Weekend Santa Cruz » Artist’s Corner

6 Ways to Celebrate Summer in Santa Cruz

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:37:44 +0000

Memorial Day marks the start of the summer season. The weather warms, the beach beckons and soon, the town empties of students and fills with tourists attracted by the area’s natural beauty and quirky charms. There are an infinite number of ways to celebrate the summer in Santa Cruz, from picnics by the lighthouse to riding the Beach Boardwalk roller coaster. As this is a finite space, we’ve pared the list to six.

1. Watch actors perform Shakespeare in the midst of redwoods. Sure there’s Shakespeare in the Park in almost every town, but where else but Santa Cruz can you see the Bard performed by seasoned professionals on a stage surrounded by tall, majestic sempervirens? This year, Shakespeare Santa Cruz explores facets of love with the lusty, laugh-friendly Love’s Labor’s Lost (July 21-August 29) and the moody, tragic Othello (August 3-29). The company rounds out its season with two non-Shakespeare shows, the witty historical family drama The Lion in Winter (July 20-August 29 on the Mainstage) and the sexually heated La Ronde (August 17 & 24). Artistic Director Marco Barricelli previews the season June 1 at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

2.See what artists can capture before the light changes. Painting “en plein aire” is a test of vision and dexterity. Artists attempt to capture a scene, usually one of nature, in a short span of time. The Plein Aire Affaire (July 10-11) at the Museum of Art and History celebrates this challenging art form for the sixth year. The Affaire is part gallery show, part festival and part sale, complete with demonstrations, music and children’s art activities. Some of the canvases will come from the yearly paint out, a competition where artists bring their canvases to be stamped and then have three days to complete their “wet” works for consideration.

3. Support your inner Glee. Yes, Cabrillo Stage is what happens when kids like the ones featured in the fictional club on Glee grow up. Community musical theater might sound scary, but this company is a notch above. From its expertly-designed sets to its talented directors and actors, Cabrillo Stage brings a whiff of Broadway to this beach town. Offerings this season, the first in Cabrillo College’s new theater, include the comedy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! (June 18- July 3), the jazz-era tribute Swing! (June 25-July 18) and the musical classic Cabaret (July 23-August 15).

4.Boogie at a free twilight concert. Santa Cruz County is blessed with not one, but two free outdoor concert series during the summer. The big one, of course, is the Friday night series at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Bandstand. Herman’s Hermits (June 18), Blue Oyster Cult (June 25), Naked Eyes (July 2), Eddie Money (July 30), A Flock of Seagulls (August 6) and Spin Doctors (August 13) are just a few of the name bands playing twice nightly concerts. Then there are the Twilight Concerts at Capitola Beach. Every Wednesday from June through August, fun and funky bands — mainly local — take to the stage to get people dancing. This year’s lineup includes Mike Hadley & The Groove (June 23), J.P. & the Rhythm Chasers (July 7), Extra Large (August 11) and Johnny Fabulous (August 18).

5. Tickle your funny bone. The list of performers hasn’t been released yet for the Eighth Annual Santa Cruz Improv Festival (July 9 through August 14 at Actors’ Theatre), but if it’s anything like last year’s, be prepared to have a sore stomach from laughing too hard. Watch as shtick happens. With six weekends of performances, there’s no excuse for missing out on the hilarity of on-the-spot comedy.

6. Listen to something you’ve never heard before. It’s not every town that can boast a world-class new music festival. The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (August 1-15), under the direction of Marin Alsop, brings renowned composers to surf city to premiere new works. Among the 12 composers planning to be in residence this year are Philip Glass, John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Pierre Jalbert, Sean Hickey and Michael Shapiro. There will also be a special performance by the sextet eighth blackbird and the Kronos Quartet on August 8. Where else can you hear a piece inspired by the image of analog videotape scrolling backwards on one day, then attend an orchestral petting zoo with your family the next?

PHOTO: Joshua Lau and Crystina Robinette are featured dancers in “Swing!” opening June 25 at Cabrillo Stage. Photo by Jana Marcus.

‘Saw Player’ bows to immortality

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:04:59 +0000

Marghe McMahon's statue of Tom Scribner inspired Richard Bennett's play The Saw Player. (photo by JK Mahal)

Just outside Bookshop Santa Cruz, the man in the bowler sits frozen in time and space, his hands stilled as he plays a saw. Marghe McMahon’s 1978 sculpture of local legend Tom Scribner is a landmark of Pacific Avenue.

It’s also the inspiration for Richard Bennett’s “The Saw Player,” one of the 10-minute plays being performed as part of Actors’ Theatre’s 8 Tens @ Eight through February 14.

The play takes the form of an imagined conversation between a sculptress, Lee played by Anna Hinde, and her subject, Sam played by Rick Kuhn. The two connect through the process of creating an artwork.

