beyond, in order to survive. At one point or another, they’ve lost their homes, their studios, their livelihoods, and their friends. It destroys the common good and that destroys the community.
Despite a stark history of the vicious cycle of gentrification — from Montmartre and before, through NYC, to the present day — it doesn’t have to stay that way. The value of creative minds to a community is incalculable. Take Venice Beach for example, tourism driven by culture represents more money in the coffers of Los Angeles County than all the other attractions in the County combined, to the tune of over seventeen million visitors each year. Some of that power and money needs to stay behind, in our studios and on our beaches.
Growing up, I was isolated and landlocked in the desert north of Venice Beach — where Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts) is now located. The only culture was the local single-screen movie theater, where I spent many Saturdays alone staring up at those shadows. Later in life, I ended up going back and graduating from Cal Arts, full circle.
PHOTO OF ABBOT KINNEY BLVD, VENICE BEACH, CA BY
A SENSE OF PLACE
I bought my first camera and met my first photography teacher, Anthony Lovette, when I was fifteen-years-old. Photography, and Mr. Lovette, changed my life. Valued relationships such as these have lasted, and helped form new ones, through the forty-one years I’ve been an artist in Southern California. If not for my teacher and other visionary artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets, their supporters and friends, we wouldn’t have the world class cultural hub in Venice Beach that we do now.
My first mentor, Edmund Teske, photographed Jim Morrison and the Doors quite a bit in Venice, and near his studio on Harvard Ave. in Hollywood. I met lots of great people at his infamous Photo Grabs through the 70s and 80s, most of whom lived and worked in L.A. — Robert Heinecken, Stephen Cohen, Ulysses Jenkins, Jean Ferro, the Witkins, Edna Bullock, Lawrie Margrave, Gloriane Harris, Michael Salerno, Nils Vidstrand, Larry Bump and many, many others.
I remember being a kid, visiting Venice Beach, seeing the arches along the boardwalk and Windward Avenue, wanting to grow up as fast as I could so I could move there. It was the late 60s — crazy — I saw it as a last refuge for the
JURI KOLL
hopeful and downtrodden, I loved it. I could say the same about Hollywood and other parts of Los Angeles.
When I came to Venice as an adult, the first person I bought weed from a well known painter and teacher at Otis Art Institute, and a good guy. He was living at the top of the Waldorf at the end of Westminster Avenue. He and I still see each other around, often at art openings, with his famous artist wife. I’d visit his studio once in a while to see his new work — always funny and provocative. He had to move out of Venice when the rents became too high, in the late 80s or early 90s. I met him through my girlfriend, an amazing painter who I was making a film about. Her ex-husband, her exboyfriend and I are still friends – they are artists, and had to move out of Venice in the late 70s to downtown L.A. as well.
Newer relationships include important artists such as Sonja Schenk, Doug Edge, Sandy Bleifer, MB Boissonnault, Fatemeh Burnes, KuBO, Kio Griffith, Maria Larrson, Amy Kaps, Lisa Rosel, Catherine Ruane, Osceola Refetoff, Barbara Kolo, Sam Ehrenberg, Taylor Barnes, Joe Fernandez, Debi Cable, Suda House, Cosimo Cavallaro, Jae Hwa Yoo, Joel King, Mei Xian Qiu, Zadik Zadikian, Joost de Jonge, and countless others who I’ve been privileged to exhibit with and had the chance to curate and write about.
It’s time to weave this creative economy into the fabric of society so tightly that it can never unravel again. It’s doable, and being done all over the world. Get involved in your community, it’s something we all have in common.
Juri Koll is an artist, filmmaker, curator, writer, and Founder and Director of the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (VICA), which strives to preserve, protect, and promote the legacy of the Venice and Southern California art community. VICA’s ultimate goal is to establish a museum – where artists can live and work – in Venice. You can follow VICA on IG @veniceica
JOSHUA ELIAS THOUGHTS ON SPACE, COLOR, LINE… AND LIFE
Abstract painter, Joshua Elias, left his high-octane environment in downtown Los Angeles, California, to be one of the first art residents at 3.1 ART in Saissac, France. Elias is no stranger to participating in art and/or writing residency programs — having done them in Spain and Iceland. 3.1 Liminal Space was curious to hear what Joshua Elias has been creating, planning, devising, or generally pondering since leaving the residency in.
