Farrell, Freuen, Gieber, Gilmore

FARRELL

FREUEN

GIESER

GILMORE

JUNDT ART MUSEUM·

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

• SPOKANE, WASHINGTON

JANUARY 20 "APRIL 8, 2006

ROBERT GILMORE Kreielsheimer Professor of Art Robert Gilmore is the senior member of Gonzaga's Art Department. Nonetheless, he possesses an energy, pluck and passion for painting that one might falsely believe could only be found within a recent art school graduate embarking upon a career in art.

His enthusiasm for painting can

only be rivaled by his excitement about jazz. Indeed, Gilmore came of age as an art student when painting and jazz thrived in post-VVW II America and profoundly changed the modern cultural landscape at home and abroad.

The Abstract Expressionist generation in

I 940s and 1950s New York completely transformed the field of painting by exploring and interrogating traditional definitions of the medium.

Although European modernists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian had

already broached the issue, the American modernists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning infused nonrepresentational painting yvith a dynamism and flair considered by many scholars and historians of art as distinctly American. That dynamism partly derived from a tension between spontaneity and control that Pollock, de Kooning, and others of their generation embraced. Like abstraction in art, jazz had been born earlier in the twentieth century; however, the era of bebop in the late I 940s and I 950s-Charlie

Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane-took

jazz

to a higher, more experimental level that valued improvisation and that tension between spontaneity and control.

Gilmore's oeuvre may be within the same family tree as Abstract Expressionism, but his body of work represents a notably distinct branch. Indeed, he describes his own style as "abstract realism," meaning that every form in a painting relates to or is inspired by something else, often something tangible and specific in the world.

Birds, flowers, and feathers, for example, have been the inspiration for the rhythmically flowing shapes that we see in a number of his paintings. More specifically, in his painting Futurist Manifesto

that sense of fluid movement of

form elegantly recalls Umberto Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity works of twentieth-century

art.

in Space, one of the seminal

Indeed, Gilmore's homage to the Italian Futurist's fascination with bodies and

objects in motion exhibits a musical sensibility that underlies so many of his paintings, including his Giant Steps, a direct reference to John Coltrane's 1960 composition of the same name. Granted, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between jazz music and Gilmore's painting. Nevertheless, they seem to share a modern sensibility that involves identifying a single concept or form, whether a musical chord or visual motif, and exploring it, delving into it, figuratively turning it over, without being too excessively concerned where the final outcome might lead.

To riff effectively, however, requires paradoxically substantial training and its own kind of rigor. Gilmore's

paintings are extraordinarily

lovely and graceful in tone. Yet their elegance and soothing nature are somewhat

deceptive because underlying them is a rigor and discipline of the paint brush and the mind that only arrive after many decades of making art, teaching art, and thinking about it. Besides jazz, perhaps also analogous to his paintings is the dancer. The dancer's body moves on the stage with a grace and fluidity that are only made possible through a combination of constant focus, discipline, and talent. And we see all three qualities in Gilmore's own body of work.

Educated under the tutelage of Walter Murch and other great teachers at Boston University, Gilmore actually began his teaching career in Spokane at Fort Wright College in 1964. He joined the faculty at Gonzaga University in 1968.

In 1987 he was appointed the Leo Kreielsheimer Professor of Fine Arts.

in private and public collections throughout

His work

can be found

the U.S.

MARY FARRELL Mary Farrell joined the Art Department

in 1995 to direct the printmaking program.

Farrell's work, along with the art of printmaking, is the art of drawing.

Yet, the foundation of

In Peter Steinhart's recent book on why we

draw he asserts that "to draw is to understand what we see" before us. Farrell's drawings and prints consistently reveal a focused, meditative, and intimate look at the world, particularly the natural world and the world of the body.

Whether her subject is a wilting sunflower, a bird's nest, the human hand or figure, Farrell scrutinizes that form with an intense fervor that expresses itself most explicitly as a dynamism of line. line, of course, defines drawing, and it is the quality of line in Farrell's work that so many of us admire and envy. In her art it imbues form with a baroque, lush energy that is palpable. As we see it with our eyes, we can feel it in our bodies and perhaps for other artists, in their hands.