“Works of art are not just an artist’s in isolation,” said Bennett, a visual artist who also created all of the pieces seen onstage during the play. “There’s an interaction between an artist and his model, an artist and his subject, his landscape.”

In the play, Sam reassesses what will happen after he is gone and ponders the nature and immortality of art. “Each explains to the other what they are and who they are,” the playwright said.

Both characters are based on their real life counterparts. Scribner, who died in 1982, had a colorful history. The saw player was a logger, a labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (a.k.a. Wobblies) and a journalist. He edited The Redwood Ripsaw in the 1960s, played saw with George Harrison and Leon Russell and founded the annual Musical Saw Festival. In the 1970s, he could be found busking on the Pacific Garden Mall.

Bennett never met Scribner, but knew McMahon from his student days at UC Santa Cruz. Besides being a talented artist, she also danced in those days. Though not reflected in the play, McMahon went on to have a career in special effects, creating models for such films as Return of the Jedi, The Abyss and Death Becomes Her. Bennett said he has not been in recent contact with her.

“In a sense, the play is like the sculpture,” said director Davis Banta. “It’s inspired by [Scribner], but it’s its own thing.”

The play stood out to Banta while the Actors’ Theatre board member was helping to whittle down the plays from 16 to eight for the 8 Tens @ Eight festival. A local, Banta grew up walking past the sculpture downtown. “The Saw Player” piqued his curiosity and though he normally does comedy, the play grabbed him with a moment in which Sam ruminates on his mortality.

“He says ‘that statue is going be there forever and here I am bones and skin turning into a skeleton’ and it really kind of hits home when he’s looking at this small version of himself that’s going to be around forever and the real version of himself is going to be gone at some point,” Banta said.

Finding the arc and tension in such a short theater work was a challenge for the director, who calls it a character piece. He credits his actors, Kuhn and Hinde, with making the play shine.

“I can’t think of anyone else for the role of Sam. He really brought it to life,” Banta said. “And Anna Hinde grounds the character very well as the scuptress.”

This is the second play Bennett has gotten into 8 Tens @ Eight. “The Rain are Fallin’,” about an opera singer on the verge of retirement, was performed several years ago. While Bennett — the husband of retired local theater critic Anne Bennett — has written longer works, he said he finds writing a 10 minute play to be more challenging because it’s easier to expand a story than shorten it.

“I guess you’d compare it to a short story rather than a novel. You have pretty much all of the elements, the complete story, but you have to express it in a rather abbreviated form,” said Bennett, who writes things longhand before typing them into a computer. “You have to bring the light on it in a very limited space of time.”

Banta puts it another way. “You don’t have a second to spare in a ten minute play.”

8 Tens @ Eight 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sundays through February 14. Actors’ Theatre, 1001 Center Street, Santa Cruz. $15 – $18. (831) 425-7529.

Art with Heart on First Friday

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:42:21 +0000

Artist Karen Card's reception at Motiv is now a benefit for Haitian earthquake victims. (Art courtesy of Karen Card)

In troubled times, artists have always stepped up to the philanthropic plate. Live Aid, Farm Aid, “We Are the World.” Maybe it’s because the arts bring hope, and those who have hope care enough to spread it around. Which brings us to the First Friday Art Tour on February 5, the scene of two very different charity efforts in Santa Cruz.

First, at Motiv, sculptor Karen Card and photographer George McCullough are turning their artists reception into a Haitian Earthquake Relief Benefit.

“We provide the art, politics, wine, Jorge’s Fish Tacos and cheese from River Cafe,” says their flyer, “but we ask you to donate what you can to Oxfam or the charity of your choice.”

The reception, from 5 to 9 p.m., shows off Card’s series of female body casts created in clay and fired in Raku, along with McCullough’s images.

Local artists are also taking part in Hearts for the Arts, a two-week silent auction at Artisans Gallery. The gallery, thanks to new owner Linnaea Holgers, is resurrecting the event — once the domain of the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County — in order to support the Council’s SPECTRA Artist program. Twenty artists are taking part in this fundraiser to help bring qualified professional artists into local schools.

Artisans will hold a Hearts for the Arts reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The auction ends February 14.

Haitian Earthquake Relief Benefit. 5 to 9 p.m. February 5. Motiv, 1209 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz. Free, but donations requested. (831) 429-8070.

Hearts for the Arts reception. 6 to 8 p.m. February 5. Silent auction through February 14. Artisans Gallery, 1368 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz. Free. (831) 423-8183.

For more information on First Friday Art Tour, see www.firstfridaysantacruz.com.

