Looking Back/Forward at Art Produce/ Allied Craftsman at Sparks

by Patricia Frischer

Join Art Produce on Sat. May 14,  for a two month celebration (ending July 3) of the past 15 years of exhibits and the launch of new cultural activities and engagement opportunities for the neighborhood.  Looking Back/Forward is a retrospective group show of 25 local artists who have previously had solo exhibits at Art Produce (3139 University Ave, SD 92104). This includes many New Contemporaries artists (William Feeney, May-ling Martinez, Marisol Rendón, Anna Stump, Dave Ghilarducci,  Lee Puffer,  Nina Karavasiles) and Terri Hughes-Oelrich curator of the upcoming New Contemporaries exhibition at City College.  Watch for the new ChuckAlek Biergarten in the Urban Garden (Herman Street entrance.) More info: Lynn Susholtz  619-584-4448

Many of the artists below are in multiple shows in SD right now and I am heartened to see artists getting more and more exhibition opportunities. 

Three cheers for Lynn who has created a community art center which is a  wonderful art asset. It is gallery, restaurant ( Tostadas: fresh fruit and seafood bar), classroom, garden all in one. Wine in the front, beer in the back and even a shop for handmade goods and t-shirts. Here are just a few images from the show of the artists that have shown and supported her for the last 15 years in this space and more than 20 years in the community. 

 Lynn Susholtz
a community game

William Feeney  
a desk that vibrate making writing a challenge..notice the plunger feet.
William is one of our 2016 New Contemporaries artists and will show in June and July at City College Gallery

Dave Ghilarducci
another moving sculpture that waves at you with tiny acrylic hands

 

 May-ling Martinez

 Michelle Montjoy

 David White

ChuckAlek Biergarten Urban Garden at night, but it is just as delightful full of mothers and kids during the day

This image and below shows some of the careful detailed work in the development

             

 
                                                         

Allied Craftsmen 2016 / A Group Show
showing May 13 until July 17
Sparks Gallery
530 Sixth Ave, SD. 92101
More info: Sonya Sparks  619-696-1416 

This is always an interesting show. We don't know how artist are chosen for the Allied Craftsmen but not all the work is of the same high quality as the following which were our focus. The show was hard to see as it was mixed with other artists represented by Sparks Gallery and it was a very full space. On the up side there was probably something for everyone. 

Cheryl Tall's group of three ceramic sculptures

My favorite detail from Cheryl Tall

Vincent Nobles gives us exquisitely crafted laminated shapes.

Vincent Nobles

We adore Sasha Koozel Reibstein's jewel-like works. She is also one of the nominated artists for the SD Art Prize showing at City College as part of the 2016 New Contemporaries exhibition.

Arline Fisch - very simple but classic work by this county treasure.

Aren Dace Belhing is another artist showing in
2016 New Contemporaries

I will be watching for Dave Cuzick in the future as these were such  intriguing figures.

Jeff Irwin has his white sculptures on view but I really loved these two plates.

Jeff Irwin

I think it may just be me, but I am a sucker for this shape. I I congratulate Marlo de Casto

Shelia Moran created this mysterious little space for her raincoat man. I kinda want to be him unless he is a flasher.

Terri Hughes-Oelrich
is the curator of this show and this charming little collages on wood are her creations. Terri is also in the Looking Back/Forward show at Art Produce and she is the one of the curators of the 2016 New Contemporaries

I am adding mention of two bonus shows in the neighborhood of Art Produce. Sunny Side up at Art on 30th just opened and is surprisingly successful as the theme is simply the color yellow. The gallery seemed to glow with life. 

 Sunny Side Up 
May 14 to June 13
Art on 30^th
4434 30th Street, SD 92116

Two of my favorite works were by Ellen Dieter especially this one with cheerful color but an ominous low sky, leaning utility pool and possible flying board. This is not a new work, but one that deserves extra attention. 

Ellen Dieter

Melinda Resendes (displaying Owen Burke) is the latest studio to open at Art on 30th. She is featuring work by other artists to begin but is working to come back into the art world with her own work.  She was previously a commercial saleswomen for a national chain of galleries. Melinda knows a thing or three about selling art and she will be a great addition to the space. Not too late to join this educational event for artists given by Stephen C. Wagner coming up on Wedn. Representation: Approaching Art Galleries with Studio Fine Artists Network
Wedn. May 18 from 7 to 9pm
$20 at the door
Art on 30th
4434 30th Street, SD 92116
More info: Stephen C. Wagner  415-518-6485

I want to give a shout out to 50 To Watch at The Studio Door (3750 30th Street, SD 92104) which we also visited. Their open studio event is coming up in September and Patric also gives marketing lessons to artists.

