«whipped»

pen & alcohol markers on handmade mixed media paper

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after three months in total (june-july & august-october, 2022) of artist residency at jupiterfab in gaudalajara, mexico i returned to webster, ny and began a full time job as a research assistant at RIT. the kind of stress and stimuli i was used to dealing with during artist residency was quickly replaced with the stress and stimuli of academia and work. after one long day i was trying to describe how hard it was to think and i said, "i feel like my brain was whipped in a kitchen aid." one of my favorite ways of processing and expression my emotions and experiences is sketching them out. i have a beautiful handmade mixed media paper art book given to me by the daughter of the woman who owns the home where i painted my first outdoor mural, laura blanco. (check out her amazing work at manitasantalibretas). so i sketched out «whipped» with pen and alcohol markers. i meant for it to be a concept sketch (and it is) but it ended up holding its own as an art piece.

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side-story about the red kitchen aid: when i was 16 my parents opened a restaurant called "emmanuel's fine foods" (my full name is emmanuel) in alamogordo, new mexico — where we had moved from buffalo, ny when my parents became fundamentalist christian missionaries. they convinced me to begin home school so i could help them run the restaurant. while working there i would read through my mom's stacks of bon appétit and gourmet magazines. i began experimenting with cheesecake recipes and became very good at it, event selling several while the resturant was running. there were beutiful ads with red kitchen aid mixers in those magazines, so when i was older i finally bought one — which works as beutifully as it looks.