Arts & Culture
Work by Marysol A. Damo in the “By Others” Gallery at Board & Vellum
The Capitol Hill Art Walk is coming up again, and here in Board & Vellum’s By Others gallery, we are hosting a show by artist Marysol A. Damo. Read our Q&A with her to learn a little about her work ahead of the May 10th opening reception.
May 2, 2018
A new show by Marysol A. Damo is going up in our gallery space, By Others, and we are excited to share it with you.
The show will run for a couple months, so stop by and check it out, but on May 10th, from 6 to 8 PM, we will host an opening with the artist, and we’d love it if you joined us!
To get your interest piqued, here is a quick Q&A with the artist.
Hayley: Tell us a little about the work you are showing. Is there an underlying story, or a thread that you pull through this show?
Marysol: Definitely. The story picks up from the time that I left Seattle in 2015 to move back to Hawai’i. My dad was diagnosed with cancer and my mom with (at the time, 4th stage) of Alzheimer's. My then-fiancee didn’t want to move back with me; he wasn’t willing to make that leap of faith, so we broke up. The whole situation was horrible. I chose my family over him. I didn’t really want to leave Seattle because I left Hawai’i for a good reason. It is hard for people who have never grown up there to understand. There’s a lot of stigma that comes with living on an island in the middle of the ocean, regardless of the popular generic concept of what “paradise” is. As beautiful as it is, it is stifling for someone who needs constant growth, like myself. So the return home was a challenge for me. Once I got to Hawai’i I was struggling to find a balance with a new job and trying to be the daughter my mom wanted to be. I was advised, “before you can fill anyone else’s cup, you need to fill your cup first.” I decided to just really take care of myself and take advantage of living in a place that had once suffocated me. I wanted to view it as a challenge to overcome — and to approach it with child-like enthusiasm. I decided to reclaim my youth and do what I had always wanted to be growing up in Hawai’i: a surfer and an artist. The work genuinely shows the journey I embarked on to self-healing and reconnecting with my core, my spirit all while I was actually *on* that journey.
Hayley: How do you feel about coming back to Seattle to debut this exhibition?
Marysol: It’s eerie to look at all of my work now and knowing that I’m debuting the show in Seattle. It’s meta. #meta is my jam. Even though the work has Hawai’i as the backdrop, I thought a lot about Seattle and how much she *built* me. Showing this work is the perfect way to catch up with Seattle in my most natural means of communication, visually. It feels weird and feels satisfying at the same time.
Hayley: Where are you from? Does it influence your work?
Marysol: I’m born and raised in Hawai’i. I’m first-generation born Filipino American. This definitely influences my work. A lot of the work is about my childhood and reconnecting with my core, my spirit. My work has been identified as “modern folk art with personal narrative,” rooted by my dad’s family tradition in Filipino woodworking, which explains why my primary medium is wood. It’s a bit unfortunate that the woodworking mentorship tradition stopped with me because simply said, I’m a girl. But, I like to feel that I’m evolving the tradition. I utilize pyrography, watercolor, acrylic and random hidden heirlooms I find in my old room at my parents’ house.
Hayley: What medium/media do you work in? Why?
Marysol: I’m everywhere! If you asked me a year ago, I would have just said “wood… with sometimes color.” When I first started this series of work, I was trying to quit smoking and come to grips with a complicated relationship. I’m specifically talking about Sol Reignited in Flame, Discovered. I used wood-burning as a strategy to quit smoking. For me, experimentation never really stops, so in that first piece, I was using wood stain, vinegar, soy sauce, stain, oil, watercolor, permanent marker and acrylic paint. I like to push my envelope whenever I can and really test my resourcefulness. I also just stick random objects (some found from my parents’ house) on my work — origami cranes, leaves from a dried lei from my graduation. I’ve eventually evolved to working with aluminum, lately. I’ve done some work on paper because I am too anxious to get an idea out, but with the intention to bring it back to wood eventually. I also like to use random architecture drafting supplies. If you look closely, you can see some layering and texture with sketch paper, but let’s not let that technique get out too far. I’m starting a new piece with the flashcards I was studying with for my licensing exam.
Hayley: Why do you have so many origami cranes in your work?
