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[ Click images for larger version ] |
Street Life
Desperately Seeking Becca
By Hope Urban
From
the littered streets of Hollywood to the whitewashed walls of its hotspot galleries
and cultural institutions, the
reclusive artist known to a nation of enchanted spectators simply as Becca has
brought her tale of urban alienation
and sly humor to life in the form of her little girls. Sometimes these girls
come out as boys, men, women, and even
superheros, but they never betray their creator's passion for innocence and
subtle commentary with their spontaneous
presence. Hope Urban takes a closer look at the life of a true street artist.
Becca
Midwood is speaking to me from Virginia, where she has been nursing a broken
arm, setting up a studio, and
making her first sketches since the accident: beatific saffron-robed monks with
no arms.
"It's
very frustrating," she says of her recovery from the mysterious, off-limits-as-a-topic
accident which shattered some
of the bones in her arm. "Like learning how to draw all over again."
Her
work has always been autobiographical in nature. Prior to her eastward move,
she called downtown Los Angeles
home, where she lived in a domestic arrangement with another LA artist. Sans
car, she spent a lot of time at home.
Appropriately, work from that period includes such images of domesticity as
a glorified vacuum cleaner and idealized
1950s housewives serving up salad. "My work has always been a reflection of
my life, like a soap opera," she admits.
See Juxtapoz #18 to see the full story.