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Maria Dumlao uses color politically in her phenomenal work ‘History in RGB’

In this 35 minute episode of Artblog Radio, host Logan Cryer interviews Maria Dumlao about her iconic piece 'History in RGB', what it was like to receive a 2020 Leeway Transformation Award, and her artistic influences, in particular Filipino oral history and Filipino culture. We highly recommend this fantastic episode, which introduces Maria Dumlao as an artist and person.

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Maria Dumlao, a Filipino woman with shoulder length black hair, eyebrow length bangs, and eyeglasses, in front of a digitally rendered decorative background.
Center for Emerging Visual Artist Fellow, Leeway Transformation Awardee, and interdisciplinary artist Maria Dumlao. Photo courtesy Maria Dumlao. Edited for Artblog Radio.

In this 35 minute Artblog Radio episode, Artblog contributor and Artblog Radio host Logan Cryer interviews interdisciplinary artist Maria Dumlao, who works specifically in “combined media, including film, video, animation, sound, photography, embroidery and installation.” The conversation is a comprehensive look at Maria’s career, including her family influences, the importance of Filipino culture to her work, and her recent accolades such as receiving a 2020 Leeway Transformation Award and being a 2020–21 Artist in Residence at Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. Maria also provides valuable insight about her wildly popular work History in RGB (which Logan calls “a phenomenon”) and how the project has transformed after reflecting on all of the difficulties and tragedies that have defined 2020-2021.

Maria’s work is currently on view at multiple venues: Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, ‘Archives Reimagined‘ — on view through May 31, 2021; Michener Art Museum, ‘Through the Lens: Modern Photography in the Delaware Valley’– on view through August 15, 2021; and Pearlstein Gallery, ‘Breathing Room‘ — on view through May 28, 2021. You can find more information about Maria Dumlao on Instagram @MadumLao or her website www.mariadumlao.com.

You can listen to Artblog Radio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you to Kyle McKay for composing Artblog Radio’s original podcast intro and outro!


Transcription

Logan Cryer: [00:00:12] Hello friends. You’re listening to Artblog Radio, recorded in Philadelphia. My name is Logan Cryer and I’m hosting this episode, a special conversation with visual artist Maria Dumlao. Maria Dumlao works with combined media, including film, video, animation, sound, photography, embroidery, and installation. Her work explores individual and collective history as a mediated experience.

Born in the Philippines, Maria immigrated to the U S mainland where she currently lives and works in the traditional territory of the Leni Lenape. In this episode, Maria and I talk about her upbringing, how she navigated becoming an artist, and how she came to create her extraordinary piece History in RGB.

Our conversation starts with Maria discussing her family’s history and how it shaped her experience as an artist.

Maria Dumlao: [00:01:11] I grew up in a big family. (laughs) I’m the youngest of seven children. I grew up with my dad starting a family business, or his business. He started a detective agency in the seventies before I was born.

And then my mom was a nurse, and eventually she became a Dean at a women’s university in the Philippines. And they were both started out like humbly actually like not well off, they didn’t have many things. And my mom in fact, her dad died the same day that the Pearl Harbor was bombed. Because the Japanese also bombed the U.S. Embassy and like my grandfather was working for that U.S. Military. So that was like, they never heard from her dad again and her family, we became refugees. They, they moved around a lot. And then my dad was like also was brought up in a matriarchal family. Because his dad was also in the military.

But in any case, they’re both hardworking, they’re both persistent and determined to find ways to solve things and whatever they did, they worked hard at So that’s always been an inspiration to me. Even though we disagreed a lot, we disagreed on a lot of things. Like I was not at all, what they wanted their kids to be, they wanted everyone in my family to be practical, to go to business school or nursing, or you know, go to church every Sunday and be good Catholics. I think that I was always the opposite of that. (laughs) Um, not the good part. I try to be good, but I think I worked hard in other ways.