L|S: As a mid-career artist, have you reflected upon your art and accomplishments so far? Are there any creative mountains you still wish to scale?
JE: Absolutely, I have. It’s like everything… a little complicated because you want to let go of the past and yet, you want to learn from it, at the same time. I have looked at earlier works from, say twenty years ago, and for whatever reason, I’m able to go back to those periods of time and remember some of the things that were going on with me then. I would say that the studio (in the Brewery Arts Complex, downtown Los Angeles), that I now occupy, has a history. The walls have a history. The floors and the different things in it, have a history. I got the studio when I started painting full-time in 1999. I got a commission of several small paintings for a big boutique hotel project, it warranted a studio of my own. The project was a great career break, working for Kelly Wearstler, a young designer that wound up becoming very big in her industry.
She (Wearstler) wanted me to do ‘Rothko-like’ paintings. I remember working in that studio, I had no distractions, no telephone, and no computer. I was able to produce forty-eight paintings in about two months. I was getting my chops down with colors, even though I already felt I had a strong sense for them. Now, I look at those paintings and not in a romantic way. I think, ‘oh, well, they were okay.’
I was making money, things were flowing, and they still are. There’s always the need to make time to reflect on the creating of the works. In other words, I was in the moment. But you’re asking, if at this point, am I looking back? That’s one juncture as an example.
Left: Joshua Elias in his painting studio at the Brewery Arts Complex, downtown Los Angeles, California.
L|S: Tell me about the residency you did in Iceland.
JE: I did a painting called, The Way Water Moves in Iceland , for a show in Santa Monica, at DCA. I was very excited about it. I was looking at photographs of the weather, as overviews throughout the world. Someone had given me some books around this subject and one of them was on Iceland.
I finished the work for that show in 2006-07. Years later, someone who had a travel store in Los Angeles, bought that painting. The owner invited me to a special ‘thing’ in Iceland, which happened to be a writer/artist retreat.
The workshop was called the Iceland Writers Retreat (IWR). It was the first, or second, year they organized this event. I went there and had the most magical experience in the world. The landscape is truly unbelievable — a place with no trees! It’s built on lava, which makes it seem like you’re on the moon. You literally feel as if you’re on another planet because there’s no reference to anything familiar. I’ve travelled a good amount, mainly in Europe, but I had never seen anything like that. I even witnessed the full force of the Northern Lights while I was there.
I was so moved by the writers at the retreat. Thanks to that experience, I was able to create a series of paintings, which I called, Rock Light. We published the art with Fathom Gallery in Los Angeles.
Also, in the writer’s workshop I wrote a book inspired by an ancient myth. It was of a man who was trapped in a boulder, for ten thousand years, and he had to make his way out. It was just a short tale.
Below: DO NOT OPEN THE BOX oil on linen, 2024
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I was so moved emotionally and spiritually while I was there, that I had almost godlike experiences. One, was standing in front of a glacier. I was travelling in the south when I decided to take a day trip. I told a friend, before I left California, that I would bury something for them in Iceland. I was taking this little day trip, driving along, going through some personal ‘end of marriage’ realizations, in my head. I arrived at these glaciers and I was very emotional… I just started crying. At that moment, I realized I had to bury this thing for my friend.
I stopped on the side of the road, and there was nothing. No one was there. There was absolutely nothing going on except these beautiful Icelandic horses that were sleeping. They woke up when I pulled the car over and were looking at me like, “what are you doing here?” I was in heaven though, because it was all kinds of charming. I remembered I had to bury this thing again — which, in Iceland is pretty much impossible to do. The whole country is built on lava. It’s all hard, solid rock. Somehow, I was able to dig under a rock, a little bit, and bury my friend’s wishbone. After that, I drove south until I reached a place with a waterfall and there was a double rainbow. It was just so beautiful and unbelievable. I knew I wasn’t going to drive any further, after that. Sometimes, you have to accept the beauty of where you are.
L|S: Would you say that is an analogy for when you reach the moment in a painting when it’s time to let it go?
JE: Yes, that’s true — it’s a success to be awake and recognize it. Your job, as an artist, is not only communicating an idea but recognizing the moment when something’s “there.” Maybe a painting might need things at the end, little tweaks to emphasize something, etc., but at the same time, you have to honor it.
