Menagerie in Phelan’s garden

spraypaint, acrylic, and drawing media on paper sculpture
72″ x 58″ x 84″
2015

This project was commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center’s Lucas Artists Residency Program and was created at Mills College through their Art+Practice+Ideas residency program. Additional paper sculptural elements embedded in the installation were created by participants in a workshop held at Montalvo during the course of the exhibition.

This project uses the concept of mapping the Montalvo Arts Center’s grounds to not only explore its geographic features, but to find the linkages from the historical legacy of its original owner and benefactor, Senator James D. Phelan to its current role as an incubator and presenter of a diverse array of artists and as a publically accessible park.

A core feature of the piece includes griffin coming face-to-face with a shisa guardian statue. Shisa, also alternately known as shishi or fu-dogs, have their roots in Buddhist iconography as temple guardians, but their protective watch commonly extends to secular contexts. The term shisa itself is Okinawan, where folk tales sometimes talk about the figures protecting village buildings from fire. In contemporary architectural contexts, they play a role similar to the griffin statuary around Montalvo—although they both bring their own sets of storytelling and mythic connotations.

Phelan took a number of well-documented anti-immigrant and racist stances in his political career (with a particular vitriol toward Japanese immigrants)—as perhaps most clearly demonstrated in a campaign poster which exhorted voters to “Keep California White.” At the same time, he also had a clear love of the arts, as exemplified by his donation of the Villa in support of the artistic community. As a Japanese American artist, I find myself to be at the intersection of these two facets of his worldview—his very clear anti-Asian position and his belief in the power of art and artists. The latter position is suggested by the Villa’s reference to the stories of the author Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo and embodied in the iconic griffins on the grounds. As has often been the case, the arts then, are the point of access, contestation and mediation. The griffins and shisa are my attempt to meet Phelan in a middle ground shaped by art, culture and storytelling, while also drawing on the iconography of a culture which he at times attempted to marginalize.

Along with the griffin & shisa, the work includes smaller icons which hint at the ways the invocation of Montalvo also opens up references to Amazonian legend and its manifestations, such as representations of Queen Califia as a black, indigenous woman accompanied by her griffins, and the ways this potentially speaks to points of connections between communities of color through cultural interactions.