And I think I was always the weird one and the odd one and the one who said the wrong things to the one who did the wrong things. But I think I picked up some other things, some other values that they had. So I do value a lot of those things, even though, you know, we disagreed on so many things.

So, I mean it, it got to the point that they didn’t really take my interest in art seriously. They thought it was just a phase, just like any young people would have a phase in their interest in art or something else. So my, my upbringing only had like pop culture and religious icons.

So I didn’t have art surrounding me. I mean, there’s always like the cultural stuff that, that you learn in school. And then I took some creative classes, right? Like drawing or art at school. I did ballet, but then it wasn’t more than any kids would do. I wasn’t really special or talented in any of that. But it wasn’t like it’s anything serious at all, or I was, it wasn’t recognized at all. I did draw, I wasn’t recognized as someone who was creative.

The last time I saw my dad before he passed away, which was like seven or eight years ago. To that point, he still said like, “Oh, you’re so good at math. Why didn’t you do anything? It’s too bad you didn’t do anything with that.” And, you know, and then I was just like, “Well, you know, I have a career, right? And you know how I can actually support my family, right? And you know that some people actually call me professor? Right?”

So, (laughs) so it wasn’t, it still wasn’t dawning, it wasn’t like sinking in that that was anything serious. Like that’s how, my relationship with my family has a lot of respect, but at the, at the same time, there’s a lot of misunderstanding.

Logan Cryer: [00:04:42] Yeah. I feel like that’s really common for a lot of artists, especially if their parents aren’t from the U.S. Yeah.
Maria Dumlao: [00:04:49] Yeah. And they want it, you know, and they sacrifice a lot of things bringing the family to the U S and giving up a lot of things there. And then starting from scratch here again. But.

Yeah. I, It’s just really funny because I think there’s a lot of similarities with what I’m doing to what they’re doing. But it’s just coming out differently. So I think we still have the same concerns, but it’s coming out differently. But anyway, yeah, the reason I bring that up is because they are always been inspirational to me, and I think I take a lot of that strength from them and apply it in some other ways. It’s not directly impacting my art, but it is impacting the way I see things. So I guess like the first time that it was like the actual Art with a capital A, that that was apparent to me was, it wasn’t until I was at Rutgers in undergrad. So that was like my late teens.

I took an art history class and that just like shook my world because I had no idea like that the power of image can influence a whole, I want to say a whole civilization really. And influencing faith, like a belief system in a, in such a large quantity, just based on image making.

Especially when people didn’t read. And that was like the only way that they were conveying things, and it really influenced their world. Right? Like the Cathedrals that were built, the images that was like so dramatic, showing like, this is your God, right? So this is like, well, I’ve never seen anything else, so it must be God. Right?

So there’s all these like little and big questions like that, that that me really excited. And also made me question about my own faith in a lot of ways like, Oh, so everything I know is probably constructed too. So which part of it was really true or which part of it was not a part of… which one do I need to figure out? And which ones do I need to seek out because it was not created before, or there is no representation of it as an image.

One good example that I can think of is that the Hagia Sophia, how that was in Istanbul or it still is in Istanbul, but how it was founded or it was built for the Byzantine. And then it became Catholic Roman Catholic, and then it became a Mosque. So it depended on who was the empire at the time. That’s what that house of worship served. So all these people had different beliefs, but then this beautiful building, this sacred building became a vehicle for people to, express themselves or to understand their faith or their relationship to their God, right? It’s through this beautiful architecture.

So like, that’s how crazy was for me, like thinking about all these things, (laughs) how influential art can be.

Logan Cryer: [00:07:56] Yeah.

Maria Dumlao: [00:07:56] I think amongst many other things like, that happened at the same time that I started taking photography.

And then I thought about, Oh, so if, these people created this art and influenced all these people, you know, just think about like the possibilities of how this medium, this language, can say things and can help people understand things. And at the same time, how I understand things.