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Above: SHE BRAKES oil on linen, 2021
L|S: You’re a great storyteller and you weave these things into a beautiful narrative. So far, we’ve talked about looking back. What about looking forward? You mentioned writing, but are there other mediums that you’d want to work in?
JE: Right now, I’m writing a book on creativity. I’m into sharing ideas, that’s the f oundation of everything in my writing and even in my paintings. I am playing with little sculptures, I’ve been working with these blocks for years but haven’t made any advances with them. I’m also experimenting with the scale of my paintings. Essentially, I’m a painter, but I have a bit of performer in me, too.
L|S: When you created your first round of works in Saissac, you combined paintings with poetry. Can you talk about that a little bit?
JE: That’s true, Saissac, turned into a poetry project. I wrote about the birds, the air, and the Vernasonne. The studio at 3.1 ART is very much a bird’s eye view. People think that the framework of an image is limited to the selection that’s on your iPhone camera, but it’s not at all. It’s three-sixty. It’s all around. The view from the studio at 3.1 ART, is really vast. It’s like you’re flying, one minute you are down in the gorge with the river, and the next you’re above the trees in the air. That view from the studio windows is magical.
In a way, I consider myself to be a bit of a bird, seeing how I look at things from a bird’s point of view, even in my abstract paintings. I have a deep connection with that idea, it’s a poetic image but at the same time, to me, it’s very real.
L|S: Out of curiosity, do you relate to the Ocean Park (Santa Monica, California) series of paintings by Richard Diebenkorn? They were an abstraction of a bird’s eye view of landscapes.
JE: I think he (Diebenkorn) was a pilot during the war and was inspired by the aerial view. His paintings were almost fields and lanes of color. You can see the intersection when he did an abstract background landscape, or room, with his figurative work. That’s the developmental point when he wasn’t quite above the land yet. He was
looking out the window and putting The Berkeley Series together. I was very moved by those paintings. I saw them at The de Young Museum (in San Francisco) years ago. They have incredible composition. They’re a beautiful set of paintings because the color is completely balanced and interesting, and the light is very advanced.
L|S: The word ‘composition’ raises a question about your work. I associate you more with color and light. How do you approach composition when painting? It seems that you are very abstract in the way that you work.
JE: I think problems are a good thing in painting but not necessarily in life. One consideration is how does the painting read? Where am I coming from while “reading” the painting? How do I interpret it? For example, people in the Western world read from left to right. So, cognizant of that, the left part of the painting, in my opinion, is often the foundation and the anchor of the piece. The left pushes things along. Bearing in mind, it also depends on the vertical pace of the artwork as well. A horizontal becomes more narrative to me, in the way it turns and moves with a strong left to right read, similar to reading a story.
L|S: It’s interesting to me that your answer around composition went back to writing. It feels as if the two are interchangeable for you. Even if you don’t see it, I am guessing you think and feel it that way?
JE: I went into art after a career in film in the early 80s and found myself in the negative integers at which point I saw David Hockney speak at SCI Arc. It was a very packed room in an industrial space in Santa Monica (California). Hockney arrived and proceeded to show a film of himself speaking.
Within the film, he showed these 15th century scrolls from China including one of a marketplace which was almost a bird’s eye view. At the same time though, seeing as it was Chinese stylistically, it wasn’t from a three-point perspective — the figures didn’t need to be smaller the further you got from the foreground. Yet, you were still able to go in and out of all the market stands depicted, because it was a scroll that went across. (A horizontal format.) I thought about that information, and I still do, regarding composition and how one can move through a horizontal canvas. People need space
Above: TITLE HAS YET TO ARRIVE oil on linen
JOSHUA ELIAS
Below Left: ELPIS 1 oil on linen, 2021
Below Right: ELPIS 2 oil on linen, 2021
to be able to view things and orchestrate composition from their own point of view. They want to find balance between the spatial shapes, the shapes that have air and ones that are more opaque. That’s a problem for me and I always think about it.
L|S: Scale is an important element and it directly relates to what you were just talking about. You said people need space to view composition. As you play with scale, are you planning on going much smaller or maybe much larger? How is that affecting you in terms of people needing space?
