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MATTERS Exhibition Dates: March 1 - March 31, 2019 Reception for the Artists: Saturday, March 9, 5:30 to 7:30 pm Front Cover: Sanjay Vora, Wheelbarrow Ride, 2012, oil, acrylic and gel medium on panel, 80 x 60 x 2.5 in Back Cover: Tim Tate, For The Home, She Gathers Flowers (detail), aluminum, cast original objects, LEDs, mirrors, 32 x 32 x 4 in Photo Credits: Wolfgang Bloch: Stan Sholik Joe Brubaker: Fred Cushing Daniella Duelling: (Striker Fan II): Pete Mauney Daniella Duelling: (Untitled� (Communications to Amy 1955-1970): Chris Kendall David French: Richard Nicol Nicole Havekost: Brian Steele Lisa Kokin: Lia Roozendaal Deloss Webber: Mya Kerner All others taken by the artist Curated by Donna Seager and Suzanne Gray Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415.384.8288 www.seagergray.com
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MATTERS Wolfgang Bloch Joe Brubaker Ryan Bucko Lia Cook Jake Couri Daniella Dooling David French Elizabeth Harris Nicole Havekost Lisa Kokin Nancy Legge Hung Liu Jann Nunn Emily Payne Ross Richmond Jane Rosen Liz Sekettee Tim Tate Larry Thomas Sanjay Vora Deloss Webber
Wolfgang Bloch We first encountered Wolfgang Bloch’s work several years ago. We were struck by the beauty of the surfaces and the way he captured the meditative qualities of simply sitting by the sea. Born in Ecuador, Bloch spent his formative years travelling, surfing and living a nomad’s existence up and down Ecuador’s glittering Pacific coastline, all the way to some of his earliest memories. “I think the reason I paint this way is because I go back to sitting in front of the ocean as a child,” Wolfgang reflects. “I’m not trying to paint the ocean, what I’m trying to do is regain that feeling I got when I was seven years old and how peaceful I felt sitting in front of this ocean.” Bloch sees waves everywhere - in the ocean, in the grain of wood, in the core of a surfboard that he has sawed in two. Using all of these different media, Bloch creates simple, evocative paintings that transform ocean waves into otherworldly compositions of color and shape. His work captivates surfers around the world, and this first ever monograph of Bloch’s work designed by luminary David Carson features his best pieces, alongside a soulful account of the artist’s life. This gorgeous book of waves is a collaboration between two of the surf world’s visionaries that will resonate with beach lovers everywhere. Bloch attended Art Center College for Design in Pasadena where he got a graphic design degree. A lifelong surfer, he went to work for Gotcha Sportswear, but found that being stuck in front of a computer made him feel detached and he longed to simply do his art. Bloch’s quiet and careful brushwork and his seamless assemblages have, over the past two decades, combined to yield works imbued with the romanticism of William Turner and the pure expression of Mark Rothko. He is a rare artist whose hands are as guided by his dedication to craft and technique as they are by the nature of his materials and by the earnestness of his understated yet evocative experimentations.
Wolfgang Bloch no. 1131, 2019 (above)
oil on wood 32 x 31.5 in
no. 1130, 2019 (left)
oil on linen 60 x 60 in
Joe Brubaker Joe Brubaker carves wood and assembles found materials to create figurative and abstract sculptures that reflect his concerns with time and the ongoing process of loss and discovery. He transforms shape into object, bringing it into our physical space. In “White Moon,” Brubaker presents organic rounded forms that entice the eye This elegant framework piece is reminiscent of Martin Puryear, whose work has an emphasis on primary structures and a dedication to craft. The entire structure of the work can be seen – inside and out - with its pleasing curves and patina of time. It might be reminiscent of modernist sculpture, simple in shape like Brancusi or Arp, but also of African sculpture, carpentry and shipbuilding. Joe Brubaker was born in Lebanon, Missouri and raised in Southern California. He received his B.A. from Sacramento State University, then attended UCLA where he earned his MA and MFA. From 1980 to 1988 he lectured in Art and Design at UCLA, as well as at Long Beach State from 1982 to 1984. In 1987 Joe moved with his wife and two children to the San Francisco Bay Area. He continued to teach as an Art and Design lecturer at both San Francisco State from 1989 to 1994 and Academy of Art College from 1989 to 1997. He retired from teaching in 1997 to begin full time work on his own sculpture.