So that was all coming together when I went to college. Great thing (laughs).
Logan Cryer: [00:08:30] (laughs) Yeah. It’s interesting hearing you talk about this too, because going into this conversation, something I was really thinking about is, relative to most people who go to art school, or try to have a professional career in the arts, you’ve been an artist for a really long time. And not everyone is able to kind of figure out how it is to make a career in the arts, or to keep that motivation going. And it seems like the questions and ideas you were having probably like 18, 19, they’re still really driving your work.

Maria Dumlao: [00:09:01] Well, it’s funny you say that too, because I actually never, or I shouldn’t say never, but I didn’t really dream of becoming an artist or you know, becoming anything really. (laughs)

Yeah. I just, I think a lot of people at young age are like, Oh, when I grow up, I want to be this. I don’t think I even, I was thinking about that, how, I don’t think I even had anything like that…? Other than I remember thinking I want to do things more than being something.

And I still have a hard time with that fixed word because I think constantly being defined has always been really hard for me. And even before in undergrad, again, going back to undergrad, I was not considered making art. Right. Cause I got into photography. I started to do a documentary and then I started to do also self portraits and identity stuff.

And that wasn’t considered art. And I was a photographer, not an artist. Now a painter is an artist, or a sculptor is an artist. And I remember how annoying that was, that the, the labels were so important and how your medium was defining who you were. And even up until grad school, I remember like, I wasn’t considered one of the artists, right? I went to an art school, but then it was like, “what you’re doing is not art.” You know, I remember like people saying that about what I was doing because I was working with photography and you know, it, wasn’t what you see in the art world.
So what I was doing has always been on the outside. I also never thought that making a career of it was an option because I always said that I was going to keep making what I want to make. Right? So that part, I didn’t even make that decision. I just happened to do it because I liked doing it. So it became like a hobby. So I’m kind of like a Sunday painter, but I never thought I would make a career out of it because, again, it’s like my upbringing, you have to be practical.

So I always knew that was going to do some things, some other jobs, some job that was going to support my hobby right? So I just kept doing the art and then kept working at odd jobs. And then eventually it followed me.

Like an example of that is when I was actually in Brooklyn and I had a book club with two friends (laughs) and we decided to do we wanted to do a TV show and a variety show. So I signed up to be a Producer and Director at the Local Cable Access Television. So I signed up and I took the classes just so we can make this TV show based on like our jokes.

And so we made this series, (Maria and Logan both laugh) and we were syndicated every Saturday night for a few seasons. And I like to say like, “Oh yeah, we’re on what at the same time that SNL is on!” You know? ( Maria and Logan both laugh)

But yeah, so I did that with them and I, I got my certification and I, I was doing that for fun. You know, again, there was like, I had a day job. I was working for Time Magazine, a very corporate job, which made me sick. (Logan laughs)

Um, And then little did I know that actually that same experience that I gained from working from, from doing that project is the one that got me, the job that I have now at Bucks County Community College, because it was unusual to find one person who could do both television. And fine arts and I was that person (Maria and Logan both laugh) So I was able to connect like fine art, photography, digital art, and then television.
So yeah, so that was like my ticket to this job that I have now. So I just like kept doing what interested me and, and everything else follows. And without the agenda of making a career of it, or even making any money off it. So I knew that that was going to be the challenge. I, I think that one, I was pretty sure that as long as I can support the art that I have, it didn’t matter what job, a job I was going to get.
As long as I wasn’t getting sick. So I got out of that, you know, that corporate job I had. And as long as I was staying healthy and I can keep making stuff. That was good enough for me. And yeah, like I feel, I feel like the bar of my ambition was really low about like making, like being an artist, right? So I, like I said, I didn’t even set out to say I’m going to be an artist. but I dream, I do dream of greatness, right? So I think there’s a lot of inspiration out there.

