Why I make Belly Dance Art

The following blog was originally posted on the Belly Motions blog (check it out, wonderful posts by beautiful people!)

Nagwa Fouad, 2013

Someone once told me that I’d have to choose between Belly Dance and the visual arts to properly fulfill my career path. I was dissatisfied and felt like I was getting cheated from being myself. I believed my identity was a mixture of many creative avenues, not just one. So I trusted my instinct, emerged my two passions and created my dream career against all doubts!

I graduated in 2012 with a BFA from F.I.U. double majoring in Fine Art and Art History, and went on to completely immerse myself into the career of my dreams – becoming a full-time artist and a professional Belly Dancer…and merging the two!

As I reflect on a full year of work, I experienced that the magic of becoming you comes from the process of fulfilling your dreams . I won’t lie that in doing what you love comes tons of work that might not have been expected, even with creative careers! I’ve found that working consistently is the key to staying inspired and learning more!  In my experience I have come across three ways to fuel my passion for visual art and Belly Dance…and I hope these can be an inspiration to YOU too!

1. It’s a personal journey. The arts are wonderful avenues to discover the person that you are. Letting me be discovered by me has truly helped in the development of my work. I am an adventurous person who loves to travel and loves surprises. I like people, tea, conversation, etc… and I give in to it! What I like become statements of who I am which are eventually reflected in the art work.

2. It’s about and for the community. Whether it’s teaching dance and art or working on a one-on-one collaboration with a client (a.k.a. commission), I make sure my work and it’s messages circle in a figure eight – what goes around, comes around! In other words, what I learn I will always give back whether through dance, paintings or teaching.

3. Belief that art is life. I like to think that art and life go hand-in-hand as they are both surprising and like to sneak up on you, even in the tiniest of places. The most important thing I’ve learned and that keeps me inspired is that art is a “connector” between people! For example, dance, what I like to describe as “one of the oldest forms of communication” before verbal language, is as much a part of me as it is to my students and audiences. It can bridge people despite their differences and I’ve felt that magic happen! Effectively, I incorporate those experiences into my art work.

So if you gravitate towards one creative avenue, whether it’s cooking, crocheting, inventing, painting, dancing, or writing… make sure to continue! There’s growth, learning fun, new things and you’ll most likely meet someone that will share that similar passion! I believe we are all creative and we’ve all been there even in the smallest way! Make it simple, just do.

Stop by Belly Motions and visit out our gallery where you can view a few of my paintings!  You can also find more information on my visual art at www.Alexandra-Molina.com

Learning to be the Artist I want to be.

It's tea time, March 28th, 2014.

Lately, the inspirational creature that lives inside me has grown more temperamental and wanting to let loose. It has to do with several reasons and I know this sort of thing doesn't just happen on its own. Nothing ever happens on its own. As someone who's field is working with what they love - creativity - there's always that misconception that "inspiration just happens."

It takes lots of consistent labor, actually, and not just in making art work! I am thankful that my success in selling my work is growing, but I understand why that is and I wish that more artists understood the following....

• Learn to be you. Understanding and being aware of who you are, your actions, your desires, your small habits and your biggest fears, and giving in to it is one important step. Whether it's a start for you or a continuation of your work, learning to be you at home and in public is highly beneficial.

• Expect the constant struggles. Be a welcoming person to all things! It will guide you to the places you might need to be. 

• Working on the creative stuff as much as you work on the admin stuff. Taking time to edit or update your website, sharing images on social media, posting, replying to people is part of our jobs as artists. I mean, we want to have people buy our work eventually, right? We need to start a following, plus the internet is free! 

• Be curious about the world. I love watching TED Talks, PBS and Art 21 shows. That's my little circle of "internet friends" I can meditate ideas with back and forth. There's something exciting about knowledge and actively surrounding yourself with it. It makes me feel like a kid in school who's learning about a really cool bug or ancient civilization. Which also brings me to...

• Be surprised. I LOVE surprises and what that teaches me about myself! It makes me happy to let something bewilder my senses and make me think. It's a great way to keep your mind sharp and active!

One of these days I might have blogs elaborating more on these points, but for the meantime it was good to just get them out there.

I'll promise myself to write more on the bigger and the smaller things that go on around me. It's just plain fun to have a personal blog and live out my creative side in all ends of the spectrum.

Thanks for popping by!

Photo's in this blog entry are courtesy of "Women's TEA TIME" Facebook page, 

who is always posting inspirational images and words.