JE: Oh, good question. It’s early in the game, for now there’s a lot of white and openness. I’m trying not to over paint. The paintings have a very light feeling to them even though I might be using earth tones and heavier colors, like umbers with different types of steely whites. The paintings almost look like watercolors, when they’re actually oil on 140lb paper.
I don’t know what to call them, or if they are even studies for larger paintings. I’m very aware of scale because, compared to some people, I paint pretty large. That being said, I’m not painting ‘Gagosian’ or ‘Hauser Wirth’ large, those galleries are massive spaces. When you work that large, you can almost take more chances.
It’s risky and you have to forget about the cost of the linen you are working on, or the amount of paint you are using. You really need to let that go. Because there’s a confidence, or a voice, as you paint. It might say… “This is what this is,” and “this is what this is,” and “let’s be real, this is not working,” or “this is working.” That dialogue is easier on a larger painting.
On a small-scale painting, you make one little mark, and that could change everything! It’s easy to review an understanding of composition on a small piece.
ELIAS
All the same, it takes almost as long to paint on a small scale as on a large piece. It’s a great way to work out problems, but when you go to blow them up, there’s new problems. To be honest, I don’t use them as studies, even though I say that I do sometimes. I know that scale will change everything. It reminds me of any type of creativity — writing, music, painting, anything — there’s the idea, and there’s the actuality of the idea, what it really is. It’s a huge chasm between the two.
L|S: We’ve talked about technique. I know that your process is also very intellectual. With that in mind, what would you say are some of the deeper ideas you are working out right now? For example, you recently posted some work that you stated were based on ideas about the afterlife. Again, I think that’s interesting because you’re dealing with an “intellectual” space such as the concepts of afterlife, life, and death. Ideas that, theoretically, might have a lack of color. The recent paintings seem to celebrate that absence. Are you conscious of where you are headed in the exploration of this topic?
JE: It’s like driving a car, are you going to turn right or turn left? Where am I headed?
Part of me doesn’t want to know. Although, thinking about it, and speaking about it, touches upon that question, “is this where I’m going with this?” I’ve been painting since 1985, and I still don’t know the answer. That’s the reason I’m writing a book about creativity, it’s as much for myself, as to share with others and inspire them to be creative.
I will tell you this, after you finish a painting there’s a death. Not in a bad way. It’s just a death. And then maybe you’re going to paint something else and that in-between space is the same one that you create from. The space which is between death and birth. After you finish a painting there’s a death. …So, the studio is like the womb and the cemetery. I’m getting closer to the actual point of creating something and I’m
Below Left: SORTIE oil on linen, 2021
Below Right: HANCOCK PARK oil on linen, 2021
JOSHUA
JOSHUA ELIAS
going to demonstrate that through allowing this space into my work. It’s almost as if I’m sharing the moment of creation, hopefully, with whoever sees the painting. I allow them time to ruminate with that space and be able to get involved with the forms and shapes, the movement, color, and light. I want to give the viewer an opportunity to see the space is the same one that you create from. The space which is between death and birth.
Above: FLUMMOXED oil on linen, 2022
I did a series of eleven paintings called Life Maps, over a three year period, in 2021-24. I finished the last four, six months ago and now, I’m doing afterlife paintings. Life and death and life again. The Life Map series came from the idea of Hilma af Klint; she did ten big paintings of different segments within her life. Now I’m doing the afterlife. I’m interested in the subliminal, the in-between space of that idea. That is where I think we create from, I think we pull this creativity out of the nothingness.
L|S : Another interesting thing I would like to ask you about, are your mother and sister, they are both successful artists as well.
JE: My mother, Sheila Elias, and my sister, Joyce Elias, are both artists. That’s my immediate family, basically. My mother and sister lived in the Chicago area where we’re originally from. There’s a place not far from the city called Highland Park, it’s on the lake and there is this amazing art center. My mother, sister, and I met with the curator because the three of us were thinking about doing a show. In the summer of 2022, we put it together and it wound up being a big exhibit. I think it was a quality show and it got an amazing response. It was so special to put on an exhibit with my mom and sister. About a week later, I flew to Saissac, France to do the residence at 3.1 ART.
L|S: You, and painter, MB Boissonnault, were among the first residents, at 3.1 ART and we were still rough around the edges. What was your take away from that experience?