So I remember, so I moved to New York in the nineties. I remember seeing Amiri Baraka, like several times. And I was just like, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, but I want to be great like him, you know? And I, (laughs) like, I remember going to see some music shows and like, (laughs) I saw some musicians, I remember William Parker I was watching, and I was crying, and I was like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know. I have to work tomorrow, (Logan laughs) but like, that was just so amazing. And if I can do anything, half as great as that I was going to be like, life is going to be so fulfilling.” I would feel so fulfilled if I, if I could do something as amazing or half as amazing.

Logan Cryer: [00:14:41] (laughs) That’s actually, I’m glad you mentioned that.

Cause something I really wanted to spend some time talking about was your piece History in RGB. And I want to talk you about it because, I really rarely have seen in Philadelphia where an artist has a piece that becomes like a phenomenon, but I really feel like that has been the case.

I’ve personally seen it multiple times in different locations in the city. It’s on view right now, outside of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. And I know you’re, you’re continuing to kind of make iterations on that work, but I feel like it’s so encapsulates what artists can do best– which is interestingly, kind of what you were describing, your kind of epiphany being in college- which is using aesthetics to tell a bigger message and tell a bigger story.

So, can you talk a little bit about that piece? I know you’ve probably talked about it a lot, cause it was made a couple of years ago and like I said, it’s been a lot of different places, but maybe thinking for people who’ve already seen it, if you could give more information to them about the process of how it came to be or how you’re thinking about it now, having shown it for the last few years.

Maria Dumlao: [00:15:50] Hmm. Thank you. I hope that it’s not. Overexposed (Maria and Logan laugh) that people are like, Oh, so that again, you know, I hope not. And I hope that I will continue to keep discovering things, you know about it and beyond it. But at this point yeah, it’s it’s, it’s, it is changing on its own, although subtly.

So how did that come about? I think that goes back to things that I’ve been wanting to do for years that I just. Pieces of it came to me and then left, right? Just like anything. Ideas came to me and then I was just like, “Oh, I tried this, I tried that.” I was like, “Oh, it’s not working. Let me put that away.” And then I went on to do something else and then it keeps coming back to me.

So how it started out is I think there’s a few things that I could trace it back. One is I studied at Hunter. And I studied with color field painters. (laughs) So that’s when I studied with artists, but I’m a photographer. I was a photographer. And I was experimenting with photography and video and sound, but I wasn’t a painter. And so I wasn’t really doing so well.

But you know, I was one of those quiet students that didn’t say much. Because I was so shy and also I don’t know if people knew how much I was like really taking in things? (Maria and Logan both laugh). I think like people just thought I was just checked out. (Logan laughs) But but yeah, I, I did learn a lot from this color field painters about like the again, like history of color theory and art history.

At the same time I was studying with Roy DeCarava, , who’s a photographer. So I was actually TA-ing for him. And and he said the most beautiful things. And then I don’t know if you’re familiar, but he did a lot of black and white photography. He did have colors too, but then he’s told me one time, “you know, the problem with color is color,” (Maria and Logan both laugh) which was, so it was funny because I was doing color photography. So it was like, “Oh, so you’re not going to look at my work?”
(Maria and Logan both laugh) But anyway he was amazing. Yeah. And he’s, if you have never seen his work, and if you get a chance to see his work in person, you should. Because he did a lot of photography that was black and white and there’s different degrees of blackness that he did. And there’s a lot of hidden things in his photography? That part didn’t sink into me until like, the last couple of years. But I always thought it was so beautiful and it exposed so many things, but I remember him telling me about like, there’s so many things that can be revealed in different degrees of darkness, right? Or of the black. Yeah, and that didn’t dawn on me until recently. So but yeah, that’s one of the things. So I was, I was doing traditional black and white photography with him, and then I was studying color theory. And then on top of that was studying with Constance DeJong who’s like video teacher sound performance.

