2021 Cannon Gallery Invitational

By Patricia Frischer

Melissa Walter

One thing you can take to the bank is display of work at the Cannon Art Gallery is always tip top and this show is no exception. Karen McGuire, the curator, has chosen the five artists from those juried into the 2021 Biennial for this 9^th invitational exhibition.  The dramatic view when you first enter the show is to the back wall and the stunning wall sculpture by Melissa Walter (SD Art Prize 2020, La Mesa).   Stark but warmly lit, the works draws your eye immediately, but you walk through the graphite black and white drawings by Samantha Barrymore (Carlsbad) to get a closer look.  Barrymore’s art is hyper-photographic and by using the regular texture of the canvas sub-strait, the works almost look pixelated.

Melissa Walter (details)

Melissa Walter

 Samantha Barrymore  (pencil on canvas)

Brad Maxey’s (San Diego) intimate views of building interiors are also hyper, this time realism. They are beautifully rendered in full color

Brad Maxey

Brad Maxey

Jiela Rufeh (Encinitas) was the surprise of the show. Her encaustic and mixed media works seem to invoke a science fiction world where animals heads with extended horns have shrouded human bodies.

Jiela Rufeh

Jiela Rufeh

Jiela Rufeh

The sculptures by Griselda Rosas (SD Art Prize 2020, Chula Vista) continue to intrigue me. These multiple media pieces use materials in such unusual combinations and they appear to have some function but that is left to your imagination.   Her wall hanging with embroidery continue to develop in theme, shape and color.

These are the ones to watch!

Griselda Rosas (detail)

Griselda Rosas

Griselda Rosas

To experience the process for making art that Griselda Rosas uses, there are some art kits that are being given away for free. I followed all the instructions and here my own multimedia art work influenced by Griselda and made with all the materials in the kits. 

Patricia Frischer

The Cannon Art Gallery  Invitational exhibition
On view from Nov 13 to Feb 5, 2022.
Carlsbad City Library complex at Dove Lane and El Camino Real in the south of Carlsbad
Tuesday through Thursday: Noon - 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday: Noon - 5 p.m.
Admission is free. Masks are required.

Buddhist Monks and Mixed Media Artists Reflect on Impermanence at PHES Gallery

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

Creating the mandala.

PHES Gallery is a small but mighty space in Carlsbad owned by a warm and creative couple, furniture-maker Paul Henry and art therapist Ellen Speert. It has only been open five months but is already drawing attention from art-lovers in and beyond San Diego County.

Their current exhibition, Impermanence,  features four top-level artists, all showing works expressing the idea of impermanence: Andres Amador, an earthscape artist from Northern California; printmaker/illustrator Kathi McCord; glass sculptor Michelle Kurtis Cole,  and woodworker/furniture-maker Wendy Maruyama.

As a special attraction, six Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in Southern India were invited to create an ephemeral piece in the gallery, a sacred sand mandala which would take five days of painstaking work to complete as they filled in the initial outline with grains of colored sand.

Creating the mandala: a close-up.

True to the spirit of impermanence, a basic concept in Buddhist thought, part of the process was the complete dissolution of the mandala outdoors on the afternoon of December 11. “It’s not a destruction, it’s a release,” said Ellen Speert, who has been working with these monks for years. And it illustrates another Buddhist concept—non-attachment.

Also working in the spirit of impermanence and non-attachment is Andres Amador, whose large-scale earthworks are created out of natural materials that are then returned to the earth…or the sea.

Andres Amador: Washed Away.  A piece created on a beach, photographed by a drone, and then washed away by a high tide. The tiny speck in the center of the piece is the artist.

Amador will be here in person in February, giving a talk at the gallery and doing a program with Ellen Speert at her retreat center, where participants will end up creating a communal piece on the beach in low tide. (For more about this, go to www.artRETREATS.com)

And then there’s Kathi McCord, whose impressive graphite drawings address the destruction of our rainforests and invite visitors to demonstrate what’s happening by erasing some part of a drawing themselves.

A detail from one of McCord’s wall-size drawings.

 

Michelle Kurtis Cole’s contribution to Impermanence features seven small, beautifully detailed corals, whose memory she’s preserving in glass as they’re disappearing in oceans.

One of Cole’s hand-sculpted glass corals.

We didn’t get to see Wendy Maruyama’s piece, The Tag Project, honoring the thousands of Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps during World War II. It was removed to make room for the mandala-making but is back now, and we’ll be going back to see it.

In these times of ongoing Covid and other uncertainties, the idea of impermanence can be a kind of comfort. Don’t miss this fine, thought-provoking show, which is also impermanent, but will be here through February 13.