Within this fantasia, however, there is an economy of line, a definite control and facility, which maintains a delicate balance between the sense of solid form and the sense of fluid marks on the paper that seem to exist independently. In other words, one can look at a woodcut like Opposed I and observe how the inked marks on the print paper collectively register in the mind as hand and wrist; at the same time, one can also perceive and enjoy it as an abstract study of lines that start and stop, twist and turn, meet and intersect at a myriad number of angles. This gentle oscillation between abstraction and figuration is not achieved strictly through line. It is the result of an extremely sensitive and agile interweaving of color, tone, light and space, in relation to line.

Farrell was educated Cincinnati

and the University

in Ohio at the Art Academy of Cincinnati,

where

of

she earned

her B.F.A. and M.F.A., respectively. She teaches both printmaking and drawing, Jundt Art

and was the subject of solo exhibitions

Museum

in 1996 and

1999.

at the

Five years ago she

_

was honored with the Scholar of the Year Award here at Gonzaga, and in 2000 received an Artist Trust Fellowship, a highly competitive program intended to recognize artists in Washington state who have achieved both artistic and professional excellence.

Farrell exhibits widely throughout the

U.S. and the world, with recent group shows in England, China, and Mexico.

GINAFREUEN Unlike painters and printmakers, potters (or "clay people" as they're affectionately called) often exist within two artistic realms-the

world of

"craft", which frequently implies functional art, and that of the fine arts. Although the artist Peter Voulkos in the 1950s ardently questioned and shattered the assumption that clay pieces must have a functional purpose, the issue of utilitarian versus non-utilitarian art is still visible in the work of contemporary potters. Gina Freuen's work astutely addresses this issue in a quirky and clever manner. For example, rather than the standard round and smooth-bodied teapot with spout and neatly curving handle, Freuen creates, through slab construction and wheel throwing, teapots whose bodies dip and curve at odd angles, sometimes appearing to have cinched waists where one expects the teapot to be at its widest. Or a handle may be comprised of two branch-like appendages, one wide and textured and the other willowy and smooth, in which they overlap or one seems to pierce the other. In other cases, the handle may be a curvy loop, but it seems too compressed for an adult hand to easily and comfortably grip. Like her vases and pitchers, Freuen's signature teapots often appear to be composed like a patchwork quilt, discrete panels assembled together where the points of contact seem visible.

Indeed, her

asymmetrical handling of shape and form and collage-style of pottery compel the first-time viewer of her work to wonder if that teapot really can be used as a vessel for keeping water hot or if that pitcher can securely hold liquid without leaking. In fact, all of her work is fully functional, or as she herself has stated "functional in intent."

Thus, she leaves it to the owner of each piece to decide if it will be put on display or be put to use, or both.

Although largely identified with the world processes into her studio regimen.

of pottery, Freuen also incorporates two-dimensional

Indeed, her method for producing her distinct mixed media drawings

parallels her pottery glazing techniques. Just as she applies glazes in subtle layers, often scrubbing away and then adding more in order to create unusual textures, Freuen creates "layered" drawings that bring together disparate shapes and objects. With these drawings, forms and objects appear to float across the picture plane or up and down, and gently jostle against one another. Freuen herself has stated that they are like "Iayerings of thought" made visible. This layering, almost dream-like effect derives from her dexterous union of technology and artistry. Through scanning she initially combines her own drawings and slide images of her pottery or other

objects, often elements from nature like feathers or leaves. She then takes these scanned collage-like images and erases some sections and overlaps others to create a "ghosting" grade paper, Freuen completes

After printing the images on museum

her works on paper with additional graphite marks for creating tone or line.

Like so many contemporary

artists, Freuen wears with great verve and expertise a number of professional

hats. Besides teaching the design curriculum serves as the Art Department's

effect.

at Gonzaga, she free lances as a graphic designer and also cheerfully

computer guru-in-residence.

Freuen joined the Art Department

in 1997, but has

been active within the local and regional arts community for over thirty years. A Washington native, she created and ran ArtFest, a spring arts and crafts festival run by the Museum of Arts & Culture and Spokane Art School for its first 10 years, and for the last 23 has been a manager of Inland Crafts, the premiere exhibition and sale of fine crafts in the Inland Northwest

held annually in Spokane. While she continues to serve as one of the key organizers of Inland

Crafts, she maintains an active exhibition schedule for her own ceramics and mixed media, two-dimensional recently, her pottery was showcased in agroup exhibition at the Northwest juried exhibition of the Washington Potters Association.

(Tea Time,S

art. Most

Craft Center in Seattle and in the annual

Earlier this year her work was featured in Artisan Northwest

Artists. Spring 2005), and the Sun Valley Arts Festival honored her with its Best of Ceramics Award.

