Rip Tales: Jay DeFeo's Estocada and Other Pieces

In 1965, Jay DeFeo was evicted from her San Francisco apartment and forced to destroy the only other artwork she’d started in six years (apart from her legendary painting The Rose), an enormous painting on paper stapled directly to her hallway wall. The unfinished Estocada was ripped down in unruly pieces and reanimated years later in her studio through photography, photocopy, collage and relief. Drawing from largely unpublished archival material, this title traces Estocada’s material history.The title interweaves it with stories about other Bay Area artists—Zarouhie Abdalian, April Dawn Alison, Ruth Asawa, Lutz Bacher, Bruce Conner, Dewey Crumpler, Trisha Donnelly and Vincent Fecteau—that likewise evoke themes of transformation, intuition and process. Foregrounding a Bay Area ethos that could be defined by its resistance to definition, Rip Tales explores the unpredictable edges of artworks and ideas.
ISBN 9781940190297. Soberscove Press. pb. 136 pages. 45 colour, 10 b/w ills. 14 x 22 cm.
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