More info: Patric Stillman  619-255-4920
 This show had very nice report: To See or Not to See: '50 to Watch'  City Beat by Seth Combs 

NCAN Quarterly Meeting: Arts Education in San Diego

by Patricia Frischer

NCAN quarterly program themed Arts Education in San Diego was on Wedn. May 11. Networking is at the Muramid Museum and Art Center (212-F Artist Alley) from 5:00 - 6:00 pm and the formal meeting at Sunshine Brooks Theater (217 N Coast Hwy), operated by the Oceanside Theatre Company at 6:00 pm. The program is presented by NCAN's Arts Education Committee led by Leah Goodwin (CCAE) and Lynnette Tessitore-Lopez (City of Chula Vista Arts), with additional support of Jacque Kilpatrick (CSUSM). This arts education program featured some of San Diego's most knowledgeable and impactful arts educators and administrators discussing the opportunities and challenges for strengthening youth arts education.

Muramid...murals and pyramid!

We were delighted to see the stunning new home for the Art Miles Mural Project, the Muramid Museum and Art Center.  You can see samples of the 5280 community murals involving ½ million people  that this organization has created in over 100 countries. They are still creating and send out murals from the collection for exhibition all the time. The future holds a line of merchandise with images used in the murals but for now there is a lovely shop with gourds and jewelry. 

Julia Reasor at Phantom Gallery

After viewing this space and the halls,  we took a look at the Phantom Gallery in the same building. Ruth Jameson, who has been given the space by the owner, is hoping for a permanent director to finance the gallery and keep the space as a commercial gallery.

Diane Carey drip painting

When we arrived at the Sunshine Brooks Theater across the street we were greeted by the Oceanside Theatre Company. The lobby has a lovely display by Diane Carey with painting and sculpture.   Two short and delightful performances by young singers Tristan Lee and Brooke Eyler vocalizing A Whole New World and a delightful song Gabrielle Dodaro followed.

Jim Gilliam, art administrator for the City of Encinitas was the MC for the program. Updates on NCAN projects and its committees included news of his Civic Committee: They will be hosting a workshop of all Civic Arts participants including administrators, commissioners, staffers and friends in the fall as well as helping to move Oceanside closer to the goal of having civic art staff. The first step toward that is forming helping to form a Friends of the Arts in Oceanside similar to those in Encinitas and Carlsbad.  

Visual Arts Committee’s Looking Glass Project:  Patricia Frischer told us of a stunning demonstration of the technology by Ryan Jefferies,  projection equipment with a bulbs which last over 6 years, clearance from CalTrans.  They are now looking for specific venues and starting the process of selection of the artwork for this project which has a grant application accepted to fund the project, which they are doing in collaboration with San Diego Visual Arts Network. 

Economic Development Committee: Daniel Foster is working with his committee to organize the Art and Business Summit probably in the summer of 2017. A county grant of over $7000 was requested to this end. 

Performing Arts Committee: Alex Goodman group is moving forward with section mapping and collaboration with marketing, more details to come in the future. 

The Marketing Committee: With amazing help Brigid Pearson, this committe has stepped forward to be in charge of the mapping project and will be sending out information about best practices. They also in charge of the website http://sdncan.org/ and are already thinking of a special site for events listings. All committee are helping with sector mapping and Brigid requested lists of any resources and artist in this ongoing effort. More details and contact can be found on the NCAN website. 

Matt Armstong, Pauline Crooks, Lauen Shelton, Steve McCormick, Meryl Goldberg

Finally Arts Education Committee: The evenings program was led by Leah Goodwin (CCAE) and Lynnette Tessitore-Lopez (City of Chula Vista Arts). The panel covered two main topics. Arts Funding and Arts Integration but there was also discuss about teaching art as a subject matter. It is important to note that arts integration is using the arts to teach all sorts of other subjects. 

Lynnette Tessitore-Lopez introduced each of the following panelist and gave us an insight in just how professional and diverse they each are in their area of expertise. 

• We learned from Pauline Crooks, San Diego County Office of Education about how there are 42 school districts in the county. Each district has different strategies for funding the arts. The unified districts for the city of San Diego has granted $3 million for the Learning through the Arts program. This program stress arts integration.
•  Matt Armstrong, VAPATOSA for San Marcos School District explained how each district gets a grant for their educational programs but a separate supplemental fund LCAP is used for the arts. All stakeholders (parents, student, staff, faculty, public) interested in the arts for their district has to petition for funding by going to meeting, being vocal and being knowledgeable about the programs you want.  These funds go to Title 1 school so those programs have to address English as a second language, foster and low income students. The arts luckily help all three of these categories to learn more effectively.
• Lauren Shelton, Artist/Arts Instructor, Chula Vista School District is the stunning administrator that brought in $15 million dollars ($5 million a year for three years) and almost single handedly hired 70 art teachers from across America in three months. This all started with a strategic plan and did not call for new money but instead shifting momey from substitute teachers to full time teachers. All students in Chula Vista now get art either once a week or once ever other week.
  