Impermanence at PHES Gallery
2633 State Street, Carlsbad, CA 92008
Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday  2 p.m.-7 p.m. or by appointment
info@phesgallery.com/760-696-3022

 

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. 

Another Covid-time Christmas Brightened by Lighthearted Neighborhood Art

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

Find Peace & Dancing Unicorns on Marisa Lane in Encinitas/Olivenhain.

Last year around Christmas I wrote about light art around our Encinitas neighborhood, then discovered another great location while the lights were still up. So of course we went back there this year to check out the current attractions, along with a return visit to last year’s light-the-block parties, all of them welcoming passersby to share their holiday spirit.
Hot tips for cold nights: Dress warm, do a quick drive-through to see what’s happening, then find a parking spot and go out on foot. That way you can spend time with your favorites, especially the ones that change colors and moods. And wherever you live, ask neighbors about the best displays nearby.

11^th Street, off Rancho Santa Fe Rd., Encinitas/Olivenhain.
This is the most widespread of local light shows, including offshoot streets like Marisa Lane, and it’s been going strong for years. The photos below were all taken on Marisa, but there’s elaborate illumination everywhere you look. 

Gitano Street, off Chapalita Drive, Encinitas.
Strings of colored lights link both sides of this neighborly street, 

What you see as you drive onto Gitano.  

Front-side detail.

One of our favorites.

Village Run East, off Gardendale Road, Encinitas.
There were many more houses lit up here last year, on Village Run’s east and west sides, but this is still one we love. I call it The House of Blue Lights, but it changes colors, and invites you to push a button to activate musical accompaniment—and maybe even do a little dancing.

A new star attraction on Gitano 

Here’s wishing us all a healthy, delightful holiday season…and many thanks to the homeowners who graciously light up our lives.

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

For art-lovers this holiday season, there’s no place like OMA

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt 

Wallpaper Ghosts (Watcher). A drawing from the Neil Kendricks: Temple of Story exhibit, illustrating the artist’s audio recording of his eerie Covid-time New Year’s Eve tale titled Wallpaper Ghosts.

There are half-a-dozen shows well worth seeing at Oceanside Museum of Art this month, and you may find yourself spending quite a bit of time with them. The first-floor gallery Temple of Story features artworks and recorded works of fiction created by Neil Kendricks, accompanied by softly evocative soundtracks from composer/musician Mike Mare. The drawings and video projections are visually arresting on their own, but the storytelling component—accessed with accompanying QR codes—adds an extra dimension that will have museum visitors feeling that they have truly entered into another world. (On view through Feb. 20, 2022)

One of the inked-in drawings on secondhand books from Temple of Story.

A still from the video projections.

Also on the main floor is a what is called “a museum store feature exhibit”—The Beauty of Science, by molecular biologist Beate Mierzwa, who is also an artist and fashion designer.  She translates complex scientific information into aesthetic visuals, turning images seen through a microscope into wearable art. (Through Nov. 28, 2022)

From The Beauty of Science: An unusual depiction of the final step of cell division.

The ESCRT Dress: Another look at cell division. When animal cells need to split up, “they put on a corset and call in an ‘escort’…which forms a spiral shape…and constricts its waist to separate the emerging cells.”

Walking up to the second floor, you see birdlife—beautifully detailed versions of sandhill cranes in a series called Migration by aptly-named quilt artist Charlotte Bird. Fascinated by their ability to make annual journeys from Arctic nesting grounds to California, Texas, New Mexico and Mexico—and back again, she is also troubled by how modern disturbances like climate change and habitat destruction are changing their lives. Migration continues in a small gallery upstairs. (Through Jan. 9, 2022) 

Quilted cranes along the stairway.

Duke Windsor: A Tall Order with Monarchs.

Then you go from birds to burgers: Duke Windsor’s Burger Series, where he elevates the American fast-food favorite to iconic status with 17^th-century Dutch still-life painting techniques and more than a little imitation gold-leaf. (Through March 13, 2022)

Part of the Birds of a Different Feather installation.

Close-up of the dolled-up but head-less motorcyclist and his bike.

But the stars of the second floor are Saki and Marty O, whose eye-popping fashion extravaganzas—with socio-political overtones—share the main upstairs gallery. Both were award-winners at OMA’s 2020 virtual Night of the Living Art event and now have the space to really show their stuff. (Through January 23, 2022)

Saki: Birds of a Different Feather is a shout-out for men to step up to the fashion plate. Male peacocks and parrots “get all dolled up…to prove themselves worthy of a mate,” says the artist. This dazzling installation features rock-star looks inspired by the birds

For years, Marti O has been creating high-impact wearable art out of worn-out quilts and old clothes. Now, in her Social Security installation, she considers the price of feminine fashion, and some of the dis-empowering roles women have accepted in the last century as they dressed for success with husbands and homes.    

