OMHM…ॐ…? OMHM…

Shoutout my Hindu girls since the acronym for this is giving divine spiritual cosmos. Unfortunately, we’re not meditating, we’re reflecting on our very first art show that we put on at the end of August! Special shoutout to Sam, our events lead on the Phoenix team. You never really understand how hard it is to organize an event until you have to do it yourself… and find the venue… find a curator… negotiate… come hours before the show to supervise the show installation…send out volunteer sign ups…juggle the artists, volunteers, and Club Rambutan members who need to talk to you during the show… and so on. 

Only My Honesty Matters was a one night only exhibition at Casa Cala that featured 10 Arizona-based artists exploring fear in its rawest form through sculpture, embroidery, mixed media, drawing, etc. As for the why, in Phoenix, it’s easy for curators and spaces to fall back on what’s known, creating a one dimensional homogeneous art scene. However, familiarity breeds contempt — the people of Phoenix crave change more than they know. Of course, it’s never been about a lack of artists (look at how many people still flock to art school!), rather a lack of access and opportunity for emerging artists to showcase their work. It's crucial to create these opportunities for them. In fact, some may say that is likely one of the three pillars of Club Rambutan. 

We searched far and wide for a curator and ended up with a Cohort 3 Alumni, Destiny Montoya, who had a background in curation. See what you could potentially do if you apply to be an artist for our next cohort? Club Rambutan supports our alumni cohort artists after their digital residency, as we look to invest in our community to learn from each other. We WILL continue to create these opportunities. Our artists WILL be supported. Growth mindset or bust. 

A little note from Sam -

For many of the artists featured in OMHM, it was the first time showing their art publically. These artists killed it and I am so honored they trusted us to put their work on display and Destiny’s curatorial vision. Seeing their work complement each other in the space was truly beautiful and inspiring.

And now back to me! I bravely and courageously volunteered to work the front for the first hour of the event, so I can provide some real, raw, behind the scenes commentary. It was sunny and hot. I didn’t know what the artists looked like — have you ever noticed that artists never put their face on their Instagrams? Probably because they have better things to do — and tried to charge each one of them for entry until they awkwardly informed me they were in the show. My bad! Once my hour was up, suddenly the sun had set. Sometimes, life is unfair. 

0.5 selfie: me volunteering when it was peak sunny. 1.0 photo: me next to Karl-William Klenk's dumb god, 2025.

My personal favorite art piece was the one I was sitting by during my volunteer hour, which is just another example of how familiarity is the death of us all. 

I spoke (instagram DM’d) with some of the artists from the show to get a little bit of background on their inspiration and process behind their piece(s). 

Commentary from select artists*

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Presley.

ruined, 2023

staples, sign paint, mixed media

two-three, 2023

nails, mixed media, wood, resin

something inseparable from my work is the influence and techniques developed by genesis p-orridge. their use of the cut-up in collage and sigilization is vital to my work. my work often takes form as ritual and magic.

To the right: two-three, 2023.

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Julia Marciana

Untitled, 2025

Graphite on Cotton

March 2024. I was learning about prehistoric art and how people made art to mark their spiritual visions in my art history class when I drew a sketch of a girl in a desert with the sun setting and a feather.

In the sketch, the girl is nude, crawling in the desert while the sun is setting on her and a feather is floating down. The feather represents freedom as it has fallen loose from a bird. The desert imagery embodies isolation, specifically the kind felt as a girl living in that type of landscape. At the time, I was feeling really stuck and in pain, so I encapsulated those feelings with the flat, pure line forms our ancestors were once drawing on their walls. 

When Destiny asked me if I had any pieces that invoked fear, I said yes but I’ll need to make a new one. I took that original drawing, upped the scale to about 30” x 40”, and shifted the perspective — almost like changing the camera angle — so you would see the fear and despair on the woman’s face. 

I used pencils to build the drawing up, then shaved some thick lead pieces down into shavings and mixed it with water for the ground part of the image. It took me about a month to finish. Not only was it my first full graphite piece but it was my first on such a large scale.

The piece to me is about how being a woman is to be vulnerable in this world. Being vulnerable is powerful. I hope you get lost in it while your eyes move along from her face to her body to the dusty sun down to her cupped hand to the feather.

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Izzy Rosales

When I Sleep, My Guardian Angel Steps Out, 2023

Ceramic, fabric, first, candles

I was incredibly honored when Destiny reached out to me to showcase my piece “When I Sleep My Guardian Angel Steps Out”. I had shown this previously at my collective’s (omnisimul) first show a few years back where it was born from a place of immense loss and grief. When Destiny asked if I would be interested in showing it again, I said that I would love to recreate it to be more reflective of the time and feelings that have passed. Originally, there had been shards of stained glass in each of the bed posts. In this rendition, I carved notches out for candles instead. The viewing experience changed into one that was more interactive. Each time I changed the candles, I had the opportunity to speak with folks about the work and invite them to touch the piece.

I teach ceramics to kids so I’m pretty desensitized to curious hands touching my work (lol). In fact, I encourage it because ceramics is such a tactile medium.

The number one question I get asked about the piece is, “Is that [made out of] wood?”. It comes as a shock that mud can have such a transformative property but that’s exactly why I’m so drawn to it.

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*Commentary has been cut down for readability. 

Artists and pieces not shown in this article can be found HERE.