Joe Brubaker (left) White Moon 2, 2018 white Alaskan cedar 48 x 48 in
Joe Brubaker (right) Jerome, 2019
found materials, Alaskan yellow cedar, basswood, paint, 39.5 x 11 x 8 in
Ryan Bucko Ryan Bucko credits his lifelong passion for architecture and his years as a design professional for fueling his growth as an artist. He breaks new ground by contrasting semblances of iconic architecture from the 20th century against the dynamic textures of abstract expressionism. Linework, constructed of wire and thread, control the various line weights which hover over the painting’s surface. This interplay juxtaposes the technical precision of architecture and the world of the abstract. Bucko’s obsessive pursuit to reduce geometry down to its purest form creates a third dimension that changes upon viewing perspective and lighting conditions. His work continues to evolve along the dual themes of architectural precision contrasted with the unbridled energy of abstract art as shown in his latest series “Geometry and Architecture.”
Ryan Bucko (left) Abyss, 2017
acrylic, plaster, chalk, nail, thread on canvas on panel 48 x 48 in
Ryan Bucko (above) Ando, 2018
acrylic, plaster, chalk on canvas 60 x 48 in
Lia Cook Big Cabbage Boy, 2003 woven cotton 168 x 54 in
Lia Cook Lia Cook has been blowing minds with her groundbreaking weavings since she burst onto the textile art scene as an exciting young newcomer in 1973, showing one of her large scale “fabric landscapes” at the International Tapestry Biennial in Lausanne, Switzerland, alongside major names in the field like Magdalena Abakanowicz and Sheila Hicks. Forty-five years after that auspicious international debut, the 76-year-old artist hasn’t been an unknown for a long time now, having taken her place in the pantheon of renowned textile artists. Her weavings are in the permanent collections of galleries and museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the French National Collection of Art in Paris and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Many of Cook’s most striking and startling pieces are her weavings of faces from her collection of nostalgic family photographs, most of them of the artist herself at various times in her life. “I created this whole way of weaving images based on pixels,” she says, explaining a process that involves “photosensitizing” an image and exposing it onto a weaving. “It was a kind of a technical innovation. I broke the image up into individual threads and found a way to make it weave altogether.” For Cook, her woven faces take different forms depending on where you are when you look at them. She compares the pixilation of the weavings’ warp and weft with the colored dots in a pointillist painting. (Warp is the longitudinal thread held stationary in tension on a loom, while the weft, or woof, is drawn through and inserted over and under the warp.) “I’m interested in movement in relationship with the image,” she explains. “So here you have an image of the face that looks just like a photograph, but as you move closer to it, the image breaks down and the viewers discover that it’s actually woven. In exhibitions, when people discover that it’s woven, rather than a print, it creates an entirely other emotional response.”
Jake Couri Lemon Sublime, 2017 acrylic, glycerin soap, amino acids, carbohydrates, caffeine, sodium 5 x 20 x 5 in
Jake Couri Jake Couri’s practice is concerned with our collective use of devices and societies growing reliance on technology as the backbone to our daily existence. To comment on our bodies as props or stand-ins, adorning devices as extensions of self, or prosthetics, no longer accessories to our identities. To question the integration of technology as a safety measure or precaution, both in architectural structures and public spaces. Our piece, Lemon Sublime was first seen at the MFA exhibition of the California College of the Arts. We were struck by the modernist 3D feeling of the colorful shapes with their unworldly sherbet colors – like a futuristic Giorgio Morandi – beautiful and forboding at the same time. The shape comes from GU gel packets used by athletes for energy. Each piece is casted soap, so it’s melted, and the other ingredients are whipped into the hot, liquified soap and poured into a silicone mold before it has time to harden/cure. “It is process heavy,” says Couri, “and in itself deals with duration, similar to the way they are used by athletes as a vitality booster.” Employing 3D animation, reconfigured mechanisms and static objects to confront the shift towards an autonomous future, and our bodies inability to sustain capitalisms demand. Juxtaposing mechanical fragments with organic materials intended for the body, while melding together narratives told through cinema, written works and popular culture regarding both utopian and dystopian environments.
