Fabulous Fiber at the Oceanside Museum of Art

 by Patricia Frischer

Susan Davis

Quilting, tufting, felting, weaving, beading, crocheting, stitching, on and with fabric, metal, bamboo, thread, canvas, paper…the list goes on an on with this exhibition of Fabulous Fiber at the Oceanside Museum of Art curated Kate Stern showing until November 2. The exhibition curator chooses the most inventive and unique art works to put together a show which makes us smile, think and feel inspired to make.  From goofy felted heads to comic strip stitchery, it felt good to laugh out loud and accept cuddles, marvel at thousands of beads in a head piece, ponder the bubbles of fabric over a brides face, wonder through streams and streets in a San Francisco creek system, be mesmerized by the cascade of colors in draped waterfalls of fabric, or be punked by the Pink costume on display. And this is just a few of the selections we made.   

Marianna Baker

Susan Maddux

Peg Grady

Linda Gass

Adriene Hughes

Monica Loss

Michelle Kingdom

Isa Guasalupe Medina

Stephanie Metz's art being cuddled by Darwin Slindee

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The Space Between: Texture Studies by Denja Harris until October 12,  is the second of three fiber shows at OMA. This one person exhibition is a look at this artist attempts at healing. There are elements of vulnerability and softness but also the harshness of light and the spikiness of metal warming us that this process entails revealing of ourselves and protecting when necessary.  

 

Denja Harris

Denja Harris

Denja Harris

Denja Harris (detail)

We now get to see the results of the workshops that made yarn "Tsikuris" or God's Eyes at the b.  Ventana Huichola will be on view in the small top gallery and staircase until September 21, 2025 curated by Natalie Gonzalez who directed this work. Tsikuri means,"the power to see and understand things unknown" in the Huichol language. The Mesoamerican society that we know today as the Huichol or Wixárika, is an Indigenous group of approximately 48,000 inhabiting the southern Sierra Madre Occidental, in North-Western Mexico. They act as spiritual protection for much of South America, but it is the act of actually weaving a God’s Eye that connects one to the unknown. This simple process of uniting two crossed sticks is a meditative exercise that anyone can perform. The united results on display bounces off the walls with energy and can also be viewed as an aid to being in touch with something or someone on a higher plane. 

Natalie Gonzalez

Natalie Gonzalez and workshop participants

Fabulous Fiber  until November 2.
The Space Between: Texture Studies by Denja Harris until October 12
Ventana Huichola until September 21, 2025

at Oceanside Museum of Art 
704 Pier View Way, Oceanside 92054

Wednesday, through Sunday 11:00am–5:00pm
First Friday of Every Month - Extended hours 11:00am–8:00pm

Everything in Its Place: Selections from the Permanent Collection of California Center for the Arts Escondido Gallery

 by Patricia Frischer

Therman Statom - Dientos de Naturalesa (study)

We congratulate the California Center for the Arts, Escondido not only for surviving since the beginning of its funding in 1985 (i.e. 40 years!) and for last year creating a master plan to go forward. It has one of the most impressive art gallery display spaces in the county and they have now made a decision to display their permanent collection.

When you view a showing of the permanent collection of a museum or gallery, you get some insight into their positioning within the art world. Is it a boutique collection reflecting the purchasing decision makers? Does it aim for an encyclopedia  approach with one of everything? Is it very specific to a genre or time or location. It will be interesting to watch CCAE in the next years to see how the collection develops.

We are so very interesting in the idea of passing on the collection impulse to the whole community. Showing young people how to make choices helps them to develop a sense of the value of the arts.

This collection might be small in numbers, but it has some marvelous very large art works. One of the impressive things about this display in the acquisition of the study works for two sculptures, Jay Johnson (a SD Art Prize Recipient) and Thermon Statom. Honoring artists no longer with us like Jen Trute, nationally known artists like Tony Berlant, artists like Doris Bittar that tackles international issues, artists embodying diversity like Mark Jackson, artists with tremendous senses of humor like Matthew Freedman, this is truly an exhibition with Everything in its place.

This show finished on Aug 17, but hopefully in the future there will more chances to see the permanent collection in other venues and other works from this collection at the CCAE Gallery. 

Therman Statom - Dientos de Naturalesa (study)

Doris Bittar - In the Sun's Blood

Jay Johnson - We Attempt to Contain

Jay Johnson - We Attempt to Contain (study drawing)

Matthew Freedman - Self-Portrait with Underwear Pulled To High

Matthew Freedman - Self-Portrait with Underwear Pulled To High (detail)

Tony Berlant - The Perfect Spot

Mark Jackson

Jen Trute - All For Baby

Current Museum Exhibition and Visual Arts Manager, Rokhsane Hovaida

California Center for the Arts, Escondido Gallery
340 N Escondido Blvd, Escondido CA 92025
Entrance to a museum with the word 'MUSEUM' displayed above the doorway, surrounded by plants and rocks.
Wednesday – Saturday 11 am - 5 pm
Sunday1 pm - 5 pm
Monday – Tuesday - closed

Showing until Nov 2nd is XICANA! San Diego in collaboration with the Experimentally Structured Museum of Art (ESMoA) composed of only works by female Chicana artists from Los Angeles and San Diego. A bonus large scale work by Louis Verdad: TONÁNTZIN is all about female goddesses. 