JE: I was there for a month and the experiences in and around the residency were amazing. I did some incredible hikes such as La Passerelle, Mazamet. We also hiked up to the Chateau de Lastours (13th c.). There were moments like that which are rich and inform your art in every aspect.
During the art residency, I wanted to paint bigger, but I didn’t. I couldn’t figure out the logistics of it. I did several smaller works and looked out the window a lot. I saw birds dive bomb from four hundred feet up and go straight down into the woods. Two of them I thought, “what the hell happened there?” It’s crazy. They were going as fast as they could possibly go.
L|S: I call them teenage skateboarders. They’re like the guys on the Venice Beach boardwalk saying, “can you do this?”
JE: Well, those guys are amazing, but these birds make them look like wimps. I was witnessing so many weather patterns, such as a strange fog that would just roll in for no particular reason at different times of the day. Suddenly, the visibility was nothing. Then it would lift like it had never been there. The birds that would show up at three o’clock every day. They’d come to this ledge, on the side of the studio, one after another. Two would go down and then two more would come up. It was like they had this game going on and it was every day. I was witnessing all this life, which is great information for me. The 3.1 ART space had beautiful light. I loved cooking and eating there at the dining table. We did have some good meals and good conversations.
Then (musician) Sunny War came through and played a Bastille Day concert in the residency studio, after the fireworks show at the Saissac castle. I got to see the Tour de France pass through the village. There were a lot of fun and things going on, even
ELIAS
JOSHUA
JOSHUA ELIAS
Below: Joshua Elias working in the main resident studio of 3.1 ART Saissac, summer 2022.
You can follow Johua Elias on IG @joshuaelias57
Joshua Elias is represented by IG @lewallengalleries
so, it wasn’t distracting. I didn’t feel pressure, I felt very relaxed and very open. What more can you ask for? That beautiful medieval village has some great people in it, like Sophie at the Epicerie des Tours. I did some exploring and I was drinking in all the colors of the hydrangea flowers that were all over the village.
The palette of colors influenced me and I was using a lot of mustard, yellows, and purples. Those colors were coming up a lot. The whole experience was very enriching.
L|S: Did you take it back with you?
JE: I remember when I came back to L.A., there was a long painting in my studio that I had worked on-and-off, for maybe ten years. I painted over it and now, lot of it is different tones of white, and this kind of peachy color, no yellows though. I had these brown figures, almost bird-like. It was called, The Title is Yet to Arrive.
Post-residency, Joshua Elias recently had a solo exhibit, True Colors , at the Lew Allen Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. He continues to work tirelessly exploring his art and concepts. At the moment, he is writing a book about his creative process hoping to pass that wisdom on to other artists searching for ideas, solutions, or a comrade in arms in the battle to express one’s creative spirit.
JOSHUA ELIAS
“…After you finish a painting there’s a death. …So, the studio is like the womb and the cemetery.”
Love Letter TO VENICE BEACH
FROM BOISE THOMAS
Dear Venice Beach,
Hello. Spending the night with you last weekend and spending a day to connect left me nostalgic. It’s been over 21 years since we met, 16 years since we moved in together and, 18 months since I left you to travel the world and write a book. I’ve been with others and spent months in solitude. It’s been many things being apart. Challenging. Lonely. Eye-opening. Adventurous. And most of all, a valuable break I didn’t know I needed.
Do you remember the scrolling message on my screen saver that used to say, “This too shall pass.” The pesky but reliable Universal Law of Impermanence is that all things change and nothing stays the same. All things are being born and dying in every moment. Including, but not limited to, relationships that end in separation or death. You. Me. Us. Everything. Venice, we have both changed and while my love for you will never end, the expression of it is shifting and I couldn’t see that until I took space. Just know, I didn’t leave because I stopped loving YOU, even though you became so much of what my life was organized around. Venice, I was identified by being with you. Little did I know how much I needed time to sort things out. Eleven countries, eleven journals later and I can hear loud and clear what my heart has been telling me. Although we’re good together — to the point where, even when we disagree, we can’t help but love each other. There’s no fighting the radical truth Venice, that we’ve both changed.