Daniella Dooling (left) Striker Fan II, 2017 vintage typewrite striker fan, resin, aluminum lab hardware 19 x 11 x 7 in
Untitled, 2018, (5 versions) Communications to Amy 1955-1970 typewriter ribbon ink on paper 12 x 12 in
Daniella Dooling Striker Fan 2 and Untitled (Communications to Amy 1955-1970) by Daniella Dooling are from her series, Mediums and Messages. From 1955 -1970, Dooling’s great-grandmother, Amy Loomis, typed over 2000 pages documenting her channeled communications with the supernatural world. Among these messages included detailed plans for a peace envoy travelling on spaceships from Venus to Earth to stop the U.S. government from further development of the atomic bomb. Due to unpredictably heavy atmospheric conditions surrounding the Earth, the peace envoy was never able to land despite numerous attempts. Dooling’s current work is transfixed on the intersection between mid 20th century mediumship and a reimagining of technologies through disassembled typing machines – “a realm,” says she “where words and conversations are literally stuck in their transmission through the spiritual ether, a material substance believed to exist between the earth and astral plane.” Striker Fan 2, is a vintage part of a midcentury typewriter incorporated into sculpture with resin appearing like water to flow downward. Surely form and function have a nice pairing in this element of the typewriter with its arc containing all the elements of communication and punctuation, but even more engaging is the consideration of how such mechanical means were so easy to understand. Her drawings, Untitled” (Communications to Amy 1955-1970), pull directly from her great-grandmother’s documents. Using metal typewriter striker keys as drawing tools, each letter is hammered in by hand onto the paper through a piece of used typewriter ribbon. Daniella Dooling received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and her MFA in sculpture from Yale
University School of Art. She has taught at Bard College since 2003. Along with her sculpture, Dooling’s work includes video and performance offerings that challenge the status quo and engage the viewer in examinations of contemporary culture. Dooling was included in the Invitational Exhibition at the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2017 and received the purchase award for sculpture, a program that purchases work by artists for donation to major museums.
David French David French began working with wood in the late ‘80s while living in Berlin, Germany. He collected wood slats from discarded produce crates to see what he might be able to create with them in his studio. This long-held fascination with making sculptural wooden objects that are then embellished with paint allowed him to construct a visual vocabulary that he finds both uniquely personal and meaningful. “The work acts as a transmitter of ideas that are really straightforward, but lead to a more complex set of questions,” says the artist, “I want the work to be both beautiful and to evoke a kind of mystery.” French’s sculpture involves the synthesis of working with carved wood and paint. He often starts by creating a number of elements and through both play, and trial and error the elements begin to take shape. The work is inspired by both natural and man-made sources and as the work evolves, he discovers the character, coherence, and balance that breathe life into each piece. “I believe a work of art doesn’t have power unless it contains its own character. It goes far beyond the materials it took to make it. I want to create something that is spectacular in both its ordinariness and its extra ordinariness, in its familiarity and its unfamiliarity.” David French was born in St. Louis and received his BFA at the Atlanta College of Art in Georgia. He moved to Seattle in the early 1990s after an extended stay in Europe, and has exhibited widely in numerous galleries across the country and in Europe.
David French Calling, 2017 mixed media on carved wood 35 x 35 x 6 in
Elizabeth Harris Elizabeth Harris is a new find for the gallery, having moved to the Bay Area recently. Using nontraditional techniques, Harris has managed to achieve a rugged elegance, a studied imperfection that makes each shape quirkily alluring. Part painting, part sculpture Harris makes “wall objects” that are monochromatic black, cream, white and rose. They have an undeniable presence, these blocks of color with their stabs and light graffiti and smooth but uneven surfaces. “I show the history of a piece,” says the artist, “cutting, burning, tearing, drilling, and stabbing the surface. I apply layers then partly remove them, continually building up and tearing down, discovering the shape as I build it. Each step is an intuitive reaction to the last.” Many materials are used: wax, plaster, wood, canvas, paper, graphite, and oil. The goal is to reveal the hand of the maker and the passage of time. Her work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions and is held in several international collections. A physician by training, Dr. Harris received her MD from the Boston University School of Medicine, with residencies at Boston City Hospital and Faulkner Hospital, preceded by her pre-med studies at Harvard University. The daughter of artist Lucette Darby White (1931-2014), it seems that art was in her blood and she began her practice, creating works that merge sculpture and painting in her entirely original forms.
