This Is Not a Gun: Ceramic Workshop with Cara Levine + Eka Ekong
Programmed by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo
A sandwich is not a gun. A hairbrush is not a gun. A wallet is not a gun. In this workshop, artist Cara Levine encourages participants to give presence to objects that have been mistaken for guns by police officers in civilian shootings, calling out their not-gun-ness by sculpting their shapes in clay. The gathering, cohosted by Ekaette Ekong, founder of Woke Magazine, offers a nonjudgmental space to site the issues of this historically dense and complicated crisis within our own bodies and stories.
Cara Levine lives in Los Angeles. She is an artist exploring the intersections of the physical, metaphysical, traumatic, and illusionary through sculpture, video, and socially engaged practice. She is currently a lecturer on the sculpture faculty at Otis College and an instructor at Exceptional Children’s Foundation in Inglewood, California, working with adults with developmental disabilities. She received her MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts (CCA) in 2012. Levine’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Wattis Center for Contemporary Art in San Francisco, YoungArts Miami, Art Basel, and the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.
Ekaette Ekong, from ekaekong.com: As a dedicated student, I have studied various yoga traditions(Ashtanga, Bhakti, Anusara), with my primary focuses being Ayurveda, Yogic Philosophy, and Hatha practices. In 2007, while completing the YogaWorks 500hr Professional Program, I met my current teacher, Yogarupa Rod Stryker, and began studying ParaYoga (Tantra/Sri Vidya lineage). In 2015, I completed my Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor training. I am Yoga Alliance registered at the E-RYT 500 level, YogaWorks certified, and lead 200 and 300-hour level teacher trainings, workshops and retreats around the world. My classes are an intentional intermingling of ParaYoga, Hatha, Philosophy and Ayurveda with principles of mindful sequencing and alignment awareness, to help the practitioner feel at ease in their bodies and at home within themselves.