"Keep Going" (Featuring the Work of Jada Fabrizio)

"keep going" - diorama, mixed media - 2017, Jada Fabrizio
(All images can be clicked on for enlargements.)

"I believe that art should make you feel something, it should touch you, make you think, laugh, cry. I consider myself an alternative reality photographer. I sculpt my own characters, build dioramas, and light the scene to create surreal visual fables or freshly minted fairy tales for adults... Each image is purposely unresolved. They are, in essence, stories in need of an ending."

- Jada Fabrizio, quoted from the Monmouth Museum Journal.

***

Once upon a time... (in 1979... which seems like a lifetime ago because, relatively speaking, it was) two young, punked-out, female artists recently transplanted from the east coast (USA) met in a warm, sunny place called San Diego, California. As it so happened, they met in an art supply store where one girl was a cashier. She (Jada, then a painter) was a striking, dark-haired girl with a tiny - but fashionable - peculiarity... something the second girl (me, then a cartoonist) picked up on from the get-go. (Inset right, from 1980, my cartoon alter ego Rude Girl.)

Looking down at her hands, I noticed she had only one of her fingernails painted... I think it was on her left pinky - at least that's how I remember it - but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, nor even the color (blue?). That one fingernail was like a code word... a subliminal prompt... and immediately we struck up a conversation. We found we had a great deal in common... up to and including a certain alienation from the overwhelming "whiteness" of the west coast.

Girls - color photograph - 2013, Jada Fabrizio

Less than a year later, Jada high-tailed it back to New York... myself following soon after. We found ourselves on the Isle of Manhattan involved in all sorts of mad (and often pointless) (but, always fun) adventures. In time - and not very long - I (at least) would look back and say: "Gee, why did I ever leave California?"

Jada, however, was in exactly the right place. Some people are lucky that way. They never regret the past nor lose sight of themselves...

They just keep going...

And, as we enter a new year, "keep going" is, in fact, our theme; more relevant now than it ever was. For instance, I - like many others - are virtually (and/or literally) living like refugees (vale, Tom Petty) in a world which seems increasingly like a lunatic asylum. Meanwhile, some strange little man in North Korea - and an equally as strange little man in North America - have their hands poised over the "nuclear button." What's not to love?

Conqueror Pig* - diorama, mixed media - 2016, Jada Fabrizio.
* Winner of the 1st place award in Art Scene Today's  Winter, 2016 Competition.

Well, what's to love is the work of Jada Fabrizio, and as it happens, I can think of no better way to launch 2018. On one hand, surrounding her odd visions we have surreal overtones, a sense of the absurd... but, underneath and understated, an almost tender, child-like sense of wonder, integrity and (even) hope.

the next best thing (a fish dreaming of water) - diorama, mixed media  - 2017, Jada Fabrizio

Oddly enough, I was all set to feature Jada on Trans-D a year or so ago regarding a wonderfully edgy (and often feminist) series of photographs she'd created. As it was, Jada had already moved on and had begun a new project - the series of dioramas sampled here - so, my proposed post was already redundant. In reality, I love all of her recent work so I feel I must include some of her photos as well... like Enough to Eat (2012) inset right, and, from 2010, I Can't Get to the Phone Right Now (below) a sort of wry self-portrait.

Which is not to say that her newer work never addresses feminine issues... it's just that it does so in a more whimsical way... as in "a woman's work is never done" (2017) below.

On the other hand, ultimately and most importantly, Jada's unusual vignettes embrace all genders, races and species, endowing them with voices, mannerisms and intelligences that are overwhelmingly equal in strength, importance and intent. In "as long as I have you," (2017) is it just me or do we feel a kind of empathy for the rabbit-eared man and his companion... a duck whom appears to be howling at the moon? (In any case, I'd love that RV right about now!)

In the final analysis, Jada's dioramas defy both genre and categorization, something which (as we know) throws critics into a veritable tizzy. Ah, yes, but where have we seen this before? Oh, that's right, a similar sort of issue accompanied the historical fate of all those female Renaissance painters... remember them? Come to think of it, I made a statement in that post, which just happens to be relevant regarding Jada Fabrizio (who is, after all, of Italian descent): "Italian women were, are, and always will be formidable!"

Know it for a fact. Because, as a somewhat darker footnote to the story of our friendship, in latter years, while I was coping with my parent's ill health (and eventual deaths), Jada, herself - although now married to a wonderful man and mother to a gorgeous son - was heroically fighting a disease which could've killed her. The bottom line being: she won... and, subsequently, we all won.

So, from Jada and I - and all creatures great, small, blue, black and orange - best to you in 2018. And remember, despite the odds: keep going!

Take Flight - photograph - 2010, Jada Fabrizio

Jada Fabrizio online:

• A feature in Musee Magazine (pages 206 and 207).
• An ArtSlant page.
• An announcement from Redbankgreen.
• A Monmouth Museum announcement.
• An article in ND Magazine.
• A feature in Wanderlust Magazine.
• And, of course, her website where the images used in this post (and more) can be found.

_________________________________________

Afterword

We're All Mad Here - photograph - 2011, Jada Fabrizio

Ultimately, what was intended to be a tribute to a friend, whose artwork I admire, became, instead, a tribute to our friendship. Maybe it's just that I have friendships first and foremost on my mind these days... because, quite literally, it is my friends, and only my friends, who are currently keeping me alive.

So, while the present political regime continues to push the "family value" envelope (down our proverbial throats), I feel moved to emphasis the other side of the human relationship spectrum... our friends, our lost lovers, and all of those individuals who touch and have touched our lives; not through blood or genetic ties... but due to a stranger, more subtle alchemy... a shared enjoyment and compassion and an undefinable spiritual connection. We choose our friends and enjoy their presence; our relationships are not obligatory.

In the end, I think all I really want to say, to my friends, is thank you.