Elizabeth Harris (left) Remnant 10, Remnant 4 and Torn 5, 2017 encaustic, graphite and plaster on wood 11 x 4.5 x 9 in (variee)
Elizabeth Harris (above) Riddled 10 and 4, , 2017 encaustic, graphite and plaster on wood 10 x 8 x 4.5 in (variee)
Nicole Havekost Deer, 2017 air-drying clay, tissue paper, cotton thread, acrylic paint 11 x 5 x 2.5 in
Nicole Havekost Nicole Havekost is an artist living in Minnesota who has made small, figurative work for 25 years. She has taught at liberal arts and community colleges in Michigan and Minnesota Her work is varied in media and technique, but linked by her interest in material and process. Her Gray Rabbit and Deer are just a part of Havekost’s bestiary of humorous animals made with air dry clay, tissue paper, acrylic paint, cotton thread and cat whiskers. Havekost is a 2018 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant recipient and a 2018 Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council Advancing Artist Grant recipient. Additionally, Nicole was a finalist for the 2016 Jerome Emerging Artist fellowship and was a fiscal year 2013 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She has recently exhibited work in California, Illinois and Iowa as well as internationally. Nicole earned her BFA in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA in Printmaking from the University of New Mexico.
Nicole Havekost Gray Rabbit, 2019 air-drying clay, tissue paper, cotton thread, acrylic paint, cat whiskers 10.5 x 4 x 3.5 in
Lisa Kokin Nil #1, 2018 (detail above) shredded money, thread 57.5 x 10.5 in
Lisa Kokin Lisa Kokin is a mixed media artist with a strong bent toward content-driven conceptual work. She has worked in mixed media installation, altered books, fiber, thread, found photos and sculpture has been exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad. She has often worked with shredded money in the past two decades and has brought it out to work with again with her new series, Lucre, a response to the recent presidential election. The series includes both two- and three-dimensional works based on ancient textile fragments and in configurations that evoke architecture and clothing. It is not unusual for Kokin’s work to contain a critique of the socio-political status quo imbued with a healthy dose of levity and a keen sensitivity to materials and process. The Lucre series is no exception. Her works, Nil #1 and Nil #2, made completely from thread and shredded money appear to be suspended in space, ephemeral and alluring. Sewing and fiber-related sensibilities play a key role in much of Kokin’s work, which she attributes to growing up in a family of upholsterers. Kokin explores irony and memory in her artwork, allowing transiency itself to be immortalized in lasting works of art. Lisa Kokin received her BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA. The recipient of numerous awards and grants, Kokin was most recently given the Dorothy Saxe Award from the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. In addition to her one person exhibition, How the West Was Sewn at the Boise Art Museum, she has been included in group exhibitions at numerious museums across the country.
Lisa Kokin Nil #2, 2018
shredded money, thread 84 x 25.5 in
Nancy Legge Blue Muir (Moor Dweller), 2019 cast glass with copper 26 x 5 x 2 in
Nancy Legge Nancy Legge’s clay and bronze sculptures have graced the gallery since its inception and we have watched the work evolve over the years. This year we are pleased to include Blue Muir, a beautiful translation of Legge’s singular style into kiln cast glass with copper. Legge is currently working larger and scaling some of her smaller figures through 3D scans and 3D prints of those pieces. Molds can then be made and used for bronze and glass casting. Working with artist, Audrey Wilson, formerly with The Washington Glass School, Legge experimented with color finally settling on a beautiful steel blue that fades into clear as you move from head to toe. Copper inclusions accent the figure. The Stones of Callanish, those monolithic ancient stones from the Outer Hebrides in Scotland have been and remain Legge’s primary inspiration and continue to inform her exquisite navigation in that space between abstraction and figuration. From the beginning, she saw the circled monoliths as elusively figurative and she imagined the power and mystery possible by transforming varied rock-like shapes into a suggestion of the human form. The forms are archetypal and primal, clearly related to the Earth, and in their materials, both durable and fragile. In speaking of this new body of work, Legge refers to the “spirit” of each piece and how it shifts as she moves from porcelain to bronze to glass – from the fragility of porcelain to the solidity of bronze and the elusive quality of light available in the glass works.
