Today we’d like to introduce you to Wes Weisbaum.
Hi Wes, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
Hey hi, I’m Wes Weisbaum, an 818 Salvadoran-American filmmaker and poet. You’ll find me collaging camcorder constructions, rendering home movie reproductions. Camera in hand, perhaps collaborating with a band. Before I took a directorial cinematic stand, word was my leading man.
My ambition towards the arts began with a love for writing. From page I sought stage, shaky and scared, I rehearsed and prepared. Slam poetry, spoken word, I wanted to be heard like a songbird. I received my B.A from the University of California, Irvine, where I focused primarily on video and performance within the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. After graduating, I worked as a production assistant on commercials, a teaching artist for local schools and museums, and later worked in props fabrication.
I attended the California Institute of the Arts and received an MFA in Photography and Media. Now, as a recent graduate, I am a resident artist at the Reef in DTLA, working towards my next short film. My work has been exhibited at ArtShare L.A, Northwest Film Forum, Western Michigan University, Yiwei Gallery, and more recently at Irrational Exhibits #12: Body, Materiality, and Systems at Tiger Strikes Asteroid L.A.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Fragments of feelings, healings, and dealings. Blame, shame, the lack of respect to not call someone by their name. Fighting to be seen and heard in video and word. Feeling that the pursuit of a creative career is difficultly absurd. Doubtful loops – Oops! Follow the desire, spark a creative fire. Along the way, I doubted what I had to say. I didn’t land the audition and get into advanced choir as a kid, nearly flunked my first high school film class, and to top it off the first roll of film I shot in college was blank when I tried to develop it in the darkroom. Trial and error, trust fall into you in an attempt to no longer doubt what you do. See your creative ideas through.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m proud of the plethora of poems in my notes app, the piles of photographs, the open mic stage fright, the tapes I’ve yet to transfer and edit, the stories we’ve told, and the ones we are still working to tell. I’m a storyteller at my core, and nothing means more than connecting with and uplifting a community you adore. Merging mediums to tell a story to its best ability. I’m proud of my creative community, of our attempts to render this reality, to water one another to pursue our paths, supporting and leaving legacies that last.
What’s next?
I look forward to returning to El Salvador to continue interviews with my mother, relatives, and community. In 2023, with the funding and support of the Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund, I brought on a team of artists to produce an audio-visual portrait of my mother. My thesis work during my residency at CalArts, The Mourning She, was developed through carefully constructed collaboration. Now, as a resident artist at the Reef, I seek to expand upon these collected interviews with my mother that touch on her lived truths in leaving El Salvador amidst the Salvadoran Civil War. I curated a cohort of musicians and sound designers to enrich the emotional landscape. I trained actors to fill in the gaps of what our family archive has left unseen. Producer schedules, I shoot–scene. I am still working on this dream. Each work is a study, each work gets us closer, from the short film to the feature – life our greatest teacher.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://oneflewwes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneflewwes
