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Joyful Resistance: Mixed Media Self Exploration Workshop

Join me on Saturday May 21st for two mixed media workshops at the Center for Contemporary Art; 2020 Burnt Mills Rd, Bedminster, NJ 07921

Register for my class online by clicking here or call 908-234-2345.

Joyful Resistance… Create a self-portrait, an autobiographical composition unifying diverse materials to illustrate Joy. Consider what brings you joy and what may be standing in the way of you being joyful. With this as your guide, collect autobiographical images, sketches and textiles for your story that provide context and bring them to the workshop.

Overview:

The visual fusion of diverse materials describes the mixed media process. The juxtaposition of “found” things (recycled fabric and plastic waste), mixed with art materials create visual tension.

We’ll explore diverse materials, memory and the processes used to create rich juxtapositions and powerful compositions.

Mixed Media processes enlist a variety of mediums to bind different papers, fibers, textured and 3D materials & paints together.

Use a mixture of color relationships, shapes and found images to create a figure with abstract pattern and color.

Consider the contrast of complimentary colors; Red/Green, Blue, Orange, Yellow/Violet…  

And contrasting shapes: geometric against more organic shapes, rectangles, circles, squares, maps, stamps, music score…

Or the use of meaningful words laser printed in various fonts/sizes layered in the background.

Collage materials are important ingredient for your compositions- Bring a variety of images from different sources (magazines, old books, postcards, photos (laser prints work best in mixed media works).

Checklist:

Personal Objects: Please bring items that are unique to you and will help tell your story. Bring photographs, laser printed images or drawings in pen, pastel, charcoal, colored pencil to be incorporated into larger works.

Materials to Share: Please bring 10-15 scraps of paper, a magazines, fabric, plastic, or other materials to share with other members of our group. Bring things that are interesting, and things that are not so interesting for negative space. Recycle items from your everyday life.

Substrate: We will focus on 2D and 3D compositions. Layering and a denser relief will be demonstrated.

Paper: Please bring whatever paper, old books, torn maps, stamps, paper currency, tissue paper, newspaper, magazines or any other kind of paper that you might like to use. I use a lot of tissue paper to layer and obscure images.

Acrylic Paints: If you want special colors bring it with you.

Brushes: Please bring brushes. They do not need to be expensive. Two Home Depot 1”flat and 2” flat (soft, flexible brushes), and one nicer #7 or #8 round (also soft, flexible, white or gold nylon) are great tools for your mixed media kit.

Pencils: You may want to bring drawing materials, pencils, colored pencils, etc.

Pens: Bring a couple of your favorite pens. My favorites are Uni-ball Signo, Faber-Castell PITT, gel pens, acrylic markers, and Sharpies of various sizes.

Glitter & Confetti: Craft glitter, confetti or shredded paper can be interesting.

3-D Objects: Small beads, buttons, metal parts, plastic bottle caps, broken jewelry, small beads. shells, watches, found objects etc.

Glue: Regular matte medium (NOT FLUID) and YES paste.

5 Minute Epoxy: To apply heavier items, E6000 is my favorite. You can find this at Home Depot and Amazon.

Scissors & Knives: A pair of scissors and an X-Acto knife.

Rulers: Rulers, triangles and other drawing/drafting tools may also be useful.

Gloves: You may want to wear gloves. I use non-latex gloves.

Clothing: Old clothes or aprons may be in order. You know your own working style and comfort needs. Dress accordingly.

If there are specific tools or materials you do not have, do not stress. Someone will likely share what you need. I have a large tub of scrap paper, tissue paper, deli paper you can use. I will also prepare some other materials you can play with too.

Hidden Figure #12
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2022 New Jersey Arts Annual: Reemergence

My piece, “Lady Whistledown” chosen by juror, Margaret M. O’Reilly, the Executive Director and Curator of Fine Art at the New Jersey State Museum., in the upcoming exhibit 2022 New Jersey Arts Annual: Reemergence.

This open call invited a range of artistic practices and media to explore the theme Reemergence.

The opening reception is Thursday, June 16 , 6:30- 8:30pm

2022 New Jersey Arts Annual: Reemergence will be on view from June 18, 2022 through April 30, 2023.

Location: New Jersey State Museum; 205 West State Street Trenton NJ

Lady Whistledown
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Theda Sandiford: Emotional Baggage Carts

Hello!