Hung Liu Women Working: Loom, 1997
color softground and spitbite aquatint etching with scrape and burnish 40.75 x 50 in
Hung Liu, (right) Witnesses, 1997
color spitbite aquatint, soapground aquatint and softground etching 20.5 x 17.5 in
Hung Liu These original prints by Hung Liu use spit bite to paint directly on plates creating painterly drips and marks. The resulting prints are large-scale, painterly works that embody an intimacy of hand-drawn images and beautiful materiality reminiscent of her paintings. Using the softground process she drew key images and figures, which form the basis of her narrative compositions. Women Working: Loom references Liu’s tribute to the traditional duties and labor of women which has played a pivotal, yet overlooked, role in culture, particularly that of China. In her work she elevates everyday activities and anonymous laborers and although they are clearly Chinese in origin, emphasizing the universality of their lives. In Women Working: Loom she presents the side-view of a woman concentrating on her task at hand, unaware that her activity is being noticed. Although most of her images come from old documentary photographs, her figures always possess an authenticity of reality. Amidst her act of weaving, Liu includes colorful birds and branches taken from traditional Chinese scroll paintings as a reminder of the rich tapestry of Chinese culture and history. Liu bears witness to history and its consequences. Witnesses shows two small children dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, richly patterned with embroidery. The details of their clothing are somewhat obscured by painterly drips and misty areas of sepia, ochres and reddish-brown colors. Liu drew a festive ornament (a traditional Chinese folk art object) to the left of the children. She often incorporates objects in painted form or attaches the actual objects to a painting as an allegory; here, it might symbolize the beautifully dressed children as charming and quiet witnesses to a rapidly changing culture. A two time recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in painting, Liu also received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Printmaking from the Southern Graphics Council International in 2011. A retrospective of Liu’s work, “Summoning Ghosts: The Art and Life of Hung Liu,” was recently organized by the Oakland Museum of California, and is scheduled to tour nationally through 2015. In a review of that show, the Wall Street Journal called Liu “the greatest Chinese painter in the US.” Liu’s works have been exhibited extensively and collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum, among others. Liu currently lives in Oakland, California. She is Professor Emerita at Mills College, where she has taught since 1990.
Jann Nunn The content driven artwork of Jann Nunn primarily takes the form of sculpture, large-scale sculptural installations, and works on paper engendering both conceptual and poetic sensibilities. Copious research and gut instinct- a marriage of head and heart- inform the decisions in each of her site-related, site-specific, situation-responsive projects. Not unlike words in a poem, material selection along with scale and presentation become greater than the sum of their often-unrelated parts. Every aspect and implication of material usage is carefully considered and specifically relates to the work’s content and context. Nunn uses a variety of materials including welded steel and stainless steel, cast bronze, glass, lead, fiberglass, paper and wood. She has held a life-long penchant for repurposed materials. Frequently disparate materials are employed in a single work to accentuate duality, tension or evoke multifarious interpretations. She leaves no stone unturned in her quest to symbolically convey personal, political or spiritual manifestations with authenticity and relevance. Nunn says, “The driving force behind my work resides in conjoining idea and aesthetic. Often described as a draw-you-in kind of beautiful, my art embodies a strong physical presence with carefully considered and often laborious craft, yet the ideas remain paramount.� Jann Nunn has exhibited her work, lectured and held residencies nationally and internationally since 1987. She has a BFA degree from University of Alaska Anchorage, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and earned an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. She is currently a Professor of Sculpture at Sonoma State University.