Whether you feel the same or not isn’t why I’m writing to you. I’m writing this open letter as a reminder, to share my heart with you and thank you for all you have given me. I ask you to forgive me. I want to tell you I am sorry for the role I played in how we got here. Our love is changing, I know it doesn’t end here we will always love each other. We are in between, neither the caterpillar nor the butterfly but the goop in the cocoon. I still want you. I still love you. I just don’t know what it looks like moving forward.
Forever a fool for love, I tried everything to keep these changes from happening. But that’s not the way it works. It’s the law — everything changes. Venice, we let our artist friends get priced out while we held on to our spot. I feel like I could have done more and while WE are not done, for so many it is done. For that I’m sorry.
Everything changes. You. Me. It’s the law.
Venice, when I see you after a long time apart, I’m happy and renewed. I am restored to the love we share and the love that so many who are reading this know deep in their hearts as well. Seeing you was wonderful, riding bikes on the beach, talking to our neighbors on the street, grabbing coffee at Groundwork, and eating at Cafe G. But you’re different to me now. You have changed.
Everyday seemed like a new adventure with you, Venice, even though we did the same things — maybe that’s why we loved our routine so much? Yet, this last visit,
Love Letter
TO VENICE BEACH
waking up Sunday and walking on Rose Avenue wasn’t the same. People don’t say hello anymore and when I do, they sometimes look at me funny. This isn’t NYC! It’s Venice! What happened while I was gone? Getting coffee at the local coffee shop and not knowing everyone that worked there was a different experience. Of the thirteen people in the cafe, eleven were on screens and two were talking to each other in a low whisper. Venice, remember when it was the other way around, nobody was on a screen, and everybody was talking to everybody? Enjoying a long beach-bike-ride on the strand was another activity that felt normal until I was dodging the electric scooters that are illegal — I couldn’t enjoy you like I used to.
Venice, you’re weird and wild and that’s what I will always love about you. I take responsibility for the role I played in our drifting apart and how we have both evolved, but I had to speak this truth: you’re not the same and I miss what we used to be together. Everything changes and sometimes the changes suck. I miss what we had.
I won’t miss learning to park blocks away from the front door, having to jog along the sidewalk, dodging hurdles of sleeping bags, plumes of strange smoke, and the occasional domestic argument — eventually forcing me to cross to the other side of the street. Venice, your edge is gone.
I will, however, miss all those nights we shared walking the dirty streets. You were always calm and collected while I was equal parts fear, excitement, and pride. Rarely a silent night was had as the air was always filled with beats blasting by, the simple sounds from noisy neighbors that would eventually give way each day to throngs of tourists who wanted to dip a toe into our way of life.
I held summer concerts on my lawn and hosted Sunday gatherings for years but we don’t cruise for house parties anymore. We’d hear the noise from the street only to walk in with gifts of a 6er, bottle of wine/booze and/or a bag of Ganja/spliffy. These supplies were fully welcomed from a late arrival and it didn’t matter whether you knew the hosts or not.
Venice, we don’t see Houseless humans, OG Bloods, the Crypts, or V13 members anymore. They used to claim the streets in whatever way they found most effective, battling weekly, then monthly, and now not so often.
No longer can we grab dinner for $15 or $20 anywhere, anymore.
The options are plenty but it’s not like it used to be — tacos and a beer, or margaritas and a meal. There are so many eateries now but while we dine together, we rarely see our neighbors at the other tables.
I’m sorry for not taking you out to eat the way we used to. I’m not sure what we could have done differently but it makes me sad anyway.
Venice Beach, I miss you. I miss those days. Ho’o pono pono, my beloved.
Since then, Abbot Kinney Blvd. has become the coolest street in America and Rose Ave. caught the “cool vibe,” after the Pioneer bakery closed down. We all know what has happened with the housing and commercial real estate these last several
years as we have said goodbye to longtime neighbors and a myriad of artists who really made our home the place to be. The “Law of Impermanence” at play: constant change is the one constant. You are still weird and wild. But we have changed and it’s just not the same. Venice, still, I love you.
“Be careful what you wish for...” is something mothers often say to their kids. Advice I should have been more mindful of when we wished that the upscale Whole Foods Market would take over the Big Lots discount store, back in the early 2000s. The result of our collective magical thinking, and continued use (and abuse) of the word “MANIFEST,” created the congestion at the intersection of Lincoln and Rose, or as I call it, “Stinkin’ & Blows.” Venice, you didn’t always approve of my nicknames for you, but you loved me anyway. Maybe it won’t sting as much when we get that first drink back at WitZend and dive into some local live music.