On April 30th, 2022, the world unites in celebration of sculpture during the 8th annual International Sculpture Day!

Sky Garden Gallery invites you to play with Theda Sandiford’s Emotional Baggage Carts. Interact with the cart and leave behind any emotional baggage you are carrying.

 

Power Puff with Black Racing Stripes

Power Puff, Black Racing Stripe Baggage Cart

  • Theda Sandiford
  • Bike reflectors, paracord, Fresh Direct bag yarn, doggie poop bags, plastic newspaper bags and plastic grocery bags woven on gold spray painted recovered shopping cart.
  •  36 x 40 x 24 in
  • 2021

Joy is a form of resistance.

We all carry emotional baggage Naturally; these manifests differently for each of us. Some of us push shopping carts of pain and bitterness while some of us just have a backpack.
I carry a lifetime of racial trauma.

Being alive means having the capacity to carry past experiences and learn from them. But there’s a point when this baggage becomes too much. Carrying too much emotional baggage can literally stop us from being open to new experiences, intimacy and growth.

How we choose to handle our baggage makes a difference. We have the choice to let it define us or to let it go and move forward.

Keep up with me on IG @MissTheda

#emotionalbaggagecarts #ThedaSandiford

The Great Resignation: Baggage Cart

  • Theda Sandiford
  • Vintage silk ties and leather belts, paracord, black zip ties & ribbon, LED strip lights, mesh on recycled commercial fishing net and gold spray paint on recovered shopping cart
  • 42 x 25 x 46 in
  • 2022

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International Sculpture Day @ Sky Garden Gallery – CANCELLED

I am so sorry to have to cancel the opening of our rooftop garden to visitors today. The plants are planted but with this slow to start Spring the plants are not splendiferous yet.

I also have an opening in New Canaan CT, and I’m trying to swing by Art House Productions’ Snowball gala tonight.

I promise to open the garden and emotional baggage cart display for frolicing later this Summer when the lavender is blooming.

International Sculpture Day is being celebrated on Governors Island today. My emotional baggage cart “Donda Donda Deluxe” in honor of Kanye West’s relationship with his Mother Dr. Donda West is on display all Summer at Art Crawl Harlem’s house 406b. Stop in and take a photo.

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Site: Brooklyn Mixed Media

I have two Emotional Baggage Carts included in this Online Exhibition
Juried by Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy

About the Exhibition:
The artists whose works are assembled all take the mantle of exploring the potential of multiple mediums at once. The possibilities opened by this project multiply wonderfully, as seen by the diversity of works on view, all of which find an expression of vitality through their mediums. Perhaps these artists working with mixed media are finding a way to reaffirm our bodily connection. They have a way of bringing out the physicality of their materials in the medium’s interactions, in divergent forms. We find surprising juxtapositions or forms springing out of their prior uses. Though in different ways, the works presented allude to the body: the presence of the artist’s hand in placing objects just so; suggestive forms; organic and inorganic decay; human detritus, and more.

Power Puff with Black Racing Stripes
I Can’t Breathe
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Things I Learned at Expo Chicago

While at Expo Chicago I met so many interesting people and organizations creating social practice art and making a difference in their community.

This is one of my favs…

Black Creativity

Let me find out that the Black Creativity program at Museum of Science & Industry has been celebrating African American achievement in science, technology, engineering, art and medicine for 50 years.

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Free Your Mind Installation

by Theda Sandiford

Free Your Mind is a textile public art installation aiming to collect, embed and release personal narratives about Microaggressions.

Microaggressions are subtle, intentional — and oftentimes unintentional — everyday interactions or behaviors that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial messages or assumptions toward historically marginalized groups.

The weight of these daily interactions underpins very real consequences… stress, anger, frustration, self-doubt and ultimately feelings of powerlessness and invisibility.

Free Your Mind intends to expose these interactions and provide a release for the participating individuals. Participants have the feeling of being seen and acknowledged while interacting with the installation.

The installation evolves with each new ribbon, keeping a public record of disempowering interactions, that can be exposed and addressed.

Last year, Free Your Mind toured, collecting story ribbons in Bayonne NJ, Jersey City NJ, and during Miami Art Week. This summer at Governors Island, Free Your mind is documenting your story.

