Lost Girls, Eros and Fairy Tales

Lost Girls
Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie have created a groundbreaking work of genius in Lost Girls. Genius? Unequivocally, and absolutely, yes. It is a trilogy of supremely drawn, lush, graphic novels, but it is so much more than that.

Lost Girls brilliantly deconstructs three childhood female icons, Dorothy, Wendy and Alice. Moore and Gebbie create a universe where Oz, Neverland, and the Land through the Lookingglass are recast as a landscape for desire unbound, a landscape set in pre-World War I. This duo casts an unblinking eye on sexual desire, its myriad permutations, with every kink and taboo brought into the light. But rather than create the standard motif where woman is solely object of male desire, it takes those icons, flips the storyline to create a female centered erotic world where the women are the actors, rather than acted upon. In this universe, our heroines find each other, reveling in each other and their sexual past, with liberal lashings of fin de siècle plus, Colette, Apollinaire, Mucha, Wilde and Schiele.

Lost Girls is hallucinatory, elegant, and profoundly arousing, a masterpiece of more than one genre, apocalyptic in its intensity and its ultimate message. Do not allow yourself to be lulled into a sense of false security. Do not write off Lost Girls as a mere pillow book. Lost Girls is a stunning liberatory and cautionary tale.

After more than one read of this mind-blowing work, it's the ending that resonates at the deepest level, forcing the reader to look at the double edge sword of sexual liberation, what we use sex to feel or not feel, to see or not see, the erotization of violence. I have had only a few experiences that have so deeply challenged and excited me. Read Lost Girls, and I dare you not to be changed.

Top Shelf Comix
http://topshelfcomix.com
ISBN 1-891830-74-0

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NALAC Receives $475,000 from the Ford Foundation

Grant to Support NALAC Fund for the Arts and a New Transnational Arts Fund

SAN ANTONIO – The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) has been awarded $475,000 from the Ford Foundation to support the NALAC Fund for the Arts and launch a new regranting initiative designed to promote intergenerational cultural transmission and community participation in the United States, Mexico and Central America.

NALAC, which celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2009, delivers important services to the national Latino arts and culture sector through a series of core programs. These programs include direct funding support, leadership training, regional and national convenings, and field research.

“It is an honor to receive this generous award,” says NALAC Executive Director Maria Lopez de Leon. “This grant will enable NALAC to provide much needed support to an innovative community of Latino artists and organizations whose work greatly enriches the cultural life of the nation and promotes understanding among culturally and economically linked populations in other communities in the Americas.”

The NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA), which was launched in 2005 with major support from the Ford Foundation and JPMorgan Chase, has awarded more than $379,000 in three years to 128 Latino artists, ensembles, and small and mid-size Latino arts and culture organizations. The grantees reflect every discipline and region of the country.

The new Transnational Cultural Remittance (TCR) initiative builds on NALAC’s longstanding leadership role in supporting artistic work that addresses issues of social justice, cultural transmission and economic empowerment. The TCR initiative will support the creation and dissemination of new artistic works that directly explore, engage and articulate the complex issues facing transnational communities in the United States, Mexico and Central America.

“We are thankful for the Ford Foundation’s continued support,” says Abel Lopez, Chair of the NALAC Board. “Through their partnership in programs such as the NFA, the Ford Foundation is making a difference in the quality of life in communities across the country. Through the Transnational Cultural Remittance initiative, we look forward to addressing serious cultural issues and creating new avenues for artistic, social and economic participation throughout North America and Central America”

The NALAC Transnational Cultural Remittance initiative builds on NALAC's experience administering the NALAC Fund for the Arts and its long-term commitment to empowering artists and arts and culture organizations working on issues vital to communities in the United States, Mexico, Central America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Guidelines for the new NALAC Transnational Cultural Remittances regranting initiative will be available later this year.

About the Ford Foundation: The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Russia.

About NALAC: Founded in 1989, NALAC is the only national Latino arts and culture service organization in the United States. It plays a vital role in fostering understanding, providing advocacy, conducting original research, creating networking opportunities, and providing leadership instruction that ensures the health and sustainability of the national Latino arts. NALAC’s core programs include the NALAC Fund for the Arts, the annual NALAC Leadership Institute, Regional Arts Training Workshops, the NALAC National Conference, El Aviso Latino arts magazine, and the monthly eBoletin online newsletter. NALAC is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

Support: NALAC receives generous support from the Ford Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Southwest Airlines, MetLife Foundation, Heineken USA, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Tobin Endowment, City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, Tucson Pima Arts Council, PEC United Charities Inc., H-E-B, Our Lady of the Lake University, NALAC members, individual donors and volunteers.

For more information, call 210-432-3982, email maria@nalac.org or visit www.nalac.org

GALLERY OPENING

Lisa Alvarado