One of textile artist dani lopez\u2019s bios tells part of her story: \u201cAfter spending most of her life living in Oregon and trying to get out, she now lives in Oakland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOut,\u201d in this case, means both \u201cout of the repressive atmosphere of the place she was living,\u201d and \u201cout as a queer woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her exhibition of tapestries and other pieces at the Richmond Art Center (RAC), \u201c3 Dykes Walk into a Bar,\u201d addresses parts of her experience as it follows three young dykes coming of age in the 1990s and follows their journeys to the present. Three characters are represented, according to lopez\u2019s description: a sad, Goth girl; a trickster; and what she calls \u201ca vengeful harpy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI began building this work in 2019,\u201d lopez said in a phone interview. \u201cI was reimagining my queer youth, about little dani if she could have come out earlier.\u201d The characters function as chosen family and aren\u2019t cliches, lopez said. But they are archetypes. She found Anna Bogutskaya\u2019s 2023 book, Unlikeable Female Characters: Flawed Female Characters and the Power They Hold, influential. The book examines archetypes such as The Bitch, The Psycho, The Slut and The Trainwreck.<\/p>\n
The \u201cUntitled Film Stills\u201d of photographer Cindy Sherman, created from 1977-1980, were another influence. In the black-and-white photos, Sherman posed herself in a variety of stereotypical female movie roles from the 1950s and \u201960s, such as Office Girl, Bombshell, Girl on the Run and Housewife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey capture intimate vignettes,\u201d lopez said.<\/p>\n
To a degree, the\u00a0 exhibition\u2019s story is also framed around Alice in Wonderland, according to lopez. \u201c[It\u2019s] a starting point because it takes you down a deep, drug-induced exploration of space, time and physical surroundings,\u201d she wrote in her own description of the work. \u201cThis story, or these stories, unfold in a non-linear way that is often the experience of queer folks growing up.\u201d\u00a0The grinning Cheshire Cat makes an appearance. In one triptych, Where did it all go wrong, lopez depicts herself with flowing locks and a white Peter Pan collar, a la Alice, but at the same time pushing up her seemingly oversized black glasses.<\/p>\n
The tapestries share the gallery with sculptural elements, often containing found objects. RAC materials describe the overall exhibition as \u201c[a] space where fragments of queer memory, identity, and joy come together to tell a collective story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez teaches tapestry-weaving classes at the RAC, and spoke about mastering the ancient art. In her case, rather than using what tapestry artists call a \u201ccartoon,\u201d pinned beneath the work as the image is created, she uses projected photos. Multiple strands of yarn are used to create the image, in the classic warp-and-weft method. \u201cIt takes a month to four months to create a work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lopez enjoys seeing all the works displayed together in the RAC\u2019s smaller South Gallery, and hopes that viewers can relate to the stories being told in it, and find it compelling.<\/p>\n
Asked about the role of weaving art in the bigger art picture, she noted that even today there is a gender gap. \u201cWorks created by men are heralded in a way that isn\u2019t comparable to women,\u201d she said. \u201cBut that is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c3 Dykes Walk into a Bar\u201d is only the beginning of what lopez sees as a long-term exploration. \u201cIf it\u2019s a book, I\u2019m only on Chapter Two,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Feb. 28, at 2pm, lopez will join Elena Gross, director of exhibitions and public programs at the GLBT Historical Society, at the RAC for a free artist\u2019s talk about the exhibition.<\/p>\n
\u20183 Dykes Walk into a Bar,\u2019 through March 14, Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Free. Wed-Sat, 10am to 4pm. Artist talk, Feb. 28, 2-3pm. 510.620.6772. danilopez.us<\/a>, richmondartcenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of textile artist dani lopez\u2019s bios tells part of her story: \u201cAfter spending most of her life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[10103,143,5809,145,144,2433],"class_list":{"0":"post-192220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-lgbtqia","9":"tag-oakland","10":"tag-oakland-artist","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-news","13":"tag-queer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}