Flower Drum Song by the East West Players! Unbelievably Exhilarating! Timely, Witty, Emotional, Magical. Thoughtful and Inspiring!
#eastwestplayers #flowerdrumsong #artgiveshope
My gouache painting "Novel" (2025) is included in Mat Gleason's impressively mammoth exhibition, "We're Very Well-Read, It's Well Known," featuring 450 artists painting their favorite books. The exhibition runs from May 23 to September 6, 2026, at the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, located at 260 S. Main St., Downtown LA 90012. See you there! The reception is May 23, 2-7pm. See you there!
You can check out more through the blog on my website kimabeles.com
And you can link on the blog to the May 2026 Abeles Studio Newsletter to hear about the visit to India earlier this year to see the ambitious campaign created by the Padam Pugai Collective in Chennai. They are a coalition of youth groups and art-activists who have been creating with visual art, theater, music, and poetry to call attention to air pollution in southern India. A particular concern is for the fishers of Ennore where power plants and fertilizer manufacturing have decimated the air and water. The Collective connects community and the arts to educate and bring attention to the issues.
What I like best about going to spring clean the Citizen Seeds is the interaction with the people on the Park to Playa Trail. Several lovely connections made today beautiful including a man who told me that the Manzanita Seed overlooking Culver City was his marker when he is making the steep trek up to the Baldwin Hills Overlook. The seed is his goal marker. I love that. 🌿💕 #citizenseeds #parktoplayatrail #peoplearekind #seedsandjourney
In the next day or two, I'll post an illustrated essay about my visit to meet the creative, environmental group Pugai Pudam that organized an energetic project about the air pollution in Chennai, India.
I want to thank all the people who came to the Open Studio prior to the trip. I had the flight generously covered by EcoArts Connections in Boulder, and the studio sales helped to make my trip possible. I am forever grateful for that.
The Chennai Card that you see here was created when I was in Chennai and presented to the participants in the Pugai Pudam Collective. On the left is an apron floating in the sky with a Kolam created in particulate matter from the air. A Kolam is traditionally a rice flour pattern that is created by hand each morning at the entryway of houses. It gives forth positive energy and keeps insects from going further into the home.
At the center is a drawing of my journey from the center of Chennai to Ennore where the power plants and fertilizer factories have severely polluted the air and water.
And, on the right is a drawing of a broom and a tear-drop shape that is cut into the paper, and filled with coal fly ash from Ennore. This is the ash that fills the waterways and pollutes the air.
I'll be sending a newsletter to my mailing list. DM if you want to receive it. I write them about three times a year.
#smog #socialjustice #chennai #environmentalart
Mink Tears in the series, Evita As Official Portrait; As Madonna; As Fay; and Cinderella as Evita (1997)
Evita’s story evolves as the personal transformed into the status of icon and the commodification of an individual. Eva Perón is no longer herself, but instead, Madonna or Faye Dunaway. Her story is the Cinderella tale of the girl born into poverty who marries the prince who is the president. Complete with the overabundant beauty of a Disney color palette, she changes wardrobes, from a drab outfit in gray and neutrals to the fluff of netting in pastel pink, baby blue, and honeysuckle yellow. Evita, with the photographic regality of Jackie K. or a Princess of Hearts, helps Christian Dior gowns to float along the tiers as troupes of political penguins with cummerbunds flank her side. Crowds daze longingly. The satin pillow that holds the solid glass shoe materializes the World of Walt, and its tassels dangle copper pennies turned into gold with enamel paint. Rags to riches! Robin Hood! “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” reverberates from aerobics classes in Hollywood where men and women leap and squat to a disco beat.
In contrast to Eva Perón as celebrity, or as her best use of that celebrity, she is instrumental in the success of the suffrage bill for women’s right to vote in 1947. She also works tirelessly in her creation of programs to help the impoverished. Her difficult childhood gives her a depth of understanding for those in need. Evita is officially titled, Spiritual Leader of the Nation.
The tagged coins that appear on the mantel of the installation contain Evita’s signature and her quote:
“If God gives me back my health, I will never wear jewels or beautiful dresses again. Nothing but a skirt and a blouse.”
Eva Perón’s debilitating cancer causes her to wear a plaster corset to prop her body upright during processionals. This is in contrast to the Dior gowns she loves to wear at events. Tears and tears made out of mink. Don’t cry for me! In life and beyond.
#evita #evaperon #evita'sbirthday #mink-tears
More Bus Bench BroadCast yesterday, just in time for this year's Fall of Freedom. @falloffreedom
BroadCast spent the past many months adding to the website. Circa 1990s is next in the works. 200 artists, poets, and performers have participated since the start. Check out the website for the full picture: broadcast-art.org
Seen here:
collage by Zöe Patiño
poetry by @beverlylafontaine
collage by Chris Patiño
#artfortheunsuspecting #democratizeart #busbench
Happy Birthday, Earth.
About the image: I created this version of Shared Skies (2017) in collaboration with Polar Educators International. International members photographed the sky during the week of the Equinox (September 22), facing toward the North Pole if they are north of the equator, and toward the South Pole if in residence to the south of the Equator. For this print, the skies are positioned on the globe, and along with the photo credits, the GPS is noted.
#earthday @polareducators #takecareoftheplanet #sharedskies #cleantheair
Bus Bench BroadCast 2026 as part of Fall of Freedom. BroadCast presents art that is often anonymous, presented in the world to the unsuspecting, and created in the spirit to democratize art.
The original term for “broadcast” was used to describe seeds thrown into the air to disperse into the soil. Bus Bench BroadCast also refers to artists and audience as a cast of characters, each playing a generous role.
We've been updating the broadcast-art.org website and it will be ready this week. Those of you who participated in Bus Bench BroadCast 2025 can already view your art insitu by clicking on each thumbnail.
More details this week and you can always DM.