Venice, make no mistake,all this change happened while we were together. Secretly, deep down, we knew the end was coming. We needed to clean up our act, clear out the old, and straighten up our homes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss how we used to be. It’s easy to conveniently forget about the hard times. While everything seems better now, there are things I really miss that will never be the same. That’s where most of my sadness lies.
Venice, you supported me and loved my gregarious ways, even smiled when my neighbors voted me “Mayor” of our street, Flower Ave. I’ll never stop building community for as long as I live and while you will always be a part of that passion, there is so much more world out there and so many more people to bring together. I will take you with me and you will always be home to me, for so much of my heart is always here with you, Venice.
We can’t just say “hello,” to our Houseless friends, as we have done for years with our Venice Beach neighbors. Somehow, we don’t see the people we used to know, there are new faces each day, and they are all strangers to us.
Venice, I’m sorry for failing to create humane solutions that work with the government and local businesses — I should have taken more of an interest in what happened to our community. I love you so much.
To you my beloved Venice Beach, California 90291 I say:
I love you,
Thank you,
Forgive me,
I’m sorry, Ho’o pono pono.
Love, Me
Love Letter TO VENICE BEACH
Boise Thomas is an actor/ writer, and author of, How’s Your Heart? A toothsome collective of queries, toughies and conundrums in poems, essays and illustrations from the wonderings of Boise Thomas.
You can follow Boise Thomas on IG @boise.thomas
TONY MAC on the record about 99.1 FM VENICE RADIO
IN VENICE BEACH
, California, you can find 99.1 FM, a classic, oldschool radio station inspired by the renegade stations of the 1970s. The channel is only heard from the “speedway to the freeway,” about a five-mile radius. If you are lucky enough to live “within the zone,” you will enjoy an eclectic mix of playlists and broadcasts by Venice local, Tony Mackenzie (aka Tony Mac) and other guest DJs.
Tony Mac moved from a working class suburb in London to Venice Beach, California, just as the Rodney King riots broke out in 1992. He found an inexpensive lifestyle that allowed him to indulge two big loves, music and surfing. Mac loves the locals, the eclectic mix of creatives that make Venice Beach, well… Venice Beach. He started the radio station not only to play music but to tell stories and educate people.
L|S : Why a radio station in Venice? What motivated you?
TM: I’ve always loved radio, I’ve been interested in music and been a collector all my life. (Tony Mac has a sizable, personal vinyl collection in his studio which he pulls from regularly for his playlists.) I thought why not put some good tracks on the air. 99.1 FM is attracting a lot of folks, they are contacting me all the time. There are people around looking for new music, they’re hidden, but they are coming out and getting in touch with us.
L|S : How far is the reach for this station?
TM: Only in Venice. It’s kind of how I like it, at the moment. You only pick it up if you are in the neighborhood. We’re thinking about eventually putting it on the internet. There are a million internet radio stations and I’d rather not get lost in that. I do like that Venice 99.1 FM only has a five-mile radius. It conks out when you get on the 10 freeway, and it conks out when you get on the 91 freeway.
L|S : So this is modeled on the old “Pirate Radio” stations of the 70s?
TM: The idea is sort of based around that but 99.1 is not Pirate Radio, it’s legit FM. (Legit FM radio stations are licensed with the FCC and Pirate Radio is not.) I grew up with Pirate Radio in London. These kids would set up antennas on tower blocks and you’d have to be in the neighborhood to get it. I kind of like that vibe. Even though we are legit we serve a small area and have an eclectic sound.
L|S : In terms of programming, what are your goals?
TM: The goal is to have people playing interesting, non-commercial tracks from around the world — not that I’ve got anything against commercial music. At the moment, I have a lot of people from the neighborhood on the air that are genuine music lovers and collectors. It’s people I know who are making their own tracks. So 99.1 is a good place to put new stuff out there.
“There is a lot of good music being made — it’s out there, you’ve just got to find it.”
L|S : Who is doing this radio station besides you?
TM: There are a couple of friends, Mark Farina, and Ivonne Guzmán with the nonprofit organization, “Reach for the Top,” who own the radio license for 99.1 FM, Venice.