And she also talked about the medium a lot. So I always thought, think about like the medium itself in questioning what the, what are the limitations of the medium? So I was thinking about how digital art is a medium in itself and how that is always in front of us, right? So like, so I think that’s where the red, green and blue came from for me. I pick those colors because those are the primary colors in digital, and that’s how we get our information most of the time, through screens. And then I wanted to turn it back to analog. So, yeah. So there’s that. And then part of the color theory study is Joseph Albers. And there was one part where he said in his book color changes depending on what color you put next to it. Right? So the relativity of color depends on the relationship it has with other things around it.

So I always thought that was interesting and it makes me think of uh, Zora Neale Hurston writing about like, I feel most black when I’m against the white. I’m misquoting it, but like she has this beautiful quote too. And I think about that relativity of color too, how color is perceived as a experience. And it depends on what it’s against and compared to.

So that part, I was experimenting with words. So I was doing color theory and hiding words. I was like changing words texts. So like, if you say the word unseen, if you obscure the UN in the beginning and then it becomes seen. So I was playing with a lot of words and changing the meaning of words by canceling out certain letters. I try that many years ago and that failed (Maria and Logan laugh) and then I was doing that and then I was also researching a lot of archives from the Philippines. So every time we visited the Philippines I would visit the archives there and look up all these stories.

And then I I think it wasn’t until my son was five and he started to ask me about he was, he was very interested in like Frankenstein, Dracula. He was scared you so interested in all this scary stuff like that was like Hollywood classics, right? I think he was like questioning his fear. Right. He was like, wondering like, how can I challenge this? So when he asked me to tell him stories so I, I knew all those stories because I grew up learning those things in the Philippines, but then I said, well, you know, what’s really scary? When I was growing up, we had this, you know, these creatures. So I, I thought about those those horror stories that are actually part of our Filipino history that were not in books, but they were passed on orally, you know, through you know, you hear them from your friends or through like when you go to the mountains and then like people had all these folklores and there’s so scary.

And just thinking about them makes my hair. Just like rise up. And there was, and there was so real because they’re so real that they’re not even in books, right? They’re like, you know, it’s like, this is passed down. It’s like, no, it really happened. Someone saw this, you know, so they were so real to me. So I was thinking about all these things and how like, I couldn’t find any literature about them. I only can remember stories about them. And I, there were a few podcasts and YouTube channels. And they’re all like either we’re just like, non-experts like me, just telling like what they remember. And then eventually I, I was like, I gotta look this up. So will next time I went to the Philippines, I looked up all these stories.

And then I looked up a lot of history stuff and then those historical images, I never really knew what to do with them, but I was collecting them. It was just like part of like trying to understand what is going on with these images. Understand the history really. And then I, I just didn’t know what to make of them.

So yeah, at some point it came together to me like, Oh, this is where I should be applying that experiment I was doing that this is where I should hide and make things visible. And this is a way for me to make sense of it, of telling all these stories. And there’s a lot of nuanced stories, right?

That it’s not that I believe or don’t believe any of it is just, I think I believe in a lot of things and I also questioned a lot of things. And it’s a way for me to process it in that if I put them in a certain narrative, then it allows for that possibility for me to switch back and forth with a magical, and then also go with like what was told and what, which one is the truth in which one is the lie.

And just play with that idea and also allow the viewer to have that play and have that option too, to see more if they want to see more. I also thought about how I wanted it to be very present, right? So that the audience will actually we’ll need to be there and we’ll need to experience it for themselves and figure out, well, I just saw this now. I don’t see it.

You know, it’s like, it’s a very as part of my interest in immersive experience as well. And that was very important to me, especially since I was doing a lot of digital stuff. I wanted to differentiate the experience of looking at something in a screen versus being actually in there at that moment and experience it. So I wanted to connect it back to the present.

It was really fun. Was. I say was because it’s changed a little bit. So the I say was because it was really fun to, to research these things and to play around with these images. It left a lot of room for you know, like thinking of possible scenarios and thinking how do I incorporate different creatures from the Philippine mythologies and then tie it back to my connection in the Philippines.

