Three Shows to Admire at Visions Museum of Textile Art

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.  Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

Going Up and Down a Pyramid by Joao Rodriguez from Sonora, Mexico. A loom-woven piece made of wool dyed with natural color

It’s always a pleasure to drop in at Visions in Liberty Station and see what interesting things they have on view. Here are a few of our favorites from a recent visit.

From We are Voices of Other Voices: A collaboration between makers of traditional wool textiles in the Zapotec community of Teotitlan del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico, and eight contemporary artists.

Sawfish by artist Ana Hernández, born and based in Oaxaca. Hemp thread on treadle loom by artisan Luis Lazo.

                                              

Series steps 3 by Ricardo Pinto, a prolific visual artist based in Oaxaca who experiments with textures, prints, and architecture.

Chinese Dog by Miguel Castro Leñero, from Mexico City. Wool dyed with natural color.

From Human Affects: 7 pieces by artist Laura Forster Nicholson, from New Harmony, Indiana, all dealing with climate change and ships that contaminate our oceans.

MV Express Pearl by Laura Forster Nicholson. An actual container ship that caught fire in Sri Lanka, spewing poisonous chemicals and and plastic pellets into the sea. Handwoven wool, mylar and cotton.

From  Intika: Men in Textiles.  Intika is an island in Peru where men work on textiles. This exhibit includes artists from various parts of the U.S.A., two artists from Mexico, and one from Peru.

 

More Than Words by Carl Brown, from Palm Springs, CA. A fiber art composition that uses strip-piecing collage and includes words, letters, and numbers.

Sunshine Smile by Timothy Emerson Hinchoff, from Fallbrook, CA. Composed of mountain pine pitch, beeswax, acrylic and nylon yarn, and plywood.

An excerpt from Timothy Emerson Hinchoff's poem, included with his artwork:

“Feel blessed by the sun
Take a moment to feel his rays.
A great big sunshine smile
To fill up all of our days.”

 

These three exhibits will be on view through October 4, 2025.
They’ll be followed by one big event starting October 13: Biennial Interpretations. 
But don’t wait that long to visit Visions…you’ll be happy to see what’s there now.

Visions Museum of Textile Art
2825 Dewey Rd. #100, San Diego 92106
HOURS: Wednesday/Thursday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Friday/Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
619-546-4872.

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Alex Katz: Theater and Dance - A Shift in Perspective at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego +.

 by Patricia Frischer

Originally 38 of these cut out dogs placed on the stage 
had to be navigated by the dancers.

Alex Katz: Theater and Dance, a comprehensive museum presentation of the artist’s work with the performing arts on view until Jan 4, 2026 at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. 

Most who know Alex Katz’s large scale flat painted compositions are familiar with his portraits and landscapes. His subjects , in general, are everyday modern life. His works, made when the art world was diving into abstract expressionism, pretty much ignored that movement by staying figurative and are considered a precursor to pop art and color field genres. Of course, the work has abstracted components from real life with paired down choices for line and color. But in the representational work it has gesture, the basis of most figurative work, and in real life physical gesture is dance. 

It turns out that Katz was a social dancer with his wife Ada. When he was introduced to the modern dancer Paul Taylor by Edwin Denby the poet and dance critic, Katz was impressed with his athleticism, intellectual intent and skill. They went on to create 15 productions together. Their collaboration invented a new way of conceiving of modern dance.  

When Taylor choreographed, he would put the same dance to different music scores. He considered the  stage a frame. Katz  consider that the energy of the dance could also break the frame. Shapes are made in space but are also flat. And everything that moves is a sort of choreography. When we watch, we undergo a constant shift in perspective.

Katz invented ribbons, sticks, discs, cut outs and even cube structures for the dancers so they related to the space and brought it alive as a component of the dance. Paul Taylor was open to this so in the truest sense there was a cross collaboration.  The sets had flat cut outs of objects on painted floors. The lighting flattened the figures and the color blocked costumes gave endless visual variation as the dancers gestured and rotatoed.  In an interview at Colby College in 2022, Alex Katz said, “Paul said, Alex makes obstacles and I overcome them…I give Paul a chance for greatness.” 

