A Whole Other Way • Dane Goodman

A Whole Other Way • Dane Goodman

Lum Art Magazine
Artist Profile, Interview, Atkinson Gallery

“Right now, I’d never let anyone into my studio,” Dane Goodman declared, just a few minutes into my call to see if I could set up a time to get together and talk about what he was doing in his studio. As always, his tone was friendly and anything but off-putting. It wasn’t as though he had something to hide or some secret to withhold – it  was just that invitations to his studio were off the table; an activity so far removed from the realm of possibility that it was not worth thinking twice about.

Ishi Glinsky: Upon a Jagged Maze

Ishi Glinsky: Upon a Jagged Maze

Lum Art Magazine
AD&A Museum, Los Angeles

I first encountered Ishi Glinsky’s monumental soft sculpture Coral vs. King Snake Jacket (2019) in March 2021 at the Chris Sharp Gallery in Los Angeles after completing a road trip from Minnesota to California. Upon entering the gallery, I was completely amazed by the work’s size, scale, attention to detail, but most importantly, the tapestry of stories that were woven into the jacket in the form of oversized patches referencing a mix of Indigenous movements, punk rock/noise bands and the artist’s own biography. These stories, like the work itself, are a testament to Native American survival and speak volumes about Indigenous resilience and resourcefulness. What also struck me was the punk, DIY attitude the jacket embodied in its form and materiality.

Book Review • Alexander Nemerov, Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler in 1950's New York, Penguin Book: 2021

Lum Art Magazine
Review

There are a couple of reasons to read biographies. They share revelations gleaned from patient research in archives or unearth letters the bear out the subject’s thinking. Alternatively, a biographer might track down people who had not been previously interviewed – the childhood friend or the boyfriend or girlfriend from college. These can be scandalous and cutting or sad, revealing hidden traumas. Then, there are biographies built around dazzling reinterpretations of the novels, letters, or films by the subject. A gifted close reader can discover formerly hidden patterns and new intersections between life and art.

Alongside • Hương Ngô and Kim Garcia in dialogue

Alongside • Hương Ngô and Kim Garcia in dialogue

Lum Art Magazine
UCSB, Interview

"Much of my work situates my family’s stories within larger histories. My current body of work begins with my parents’ labor as a starting point. Both of my parents worked in electronics, semiconductor and computer factories when I was growing up, like many other Southeast Asian refugees who came to the U.S. because of the Vietnam War. While uplifting their creativity and resilience, the project also asks how we are indebted to this community not just for their labor, but also their radical ability to imagine a future after experiencing so much tragedy." — Hương Ngô

"When I’m working with materials, I select them for their ability to mimic or convey specific gestures. I like to think that the materials sustain a type of performance, and after the work is complete, it continues to hold a prolonged, sometimes stressed gesture." — Kim Garcia

Beta Epochs

Beta Epochs

Madeleine Eve Ignon
Los Angeles, Los Osos, Print Issue

Beta Epochs is an unapologetically unpolished, collaborative adventure. We organize aspirationally in the spirit of basement punk shows and unsanctioned apartment galleries. The first eponymous exhibition, in October 2020, brought together work from twenty eight artists in a 4,200-square-foot warehouse situated between downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park Lake.

Every movement of my lips is an intentional aesthetic and political act

Every movement of my lips is an intentional aesthetic and political act

Lum Art Magazine
Print Issue, Think Piece

1. Every Time the Communist Manifesto Has Nothing to Say redacted from Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx & Frederick Engels, 1947, as translated by Samuel Moore & Frederick Engels

2. Meat and Potatoes redacted from Personism, A Manifesto by Frank O'Hara, 1953

3. Verbs in the Futurist Tense redacted from The Futurist Manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1908, as translated by R.W. Flint

4. Cannibalized Techno Animal redacted from A Cyborg Manifesto By Donna Haraway, 1985

5. Wants and Needs redacted from Queers Read This, published anonymously, 1990

Lost, Found, & Reimagined

Lost, Found, & Reimagined

Lum Art Magazine
Essay, Print Issue, Santa Barbara, Ventura

The found photo—anonymous, frequently distressed, sometimes historical but often not, diverse in subject—is prime fodder for an artist’s imagination. One can project onto it much creative speculation as it is devoid of attribution or provenance. Regardless of subject matter or condition, re-contextualized, the object itself takes on new meaning.