  
• Steve McCormick, Director of Education, La Jolla Playhouse participates with Lauren. Her program includes art as a subject matter and art integration and that is where Steve comes in. The programs started very small and proved itself. Each program has a non-profit arts organization, a school district and an accounting body like the SD County Office of Education. Steve and his colleagues find out what teachers and students are struggling with and then helps by using innovative arts to give an emotionally charged learning experience. He calls this 3-D learning.  Although art and music are creditional programs on their own, we now know that drama is part of the English department and dance is part of physical education. This obviously is an advocacy matter. 
  
  
• Merryl Goldberg, Ed.d Professor, CSUSM, nationally recognized arts education leader has learned that even at the college level, most of her student have no real experience of art for art sakes. Art to them means fashion, tattoos and cars. Art Integration is key to addressing social justice and access issues. She is aware that the Teachers Performance Expectation of 2013 is judging not just the experience of the  student, but also that of the parent, teacher and community and the environment for learning

Leah Goodwin summed up the evening: Become, Create, Advocate

San Diego Art Prize 2015 at the Athenaeum

by Patricia Frischer

San Diego Art Prize 2015
at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
May 7- June 11, 2016
Opening reception on Friday, May 6, 2016 6:30-8:30PM.
Wendy Maruyama with
emerging artist Peter Scheidt
Roy McMakin with emerging artist Kevin Inman
1008 Wall St. La Jolla, 92037
More info:patricia@sdvisualarts.net  858.454.5872
Plus: 14th Annual SDSU Art Council Scholarship Exhibition

The San Diego Art Prize is sponsored by San Diego Visual Arts Network.


The four artists, Wendy, Roy, Peter and Kevin are recipients of the SD Art Prize in 2015. This exhibition at the Athenaeum is the final part of their award which included inclusion in Art San Diego in Nov, 2015 and a cash prize. The beautiful Clayes Gallery of the Athenaeum is a light filled spectacular showing space in the heart of La Jolla.  Everything looks better displayed in this space with tall windows of light that cast wonderful shadows. 

Peter Scheidt stole the show with his centerpiece mobile bicycle woodworking shop. He will be using this clever, but honest machine to create wood spoons from material he finds abandoned on roadsides and dumps.   The bicycle reminds you of those we have seen in third world countries piled high with goods or carrying whole families. This is not a mock up of a mobile workshop model, it is a real working environment created by the artist who will be demonstrating it weekends during the exhibition. It is a true melding of art and life

Peter Scheidt, Mobil bicycle woodworking shop

Peter Scheidt

 For those waiting to see larger works by Kevin Inman, four larger images are included in the show plus a selection of smaller works. My favorite is the dumpsters below. But there are also some of his smaller termite covered home series on show. Kevin was the big seller at the Art Fair and I saw a red dot next to one of the tree images below. 

Kevin Inman

Kevin  Inman

Kevin Inman

Kevin Inman

 Wendy Maruyama showed us large wall sculptures with strong reference to elephants and so seeing these much more subtle but equally elegant wall flower and drawer boxes was a surprise. They are understated and beautifully crafted and easy to imagine filled with tiny treasures in any home.

Wendy Maruyama

Wendy Maruyama

Roy McMakin presents this chest which if viewed closely has a variety of shades and a crooked handle. I have no idea what this means and the artist was not present to make an explanation. I can only guess knowing some of his other work, that this was a found and damaged chest of drawers and the replacements were made, not too perfectly so that no one would be fooled and would see it as a combination of old and new.

Roy McMakin

The Athenaeum also presents for the fourteenth consecutive year an exhibition of artwork by Scholarship Winners of the San Diego State University School of Art, Design and Art History. The SDSU Art Council selects students from the upper division of the undergraduate or graduate programs. Each of the award winners receives the opportunity to present their artwork or thesis paper in the Athenaeum's Rotunda Gallery. 

I have chosen two of the artist's images Phil Rowland and Kaiya Rainbolt. It appears that the sculpture department at SDSU is alive and well!

Phil Rowland, colleague of Peter Scheidt from the same SDSU program that Wendy Maruyama headed until last year.