Printed and Stitched William D. Cannon Gallery

 by Patricia Frischer

Barbara Poole - Intertwining Branches (detail)

Printed & Stitched is North County fiber and print exhibition at William D. Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad on view until Oct 28^th. It features  recent works from members of the California Society of Printmakers and Studio Art Quilt Associates and is curated by Christine S. Aaron. It is a travelling exhibition which is amongst many of the fiber shows now on view in the San Diego Region.*

This show’s theme brings together printed materials mainly on paper and fabric with sewn elements. It is broad enough to include piece for all tastes. It brings to mind the act of collecting because as you walk through the show it is important to choose the works you are attracted to and think about why that is. Basically, collecting is all about making decisions. For some us collecting marbles was our first experience of having to choose which of our possession to keep and which to trade. The choice below is my personal preference. Yes, it comes from someone that see lots and lots of art and has developed criteria, but it is still personal and your choices are just as valid for you. 

Barbara Poole - Intertwining Branches
You can't help but admire the technique drawing skill of this complex work,
but the little red and blue stitched lines make it personal. 

Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro - Unraveled
A gesture drawing in string, white against black, on a
lime green wall is simple but amazingly striking.

Bethia G. Stone - Looking Beyond the Rain
This works takes me right back to my love of Japanese woodcut prints. A simple line
or in this case stitch conveys so much moisture.

Judith Content - Ragamuffin Series: Vortex Suite
These delightful mounds of fabric with embellished tops are actually set in an old 
muffin tin, cut to size.

Robynn Smith - Strata
The experience of  visits to a volcano site is interpreted in paper layers.

Zwia Lipkin - 145 Jaffa St. 
My husband's choice  of this workmade me look closely at fabricators workshop, with the tools
and more importantly to me the subtle shading of the dyed fabric.  

Zwia Lipkin - 145 Jaffa St. (detail)

Denise Oyama Miller - Outcropping
This image drew back  as it was like seeing a boulder on drugs, heightened. reality. But look at it from a distance, as the mystery is revealed as you get close up.

Overview of the exhibition

Printed & Stitched
Showing until Oct 28th
William D. Cannon Gallery
1775 Dove Ln, Carlsbad, CA 92011
Tuesday-Thursday: 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday: 12 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Saturday: 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday: 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.

*Visions Museum of Textile Art presents Laura Foster Nicholson: Human Affects, We Are Voices of Other Voices and INTIKA Men in Textiles all until October 4. 
The Space Between: Texture Studies by Denja Harris from June 28 to October 12, and Fabulous Fiber , July 26–November 2 both at the Oceanside Museum of Art

Mirae kh RHEE: Constellations at MOPA@SDMA

by Patricia Frischer

 Berlin-based artist Mirae kh RHEE was born in Seoul and raised in the United States and lives now in Berlin.  But it is the traditional Korean traditions that seem to permeate this exhibition Constellations at the Museum of Photographic Arts  now MOPA@ SDMA  in Balboa Park. But bamboo with modern lighting and simple stitched items using photographed subjects brings us firming into the 21^th century.

Without the title Seven Sisters (Missing Merope Version) and the explanation that this refers to the Pleiades,  we would not be able to research and learn that these seven are within the constellation of Taurus. It's one of the closest and brightest star clusters to Earth, located about 444 light-years away.  There are 1000 stars in this constellation but the 7 brightest (the seven sisters) can be seen with the naked eye. The myth refers to Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione. Merope is missing sister because she is the faintest star and some say that is because she turned her face away in shame having married a mortal. RHEE used that to signify longing, maybe for her absent family. There are more than 7 light filled bamboo pillow shapes, but there is one on its own near the entrance of the exhibition. And we all know that stars have been used forever to find you way.  

The room is infused with color as the hanging woven objects change in hue, casting a hued glow on all the objects in the display. The jeweled shoes that must certainly reference the ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz sit on a mirror that reflect the entire scene as you stroll around. I made sure not to click my heels together until I was ready to find home.

The Beauty of Stitching Sorrow (The Last Threads of the Colonial Empire) is the title of a series of work made from Korean mourning cloth made with hemp, photographs and a whole range of mixed medium objects. Some are shiny and as you pass by, their color changes as well. In the artist’s own words,    “…stitching becomes a way for me to survive sorrow, to name loss, and to reclaim beauty…"

Mirae kh RHEE: Constellationsat MOPA@SDMA
On view until January 4, 2026

1649 el Prado, SD 92101
Across from the Lily Pond

619.232.7931

 

Sculpture Walk in Del Mar

 By Patricia Frischer

Dirección Impredecible ( detail)  by Hugo Heredia (NE corner of 9^th Street and Camino Del Mar).

Sculpture Walk in Del Mar

Naomi Nussbaum, Art and Design is the art consultant who has worked diligently to make this temporary public sculpture exhibition possible. Placing public art is a very complicated process that involves public input, a call for artists, a call for proposals, a final selection and then an always arduous installation. Works not only have to be by professionals of a high quality, but have to be safe for the public and enhancing of built environment.

The Del Mar Foundation partnered with the City of Del Mar to bring five new contemporary sculptures to highly visible locations in Del Mar’s downtown area for public display for the next 23 months beginning in July 2025. This is Phase II of the Program, following the inaugural exhibit (Phase I, 2021-2022). There are also permanently installed works in the city scape as well as a public art collection in Del Mar Plaza that includes international artists Barry Flanagan, Anthony Gromley and Tony Craig.

The works are for sale through the Del Mar Foundation.

To walk the Sculpture Walk in Del Mar on view until June of 2027 click this link for the Map  

Dirección Impredecible by Hugo Heredia (NE corner of 9^th Street and Camino Del Mar).

Cloud 7  by Peter Mitten (SE corner of 12^th Street and Camino Del Mar)

Planar Head by Ron Tatro (SE corner of 14^th Street and Camino Del Mar)

Spit Head by Ron Tatro (15h and Stratford, in front of Rusty Del Mar)

Red Seeker by Delos Van Earl (NW corner of 15^th Street and Camino Del Mar)