Marysol: It’s a very local Hawaii Japanese-influenced tradition to fold 1,000 cranes. There are typically one of three reasons to take on this kind of project: (1) you’re getting married, (2) when someone is in bad health or (3) as a memorial for someone who has just passed. I was in all three of those situations at the same time. Soon after my ex-fiancee proposed, I started to fold them. At first, I just thought it would be pretty for the wedding but I quickly learned that the folding is a test of patience and a quiet moment of internal inquiry. I decided to do rainbow cranes — typically done for memorial reasons. Gold foil cranes is the typical wedding version. There was a lot to think about over the course of seven months: the news of my parents’ health, my grandma passing away, getting engaged, breaking up then moving back to Hawai’i. I got through 1,000 pretty quick and I decided to just keep going and to date (April 2018) I’ve folded around 4,000 cranes. I think of someone every time I fold one. The red cranes I’ve associated a lot with my mom’s spirit.
Hayley: Do you use your work as a platform?
Marysol: Not overtly intentionally. My work has to first be made for myself. I’m actually talking to myself through the work, as my own sounding board to listen to or as a mirror to look at myself. However, my work is gravitating to making more commentary on controversial paradigms in a pacifist way. That’s kind of my jam. There’s definitely underlying commentary and themes on spirituality, religion, gender, sexuality, self-medication, and ageism, hidden in what could be easily regarded as just “surfer art.” But really, my platform for this specific series of work is all about just getting to know me and what I could be capable of saying.
Hayley: Does your work reach outward to communicate a message, or is it an expression of something internal?
Marysol: I think it’s important to connect to people, as people. I mean, okay, yes, generalizations mean something, statistics mean something. My message in this work is for an individual (specifically, initially to myself) to honor self-care, your body, your connection to spirit. Sharing the journey of that personal narrative makes me extremely vulnerable, but I think that is necessary to connect and communicate to another person. I’m building a relationship with the audience. You’re just getting my origin story right now and I plan on expanding on a bigger message in my art career. I think it is important to establish a credible source first before expecting anyone to value the message trying to be conveyed.
Hayley: How do you hope that your audience interacts with or experiences your work? (Is it passive or active?)
Marysol: Ideally, I want my work to be experience-driven, even if I’m not there, and to really spark individual inner dialogue for my audience. My work is very sequential and made while I was immersed in the real-life sequence. I want the audience to think, “Yo, she’s a dope chick. I’m down to be her friend. Lemme DM her on Instagram so we can hang!” I would also be okay with, “I think this work is derivative and shallow surfer art by some entitled, delusionally victimized Millennial!” Regardless of audience opinion, my goal is to spark the dialogue.
Hayley: What does your future look like? What is next?
Marysol: I experiment and expand pretty rapidly. My new work will be focusing on finding (or being led) by spirit, whether it is yours or someone whom you hold close to your heart, through a journey in which you experience life in its full spectrum, represented by rainbows and the four natural elements, and coming full circle. Ambitious, I know! I’m currently working on a proposal for a public art installation with mixed media 2D process work and video with my partner, Eric C Morgan. We already have some video work under Date by Date Productions. The project will be culminating with an (open to the) public art installation at Iolani Palace in Honolulu on May 23, 2019 to coincide with the 2nd Honolulu Art Biennial, at which we will have a very casual wedding at the end of it. So, there will be a performative art piece incorporated into an installation. The working title for this project is called “Spirit Portals.” It’s the concept of being led by spirit and to enter through a gate, portal, or tunnel in the quest to be the best version of yourself.
I work out of our dream art studio, a historic loft in downtown Chinatown/Honolulu with my partner. I just finished my last licensing exam, an almost 5-year struggle, so now I’ve got more time and credibility to renovate it to also serve as our office and gallery. We’re looking to open our doors at the end of Summer 2018. Oh, and we have bi-monthly pop-up shop called ‘Aina In Dreams, which embodies our “Tropical Surrealism” aesthetic. ‘Aina means land in Hawaiian. I would like to see the pop-up branch into fine art wearables.
Hayley: You definitely have a lot planned! Any last thoughts to add?
Marysol: I have to say, I really miss Seattle and the global out-of-the-box thought that is constantly shared. I appreciate the intellectual inquiry.
Hayley: Well, thank you for sharing with us, Marysol. And, to everyone else, we hope to see you soon at By Others, I know Marysol would be thrilled if you came to the opening!