Born in Brooklyn, to Russian immigrants, Alex Katz studied at the Cooper Union School of Art, New York, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. Katz is now in his 90’s and has worked with a number of different choreographers (Yoshiko Chuma, Laura Dean, William Dunas, and Parsons) and is still painting portraits of  dancers. The exhibition, organized by the Colby College Museum of Art (where there is a wing devoted to his work)  and the American Federation of Arts solely concentrates on Theater and Dance, but Katz has engaged in numerous large scale public art installations with cut outs and paintings. A retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 2022 filled the entire building.   

This exhibition enables you to see a side of Alex Katz work never before exhibited with sketches from his private collection. It can be viewed as a capsule experience on a smaller scale, which gives so much more  insight  to his entire body of work. Alex Katz was not trying to sum up an entire theme in a painting, he was trying to capture that one moment of interaction between the subject and himself. 

Detail showing the way the cut outs are layered together to make this composition. 

Detail showing how the front and the back of the costumes were different.
Each turn of the dancer made for a different composition. 

Edwin Denby

Paul Taylor

A sketch for the following painting

It was intentional to cut off the foot, to tilt the figure as if she might fall

Theatrical lighting informs this close up

Economy of line and color allows the works to be upscaled

Amy Crum, Associate Curator MCASD, along with Kathryn Kanjo,
MCASD David C. Copley Director and CEO guided us through the exhibition

As was commented the Alex Katz works in this exhibition are small scale compared to the monumental even billboard size of most of Katz’s work. There is an economy of mark making used at that size, which is totally different to the huge works in the next gallery space by Yan Pei-Ming.  The entire room is filled with these three monumental paintings Yan Pei-Ming: A Burial in Shanghai. The first in honor of the passing of his mother, the second is a modern reinterpretation of  Gustave Courbet’s  A Burial at Ornans (1849-1850). The third representing the heavenly realm. These works debuted at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay in 2019, and this is the first showing in the United States. You have to be in the room with these works to experience the artist's intent of displaying his reaction to the death of this most important person in his life from tribute, to ceremony to after life. 

This is a tribute to the artists mother, who passed in 2028

The burial

The heavenly realm

Just a brief mention for another La Jolla stop. Visit the 33rd Annual Juried Exhibition at the Athenaeum Music and Art Library, jurored by Malcom Warner. It is on view until Oct 18 in the large Joseph Clayes III Gallery

Amy Rosenberg, The Circus Master (1st place)

Lori Mitchell, Waiting (3rd place)

Alex Katz: Theater and Dance, 

Yan Pei-Ming: A Burial in Shanghai 

Both on view until Jan 4, 2026  
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
700 Prospect St., La Jolla, 92037
Thurs - Sat, 11am - 7pm, Sun 11am - 5pm

33rd Annual Juried Exhibition 
Athenaeum Music and Art Library 
on view until Oct 18, 2026
1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, 92037
Tuesday–Saturday: 10am – 5:30pm

Las Hermanas Iglesias: Sisters Bring Heartfelt, Mind-Opening Art to ICA North, Encinitas

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

Tres Iglesias. Artists Janelle and Lisa Iglesias, with their Norwegian-born mother, Bodhild, who still lives in their childhood home in Queens, NYC. (Iglesias is the family name, from their late father, born in the Dominican Republic.)

On August 16^th, on the ICA San Diego North campus, there was a special CU Saturday: In Celebration of Las Hermanas Iglesias. The sun was shining that afternoon on sisters Janelle and Lisa Iglesias, who actually live 3,000 miles apart, and getting to hear them talk about their very personal, love-hope-and wordplay-infused collaborative artworks was something worth celebrating.

 They had artworks in ICA’s street-level galleries but Maurice and I especially loved the ones uphill in the Artist Pavilion.  The first thing we noticed was their Holding Hands series, plaster casts of their hands, their mother’s hands, and one of their son’s hands too. Family and community are very important to them, and it was great to meet Bodhild and Lisa’s son, Bowie, and have them pose with their plaster-cast hands. (An interesting footnote to the hands: 70 percent of the proceeds from sales of these pieces will benefit migrant families.)