Phil Rowland

Kaiya Rainbolt

Kaiya Rainbolt

 

Art Exhibit: House of the Rising Suh lights up MCASD in downtown San Diego

by Lonnie Burstein HewittFirst published in the La Jolla Light


Do Ho Suh may not be a household name to most people, but he’s definitely a rising star in the wide world of museum installations and public art. And if you’ve walked around the UC San Diego campus, looking up from time to time, you’ve surely seen his piece, “Fallen Star,” one of the stars of the Stuart Collection — a small house tilted precariously on the rooftop of the Jacobs School of Engineering. 

Now more of Suh’s work is on view in a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s downtown location. Like “Fallen Star,” the exhibit highlights the artist’s preoccupation with the idea of home. Using translucent polyester fabric and slim stainless steel tubes, he has created an ethereal version of his New York City apartment, complete with major appliances, which visitors are invited to enter.

Circuit box, on apartment wall. Maurice Hewitt

It’s hard not to be blown away by the luminous, full-scale apartment, all pale pastels, with a flash of red staircase. Even the gallery’s security guard, Juanita Hayes-Vickers, couldn’t get over it. “It’s so wonderful, it tickles your belly!” she said.

In contrast, the black-walled adjoining gallery displays individual specimens of fixtures in the apartment, offering a totally different experience, almost meditative. Encased, out of context, the softly-glowing, see-through toilet is an object worthy of quiet admiration, a miracle of detail, every tiny, stitched-fabric screw in its place. 

In a room by itself is the “Secret Garden,” a 1/16th-scale replica of the Korean home and garden Suh’s father built installed on a mini-truckbed, as ready to travel as Suh is, with a video of its proposed Seoul-to-New York trip on the wall behind.

‘Home Within Home,’ a watercolor. Maurice Hewitt

But wait, there’s more: A selection of Suh’s works on paper, done in watercolor, colored pencil and multicolored threads, and a gallery dominated by the blueprints he made of his New York apartment — actually rubbings he did by taping sheets of tracing paper to the walls and rubbing blue pencil over them.

“He’s kind of dissecting the place and re-assembling it, as in a dream,” said Kathryn Kanjo, MCASD’s Deputy Director and curator of the exhibit. “He’s like a couturier, making clothes for the inside of the house. He has these two sides — tightly analytical architectural renderings (his brother is an architect!) and a dreamlike, playful sensibility.”

Kanjo said she first met Do Ho Suh 10 years ago in San Antonio’s ArtPace, where he was working on a cyclone sculpture with a Korean house crashed into it that he called “Fallen Star: Lone Star Edition.”

“He worked hard, made a lot of models; he was always busy experimenting,” she said. “When I came to San Diego in 2010, I was thrilled to find the project was in process here.”
I was thrilled to do a walk-through of the new exhibit with Kanjo, whose comments enlivened every piece. She pointed out Suh’s preoccupation with connections — the webs and paratrooper cords in his watercolors and thread-paintings, the fact that thread itself is something that connects us — and noted how often his paper works show corridors, doors and other things we travel through. She also mentioned that installation of the major pieces wasn’t easy: “It took 10 days to install the apartment,” she said. “We have no ceiling here; we needed struts and wires to hang it. And even the toilet was hard to assemble.”

Originally organized by The Contemporary Austin, the Do Ho Suh show is terrific, a haunting look at the artist’s life and work that makes you see ordinary objects — like toilets and circuit boxes — in a new way. Don’t miss it.

---

••• Who is Suh?
Do Ho Suh was born in South Korea in 1962, the son of a renowned traditional painter. He studied oriental painting at Seoul National University, and then, hoping to make his own way in the arts, he came to this country, following a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design with an MFA in sculpture from Yale.

He is best known for his meticulously crafted, large-scale installations in public spaces. “My art becomes a part of the architecture,” he has said. Much of his work revolves around memory, identity, and home. Maintaining homes in three places — New York, Seoul and London — he says: “I want to carry my home with me all the time, like a snail.” 

In 2003, Suh was featured in PBS-TV’s video series “ART 21.” In 2012, “Fallen Star” became the 18th addition to the Stuart Collection. “Fallen Star: Finding Home,” a film he produced, premiered April 5 at UCSD’s Atkinson Hall.

