Altered Barbie Blog

October 26 - November 20, 2011 Shotwell 50 Inc., 50 Shotwell St. San Francisco, CA Wednesday - Saturday 1:00pm - 8:00pm, Sunday 1:00pm - 5:00pm 10/28/11 Artist Opening Reception 7:00pm - 10:00pm Come dressed as your favorite Barbie or Ken and tell us what you will do? Meet the visual and performing artists and enjoy incredible performances including the Jenny Kerr Band and more. 10/29/11 Make your own Altered Barbie Workshops 10:00am - 1:00pm $25.00 per person

This is Sean Manzano leading the poetry reading at the 2010 AlteredBarbie Show. We are all looking forward to the 2011 AlteredBarbie Poetry Reading with you Sean! Thank you!

 

I was delighted to support the Altered Barbie, when her curator Julie Andersen approached me with the idea. I had seen it years ago and thought the images were very interesting and liberating.

So it is with great pleasure that I put in the following work:

 

A wonderful Kickstarter Fun-Raiser is now available so anyone can support AlteredBarbie 2011. Thank you for supporting this local creative re-use show!

Cynthia Tom is bringing a place of her own to AlteredBarbie. If Barbie had a place that was her own what would it look like?

A PLACE OF HER OWN is a multi-phase, multi-venue arts project. The project poses the question, “If you had a place of your own, what would it be?” and invites artists and the public to respond in a variety of ways.

Women, through necessity and parental or cultural training, learn to compromise themselves. Women often set aside their own needs to support others to the point of losing them. Rarely have women learned to reclaim a place of their own, metaphorically or physically. What happens when we expand the parameters beyond the concept of a room and discover a place, in which the limitations are bound by the imagination and nothing more?

The conceptual frame work and long term goal of this project is to generate a creative place for women to reconnect with themselves and make their aspirations visible. This is not just a curatorial vision of Cynthia Tom's, but a lifelong passion.

Roaddawgz youth will create a variety of Altered Barbies for sale at the AlteredBarbie Exhibition 2011. 100% of sales of dolls go directly back to the youth! Know that your purchase supports an essential service in our community. It is a way of telling the youth they count and there is healthy support out there. Thank you Machiko for all you do!

The Roaddawgz mission is to empower homeless youth, build community, develop job and life skills through literary and artistic activities while providing vital services, information and referrals.

The Roaddawgz drop-in center is a highly unique, activity-driven, safe and supportive sanctuary for homeless youth who are writers, artists and musicians. We employ a peer-driven, harm reduction, self-help model and provide participants cash payments for their creative works and participation in our mentoring program, workshops, events and internships. The people we serve are between the ages 15 to 24. Our participants encompass all minorities including racial, sexual and gender.

The Roaddawgz Purpose-We are dedicated to help end homelessness, reducing homeless youth incarceration, hospitalization and preventable deaths by providing mental health support and creative and educational alternatives to criminal, dangerous and life threatening behavior.

I've been through a lot of big life changes this year, all of them good for the most part but they have been time and energy sucking on a grand scale. Despite the fact that all these things are for the better they left little time for my creativity. The problem with this is that creativity, especially altering dolls, is who I am, it's what makes me happy and whole and just, well, me.

I was striving to get things settled in life so that I could produce some new and good quality work to submit to Altered Barbie this year. After several months of not working on anything artistic at all it felt great when I sat down with a naked Barbie in my hands, just begging to become something unique and creepy and wonderful, even better was pulling her head off (by the way, if anyone has a use for a big box of Barbie heads then look me up, I can't bring myself to just toss them out). With headless Barbie I could feel ideas swirling and creativity surging. Barbie was able to instantly bring me back to myself and all the creepy, creative, fun that goes with that.

Altered Barbie 2011: The Making of......Organizing and Visual support Aritsts Include:

Ruby Pearl-Barbie workshops and artist
David Pang: Photographer and Teaparty Magazine Owner
Jody Banks-Kickstarter and juror
Kellie Hunter-Organizing support
Babalou-Project management support
Dana Marek-Interior designer and owner of Shotwell 50 Inc. Sponsor of Altered Baribie 2011!
Sean Manzano-Poetry Reading for Altered Barbie 2011, Catalogue, lit quake & lit crawl
Antony Hall: Web site
Olivia Rivas-Graphics
Sabine Brunner-Organizing support
Charlotte Davis-Development support
Donna Davis-Organizing support & MC
Shahn Miller: Dinner Chef for Food and Fashion night
Meighan: Interior designer & curator
Gregangelo Velocity Circus
Barbie & Ken Living Statues
Barbie & Ken’s Make-up artist Allison Kenyon
Marque Cornblatt-zombie guru & fashion designer
Hester Michael-fahsion designer
Machiko Saito & the participating youth from roaddawgz.org
Jenny Kerr and her band
Kitten on the Keys
Cynthia Tom - A place of her own
Cecilia Yu-britains i-protest

Thank you all for your support in making AlteredBarbie a success. Love you all!

Thank you to everyone who has submitted work for the 2011 show and welcome to our new members.

We have a fantastic array of pieces in our curation queue already.  We have chosen some images to promote the event and are enjoying the warm glow of knowing that we have so much great art to look forward to.

Since the show's in the bag we are extending our submission deadline to make sure all members get a chance to submit work and noone is left out.

New deadline for submissions:
September 25th

Regards

The Altered Barbie Team

I am looking forward to another great Altered Barbie Show! Here is an Altered Barbie video I took at an Open Studio I did earlier this year.

See you in October!

Debbie Fimrite