Jann Nunn Tusks, 2017
hand-cut archival microprint paper, bronze, stainless steel, charred wood 36 x 36 x 11 in
Emily Payne Emily Payne’s ingenious work with book boards and book covers began when she received her MFA in printmaking and book arts at San Francisco State University. She found herself continually drawn to the materials as sculpture and began to assemble them in ways that celebrated their innate qualities while offering a surface she could draw and paint upon. Her work with wire began when she had an internship in Ireland with scholar and artist Jean McMann whose PHD work centered around the Loughcrew Cairns in Ireland. Payne drew inspiration from the line drawings on stone and the ironwork in the fences – the positive and negative juxtaposition stayed with her as well as the concept of environment as art. “I have always been keenly aware of balance,” said the artist, “and in these works, I am playing with gradations of density and weightlessness, darkness and light, two- and three-dimensionality.” In Circular Web (drawing) and Circular Web (wire), for example we see the relationship between a 3-dimensional sculpture and its visual imprint on a two dimensional work made of book boards and graphite. In Weave (large) her wire sculptural piece creates a shadow drawing on the wall. Objects in space are not a new concept for Payne. She grew up with a Ruth Asawa sculpture in her home and knew the artist when she was growing up. Her uncle, writer Mervin Lane attended Black Mountain College in its most fertile and experimental period and the young Asawa and Payne’s mother, Nina became lifelong friends. Nina Payne was an accomplished poet and fiber artist in her own right and in 1975 the family moved from Mill Valley to Amherst, MA where her mother was a professor of creative writing at Hampshire College. In 1996, UMass Amherst had an exhibition of Nina Payne’s waxed linen sculpture. The repetitive patterned stitches and shapes against the wall perhaps a precursor of her daughter’s fascination with pattern and modulated simple design.
Emily Payne Circular Web, 2019 (left page), Circular Web Wire, (above) book boards and graphite, wire and acrylic paint 18 x 18 x 1 in, 12 x 12 x 12 in
Weave (large),
12 gauge wire 18 x 18 x 1 in, 12 x 12 x 12 in
Ross Richmond Dapple Grey, 2018
hand blown pigmented glass 23 x 17 x 6 in
Ross Richmond Ross Richmond discovered glass in 1991 during his time at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he received a BFA in glass, with a minor in metals. He is considered one of the top glass sculptors in the field today, and has worked with (and for) some of the greatest glass and non-glass artists, including William Morris, Jane Rosen, Preston Singletary, KeKe Cribbs, and Dale Chihuly. Richmond studied and taught at the The Studio, Penland School of Craft and the Pilchuck Glass School. He began working for artist William Morris in 1997, becoming a member of his team in 1999. William Morris encouraged teamwork and “working outside the box.” Richmond took that to heart. His work, focusing on sculpting realistic figures of humans and horses adorned with color and pattern is an outstanding example of how an artist can push his medium beyond its normal boundaries. Both in surface and shape, “Dapple Grey,” this exquisite figure of a horse transcends general ideas of what glass can do. Richmond teaches throughout the U.S. and Canada, and his work has been featured in many exhibitions and galleries in the U.S. He currently resides near Seattle, Washington.
Jane Rosen
Jane Rosen
Bronze Buddhi 2, 2016
Crystal Buddhi, 2017
cast bronze with unique patina 20 x 5 x 4 in
kiln cast crystal 18 x 5 x 4 in
Jane Rosen Brooklyn native, Jane Rosen studied at New York University and then the Art Student’s League in the early 70s. She recalls going often to the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum studying the falcon-headed God Horus, God of the sky. Birds appear in her work as early as that same decade, in the form of abstracted wall-hung heads, which evolved gradually into freestanding figures in the ‘80s. She became interested in raptors through staying with a friend who ran a raptor rescue center in upstate New York, even requiring her students to ‘adopt’ one the birds and help care for it—and draw it--as part of a class requirement. During what was intended to be a sabbatical break, she crossed the country to live for a few months on a friend’s horse ranch near San Gregorio, a few miles south of the Bay Area. In this area of extraordinary natural beauty, she found herself watching the birds—the hawks that wheel and float on the currents of warm and cool air that rise from the ground at different times of day, the ravens and crows, the darting swallows. She remembers seeing a hawk on the first day at the ranch, and hearing a voice in her head saying, -stay and tell my story. For a decade she shuttled back and forth between both coasts, but finally sold her NY loft to settle on her own California ranch. Rosen’s Buddhi series, a favorite among collectors are animal spirits, their animal bodies ambiguous, representations of an internal rather than external existence. The heads may be that of various animals – dog, wolf, fox, deer. . . The word Buddhi, coined from Buddha and buddy speaks to her deep identification with animals. Hawk on Glass chalk on crystal. No one can draw like Jane. For her blown glass birds, she draws them over and over until it seems that she is channeling them.