Love Me, Love Me Not • Anna May Wong

Love Me, Love Me Not • Anna May Wong

Debra Herrick
Print Issue, Los Angeles, Essay

When the US Mint in 2022 released its Anna May Wong quarter, the fifth coin in the American Women Quarters Program, female Asian American representation got a boost. The following year, it had a pop culture moment when Mattel released the Anna May Wong Barbie, wearing a red dragon dress, in its Inspiring Women series. But who is Anna May Wong and what made her an icon?

Glitches & Glitter: Evelyn Contreras

Glitches & Glitter: Evelyn Contreras

Lum Art Magazine
Print Issue, Artist Profile, Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara

While in graduate school in Texas, California-born artist Evelyn Contreras studied the human-made landscape of her home state via the lens of the Internet. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic limited her ability to travel back to Texas for a residency at the Rockport Center for the Arts, she reversed the direction of her digital gaze to Rockport’s post-Hurricane Harvey streetscapes from her desk in Santa Barbara. This virtual sojourn culminated in works featured at the Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College in 2022.

Terremoto: Christina McPhee

Terremoto: Christina McPhee

Lum Art Magazine
Print Issue, Artist Profile

“Shut up and look out the window!” Christina McPhee’s parents would urge their children while driving them around the US in the family’s car. Mile after mile of staring at the sierras and plains stretching across the country through the rear glass prompted McPhee’s avid imagination to picture them as an unexplored territory, filled with dormant truths yearning to be unearthed. Emphasizing this childhood fantasy were the lavish depictions of the American West by 19th-century such as Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole that McPhee recalls admiring at the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, not far from the village where she spent her formative years. Similarly influential in shaping her childhood perception of the country’s hinterlands as a land of wonders was her foray into prairie habitats during solitary bike rides around her home.

Made by Hand / Born Digital

Made by Hand / Born Digital

Lum Art Magazine
Print Issue, SBMA, Review

Either/or oppositions are everywhere, and they have the virtue of compressing complexities into easy to remember pairs. Cats versus dogs; socialism versus capitalism; secular versus religious; coffee versus tea; pen versus pencil; or friend versus enemy. Their virtue is being a cognitive shortcut to keep attention focused. No better way to lose an audience than meandering through a thicket of facts. This virtue is also a vice, however, as it drains away color and subtleties, leaving us to deal with unreal stark binaries. Their simplifications can obscure entirely what is out there IRL, in real life, turn into accidental misrepresentations, or even lies with everything from minor miscommunications to horrific injustices following suit.

Revolutionary Nostalgia

Revolutionary Nostalgia

Tom Pazderka
Essay, Santa Barbara

All revolutions have the (un)fortunate side effect of altering much more than what they’ve initially set out to change. Whether we’re talking about a political act or a scientific breakthrough, a revolution begins with a magical act. What was previously seen as impossible, in a moment, is overcome. Spontaneous outbursts of mass movements (often accompanied by violence) cause major political upheavals, innovations in science and medicine cause humans to live longer or reach other planets, while artistic revolutions cause us to perceive and see in radically different ways. Revolutionary moments happen quickly. But their aftereffects can be felt for many years.

Imagemakers of the Americas • Sandy Rodriguez & Sarah Rosalena

Imagemakers of the Americas • Sandy Rodriguez & Sarah Rosalena

Debra Herrick
Interview, MCASB, AD&A Museum, Print Issue

Late last summer, the stars aligned for a candid conversation between artists Sandy Rodriguez and Sarah Rosalena at a joint program for their concurrent exhibitions Sarah Rosalena: Pointing Star (April 16–July 30, 2023) at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) and Sandy Rodriguez—Unfolding Histories: 200 Years of Resistance (Feb. 25, 2023–March 3, 2024) at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum (AD&A Museum), University of California, Santa Barbara.

Imperfect Pearls

Imperfect Pearls

Graham Feyl
Review, SBMA

Roughly at the same time over the 2024–25 season, two exhibitions at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) — Accretion: Works by Latin American Women and Friends and Lovers —  explore the nuanced and potent ways that the self is an aggregate of relationships, histories, affects and experiences. 

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