‘Secret Garden,’ with video Maurice Hewitt

‘Toilet’ is one of the appliance ‘specimens’ on display. Maurice Hewitt 

 

• IF YOU GO: The Do Ho Suh solo exhibition is on view through July 4 at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 1100 Kettner Blvd.in Downtown San Diego. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Wednesdays. Free 5-7 p.m. third Thursdays. (858) 454-3501. mcasd.org

PLEASE DO TOUCH: Sweet Gongs Vibrating, A Group Exhibition at San Diego Art Institute

Sweet Gongs Vibrating
Group Exhibition: Curated by Amanda Cachia, SDAI Curator-in-Residence
Through May 29^th

Article by Cathy Breslaw
www.cathybreslaw.com

Stefani Byrd with Amy Alexander  
DIVA: Redux   Video Installation  2013

Please DO Touch is the credo of this multi-media, multi-sensory group exhibition curated by Amanda Cachia, San Diego Art Institute’s  Curator-in-Residence. This exhibition is as much about Cachia’s passion to “combat the ocularcentrism in our gallery and museum system”(curator’s essay), as it is to present the art of the 20 local, national and international artists using multiple modes of expression in their works.

Cachia’s focus is on altering the viewer’s perception of ‘art’ – a shift from the solely visual as is the standard in our institutions of art culture, to art that includes all the senses – including touch, hearing, smell and taste. The result is a collection of works giving audiences an opportunity to fully engage – to interact to create sounds, using mallets hitting metal-casted objects (Aaron McPeake,’s Vibrating Gongs, 2007-2010),  to make sounds by simply picking up McPeake’s Singing Bowls(2011) and listening to sounds created by touch, to activate lights through the creation of making sounds (Cooper Baker’s Giant Spectrum 2016),  activating sounds by spinning wheels made of wood to produce various clicking sounds made by plastic straps and rods placed behind the wheels (Aren Skalman, Wheels, 2015),  and Margaret Noble’s works A Score for Conversation (2014) and Head in the Sand (2015), which asks audiences to activate sound and reverberations based on the speed of touch.  

A series of videos highlight sensorial experiences such as Diane Borsato’s video Cemetery (2015) in which viewers observe a woman eating an ice cream cone from start to finish, hearing repetitive ‘licks and slurps’, as well as other listening to environmental noises.  In the video performance by an operatic singer, DivaReDux(2013), Stefani Byrd and Amy Alexander use music to speak about expressing the emotions of love, sorrow, joy and grief emphasizing the face as one of the most expressive part of the body.   

Through these and many more significant art works, Cachia convinces us that we are capable of experiencing and perceiving art on many levels through more than the visual – including auditory, tactile and olfactory sensations that have the capacity to deepen and expand our connection to art and to the world around us.

Aaron McPeake   I Broke Her 78 Records 
 bronze gong with clapper   2007

Francisca Benitez   Son en Senas    video     2015

Raphaelle de Groot   
Study 5, A New Place  video   2015

Cathedrals: An Exhibition by San Francisco Bay Area Artist Jeff Ray at SDSU Downtown Gallery, San Diego

Jeff Ray: Cathedrals
SDSU Downtown Gallery, San Diego
through June 12

Article by Cathy Breslaw
www.cathybreslaw.com

  Jeff Ray  Saint Mary's Cathedral, San Francisco, CA(detail)  
mixed media including musical composition   2016  

 An atheist who loves cathedrals??  Hmmm…, yet that is what San Francisco Bay Area artist Jeff Ray told me when I visited the pre-opening installation of his works.  His is a multi-sensory exhibition including photography, video, sculpture and multi-media works that combine drawing, photography, and sound compositions created by Ray.

Ray expresses his love of architecture and nature by weaving landscapes together with acrylic paint, pen and ink line drawings.  Using photos of both interiors and exteriors of cathedrals, houses, commercial buildings, ships, and bridges, Ray overlays multi-colored ‘lines’ , creating geometric shapes, and thick and thin straight lines. Many of his works on paper are created on graph paper and some with LED backlighting, which feature Ray’s narratives and investigations of architectural spaces and underlying structures as they interface with the landscape and surrounding environment. The geometric ‘overlay’ drawing atop and within these photos stretches the depth of these works and it appears that Ray is on an obsessive search to locate the multi-dimensional layers found in the both visible and invisible spaces around us. 

Some of the works include Ray’s sound compositions – these musical scores punctuate timing, movement and rhythm within the visual compositions and offer additional information to viewers about Ray’s central artistic concerns.  Two large-scale long and narrow inkjet prints on paper have a spiritual feel and are the foundation of this exhibition.

These are site-specific works on tall and separate columns within the gallery space. Cathedral of Light,Oakland #1 is a dramatic interior image of a cathedral and the other related work is an outdoor image School with Redwoods,Canyon,Oakland #1 of tall trees that form a ‘natural’ cathedral.  An Untitled Video Montage, 2010 – 2016 of digital video, composition and sound round out this multi-sensory exhibition.

Jeff Ray    Decaying Bunker,Pacifica CA  
Mixed Media including musical composition   2016