Paper making, Flight School & missing the desert
Three ingredients of my Spring studio, today, tomorrow, yesterday, paper making, flight school, missing the desert
Paper making- making my favorite material, as in really, really big pieces of handmade paper, big enough to be banners, flags, kites, quilts, nets
Paper making- rain boots on, painting with pulp, stuck in this web that just wants to be a flag waving in the wind, dancing to songs about flight and becoming a ritual of becoming
Paper making- how can you be a printmaker and not know how to make the very surface you lay your work onto?, as in photography is printmaking, as in all crushes are prints of your desire on your future self, as in printmaking is my way of making sense of it all
Paper making- small traces- a dusty dyke wind storm, oil from my finger on a fresh roll of film, yellow pollen, a flirty text, care packages filled with herbal caramels, white fibers on black paper
Flight School- Flying, Lift off, Intuition, Generous, Hugging, Transitioning (always), Soaring, survival, sweetness, sky, Cruising, Hovering, Open, O’ clock, Labor
I have named my Spring body of work, research, pleasure, Flight School
If Flight School is everywhere, when do you feel like you are learning from flight the most? & when was the last time you felt your wings?
Flight School- you can now watch my Frederick Hammersley Visiting Artist Talk
Hugs for flight school fuel
Flight school- soaring, being held, being swept up off our feet, easefully living, flight as lube for long lives for trans and non binary folk, support, reparations, occupation, liberation
Abolition as flight
“Loving harder” (text from a piece by Ricki Dwyer) as flight
Flight as in all wind is grief
School as in the act of learning with new patterns and shapes, attending to the soaring
The returning and returning again and again work that school and learning and listening requires of us
Missing the desert- missing the sky, lilac hallways, distance & spaciousness, proximity to friends, roadrunners, big big studio, long phone calls, wings used everyday, as in the clouds just look more beautiful there
Missing the desert- I can’t wait to go back!
Missing the desert- this Spring I got to feel the feeling of what it means to be a supported artist. I used to say, “I am so lucky” and yes I am but also I have worked real hard to get to this place, so it’s not just luck anymore, it’s hard work, connective tissue, being a builder and bridger and web keeper of the ways I want to move through this world
Missing the desert- this Spring I got to be the student and teacher to my future and learn to fly along the way!
Upcoming & continued performances, exhibitions, projects:
NAN VANT SOLÈY LA/ IN THE BELLY OF THE SUN Book Release & Reading, Amant Arts, Brooklyn, NY, May 25, 6:30pm
Through creative nonfiction, poetry, and the printed image, the publication considers the playful and purposeful self-actualization of a bicultural queer identity while navigating grief as a landscape to address themes of (be)longing, futurity, and place. Alongside a collection of their works and research, Abigail Lucien weaves written and visual offerings by fellow Caribbean and queer artists, including works by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Justin Chance, Cielo Felix-Hernandez, Sucking Salt, and Tamara Santibañez, to create an expanded context for their work rooted in friendship and radical love.
Book is printed and published by Genderfail, pre-order your copy today!
This event is free and open to all, after the presentation everyone is invited to an informal reception at our residency. RSVP suggested.
FLIGHT SCHOOL, a workshop in flight, breath & words, Brooklyn Art Book Fair, Amant Arts, Brooklyn, NY, June 4, 5:15pm
Always with our wings out, we are becoming a collective gust of wind that powers our survival, soaring & thriving! FLIGHT SCHOOL asks us to think of the ways our actions, rituals and work can give wings to long lives for trans, non-binary, gender expansive, queer, folks of color.
Join us in an hour long workshop that writes, draws, dreams, demands and becomes tools for our survival! Artist Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo and F.S. collaborators will lead participants in writing and dreaming exercises and then invite all to make these collective dreams into kites/tools for continual flying!
Brooklyn Art Book Fair, seventh year features 40+ exhibitors, artist programming, a Sunday block party, and is a fully-masked indoor event from June 2-4
Rituals Here, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY, Up until June 24
When a protest banner is held by many in the streets, it becomes a curtain. A curtain for the performance and embodiment of resistance, liberation, protest. When a piece of fabric is unrolled onto a wooden table, it becomes a tablecloth. Next come the dishes, food and people. A meal is about to be shared. A conversation is about to begin. When many strings are knotted and tied together they become a net, a basket, a holder. Nets for carrying, nets for resting on, nets to trap and transport. When the claiming of safe spaces becomes essential to survival, chosen communities, neighbors, friends and lovers come together and become that needed space.
This web is a space for holding, for creating safety and dialogue. An invitation to work within it, around it, because of it. Becoming and echoing, forms, structures, patterns and ways that Black, Brown, Indigenous, queer, trans, non-binary, two spirit, people of color form kinship, radical community, spaces of survival and dialogues rooted in resistance.
So honored that this show got extended until the end of June <3
Sweating as Sanctuary, Good Hot Sauna, Pt. Richmond, CA, Up until August, 2023
Sweating as Sanctuary in the second Good Hot Flag Series Edition, up from April to August, 2023, designed by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo and fabricated by Cora Lautze.
After flying in the bay for five months, the flag will be raffled off and all proceeds will go towards supporting the incredible work of Transgender Gender-variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP).
i love the way your work makes me feel