A Dressing Shame: The featured character in this tableau from Social Security is a mannequin in an altered wedding gown covered with graffiti that reveals family secrets.

Another part of the installation.

 

The Teeny Tiny Art Mart is now open until Dec 20 and a chance to pick up a 5" by 5" artwork for only $25. Artworks are by novices, professionals, civic leaders, and local celebrities. You will not find out the name of the artist until you purchase the work! This is a fundraiser for the education department of the museum. 

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

The Story of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Told Through Ceramics

by Patricia Frischer

 These really amusing ceramic sculptures are not meant to be a joke. They are Mao Zedong’s way to try to control his cultural  revolution from 1966 to 1976. These works are  from an upcoming show opening Jan 3 as a collaboration of the Chinese Cultural Center and San Diego Chinese Historic Museum put together by Fiona Chalom, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine University and private practitioner, Li-Rong Lilly Cheng, San Diego State University and director of the Chinese Cultural Center at SDSU, and  the chair of the board of directors at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum and Jamie Kwan, Ph.D. Princeton University, curator and art advisor based in Los Angeles. 

Jamie Kwan gave this talk The Story of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Told Through Ceramics and explained so clearly the motivations and quirks about this body of work mainly collected by Fiona Chalom. 

All of the art produced during this period was made to enforce the Little Red Book doctrines. Traditional art was banned and only realistic art that served the state was allowed. 

The shaming of intellectuals was a common practice. The real view on the right was bloody and violent. The sanitized ceramic version could be purchased to show your loyalty. 

The worker, the peasant and the soldier were elevated and idealized. 

When traditional shapes were used it was only to illustrate workers, in this case, in the oil industry.

These are relatively small works and the figure were made in individual molds that could be used in a variety of groups. 

The Mao figure in this tableau is smaller so the artisan put him on a pedestal as he always had to be the highest one in any group.  

Making sure that Blacks and other Asians were included as part of the proletariat. 

The Arts that served the cause were included like this figure from the ballet The White Haired Girl. Her landlord separated her from her lover and her hair turned white during her exile. 

Traditional ink painting and landscapes are suspect but allowed when they glorified the work of the steel and coal workers. 

However, not everything at the top was as you might expect. These very fine, very white porcelain dishes with a totally artistic cherry blossom motif were commissioned for use at the Zedong residence. 

You can sign up for more information about the exhibition and check out other talks in this series at Chinese Cultural Center. I asked and was told that there will be further lectures on contemporary and modern Chinese ceramic art.   

For a site specializing in the historical archive of the Cold War go to The Wende Museum,

Many Fingers Touch Your Heart: Women’s Woven Voices at Front Porch Gallery

by Patricia Frischer 

With the lockdown, we are still pretty much looking for online experiences and one of the best in December was a zoom celebration of the completion of the Women’s Woven Voices 1000+ story cloth weavings tapestry exhibition at FrontPorch Gallery with Julie Weaverling and founder Brecia Kralovic-Logan.

Brecia Kralovic-Logan and is that a Post for Peace and Justice I see next to her sign?

 

I had no idea what to expect but a dizzying video view of the show  and  the brilliant video of one of the weavers, Maggie, makes me more than ever want to look at least through the window of this Carlsbad gallery. Not only do they serve the community at large, but this show involves the residents in many of their facilities for assisted and independent living.

Maggie

Some of the residents showing off their weavings. 

Women’s Woven Voices project is an international, collaborative art project that promotes women's empowerment through writing (guide), weaving (guide) and sharing (guide). When Front Porch became involved they hoped for 100 participants but are showing approx. 750 -  36 inch strips sewn together to make a chorus of voices.

Kits are available to get you started

An assortment of supplies

Close up of work in process

There are so many stories here. Some of very specific dedications, others are recollections and then there are just the intuitive expressions of colors.   

 The red fringe ties the whole group together graphically but it also symbolizes love  and creates a visual talking point about solutions to sexual abuse, a larger project.

Front Porch will display these artworks in all their facilities. Then it will go around the world hopefully with special stops in support of the Washington DC’s Commission on Women and Girls. 

Women's Woven Voices
showing until Jan. 8, 2022
Front Porch Gallery
2903 Carlsbad Blvd, Carlsbad, 92008