Like so many events during the pandemic, Bar Flies moved into a virtual space. For now, their usual live productions remain on hold. They ask participants to illustrate a true story, based on a prompt.
I’m invited, along with others, and the theme is…FLY! We can work classic comic style, in photography, embroidery or any other form of mixed media. It can run with all text or even be a collaboration with another. #SoOpenICanDoThis
It’s July, I’m in Texas visiting mom, when I receive the invite. Oddly (or maybe naturally), I go to the family encyclopedia set of my childhood (…time flies or does it fly?). I pull the F, locate fly and make a copy of it. And I carry it ↑ with me as I fly back home, a few days later.
Back in Phoenix, I go into my studio, not having been in it for a few weeks. Looking out the door, to the side yard, I see a beautiful oriole. How long has he been there? He’s so still. #FlyNot
I gather a variety of material (cuz it’s all an experiment) and begin this illustrated study. Truly, #OnTheFly.
Oh…and here are design outtakes! Thanks again, Amy!
I’ve known Haley, Art Specialist with the Phoenix Airport Museum, a few years now. She’s visited my studio as well as picked up and dropped off work. She’s also facilitated a couple of tours through airport exhibition spaces, which included back scene ventures with her and the art crew.
Considering Sky Harbor International Airport is one of busiest airports in the US, opportunities to associate with it and see it in a different manner are well…pretty cool!
Why am I talking about you Haley? Because I met Tim!
I am Haley’s fiancé. You may know her through your work together at the airport museum etc. Her birthday is next week and I wanted to reach out to see if I could purchase Bar Flies from you. She LOVES this piece and has spoken many times about buying it to keep and display in our own home. Is it available? Also, this will be a surprise! Thank you so very much. Timothy
3 things Haley… – Tim’s a great guy! – I didn’t know you loved this artwork! – Oh and hey, it’s your birthday today. This ↓ is yours! SURPRISE!!
I don’t know that I ever told you how this collage work came to be…
One of the founders of Bar Flies asked if I’d be interested in creating a sticker for them. (Shout out to Amy!) Bar Flies is a monthly reading series that pre-pandemic, was held at the downtown Valley Bar. (BTW, it will return, hopefully sooner rather than later.)
The show, always a good, midweek night-out with the friends, featured different themes, true stories, the tellers of those stories, along with carefully curated music (shout out to Deborah!).
And speaking of truth, every-single-time my friend Veronica and I went out there, we managed to get lost. Don’t ask why (no cell phone mapping could help us).
If I was going to create a design for Bar Flies, it was going to feature a real map that I would hope, could set into my brain, the lay of the downtown Phoenix land.
I collage a map, some story and…put a fly on it.
I bring in a few more flies amongst a performing fly and add cheer.
Final cut: Bar Flies, Mixed media collage, 14×14″
The work eventually makes its way ↓ to Sky Harbor Airport (for a map show, of course), where it crossed paths with you, Haley (or vice-versa). In the lower right area of the composition you’ll note a glimpse of the airport. #itwasinthecards
Thanks again, Tim! I do appreciate a good surprise. Happy Birthday to you, Haley! And many, many more!
The blog posts titled No Woman is an Island acknowledge the people and/or organizations who support me and the work I do.
I hope this finds everyone healthy and safe. I can’t recall a stranger, more unsettling time. The last time I felt normal was March 11 — the last time we had a Bar Flies show.
Sadly, as I’m sure you know or have guessed, we have had to put the live shows on hiatus for the rest of the season. So I’m dusting off and tweaking an idea I had for fall that will allow us to continue sharing stories with our community — from a safe distance.
Amy continues with an invite to participate in the inaugural Illustrated Bar Flies.
I often attend Bar Flies monthly story telling/live readings at Valley Bar, in downtown Phoenix. If you haven’t been…you should go. Thoughtfully curated, each story is a unique (wow) telling. There’s DJ’ing pre and post individual readings (shout-out to Deborah!).
As with all Bar Flies stories, this illustrated version is true. The theme is HOME.
April 2020 I’ve been home researching the crazy virus that appears to be taking over all of our lives. I’m now teaching my drawing class on-line. In the studio, I work a large abstract, mixed media study based on what I am learning about the coronavirus.
The week I get the invite from Amy, I’m out in the front yard and run into Reed, my next-door neighbor. And with this interaction, I decide I’ll participate. I want to try something new that’s fun AND I can clear up a misconception.
My story title: Looking for the Truth
looking for the truth
you are never alone
they have an intelligence
real time information…dang! they reprogram a cell!
fomites…wash your hands!
solitude
I rest my case, artist-in-residence is the true story.
I learn to organize differently AND I have fun…enough to even have an ↓ outtake.
seeing eyes-balls that never make it into the story
May 2020
Amy sent the invitation out to a group of people. Click on anyone of these links – go read them. Each story is true. Each story is different.
Phoenix Magazine → bar flies Archives
Instagram →flypaperaz Facebook → Fly Paper, stories that stick
Eventually they’ll live on the Fly Paper website.
Monica Aissa Martinez 