Jane Rosen Hawk on Glass, 2019
chalk on kiln cast crystal 9 x 8.5 x 1 in
Liz Stekettee Born in Michigan, Liz Steketee received her BFA in photography from the University of Michigan and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute where she was a member of the faculty for over a decade. A fulltime artist living in the Marin County with her husband and two children, her personal work focuses the notions of photography and its role in family life, memory, and our sense of self. Her most recent work explores mixed media; particularly the combination of textiles, book arts, sculpture, and photography. “It is through art that I make sense the world,” says Liz, “I use my life and family as material for my work. By doing this, I am able to explore the complexity that exists in the everyday and the richness found in the mundane. Through the use of montage, collage, and purposeful juxtaposition of photographs, it is my intention to examine the “truth” in life. I do not feel tied to chronology, linear expression, or one media exclusively. My belief is that life experiences are a combination of independent, non-linear moments that we construct into memory.” Circles is a re-examination of the portrait and how it can be altered with new meaning. Using personal and family photographs, portraits are printed on fabric and worked into collaged unique works stretched into embroidery hoops. Images can be, covered, cut, reassembled, and embellished as feels appropriate to the artist. The notion of a photograph in circle is the start of a breaking away from tradition. The use of textiles and sewing nods to long standing domestic traditions and attempts to rework them in a modern voice. Additionally, raw and rudimentary sewing intends to disrupt the feminine cast of the sewn.
Liz Steketee Circles, (installation:left, details: right), 2017 photo on fabric, thread, embroidery hoop, dye size variee
Tim Tate Mrs. Dalloway Thought That She Would Buy The Flowers
aluminum, cast original objects, LEDs, mirrors 32 x 32 x 4 in
For The Home, She Gathers Flowers (right)
aluminum, cast original objects, LEDs, mirrors 32 x 32 x 4 in
Tim Tate Blending traditional craft with new media technology Tim Tate creates the framework in which he fits his artistic narrative. “In my work,” says Tate, “I explore moving images and endless mirrors to achieve my interest in contemporary work with the aesthetic of Victorian techno-fetishism, which emerged from my fascination with Jules Verne as a boy. Artwork and video I believe will be society’s relics of the future. I like to reference many possible histories, and will do so with video or mirrors, to show our common artistic ancestry and illustrate alternate paths. Perhaps centuries from now my work will have the same presence as abandoned archaic machines from the turn of the last century, as people marvel over what could have possibly been its intent.” In his endless mirrors, Tate entices the viewer to look deeply into and completely experience his windows into alternative dimensions. His works create an optical and bodily illusion of infinity through apparently limitless space. There is an intimacy implied by viewing deeply into a circular opening, as if peering through a portal to witness another endlessly repeating reality. Mrs. Dalloway Thought That She Would Buy the Flowers is the famous first line of “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf, a novel that takes place in a single day and exposes the sham of conventional existence in postwar England and the complexity of human relations. Mrs. Dalloway reflects on all the choices made that kept her “safe” but remembers the “perfect kiss” she once shared with Sally Seton, her childhood friend. In keeping with Tate’s empowerment theme, the second Mrs. Dalloway piece, For The Home, She Gathers Flowers has a secondary meaning that is close to Tate’s heart. “The most influential singer in my life has always been Joni Mitchell,”says the artist, “In the song, “Ladies of the Canyon” there is the line “For the home she gathers flowers, and Estrella, dear companion.”
Larry Thomas Thousand Prayer Project, ongoing
paper, beeswax, silk, wax seal, hanging from bamboo poles approximately 96 in (size variee)
Larry Thomas The Thousand Prayer Project is an on-going calligraphy project that Larry Thomas began probably about ten years ago and continues as he adds various iterations, both new and re-written from the original lines that he wrote. “The original lines were taken from a much larger text and are referred to as “The Vajrasattva Mantra,” says Thomas. “It is also referred to as the “The One Hundred Syllable Mantra” as it indeed contains 100 syllables when spoken. It is taken from the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” as it is popularly known in the West, however, it is known in Tibet as “The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between.” It was composed (written) by Padma Samnbhava in the 8th or 9th century for Tibetan and Indian Buddhists. It was hidden by him for a later era and was discovered by the renowned treasurefinder Karma Lingpa in the 14th century. The version that Thomas used for writing out the full mantra as well as the individual lines was translated by the Tibetan scholar Robert A. F. Thurman. He believes that he translated his version directly from the Tibetan. There are overlaps between Tibetan and Sanskrit and the various translations that he refers to in his description of his translation process were written over the centuries in both and/or either Tibetan and Sanskrit. His translation is certainly the most frequently cited version today. Thomas began “The 1,000 Prayer Project” using a personal adaptation of Latin letters based on uncial, an insular letter form/alphabet developed in the isolated island of Ireland in the middle ages (the Book of Kells, as well as various equally famous manuscripts, is written in uncial). My individual letters are not typically “uncial” but my own variation of that letter form that incorporate various flourishes and details not particularly found in traditional uncial letter forms. Larry Thomas’s work is in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the SF Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. as well as numerous other public and private collections. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowships and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SECA Award; has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions regionally and nationally, and has work in the permanent collections of artist’s books at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and Stanford University’s Cantor Center among others.
