Alec Clayton's Thursday, July 20, 2006 Review in the Weekly Volcano |
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Forgive me for cutting straight to what Alec said about our work.
You can see Alec's entire remaks below... Ric Hall and Ron Schmitt collaborate on figurative pastels that are highly inventive. In "Sadie Hawkins Day," a group of dancers in a cramped space are viewed as if from high above. The figures are well integrated into the congested space, and their extreme positions create a visual sweep across the canvas. "Summer Light" pictures a couple in a bar. As in "Sadie Hawkins," the space is claustrophobic. The anatomically impossible way their legs cross beneath the table is interesting, and the brilliant patch of patterned blue light on the floor is outstanding. Unfortunately, these paintings were not well lighted when I visited the gallery. |
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Thursday, July 20, 2006 |
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Visual Edge: Juried Local Art Exhibition
Manic-depressiveTacoma Community College hosts the Fourth Annual Juried Local Art Exhibition / by Alec ClaytonThere's some good stuff in the fourth annual Juried Local Art Exhibition at The Gallery at Tacoma Community College. There's also some dull stuff and a few paintings that are so amateurish I can't imagine how they got in the show. Oh well, that's the nature of juried art exhibitions. They're manic-depressive. I won't bother to write about the bad stuff or the mediocre stuff, and space limitations prevent me from mentioning all of the good stuff. But I'll try to touch on the best. I'll start with Starr Witzel's "Curved Space" and "Contained Space" - two groupings of six ceramic pots that are intended to be viewed as a single piece or, as the titles indicate, as two related pieces. On the back (depending on your point of view) of a regular gallery sculpture pedestal stand four pots that are square on the bottom with round lids, set in a side-by-side tableau with faces touching and going from short on the outside to tall in the middle. They are glazed with brilliant pastel tones of blue and yellow and gray and brick red in swirling patterns outlined by dot patterns reminiscent of Australian dot paintings. These swirling patterns flow in continuous bands from pot to pot. In front of these sit a pair of smaller round pots with similar bright colors and dot patterns dominated by bright yellow. These pots are nicely designed, brilliantly glazed, and a sheer delight to the eye. Known for her mixed media baskets, June Kerseg-Hinson is showing a sculptural piece that may be loosely termed basketry. It is made of bamboo and copper rods standing in proud clusters and intersecting fat sheets of wood with drilled holes. Imagine this on a giant scale and what you have is a three-story building under construction, with steel girders and floating floors. The directional thrust intersecting the flat wood panels creates a sense of static dynamism. There is beauty in the color and texture of the mixed materials, including ikat and plyboo (both of which I had to look up on the Internet). Plyboo is a kind of bamboo flooring material, and ikat is a style of weaving that uses a tie-dye process on either the warp or weft before the threads are woven to create a pattern. It is a form of weaving that is popular in South America, India and Asia. Ric Hall and Ron Schmitt collaborate on figurative pastels that are highly inventive. In "Sadie Hawkins Day," a group of dancers in a cramped space are viewed as if from high above. The figures are well integrated into the congested space, and their extreme positions create a visual sweep across the canvas. "Summer Light" pictures a couple in a bar. As in "Sadie Hawkins," the space is claustrophobic. The anatomically impossible way their legs cross beneath the table is interesting, and the brilliant patch of patterned blue light on the floor is outstanding. Unfortunately, these paintings were not well lighted when I visited the gallery. Hopefully that shall have been fixed by the time you read this. Traci Kelly's sculpture, "Family," is a group of ceramic eggs in a bed of sand. One empty egg is broken open. The placement and the variety of subtle colors and surface markings add visual interest. Michael P. Ryan's two photographs, "Steaming Up" and "Steaming Out," are dramatic and well composed. One is a steaming locomotive shot from a position on the track directly in front of the engine, and the other is a close-up of mechanical apparatus (possibly part of a train) in a cloud of steam. Other works worth noting are paintings by Noel de Bord, Barbara DePirro, Bill Colby and Cheryl Rhodes, John-Paul Avila's two digital prints, and Carolyn Price Dyer's wall hanging, "Crow on the Moon." The show runs through Aug. 11 at The Gallery, 6501 S. 19th St. Tacoma. Summer hours at the Tacoma Community College gallery are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. For more information, call (253) 460-4306. |