And then at the same time, bring up the American and Spanish colonialism and that and, and then just like telling stories, indigenous stories that are not really represented in books much or, or art much.

But this year that the show at Drexel is very different and, I don’t think it’s going to be apparent for everybody how different it is, but I did a different color palette, for one thing . Cause the first one is all tropical palette, according to Pantone. Because again, Pantone is a Western, I think it’s an American company and they have like categories in naming their colors. So I looked up their tropical palette and that I based the colors on that. So even that in itself is like constructed color palette. It’s not even according to the Filipino color palette, right? So that’s the American perspective.

The series that Drexel is new. It just, I just made them this year, but it’s as a result of the last year and a lot happened this year. And I think there is a lot of emotional up and down. For everybody. And I honestly, I didn’t create anything for a year. I was just lost and I couldn’t get a grip on things and I struggled. I was processing it all for the last year, but I realized I needed to turn the gaze back. Like as a reflection. So I wanted that colonial gaze to be a reflection of where we are right now. And what what’s happening right now and just to make sense of things.

I focused on the year 1890s to I guess like when the Americans were in the Philippines or the Americans first came to the Philippines.

There was like the Spanish American war, or actually there’s Spanish Filipino war because the Filipinos were rebelling for independence. And then the Americans came in and then said to the Filipinos, “Hey, we’ll help you fight the Spanish off.” But what the Filipinos didn’t know is that the Americans were actually making a deal with the Spanish and help the Spaniards to leave just like they did with uh, Cuba and Puerto Rico, Guam.

So it was a part of a deal. And then there was actually a Filipino American war that Americans don’t know about. And Americans still don’t know that or not. A lot of Americans know that Philippines was actually owned. Owned by the Americans. And I think it’s so strange that it’s not part of the American history to talk about these things. Just like, you know, like the, the genocide with the Native Americans, slavery, that’s all sidelined in history books here. And still there’s still denial. In certain parts of the country, they’re using textbooks that deny these things.

So I was thinking about that and how the soft power was practiced there. How policing was practiced there before bringing it back here, before establishing policing in this country. A lot of surveillance, a lot of controlling people, defining people, training people to serve the needs of capitalists. So the, the, you know, like a way to civilize these people is like, we educate them. So we teach them how to do these little tasks so that it will benefit the American market.

So there’s like a lot of things like that that happened So they called it benevolent assimilation. You know, it came about as a way to educate and Christianize the Filipinos, but there was like other agendas in there, right? So there’s like water torture, water boarding was practiced there. A lot of things that we see here is actually tried there. And I also thought about just the beginning of this year, how the people that went to the Capitol Hill on January 6th, and I remember Biden saying “These scenes do not represent us.”

Logan Cryer: [00:28:55] Right.

Maria Dumlao: [00:28:56] And I thought that was an interesting statement too, because well, I don’t know about that. (Maria and Logan laugh)

I think we’ve seen this before. Also we see these people we know about these people, you know, we they’ve always been around. So yeah, so I was trying to connect it back in like just like holding up the mirror. I think that’s like my attempt of like, “no, no, these go way back.” All these things, people are acting so surprised. People of color know about these things.

So this, this series of work with Drexel was actually dreadful for me. ( Maria and Logan laugh) You know, I think that It was, I had to look through a lot of really sad things and I was like, but at the same time, I was like trying to process uh, where we are right now and what we’re seeing right now and how it’s nothing new, but you know, just like good therapy, right? We need to like know our past first to actually move forward. I mean, I think we have a hard time moving forward because we’re not acknowledging the past. And we’re not acknowledging and recognizing ourselves, ourselves as in us, like as Americans. You know, we need to incorporate that and actually move forward, knowing that that is our past.

So I think that’s how this work is different from before.

Logan Cryer: [00:30:15] Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely like a lot more intensity where there might’ve been some kind of like, kind of whimsy with the horror. I haven’t seen it yet, but having seen History in RGB, I’ll be interested to see and kind of like, with the context that we have now that we didn’t have a few years ago, how that reflection kind of operates in a different way.