 

From the Holding Hands Series

From the Holding Hands Series

Note: All the hands are holding something, and Bodhild & Bowie are also holding hands.

Heart Before the Course (Get the wordplay?) Made of cast beeswax, foam, copper tubing & hardware, steel footings.

 

Plumb & Fathom (Sea Change) Made of wool, natural dyes, copper tubing, plaster cast hands, found objects.

Wontloversrevoltnow  Neon, on the wall above Plumb & Fathom. (More wordplay: it’s a palindrome, reads the same backward and forward!)  It’s also the title of the exhibition.

About the artists: Janelle Iglesias lives in San Diego and is assistant professor in the Visual Arts Department at U.C.S.D.  She has written: “I trace much of my creative impulse back to my parentage…Scandinavian folk tradition/modern design and the Latin world approach that makes the most from the least.”  She was one of SDVAN's SD Art Prize recipients in 2023. 

Lisa Iglesias lives in Massachusetts and is Associate Professor in the Art Department at Mount Holyoke College and Chair of the Art Studio Department. Both sisters do individual artworks in addition to their long-distance collaborations, which started out by mail when they were in grad school. And they like to keep a sense of improvisation in their work.

“We have circular ways of thinking,” Lisa said. “Heat gets things moving around in different configurations, so we use hot beeswax. We are percolating all the time.” 

“Making art is a practice of freedom and curiosity,” said Janelle. 

As ICA San Diego Curator Jordan Karney Chaim pointed out: “Their structures can be read from many directions. Their hands are a metaphor for care, and the shells are like ears--they’re about listening.”

The following close up details and videos  photographed  by Patricia Frischer

and from the lower galleries...

Notice the bronze hands holding this herbal wreath

Las Hermanas Iglesias:wontloversrevoltnow
On view at ICA North through December 27.
1550 El Camino Real, Encinitas 92024
Open Sat and Sun only 12-5 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m.)
info@icasandiego.org   760-436-6611

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Xicana! San Diego: A remarkable exhibition of women’s art at CCA in Escondido

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

The End of Innocence by Ginette Rondeau

If you haven’t been to the California Center for the Arts in Escondido for a while, now is a great time to visit their museum. The main attraction is Xicana! San Diego, a showing of 218 artworks by women who identify themselves as Chicanas--born in the U.S., but celebrating their Mexican heritage. The Xicana spelling references the indigenous Nahuatl language, dating back to the Aztec empire. 

Curated by Dulce Stein, at ESMoA (Experimentally Structured Museum of Art) in Torrance, Xicana! was originally presented at El Camino College last year. For the Escondido exhibition, San Diego artists were invited to submit their works in May, and 46 of them were chosen. The current exhibition includes artworks from the previous show along with these new additions. 

The image above is a detail from a piece by surrealist Ginette Rondeau, a well-known Los Angeles artist whose art and designs can also be seen in books and calendars. And Xicana! will surely end any innocence you may have about what women artists are capable of creating.

 

Lady Lowrider by Rachel Zepeda.

 This is the first thing you notice as you enter the museum. It’s more than a tricked-out Lincoln Town Car; it’s a work of art by a San Diegan who does videography of lowrider cars and events.

 Untitled, by Stephanie Mercado.  A woodcut by a Los Angeles artist/art administrator whose website proclaims her interest in creating meaningful connections.

Las Maias by Gloria Favela Rocha and Maria Islas. A three-panel 4’ x8’ mural by Rocha, a muralist/paint contractor/art instructor who lives in the foothills of San Diego and says her artwork has been influenced by her mother’s faith and her father’s farming life; and Islas, her collaborator, a self-taught artist raised by a single mom in Southeast San Diego, who spent 38 years in the Navy and has painted murals throughout San Diego County.

An Invitation by Emilia Cruz. Mixed media on paper by a San Diego artist who teaches at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and writes: “I am exploring different ways I can depict vulnerability, self-healing, and empowerment.”

 

Tree of Forgotten Prayers by Sonia Romero. Acrylic on canvas by an L.A. artist known as a painter, printmaker and specialist in public art. Her work documents the cultural symbols and narratives of her city.

