After her father’s passing two years ago, Lompoc-based artist Elisa J discovered the source of inspiration for her latest endeavor.
The photos were taken sometime in the late 1960s, when Elisa J’s family owned a Chinese restaurant in Chicago, where she was born and raised. Although she didn’t personally know many of the people in the photos, she was instantly intrigued and became emotionally invested in every frame. Flipping through the Polaroids, Elisa J found comfort in the notion of gaining a new perspective on her father’s surroundings, taken from his own point of view as the man behind the camera.
“It was a nearness to him that comforted me a lot,” said the artist, who began work on a set of charcoal drawings shortly thereafter—each based on one of the found Polaroids.
“I drew most of the images in charcoal, with the occasional painted watercolor,” she said. “Golden leaf is in every piece.”
Although not her original intention, Elisa J decided to use gold in every drawing based on the way the color reacts to light, she said. The color also ties directly into her overarching theme of reliving a memory, the artist explained.
“Something that has occurred to me recently is gold’s relationship with light. Whatever amount of light there is in a room, gold will catch and reflect it, become its own fixture of it—even if the original source of light is dim,” Elisa J said. “It reminds me of how we remember things. How, when we remember something, our minds light up. Maybe memories appear more beautiful, or take their own shapes, illuminated in our minds this way.”
When choosing which Polaroids to draw from, Elisa J leaned toward snapshots that seemed spontaneous, caught in the moment without preparation. The subjects appear candidly captured as they go about their day, she said.
“The people in the photos—so many of whom I did not personally know or recognize—look objectively cool. They are also all in the middle of doing something,” Elisa J said. “Their expressions are fixed in thought, in laughter, in living. They’re all in motion. Present. Alive.”
“I think I gravitated towards images that would feel familiar to anyone—that tell their own stories,” she added.
The drawings premiered last year during an exhibition at the Lompoc Library’s Grossman Gallery, but they are currently on display at Flying Goat Cellars. Elisa J will be present during an artist reception at the tasting room, on Jan. 25, starting at 3 p.m.
To complement her new showcase, Elisa J decided to try her hand at writing fortune cookie fortunes, as most of her drawings depict life in or around her family’s restaurant. Elisa J plans to print the fortunes in time for the reception and add them to the display.
“It’s surprisingly hard to write single sentences that don’t sound preachy or sappy,” she said of the experiment. “That could be just my problem though. I’m not Hemingway.”
Elisa J will also discuss some of her personal favorite pieces at the reception, including Cake. The drawing depicts a smiling woman sitting at a table with cake and a small pile of plates in front of her.
“I just think she is so fantastic. Her smile makes me smile,” said Elisa J, who didn’t realize who the woman was until after the drawing’s debut at Grossman.
“After the show, a few aunts of mine told me the woman in the photo was named Daisy,” Elisa J said. “She had worked at the restaurant for a few years, and had always been well dressed—regardless of the occasion.”
The original Grossman show ran just a year after Elisa J and her husband moved to Lompoc from Torrance. Elisa J had admired the area long before that though, she said before describing one lasting memory of her own. No Polaroid required.
“While I was still pregnant with my daughter, we took a mini trip up and down the Central Coast,” the artist said. “Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but I truly fell so in love with it. It is magic to live here.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood loves a good fortune cookie, especially with some hot tea. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 23-30, 2020.
