The Art Monk - The Blog of Sandro Sebastian

    Well, with the long commute across town to OTIS several times a week, sitting in L.A traffic, I might as well delve back into the old audiobooks. First up was a title I'd been interested in for a while, a Jane Austen novel called Emma.    It's one of her big, bulky, dense and juicy works, and I loved hearing every word of it. Now, full disclosure, I didn't get through the whole thing, maybe I'll finish it later on in life, but I got through what felt like maybe 3/4 of it.     The writing of Jane Austen always refreshes me, inspires me, and boosts my confidence in my own kooky little unexpected worldview that was never encouraged in school, in the workplace, or by my society in general. She really is one of those special people that keeps me going with her invented language that functions in a way that is unexpected, un-"educated" (if you know what I mean) and doesn't rely on formula or conventions in that "one size fits all" manner executed

Interestingly, the Otis MFA course readings I'm assigned this semester include some graphic novels, which is a nice break from the traditional literary novels, and a fun return to form for me, going back to my adolescence. I loved comic books more than anything else, and missed that familiar language of illustrations setting tone along with words.    This book is about a black man with light enough skin to "pass" for white in the early 1920s in America, and uses this advantage to journey south and write reports on lynchings taking place in the deep, rural south. He is a journalist based in New York, and publishes his stories there, to raise awareness. It's an interesting premise, and we get a chance to see the difference in lifestyles for black folks in New York versus down South. Not to mention the way he's received as a light skinned black versus someone who's brown.    The main plot of the book is a murder mystery. The main character's brother, who

    Another post I've been wanting to write for quite some time, and finally got the chance to, having now finished the book at last.      This title was not on the reading list for the OTIS creative writing program, in case you're wondering. This was a book I purchased in June of last year, while taking a day trip down to Newport Beach to participate in the annual Art Festival into which I had been accepted. It took place in a lovely little plaza near the Newport Beach Library. After dropping off my work in the morning and with a few hours to kill before the festival opened, I moseyed on over to a local mall and picked this off the shelf at Barnes and Noble to read in my car. I'd always wanted to own a copy of any classic I can get, expanding my personal library of titles I know I'll be going back to for the rest of my life, and boy, was I right.     I just finished reading it a few weeks ago, because of my staggered schedule, I had to read it off and on this past

    This title was one that caught my eye a few months back that I had to at least break into to see if the content is as fascinating as the title itself. I love the cheeky-ness of it, and what it promises. There's an unconventional approach to art history here as we talk not merely about the cultural significance of common place works of art, and the creative revolutions that occur in the wake of their popularity, but how said popularity occurred in the first place. The type of publicity a now famous work receives is always an interesting study, and to discover that some works fall out of fashion for a century or two, only to be catapulted back to super stardom by a timely exhibition in the twentieth century.      One of my favorite bits was when Nici was discussing the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, which was funded by a wealthy British academic and instantly captured the imaginations of people the world over, with largely successful exhibitions all over the world. These

      Yet another book by our gal, Jesmyn Ward. This time it's a fiction novel about a similar group of people to her memoir, a deep south, rural, disadvantaged community, but it centers around one family. There's a young lady, Leonie, who had a kid at 17, by a white boyfriend, Michael, and then another one some years later. We are following the family through various anecdotes as they deal with the grandparents, both black and the white ones who want nothing to do with them, as well as a long road trip to the prison where the boyfriend is being held, to pick him up.      Now, the anecdotes are pretty good, but she did add another layer to it by telling the story in the first person from multiple different perspectives. There are chapters told from the mother Leonie's perspective, and others told from the perspective of her son, Jojo, and one from another character, Richie, which leads to the supernatural element of all this.       You see, Richie is a young black boy

   The next book on this semester's reading assignments in the OTIS MFA creative writing program was a memoir by Jesmyn Ward, a black woman from the deep south, growing up in a disenfranchised community where the young people have limited access to resources like education and stable incomes. A very "Boyz 'n the Hood" type of set up.     The format of this novel is chronicling her life as it surrounds the lives of five boys who were eventually killed in their young adult years, whether by murder, suicide, or accident. One of the young men was her brother, as well.     Obviously, the fascination that comes with the story of this community makes use of the horror element of it. The throes of being on the bottom side of capitalism, in a part of the country where white supremacy is still fashionable, are a gripping subject matter that the rest of white America seems to be developing an interest in.      It's interesting to get these reactions from white folks a

     The eternal mystery of these people changed my life forever, when I first encountered their work in person at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in late 2018. Forcing myself to branch out, wanting these people to turn my head in a different direction, I copied them and therefore gained a new perspective on the Renaissance and Baroque art that had influenced me up to this point.     It did not make Caravaggio, Velazquez or Botticelli look BETTER or WORSE, the Egyptians just caused me to re-assess what I value about them and why, by giving me an unexpected perspective.     This little exercise is just a game of updating one of their classic looks to a modern day figure, trying to do my best impersonation of the ancient "language" on the paper in front of me. It being a language so far removed from my own, and one I would not use on my own work in a million years, it makes it valuable for opening my mind and getting some perspective on how big the world is.