There are many other artworks to admire and consider in Xicana! San Diego, including a video installation in the rear of the museum. The only problem is: there is no signage, no artists’ names or information, only numbers on the floor at each piece that you have to scan into your phone. And then, all you get is a name and a title, so it turns out to be very difficult to find out about any of the artists or the work on view.  A suggestion: when you see something you like and want to know more about it, ask the friendly Museum Manager, Rokhsane Hovaida, who will do her best to help.  She’ll be happy to tell you about all of the art on the CCAE campus and upcoming events as well.

In a small gallery behind the museum there’s another part of this exhibition that you definitely don’t want to miss-- the one piece not made by a woman.  It’s Tonantzin, an 11-foot-tall goddess created by artist Louis Verdad. 

 

Tonantzin by Louis Verdad.

Verdad, an acclaimed fashion designer born in Guanajuato and based in L.A., worked with muralist Eloy Torres and a team of sculptors, historians, and glass and embroidery artists to create this Aztec Earth Mother Goddess. Tonantzin, who was impregnated by a feather, is considered a precursor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Xicana! San Diego will be on view through November 2, 2025. Bring family or friends, so you can talk about what you see.

And if you love Xicana! San Diego put September 27^th on your calendar: There will be a Chicana Block Party on the campus that afternoon, including a lowrider car show and a chance to build your own paper lowrider and help create a community mural. See you there! 

California Center for the Arts Museum
Xicana! San Diego 
Louis Verdad:Tonantzin 
on view until Nov 2
340 N. Escondido Blvd. Escondido, CA 92025
Hours: Wed-Sat, 11a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday: 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
Admission: Adults $12 Over 65: $10 Students $6 Under 18: FREE
Pay admission once, return for free all year!  
For more information: 760- 839-4120 or museum@artcenter.org

 

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Artists Respond to the Moment at PHES Gallery

 by Patricia Frischer

Viviana Lombroso – Threatening the very fabric of our democracy

In this exhibition at PHES Gallery filled with such a large variety of works, artists were asked to respond to the moment. That was taken by us to think about how the world as being subjected to acute political forces.

Co-owner of PHES Gallery Paul Henry remarked,  “From over 200 entries, the 39 selected artworks illustrate a wide and varied range of expressions that are personal, political, and powerful.” He was hoping for work that would, “ challenge us to confront “uneasy” realities” and that was what was delivered in a diverse variety of mediums.  

Many of the works are directly political: Scott Bruckner’s “My Country” and Viviana Lombroso’s “Imperiled” all draw from conflicts in today’s headlines.  Other works respond more personally like Phil Petrie confronting his personal issues in “Home”, Some are hopeful or ask us to have faither, others seem perilous and worried about the type of world we are leaving to later generations,

All the art has justifiable statements about the topic,  and are highly personal and that is what makes this gathering of art such a great place for contemplation. Examine the works with the printed artist statement and you can find relevance to the world at large and for your own self. 

Scott Bruckner – we are so divided we are we are no longer functional

Heidi Rufeh – migration meets climate changes in  this warm colored composition

Richard Hawk – Life often goes at a glacier pace, but sometimes you need a bold fast action

Anna Stump – the back of lost and found needlepoint, embellished with words reflecting those lost women

Philip Petrie – an empty home representing an empty life, an empty society  

Denise Yaghmourian – discarded and distressed flag badges

Denise Yaghmourian – discarded and distressed flag badges (detail)

Aleya Lanteigne – the artist’s statements refers
 to a “life lived” and an object
“embedded with history”, but the
erotica screams out…who wants to grab this pussy?

Paul Henry – Little Hope Chest….it says it all.

Artist Talk moderated by Ellen Speert, co-own of PHES Gallery (left to right) Heidi Rufeh, Michelle Moore, Jim Bliesner, and Christiana Rosenthal.

Artists Respond to the Moment at PHES Gallery
July 27 – September 1, 2025
2633 State Street, Carlsbad, 92008
Gallery hours Thursday through Saturday 2-7pm and by appointment.
info@PHESGallery.com 
The full catalog can be found at PHES Gallery