Sunday 6 December 2015, 3-5pm: Come meet and chat with local author and artist Deamer Dunn, whose recent work Strength and Grace tells the story of a young woman who becomes a renowned matador.
Synopsis:
“This is the story of a young Mexican woman who stumbles into becoming a bullfighter. She so excels that she becomes a great Matador. The catch is all but a few think she is a man. It is a story of female empowerment within the Mexican male culture of the bullfight. There are also coming of age aspects to the story as the reader follows her growth from being a fifteen year old tomboy to a twenty-five year old woman who spends the majority of her time being a man. This duality creates gender identity issues that she must face along with all the dangers of her profession and the tension of her masquerade.”
Read more about the novel here.
About the author:
Deamer Dunn is a local author, artist, and the proprietor of Pajaro Street Bar & Grill in Salinas. Here is how he describes his development as an artist:
I’ve had the incredible fortune of having a mother who has lived a full life around her artistic talent. As a painter/teacher comfortable in any medium she has been an incredible resource for me as I have expanded my artistic endeavors. I tend to see the world in a stylistic fashion. Meaningless detail disappears for me as I concentrate on things that exude emotion. Though I tend to focus on life’s most beautiful aspects, I try not to forget the importance of things such as pain, struggle and tragedy, which perhaps express the gift of life with an even higher beauty. I began taking serious black and white photographs in the late 1970’s, exhibiting some of my work in the early 80’s. The next twenty-five years was filled with a variety of experiences including taking up painting. I have never put my camera down for long and have enjoyed the transition to the world of digital. I have collected an enormous collection of my own photos, more recently enhanced by a digital collection of public images from which I have drawn to share in the exhibits you see here. Inspired by my talented cousin Tricia Dunn, I began to alter many of my more interesting images with my computer discovering an easily accessible means for adult play as art has always been a high form of play for me. At the time I had hints of the potential this new technology could have on the world of art, but then none of that mattered to me. I was just having fun discovering how technology could actually take an image of reality and create a different vision. I worked on literally thousands of images over a three-year period before I felt like I had reached a point where they had a quality worthy of sharing (at that point I had over 17,000 images). Most my digital images carry no name and are refered to just by their code.This is an expression of the digital medium and nameless images serve as a means for the viewer to make their own interpretation. I would love to hear feedback from artists and art appreciators.
Old Capitol Books 