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Los Angeles-born visual artist and musician, Carol Es writes for the Huffington Post, Whitehot Magazine, and Coagula Art Journal. She’s been published with Desert Dog Books, Bottle of Smoke Press, Chance Press, and Islands Fold. Her paintings, drawings, installations, videos, and Artist's books have been exhibited nationwide in venues such as Riverside Art Museum, Torrance Art Museum, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, and Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles. Some of her works can be found in the collections at the Getty and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Her collaborative film was also featured in the 2015 Jerusalem Biennale. Awarded grants from Asylum Arts and the National Arts and Disability Center for writing, she’s also a two-time recipient of the Durfee Foundation’s ARC Grant. Carol is a Pollock-Krasner Fellow, a recipient of a Wynn Newhouse Award, and won the Bruce Geller Memorial Award: WORD Grant for her memoir in 2019.

Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley is a guided tour through a Tilt-A-Whirl life that takes so many turns that you may find yourself looking up from the pages and wondering how the hell one person managed to fit them all into 40-odd years. And many of them are odd years indeed. From a rootless, abusive childhood and mental illness through serious and successful careers in music and art, much of which were achieved while being involved in a notoriously destructive mind-control cult. Carol Es presents her story straight up. No padding, no parachute, no dancing around the hard stuff. Through the darkness, she somehow finds a glimmer of light by looking the big bad wolf straight in the eye, and it is liberating. When you dare to deal with truth, you are free. Free to find the humor that is just underneath everything and the joy that comes with taking the bumpy ride. Illustrated with original sketches throughout, Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley is not just another survivor's tale, it’s a creative perspective through moments of vulnerability where the most raw and intimate revelations are laid bare. As an artist and a woman finding self-worth, it’s truly a courageous, relatable story that will keep you engaged to the very end. Carol Es has earned many awards and honors including a Pollock-Krasner and the Wynn Newhouse award for her art. Her work can be found in the Getty Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. As a musician, she’s worked with many bands, recorded with Rickie Lee Jones, and has toured North America. Earning writing writing grants from the National Arts and Disability Center, Asylum Arts in Brooklyn, NY, Carol also won the Bruce Geller Memorial Award WORD Grant for 2019. For more info about her work, visit: esart. com.

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Category: Biographies & Memoirs; Arts & Photography