SEIZE THE DAY

DIY art show won't be here long

Usually, I'm all for planning ahead. (Hey, I'm a Virgo!) But seizing a window of opportunity that opens up unexpectedly can lead to happy surprises as well. Case in point: the tasty new DIY exhibit up for just a few more days at the Santa Cruz Art League.

When local artists Carol Bowie and Sefla Joseph heard the SCAL gallery space was going to be vacant for 11 days between exhibits, they did what any red-blooded American entrepreneur would do: they called up some of their friends and said, "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!" That show is "Polishing the Mirror," featuring the work of ten Santa Cruz County artists at the top of their game.

The SCAL gallery is the perfect place for such a scaled-down, intimate show; each artist has plenty of space for a representative sample of work, but there's also enough breathing room between pieces for the viewer to wander around and see everything. About half of the pieces are paintings, mostly figurative, loosely exploring the thematic idea of "Who's there now," gazing back out of the mirror.

Bowie is showing some handsome new larger works in oils, in what she calls "somber" colors, in keeping with this introspective theme. Many depict a figure (or figures) rendered in bold, linear strokes that recall her vibrant etchings, placed before a solid background. (She's also having some cheeky fun painting life-sized department store mannequins.) Joseph also contributes some newer work, figures sketched in bold colors, captured in moments of reflection or discovery.

Carol Jeneid is showing some larger landscapes with a series of small (about 12" square) mixed-media pieces with a lot of graphic energy. There's something vivid, yet emotionally muted in the color palette of blues, greens, and rust in which Susan Dorf paints her impressionistic portraits and figures. (That's her intriguing, "She Sings to Them," above.) Dorf's trio of "Muses," one morphing into a ripe pomegranate, the others moodily mysterious, was my favorite.

Another favorite was Susan Leone Howe's "Stagelight," a dynamic whirlwind of movement, tension and color, in which figures seem about to spin off the canvas in the midst of confetti colors and pulsing stars. Also featured are Barbara Bartel's abstract series of watercolor portraits, "About Face," and the mixed media of Bill Clark.

"Star Gazer," by Peggy Snider (above)

Complementing the 2D work are pieces from ceramicist Peggy Snider (inquisitive, piquant-faced figures from her "White Album Collection"), the compelling, demon-haunted spirit figures of clay sculptor Tom Wolver, and an impressive selection of handmade antler and driftwood baskets from Larry Worley.

"Shaman's Bowl," by Larry Worley.

There's plenty to ponder and enjoy in this show, and it'll disappear like Brigadoon after Sunday, March 20, so put down that keyboard and go!

And speaking of limited-time-only offers, the Dante Aligheri Society of Santa Cruz is presenting one of the all-time classics of Italian cinema (or any cinema) this week: Otto e Mezzo (better known as 8 1/2). The great Federico Fellini directs this 1963 masterpiece about love, art, memory, and cinema. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a celebrated filmmaker turning to the women in his life—past and present—while trying to draw inspiration for his next movie. Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee and Sandra Milo lead the femme cast.

The movie won Oscars for Foreign Language Film and Black-and-White Costumes—proving that the absence of color in no way interferes with a film's visual panache, especially in the hands of a maestro like Fellini. (Fun factoid: from the '40s to 1967, two Oscars were awarded every year in each of the three visual categories—Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costumes—one for color and one for black-and-white. Since then, hardly anybody makes movies in B&W any more, which is cinema's great loss.)

8 1/2 also spawned various adaptations, most notably Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland (1972), with Donald Sutherland, and the lavish Broadway musical, Nine—which, in turn, was made into a movie in 2009, starring Daniel Day Lewis. But Fellini is the real deal. Don't miss this chance to see it on a big screen, and if you've never seen it before, your film education starts here. Showtime is 7 pm, Sunday, March 20, at the VAPA Art History Forum Room 1001, Cabrillo College. Admission is free, and you're invited to come early with an Italian snack and non-alcoholic beverage to share. Visit the Dante Society website for more info.

WHAT'S THE STORY?

Okay, it took us a couple of months to catch up with the clay and glass show at the MAH, but, boy, is it worth seeing. Presented upstairs in the Solari Gallery, this selection of work from members of the Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California (ACGA) offers a compelling and inspirational assortment of pieces from both statewide and local artists. Work on view ranges from vessels and vases to totems and installations, with every conceivable kind of abstract, figurative, functional, and sculptural artwork in between.

Me, I'm drawn to the figurative, as you probably know by now if you read my posts on Zimbabwe sculpture and other recent art shows. Maybe it's the storyteller in me, but in 3D art as well as painting, I like threading my way through the implied narrative when figures take center stage. So pardon my bias, but the most exciting discovery for me at the ACGA show is Bay Area ceramicist Fred Yokel. His sly, whimsical sculptural vignette, "The Build," is the highlight of the show for both Art Boy and me. It was love at first sight; one look, and our eyes were bugging out of our heads like a Tex Avery cartoon.

In this piece, a monumental human form is being constructed out of stone blocks by four or five small worker drones; they're still bustling about the litter of blocks at its feet, trying to fill in the last couple of open spaces in the form. Are they constructing a man-shaped temple to their god? A ceremonial effigy? A Trojan Man? It's all in the perspective. I like to think of these little guys as a person's various inner selves, caught in the act of assembling the complete individual, the sum of all their parts. Or not. That's the cool thing about art, it's open to endless interpretations. Feel free to make up your own.

Evidently, Yokel is well known for a series he calls "Jestures," playful figures of monumental-seeming proportions, yet small format (the central character in "The Build" is only about two feet tall) in expressive poses. Yokel's other piece in the MAH show, the delightful "Woody: Ancient Artifact," captures this spirit, a breezy little character brilliantly textured and painted to resemble carved wood.

I've rhapsodized about local clay artists Coeleen Kiebert and Peggy Snider before; both of them have dynamic pieces in the show. So does Tom Wolver, whose "Contemplation" features a brooding "Thinker"-like character with a typically Wolverian, jackal-headed demon laughing over his shoulder.

Among other intriguing out-of-town artists I "discovered" at this show is Natasha Dikareva. I love her "Shell Dweller" (above) with its poignant little human face emerging from the organic cocoon of the shell. I was also drawn to Vicki Gunter's "The Reading Chair," an evocative ceramic representation of a stuffed, saggy old armchair covered in flowered chintz. The object itself is one thing, but the story that goes with it (written out in the artist's attached note), about memories of the old family chair she crawled into as a child to hear stories, completes the narrative in the most fitting way—with the written word. Another piece I found weirdly haunting was "Legerdemain," by Charlene Doiron Reinhart, which celebrates the idea of sleight-of-hand with four tiers of digits unfolding from each other like the petals of a rose. (Don't forget to peek around at the back of this piece for the punch line.)

This is just a teeny, tiny sampling of the work on view at the MAH show. (And by the way, I think it's great that the MAH now regularly features local artists in its exhibits, after so many years as mainly a venue for traveling art shows from elsewhere. Big kudos to Susan Hillhouse and her staff for finding ways to bring both local artwork and traveling shows to the party.) No matter what your personal bias, there's much to inspire you here. The ACGA show runs through March 13, so there's still plenty of time to go get the story.