We’re starting to wrap up, but the last thing I wanted to ask you about is that you’ve recently received the Leeway Transformation Award! So congratulations. (Logan chuckles)

Maria Dumlao: [00:30:52] Thank you. Thank you. Very happy about that.

Logan Cryer: [00:30:54] Yeah. And I know this is part of the application to answer this question. So please don’t feel like you’re being put on that kind of spot, but…

Maria Dumlao: [00:31:02] I should have reviewed my application. Okay.

Logan Cryer: [00:31:04] (Logan laughs) No, but I mean, with the Transformation Award, the, the name kind of says it, it is designed to kind of transform the lives of artists after they’ve reached kind of a certain point in their career. So I’m curious what you see is next for you. Especially, especially earlier in the conversation you were talking so much about how you’ve never planned to be an artist and just kind of things kind of happened and you were just pushing forward.
Yeah. What do you feel like is next to you now?

Maria Dumlao: [00:31:31] Well, I think, I think it ties back to aspiring to be as close to the people I admire. I think it applies to Leeway because they look at the list of previous Leeway recipients, and I’m just like in awe. And I’m not going to name names, but if you just look at it, (Maria and Logan laugh)

Logan Cryer: [00:31:51] They’re all amazing.

Maria Dumlao: [00:31:51] They’re all amazing. And just to be recognized that I am, I’m worthy? (Maria laughs) To be you know, to actually be in this same company is amazing to me. . Like I’m just like so grateful. That just adds a lot of validity to the work that I do.

It just feels really good to know that I’m doing something right. To just like trust myself more, which is something that I feel like that’s like one of the achievements. That I want to keep achieving is to just keep trusting myself. And I think that is in itself a process it’s not always easy to, to know that it’s okay to just like play to experiment, to try and fail to Just just to trust that it is what it is, as long as you’re doing it.

It definitely is a leverage to pat myself on the back, just like leverage to give myself a break as well, right? To just like, say you know, what you’re doing is important enough. So it’s important enough to be kind to myself and give myself a break once in a while because I need it.

Cause I think a lot of us both artists and activists, we’re really hard on ourselves and always thinking about not doing enough. But sometimes you really have to remind yourself that you are enough and you’re, you need to just trust you’re not alone in this.

I’m excited because I can keep working with communities that I want to work with. I’m excited to just know more, to learn more. And this, this allows me to do that.

Logan Cryer: [00:33:35] Yeah. I feel like that’s such a good note to end on. (Logan laughs)

Thank you. I know we mentioned some things off the top, but if you want to talk about some places where your art is up now or where people can maybe follow you on social media or learn more about what you do, do you have anything you want to share, plug?
Maria Dumlao: [00:33:54] Yeah. Sure.

So there’s the show at Drexel at Pearlstein Gallery. And that’s up until end of April, I think.

And the one at Crane Arts building, which is shown by Philadelphia Photo Arts Center there’s outdoor installation there. So you don’t even have to make appointment or, you can just go there anytime, but I guess preferably during the day when the lighting’s better, (Logan laughs) but there’s a, there’s a box there with builders, you can actually interact with the prints. And that is up until also end of April.

And then I have a print up at Michener Art Museum with actually some quite amazing Philly artists in there to o, Ada Trillo has photographs in there. That’s a good show to check out, but I have one print in there. And I think that’s all I have for now.

Logan Cryer: [00:34:46] Yeah. Great. That’s great.

Maria Dumlao: [00:34:48] Oh , and than Instagram! it’s @MadumLao. That’s M-A-D-U-M-L-A-O. That’s my handle. (Maria and Logan laugh). Not on Twitter, that’s someone else (Logan laughs) writing about it,

Logan Cryer: [00:35:03] If you look it up on Twitter, that’s a completely different person. (Maria and Logan laugh)
Okay, thanks so much!

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