L|S : Can you name some of the people that are DJs on the station for you?
TM: Yeah. I’ve got a bunch of people on here. But the thing is, I don’t want it to be like a DJ thing. It’s more a ‘guest music programmer/music lover’ thing. I don’t want it to be DJ culture. Not that I’ve got any problem with that. I just want it to be a station where collectors and enthusiasts have their shows.
There is Monique Maion — she is a Brazilian musician doing a Tropical show. I do mine, in which I cover all kinds of music from all around the place. John Tripp — he collects soul records. Andrew Kelley (used to live here but now lives in West Adams because he can’t afford to be in Venice), he plays new modern electronic sounds and obscure techno pieces, interesting stuff like German music.
A lot of the people that contribute are from other places, but Venice has always been that way. I hold no grudge against anyone. If they give me a good show, I’ll put it on the air. A great deal of the contributors just happen to be foreigners. There’s a fair amount of English blokes on there, you know (laughs). And most of them love music. Maybe I just know a lot of British guys because I’m English but anyone who makes a decent show, and I like it, I will put it on the station.
L|S : You are a musician as well?
TM: I don’t like to use that word, “musician,” I refer to myself as doing music stuff. I’m in a group called ATM. (Alex, Tony & Mat - Alex Bacerra, Tony Mac, and Matthew Clifford Green release their music on their record label, Radical Document).
L|S : Do you think that radio in Europe is more of a cultural standard than it is here? It seems people listen to it a lot more over there.
TM: Maybe, yeah. I think in Europe they still listen to more radio than over here. I notice it when I’m in England everybody tunes into the FM still. I think it’s a bit of a lost art. I try to get people to listen to our station in businesses and no one has a radio, they’re all on Pandora or Spotify.
L|S : Since you lean more towards the underground genre, do you think apps like Apple Music and Spotify are having an impact on American music buying habits and the launching of newer artists? Do you see a lot of homogeneity in the music nowadays?
TM: There is so much junk out there among popular sounds, but it doesn’t really enter my stratosphere. I am not against it, because I get it. I like dumb simple movies and I like dumb simple music, once in a while — but I get it. I don’t pay attention to what is in the top 40 anymore. There is a lot of good stuff being made — it’s out there, you’ve just got to find it — on YouTube for example. When people say there’s no good music anymore, I say you just aren’t looking hard enough. The thing is it’s become so accessible that anyone can do it, the equipment has become so cheap and affordable you can put together a track in your bedroom! In the old days, you needed a studio. But there is a lot of crap out there too.
L|S : They are making their own playlists but what do you think that is doing for people in terms of expanding their mind musically?
TM: They end up listening to the same old shit all the time. I still listen to the radio. I’m more into underground music and not popular sounds. I’ll tune into KCRW the Santa Monica College station. 89.9. I also like talk radio, like the BBC.
L|S : What other music do you go to hear locally?
TM: Not much. I am thinking about doing a night show for my radio station. Somewhere on a weird night. Maybe Townhouse (on Windward Circle). I went to a free show there and it was great! He was Farmer Dave (Scher). In the past he did a monthly, Thursday nights, he’s a steel guitarist — he was doing a great radio show. People talk about Venice as this sort of creative place but musically it’s always been a sad state of affairs. As we were saying, those that are good at it are hidden; you don’t know they’re here. There has never been a scene here. The last one was probably twenty years ago at Pinks down there on Main Street. The Del Monte is alright, that’s about the only scene I can think of.
L|S : Do you get any notice from the tech community here in Venice? Have they caught on to you yet? Or are they all just too locked into their Pandora and Spotify playlists?
TM: People are reaching out, man. I’m just doing it and not caring — I’m not trying to force anything. I’m not trying to push it on anyone. Everyone is so keen these days, but I like that we don’t have much of a presence. I just like the station to do its thing organically. If you want to make a show, reach out through Instagram, DM me, I don’t do email. I don’t want a bunch of dance music DJs — I am more interested in music lovers.
We are exhausted but look forward to seeing you in a few months.
3.1 LIMINAL SPACE
If you would like to apply for an art residency at 3.1 ART in Saissac, France, CLICK HERE JOIN THE JOURNEY…