Sanjay Vora Sanjay Vora, who holds degrees in both painting and architecture, says his first creative impulses were not toward fine art, but music—particularly classical Indian music. Later on, Vora’s interest in both art and music developed simultaneously: “Both my music and art have been strongly influenced by my bicultural upbringing, the surrounding rural landscapes of my childhood and my nostalgic nature,” he has said. His process combines figurative imagery with abstract, sculptural techniques. For each work, Vora begins by painting scenes from personal memories or family snapshots, before covering the entire surface with a gel plaster and carving into it to reveal parts of the painting beneath. The paintings are in his words “an attempt to resolve my own sense of meaning and truth, endlessly searching to remember and rediscover that which was once familiar… Painted experiences and materials of association become connections as they intersect, live and pass through interstitial, transitional moments towards adulthood and endings--lost, found, dissected, excavated and/or reconstructed into sensations driven by comfort.” Born in New Jersey into a musical Indian family, Vora began playing instruments around the house, learning by ear and watching his parents perform at concerts. His urge to compose music early in life paralleled his desire to create visual environments. “Producing drawings and paintings was a way to manifest and inhabit my visions to which music had played as an ongoing soundtrack,” he says. In addition to an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2002, Vora obtained an MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005 and has exhibited continually since that time.
Sanjay Vora Wheelbarrow Ride, 2012
oil, acrylic and gel medium on panel 80 x 60 x 2.5 in
Deloss Webber Rise, Summit, 2019
granite, fiber, pigment 15 x 14 x 9 in, 16 x 14 x 8 in
Deloss Webber In his search for aesthetic expression, Deloss Webber is blending, deconstructing and building on the shoulders of some of the greats that have inspired so many others. “It seems,” says Webber, “that I gravitate to the Japanese sensibility as an artisan with instinctual acceptance of Wabi-Sabi. There is always my hand and practice of the disciplined crafts, while accepting a counterbalance of Nature; seeking a Dissonance and Harmony in varied proportion with mixed media. The lessons I study are of: Noguchi, Nakashima, Horiuchi, Kaneko, Keifer, Nash, Serra even Goldsworthy. There are rich traditions in so many studio crafts (pottery, stone, bamboo, woodcuts, painting, fashion, textiles, architecture and photography), but finding ‘order’ in the chaos of so much richness in my library…. that’s the first challenge.” A second-generation rattan weaver, Deloss Webber not only makes his livelihood from fiber arts, but also has been exposed to and influenced by numerous ethnic forms of weaving since an early age. Webber was born in 1951 and spent his childhood in Northern Africa, Spain, and throughout the United States. He learned various weaving techniques from his mother and for over 30 years has continued to evolve as an artist by not only the ongoing development of his fiber sculptures, but by also challenging his own artistic parameters by experimenting in other mediums. Webber is a finalist for the coveted 2019 Loew Prize for craft. The finalists were recognized for their fundamentally important contributions to the development of contemporary craft, with the submitted works presenting a diverse spectrum of techniques, media and modes of expression. This year’s finalists were chosen by a panel of nine experts from close to over 2,500 by artisans representing 100 countries. The 29 finalists´ works are being exhibited from 26 June – 22 July 2019 at Isamu Noguchi´s indoor stone garden ´Heaven´ at the Sogetsu Kaikan in Tokyo, where the overall winner will be revealed.