Gina Ribaudo – Featured Artist
I’d like to thank a friend of mine at Artspace, Gina Ribaudo, for her colorful iconic renditions expressing the inner being and permission for inclusion in this month’s journal. In addition to her incredible fine art, she also does a great deal of work as a muralist. To learn more about Gina check out her biography below and visit her links.
I hope you’ve had a great 2018 and are looking forward to the coming year. For myself, this has been a year of rebirth and the shedding of an old cacoon. One that has been weighing my life under the precedent of past experience and the fable of a future that will never exist. Our lives are happening in this very moment, and this moment alone. This will always be everything we ever know. The irony is, it may take you your entire life to fully walk that walk, and become multi-sensually intuitive between processes of your own intuition and other spiritual intersecting channels.
I plan to further my personal growth in 2019 and deepen my awareness of the surrounding world I am burrowed within. I will do my best to understand how best I can utilize my talents and extend my service to both the local and global community. These are my broad goals for 2019, broken down in a series of daily tasks as digital memory… what are yours?
—M U S I C—
Loryn (DJ & Acoustic Set) – 4 pm
Artspace Grand Opening
155 S Hibbert
Mesa, AZ 85210
—W R I T I N G—
**Novel Excerpt**
What Came Over
We kissed, and it was the most passionate moment of my life. We both knew it, we both felt it. We knew our lives had drastically changed in that moment. We also knew we had to leave, abandon our old life. For some reason, this small intimate exchange forced us to acknowledge what had been lying dormant for years. A war was coming, and we had to move.
“We have to go… come with me, you have to come with me!” She stood there for a moment, staring, obviously surprised by the sudden incision and viscera. A moment skipped and I made a second attempt,
“We have to go, you have to come with me.”
After staggering for a minute, she finally said, “Ok.” It was that easy. She must have believed in me. And she knew, better than I, what was ahead.
I could hardly fathom how quickly things changed right then, especially since throughout my entire existence, I adhered to something I referred to as The Plant Theory; that the momentum of life and all its relatives are are similar to watching a plant grow. You place a seed in dirt, you nurture it giving it sun and water, and somehow it magically sprouts. The theory being (at least in most instances), you never actually see it grow through any individual moment. One moment there’s a seed, and another, within some reflection of uncompressed time, a plant. The period of its actual growth is somewhere between a stasis of recognition and a lapse of cognition. But this experience with Aya didn’t feel like the plant theory at all. Life was a bullet train barreling through that moment, and although one could argue that perhaps our preceding moments gradually progressed, leading us subconsciously to the surface of this circumstance, and our lives were anticipating an epiphany as this for some time, the other side of that argument is life never goes only one way. It goes all ways all the time, and the possibilities are endless. And this was just one of those infinite possibilities that could occur at any given moment on any given day… little did we know the impact it would have on our future and the future of our existence.
Aside from breaking free from my previous conventions, theories and boxed ideologies, that entire exchange felt like a distant dream. The kind you have a hard time believing or remembering clearly. Though my words and feelings felt accurate, simple and unconvincingly convincing, I can’t recall a cohesive timeline leading to our rendezvous. It was blurred at best, and felt like someone else’s story that I’d wished was my own. It had been cut up, scrambled, and fed back. But it was, in fact, real, yet somehow, still a dream—and the tides were in motion. Looking back, I can hardly believe my words and actions, and how she welcomed them in so uninhibited, let alone, left her position on a whim of passion, or whatever it was that inspired her exactly. I suppose there’s more to that story behind her decision, but this is how I remember it. And after all, this is my story. And it’s a story about love…
and war and technology and the evolution of humanity—the coming of the new world vs. the new order, and the displacement of ideals from the old world and its chimera of impeding progress… but most importantly, this is a story about the birth of a new spiritual age and the reckoning of a more aware human being, or some transfiguration of it. And my story begins here, with Aya, and it was to change the course of our lives forever.
in color
the warrior poet
stands at the base that separates
the oligarchies of the world
and the people of it into
two distinct groups,
never forgetting the element
impossible to separate
the people from
their intuition.
no prisoners are taken
for their cup spilleth over,
and the resurrection and
reemergence of fear and loathing
and monochromatism are nothing
more than old friends to creative minds.
unripened thoughts with such
profound disorientation, it makes the
job of the seer intelligible. perfect.
beautiful.
a simple thought, the common sense
one, always keeping its features
hidden in the mirror of profundity
while staring in the sought
strained mirage of hope.
always holding onto its laden vest
while reading and rereading
imprints of the universe.
the first man to stand behind
the wall of truth and
hearth of lies was Man X,
and he was taken before
the principal wise men
and set before council
and ruled greatly above all men at
the base where he was first
judged. Man X spoke before
blind ears and for the people,
which is how the true
affirmations of change
have always come to exist.
We are one people,
and the universe is not
beside us but within us.
simplicity reflected back to us.
there is a truth that resides
inside each roaming soul
like an apple dangling
on a branch… for it is that
we understand, that which
comes naturally to us,
and that which stands behind the
rails of injustice.
Gina Ribaudo (via www.ilovemurals.com)
Gina Ribaudo is a self-taught artist with over 25 years of experience in running her own mural painting business. Her natural talent was obvious from the first time she won an art contest in kindergarten. Her painting versatility, professionalism, and talent have developed her business into a successful painting career with many satisfied clients.
While recovering from a broken ankle several years ago, Gina took up portrait painting. She immediately fell in love with the process, Her good friend was singing in restaurants around the valley so Gina would paint live iconic portraits while she sang. She always sold them on the spot and loved the interaction and feedback from the audience, Her new love of portrait painting became a new focus in her painting career. Still painting murals, she now spends half of her time painting commissions and painting portraits in her own colorful, expressive style. She currently has a display
Gina specializes in commercial and residential murals, interior and exterior, chalk art, live painting, speed painting, portraits, and teaching art classes. She enjoys giving back to the community by donating her fine art pieces for auctions or live painting for fundraising. Donating murals to non-profit organizations like the MASH animal rescue unit. She also loves teaching art and working with aspiring artists who are interested in drawing and painting. Her clients range from restaurants, hotels, museums, schools and hundreds of homes throughout Washington and Arizona. Gina has been featured in HGTV’s House Hunters, Go Gilbert, channel 3, 10 and 15 local news media and The Everett Herald’s Home and Garden.
What is Gen Society?
Gen Society is an art space blog for visual art and creative writing collaborations, and other randomizations. Hosted by writer and musician, Lorin Drexler, this online venue is an expressive experience for those interested in the world of the arts. It is a literary journey through the hearts and minds of contemporary artists in practice and a reflection of those that have long passed.
If you’re an artist and would like to submit your work in consideration to collaborate with Gen Society, please click below:
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