Madre Lineage- Artist Patricia Yossen

Artist Patricia Yossen

“Lola influenced my art practice more than any famous artist or movement” states Argentinian artist Patricia Yossen. Patricia and I are in her art studio behind her gorgeous craftsman home in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles.

For the last few years, Patricia and I have had an on-going conversation about Lola. It started when we were working together in an art workshop Patricia designed. It was for a fancy private party at the museum where we work, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) . It turned out that we had a lot of time to talk because most of the people at the party didn’t want to make art. Patricia started to tell me about her next project, but she wasn’t sure if it would be interesting. “Do you think anyone would care about a woman named Lola from a pueblito in Argentina?” That question marked a deepening in our friendship. Patricia explained her desire to make a body of work around Lola, a woman from Patricia’s pueblo, Recreo, Argentina. Lola created a handcraft circle for young women that had a huge impact on the town. Even with that little bit of information, I told Patricia, hell yeah, I want to know all about Lola. After all, I am super into handcraft, and love hearing about women creating community.

Studio wall

Patricia’s studio was originally built for horses and a carriage. It is an open space with big windows and white walls pinned with sketches, works in-progress, and inspirational images and words. Two long wood workbenches patinaed with age anchor a corner. Patricia’s ceramic work, especially in porcelain, are piled on the workbenches and various tables throughout the space. Other art making materials such as brushes, pots of ink and paint, drawing pencils, and charcoal sticks are also on the workbenches. The porcelain objects Patricia makes, such as tiles, cups, cast handkerchiefs, are so delicate, light comes through, revealing words and drawings made in blue. Shades of blue, gray, and white are everywhere, except the red velvet couch placed in front of tall a bookcase. The couch sitting there, daring me to lie on it like a Victorian poet. Instead we are sitting on white chairs drinking mate, munching on scones, and it is lovely.

Porcelain cups and tiles from the Lola series

Patricia and I move easily between English and Spanish, choosing the language that feels best in the moment, often switching languages mid-sentence. Patricia’s English is accented with Spanish, which reminds me of my family, especially mamá and her sisters. I’m sure my Spanish is accented with a mix of Ecuadorian Spanish, and valley girl English. I grew up speaking English, Spanish, and Spanglish at home. I feel at home sitting here, and am reminded that I believe that knowing more than one language gives access to a multiplicity of differing ways to experience the world; that language is like a door.

Here in her studio, Patricia tells me about Lola. Lola taught handcraft such as embroidery, crochet, sewing and knitting to young women in Recreo for 40 years, starting in the 1930s. Patricia’s mother was Lola’s student. At the time, Recreo only had an elementary school. The high school was in another town, and it was extremely rare for girls to go to school beyond elementary studies. Lola’s class was a place where girls and young women could go, and it became an underground circle that subverted the strong patriarchal society. Lola and the young women she taught talked about everything they couldn’t talk about at home, like relationships, sex, politics, and domestic abuse. They read poetry and talked about science. The political history of Argentina is complex, and has had periods under repressive dictatorships, especially what is known as the Dirty War. In the face of that, I am blown away thinking about how Lola created an unlikely community.

Patricia says that she is an artist because her mother was Lola’s student. Lola was avantgarde in a small provincial pueblo. Patricia’s mother passed on what she learned. More than learning embroidery or crochet, Patricia recognizes that she learned that making is calm and pleasant. In Lola’s lineage, making brings joy, not stress. “Ósea, es una triangulación entre Lola inspirando a mi madre y mi madre a mi. That is, a triangulation between Lola inspiring my mother and my mother inspiring me.”

Rollo de Escritura #1, Ink on paper, 18 ft x 4ft, 2016
Based on Lola’s embroidery notebooks

Most of Patricia’s artwork finds itself back to Recreo. The pueblo is located six hours northwest of Buenos Aires. The landscape is wide open, big sky country and is where three rivers converge. Patricia suggests that her art process back to Recreo is rooted in el mito del retorno, the myth of returning. I know that myth well, being the daughter of immigrants. It is nostalgia and a romanticizing of a homeland. But memory is slippery and inaccurate. People and places change.

The Lola project has evolved over the years. At one point, Patricia was casting handkerchiefs her mother made with Lola into porcelain. She thought of making a large light table and placing the cast porcelain on top so that light illuminated. Lit porcelain becomes translucent. It sounded beautiful to me. The next time I saw Patricia, she told me that the light table idea was too obvious.

While visiting Recreo, Patricia was able to do some research. It turned out that Lola had left a kind of archive that was now housed in Recreo’s library. The archive included forty years of weekly movie ticket stubs from El Cine Splendid and hundreds of clippings of poetry, and stories about science from newspapers. Lola had bound the clippings into books, which she covered in fabric that she embroidered. There were also piles of notebooks filled with marks. The marks were patterns. Embroidery patterns. To an outside eye, they appear to be obsessive markings in gibberish. Patricia started playing with the stitch patterns by adding the marks to other porcelain objects such as tiles, plates, and cups. Then she painted the patterns in ink on eighteen feet long scrolls which abstracted the original meaning from a practical pattern. One of the scrolls is hanging on the studio wall. It feels like a codex.

Tablecloth edged in crochet made by Patricia’s mother and porcelain handkerchiefs cast from cloth handkerchiefs also made by Patricia’s mother, from the series “Pañuelos”.

I think of the many times I have been in a room with women making things with our hands, and how that feels like home to me. It could be a kitchen, studio, a living room, or at a worktable. I also thought of my mamá and abuelita who were both ninjas with needles, thread and yarn. How much I learned from them. Especially from my mamá. We got along best when we were making together and telling each other stories.

And I think about how that because my friend made this body of work honoring her lineage of artmaking, I too count Lola as a foremother.

Who is in your lineage?

This is Lola at fifteen

PS- At fifteen, Lola ran off to become an actress.
Then came back. Just thought you should know.

PPS- Another question, why do you think Lola saved the ticket stubs?