#freeyourmindart

Free Your Mind

You Are So Articulate

In this weaving, each piece of yarn is representative of a conversation where I was acknowledged for being able to express my thoughts and ideas. Being told I’m well-spoken often comes off as a backhanded compliment. It carries problematic connotations that, it is unusual for someone of my race to be intelligent or eloquent.

The completed weaving is displayed on a DYI loom, as if the work is still in progress because some version of this conversation, continues still…

You Are So Articulate, January 2021, 72 x 30 x 2 in, $4,000.00

Immersive Tag

The assignment… collage one iPhone photo, to pass the time while riding NJ Transit 123 bus from Union City NJ to NYC the summer of 2015.

Have you ever had someone put their hands in your hair without asking first?

This was a regular occurrence for me while riding the bus or subway… before the Pandemic. This is not ok. Please don’t pet me like a dog because my hair fascinates you.

Today, I rarely use public transportation and work mostly from home. I wonder, has social distancing caused a shift in this behavior?


“Immersive Tag” Digital photo collage printed on polysheer. 120 x 60 in, 2015

Blackty Black Blankets

Protective zip tie blankets draped on two 8 foot antique library ladders.

I know you are tempted to touch…

Blackty Black Blankets, 96 x 24 x 16 in, 2022

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Future Perfect/Imperfect: The Next Century.

My piece, “Purple Fiesta”” chosen by juror, Lilly Wei, is included in the upcoming exhibit. Future Perfect/Imperfect: The Next Century.

The opening reception is Saturday, April 30, 5:00- 7:00pm.

If you want to join me for a road trip and then dash over for the last hour or so Snowball, please DM me.

Future Perfect/Imperfect: The Next Century

Exhibition Dates : April 30 to June 9, 2022.

Location: Silvermine Gallery; 1037 Silvermine Road New Canaan, CT 

Purple Fiesta
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Joyful Resistance

Despite a revolving door of daily microaggressions reminding me I do not belong, I imagine a life free from the constraints of implicit bias. I CHOOSE to live a life of Joyful Resistance, finding solace in cherished memories attached to materiality.

Joyful Resistance is a celebration of the alchemy that occurs when disparate materials are assembled to create something new, more beautiful, and more purposeful.

All the work in my upcoming solo show was made while the Pandemic took me on a emotional rollercoaster of a journey through self inspection, loss, isolation and racial trauma.

While in lockdown during the first month of the Pandemic, I organized my closet and storage unit. While sorting through my vintage accessories collection, childhood memories of playing dress up in my mother’s clothes flooded my brain like serotonin.

I recreated that moment with All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go dressing the steel structure with Vintage hats, shoes and bags, 3 ply cotton ropes, pearls, rhinestones, wrapped ropes, yarn, trim.

Four structure, Vintage hat, shoes and bag, 3 ply cotton rope, pears, rhinestones, wrapped rope, yarn, trim,
beading on steel structure

I custom dyed the cotton rope a bright yellow using Jacquard ink, then wrapped it with ribbon, pom pom trim, yarn and vintage fabric from a block print tapestry that hung in my college dorm room.

Yellow Gal Fringe 1

These three emotional baggage carts explore the Middle Passage and its impact upon my cultural identity as a Caribbean American woman. I still have a lot to unpack here. Both Appropriation Mud Cloth Baggage Cart, on the right and Hi Yellow Mud Cloth Baggage Cart on the left are not covered in zip ties. These carts have unresolved emotional baggage connected to them.

Middle Passage

We all carry emotional baggage. This manifests differently for each of us. Some of us carry shopping carts of pain and bitterness while some of us sport a backpack. How we choose to handle our baggage makes a difference. We have the choice, to let it define us or to let it go and move forward.

In 2020 my artist residency with NOW Friends in Nairobi Kenya was cancelled due to Covid. I had spent 6 months preparing for this residency, studying Swahili, researching local artists, looking at basketry and beading techniques.

I used the time I would have been in Kenya to clean, drill and string thousands of bottle caps into larger than life strings of pearls with the help of the Jersey City arts community during JCAST 2021.

Close Up
https://ccabedminster.org/enjoy/upcoming-exhibitions/