Review on Adrian Molina's "Perpetual-In-Terra-Action"

I once titled this review "What Jackson Pollock wished he would have thought and where Albert Einstein would have felt magical" because Adrian's scrolls have many "action painting" qualities that Pollock made famous. And as for Einstein feeling magical - well... I would imagine that man was always feeling magical with all the beautiful things that came out of his fathomless mind! Adrian's art is an intricate and continuous figure-eight of creativity, science, physics, philosophy and pure fun.

I wrote this in 2011 after my first trip to Boston, re-editing it recently just a bit (Isn't it crazy how we look at things later and are like... man, I write better today than I used to! We're either ashamed or we laugh about it - I laughed.) I'll always remember this wonderfully, successful show and I'm very proud of my brother for conjuring such intriguing work.

Hope you enjoy the read!
_____________

Looming Scroll, 2011
Photo by Adam Moskowitz

It's Friday, November 11th, 2011 and I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. My brother, artist Adrian Molina is exhibiting his first full show of work, which has already blown my mind. Located at Yes.Oui.Si Gallery, a block from the Boston Museum of Art, this quaint yet lively space is charming and exciting my curiosity.

“Of course you can touch it. This isn't a museum.” –Adrian playfully clarifies in the midst of a crowd exploring his Looming Scroll or what I like to call The Mother Machine (image above). As in many cases with his work, I feel that he always had the intention for the viewer to become physically and intellectually involved. It is very much evident with this multi-media project.

The show had everything; sound, visual, touch, mind power, and human interaction. It had all of the traditional qualities of fine art (painting, drawing and sculpture) blended with less tangible medias such as real-time video, live music and concept. The gallery set the perfect cozy and home-like atmosphere for this intimate experience. Guests packed the space from 6:30pm and on receiving at least 100 plus throughout the night - a fantastic turn out for this young space.

Cleanly and well curated by co-founder of Yes.Oui.Si. Olivia Ives-Flores, there were two main rooms that held the intricate project. In the main room sat The Looming Scroll. There the journey began with you and one other person turning the wheels of the da Vinci-esque contraption to view the scroll of time that it presented. Above us was a camera which captured live feedback that was being shown in the second room. 

Surrounding the main experience were visual extensions of the show - meditative scrolls titled After Thoughts, a gravity-defying, surreal self-portrait halfway between painting and sculpture and charming mid-sized assemblage's, many found on his tumblr on pages 2-3, click here!

The place was on fire with conversations about the work!

I tried The Looming Scroll several times with different people and of course one round with Adrian. I rolled it forward and back taking in all of what it communicated to me. The language of the work was alluring, gently pulling you in to respond to it. The wheels turn harmoniously together creating a relationship with two people - who possibly may not know one another. This echoes a desire for universal human communication - an essential, innate collaboration. It took a few people, without Adrian's guidance, to get this momentum - but when they happily figured it out, it was a great little ride for them.

On another level, Adrian involves time travel and scientific elements - an interest owing to our father Nestor Molina for his philosophies and research in science. The scroll is the constant and the timing it rolls is relative to the variable (the people maneuvering the machine.) Add a bit of a philosophical spice with the content of the scroll and the observer gets pulled into the deeper, intellectual pockets of the project.

The first way the sequence of the narrative scroll rolls is towards the "future" and the second is towards the "past." Respectfully one can interpret the sequence of narration in reverse. The "past" begins with calligraphical characters Adrian's subconscious has produced seeming to narrate the beginning of time. Then nature and a bird in flight appears as we follow it towards the future morphing into a plane and then into "energy" as we pass through the land, an industrialized age and eventually into space and the universe.

In action or stillness there is mediation. Meditation on the images, on the interaction of the two manipulators or observers, and on a more grandeur scale, the manipulation of “their voyage in that life.”

What I found to be enlightening was how the community was open and humble and easy to converse with - a quality that I desire so much in the Miami art scene, and I know I'm not the only one. Everyone was excited, both young and old.

The collective that is Yes.Oui.Si. is rare jewel in the art world - or at least to my eyes. They work gracefully and constructively building unique and inspiring projects. Adrian's Perpetual-in-Terra-Action exhibit was a success within the collective, the community and for his own growth.

If you have questions for the artist, contact him here: admoart@gmail.com

Want to see the Machine in Miami? Email me your interest and I'll get working on it! (hello@alexandra-molina.com)