TERRY GIESER Long time chair of the Art Department,

Professor Terry Gieber has led the ceramics program at Gon-

zaga University since the early I 980s and has perhaps become best known professionally for his unique, soaring Tornado jars.

Indeed, nature and weather, the earth, are the basis for all of his work.

originates from the Midwest, and it was the topography

and weather

exposed him to the brute force and magnificence of nature. artistic expression is not surprising, given his commitment of the earth, and a culmination

of his home state of Kansas that initially

Gieber's decision to turn to clay as his means of

to create work inspired by nature.

of geological pressure and release, decomposition,

One can think of clay as an organic expression of time, or rather its passage.

Gieber's clay pieces, like his open-mouthed those in the Southwest

sagger jars from the Erosion Series or

Series, often evoke that sense of the passage of time, and per-

haps more intriguingly a past world.

In the Erosion Series. for instance, his tall sagger

jars exhibit thick, jagged lines that seem to suggest an ancient pottery vessel that has been fractured into several pieces, excavated from the earth centuries or millennia later by an archaeologist, and carefully pieced back together by a modern-day conservator.

In the Southwest

Like Farrell, he

Series Gieber also creates along a vessel's surface

a distinct network of lines, sometimes zigzag and geometric in shape or wave-like.

Clay is elemental,

chemical change, and time.

Moreover,

the

line

patterns,

earth

es recall and seem to pay tribute

tone

palette,

to the

Pueblo

That sense of excavation and restoration

and

irregular

(Anasazi) pottery

rims

of

these

wide,

of the southwestern

of experimental

United

piecStates.

in his art parallels Gieber's own work as a ceramic tile restorer

for historic buildings like the Central Library of Los Angeles and Campbell House of the Northwest and Culture in Spokane. His tile restoration

round

Museum of Arts

projects have involved innovative glaze formulas and the development

techniques for expertly matching new tile pieces to their originals.

This contribution

to historic

preservation is made possible by Gieber's wizardry with glazes and kiln firing. He constantly experiments with firing methods, and his most recent creations, including some in this exhibition, involve a wood firing process that allows the ash of wood to "flash" onto (coat) the clay and become an additional layer of glaze. Greber's achievements as an artist and teacher have been acknowledged

in a number of ways. In 1994 he won Gonzaga's Great Teachers Pro-

gram Award for Distinguished Scholarship. He was in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana for Summer 2002, one of the most highly coveted residencies for ceramicists. The many local Gonzaga alumni who still orbit around him certainly testify to his gifts as a teacher and supporter of fellow clay people in the local community. Like his colleagues in the Department

he maintains an active exhibition schedule on a regional and national

scale, and most recently in 2004 was included in the Washington Potter's Association retrospective

exhibition.

Shalon Parker, PhD. Assistant Professor

I Peter Steinhart, The Undressed

of Art

History, Gonzaga University, Spokane,

WA

Art: Why We Draw (Knopf, 2004)

2 The term "sagger" refers to the container, often boxlike, that delicate glazed ware is placed in. The container helps to protect the ware from loose ash and combustible gasses. With Gieber's sagger [ars they are placed in containers filled with salts and combustible Rather than being protected

from the ash and flame the pieces are subjected to the direct assault of corrosive materials.

3 Wood firings last a minimum of twelve hours, and can continue for as long as seventy-two. temperature

materials which serve an opposite purpose.

Gieber throws additional wood into the wood kiln when the

reaches 2400 degrees, and the ash from this tossed wood then coats the clay in a glaze-like fashion.

IMAGES: Cover: (top to bottom)

Mary Farrell, Opposed

I (detail). Woodcut on mulberry paper, 4S" X 30"; Gina Freuen, Feathers and Smoke (detail). Graph-

ite and collage on clay board, IS" X 35"; Terry Giebel', Southwest

Series Jar (detail). Sagger fired stoneware,

16"h; Robert Gilmore, Unfinished Symphony

Oil on canvas, 4S" X 32"

Left panel: Robert Gilmore, Portrait Center

of a Lady

Oil on canvas, 39 1/4" X 32 1/4"

panel: Mary Farrell, Even the Walls Are Flowing. Pencil on Mylar, 25"X 32"

Right panel: Gina Freuen, Water Vessel. Clay, 16"h Right fold: Terry Gieber, Jar III. Woodfired stoneware,

30"h

This publication was funded by the Jundt Art Museum's Annual Campaign 2005-2006 Š Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258-000 I

(detail),