Rydell fellows bring disparate arts to MAH

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:24:25 +0000

Felicia Rice of Moving Parts Press is among the artists showcased in the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowships exhibit at the Museum of Art and History. (Photo by r.r. jones)

A photographer whose portraits of Klu Klux Klan members haunt. A set designer whose work adds character to musicals and plays. A book printer who combines old-fashioned letterpress techniques with digital tools. A woman who works in words and wax.

There are five words that link Terri Garland, William “Skip” Epperson, Felicia Rice and Daniella Woolf to one another: Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship artists. Selected works by the 2008-09 fellows are on display through March 14 at the Museum of Art and History (MAH) at The McPherson Center in downtown Santa Cruz. The show will move to the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica this June.

“Each of these four artists has such a commitment to the medium they are working in,” said Susan Hillhouse, curator of exhibitions and collections at MAH. “They all have an obsessiveness about their work.”

The Rydell Visual Arts Fellowships are the legacy of Roy and Francis Rydell, longtime Santa Cruz arts patrons who created the fund to promote Santa Cruz County artists. Four Santa Cruz artists are selected to receive $20,000 on a biannual basis — two for each year — by the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. The third biannual fellowships, for 2010/2011, were recently announced: abstract painter Tim Craighead, ceramicist Andy Ruble, painter Andrea Borsuk and installation artist Victoria May

The money is an unrestricted grant, but it’s not one that can be applied for. “You have to be nominated by someone in the professional arena,” Hillhouse said. The list of nominators include museums, galleries and art organizations, including Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

Being nominated has a certain cache. “Sometimes, even when you know of an artist and you’ve seen some of that artist’s work, it makes you take a second look,” Hillhouse said.

The curator, who was familiar with three of the four artists in the exhibit, worked with each of fellows to select pieces for the show.

“It’s like a true community celebration. It encapsulates to me what Santa Cruz is,” Hillhouse said of the fellowships, exhibit and exhibit catalogue, which includes photos by noted local photographer r.r. jones.

The works mostly co-exist in slightly separated spaces in the Solari Gallery on the museum’s second floor. On one end, a cross from Cabrillo Stage’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar hangs above drawings and dioramas created by Epperson, who has taught theatrical design at Cabrillo College for the past 16 years. Photos of actual stage productions such as Guys and Dolls hang near sketches, as a video of performances plays in the background.

Lining the back wall, photos of the deep South are testament to Garland’s dedication in investigating that area’s social landscape. In a 2007 photo, “Klan Baby, Pulaski,” the Santa Cruz native captures a tender moment between a father and son — a universal moment of love made jarring by the Klan insignia on the child’s shirt. Images from New Orleans are also present, post-Katrina photos of mud-caked Bibles luminescent in their decay.

Books figure prominently in Rice’s selections. A colorful Lively Alphabet printed on cloth, the graphics-filled pages of the Codex Espangliensis and a selection of typesetting plates represent the creator of Moving Parts Press. A finalized set of book pages are displayed alongside an earlier draft, demonstrating Rice’s design skills in a comprehensible way.

Language becomes a forest of spine-like strips, begging visitors to walk through in Woolf’s display. The artist, who is known for her encaustics, has enlarged words from her diaries until they are illegible to create this piece, where one can walk through her innermost thoughts.

Woolf’s sewn mixed media piece, Yours, Mine and Ours, cascades down the stairwell, tying the fellowship recipients together in one art piece. Both Epperson and Garland contributed materials for the work.

“She thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to do a collaborative work with the other recipients,” said Hillhouse, who has been advocating more stairwell pieces for the museum. “I like that you see it in such different ways when you look at it from the bottom up or the top down or from the middle. It’s like a waterfall to me.”

The Rydell Visual Arts Fellowships exhibit will be on display through March 14 at the Museum of Art and History at The McPherson Center, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz. Hours: Tue. – Sun. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. $5/adult; $3/students (18+) and seniors (62+); $2/children (12-17); free/children under 12 and museum members . (831) 429-1964.

Burger Wars: Fast food, fast art

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:51:35 +0000

The $1 Burger Wars show is on display December at Mill Gallery. Artwork by Gazelle Rider.

The holiday season is here, with its incessantly joyful music, lights aplenty and sparkly trimmings. But underlying the red and green, at least in America, is a swath of consumerism — the need to buy buy buy in order to give give give.

That latter sentiment led four artists to curate The $1 Burger Wars, opening December 4 at The Mill Gallery and adjacent Firefly Cafe. Two-by-two paintings by more than 16 artists depicting cheeseburgers, greed and chain stores will deck the gallery walls. The pieces, two by each artist, are all for sale at the fixed price of $332.29, 32 percent less than the actual cost to produce the work.

“That’s how we look at holidays, as the need to consume. I think we’ve lost a lot in the process,” said curator Kirby Scudder, who is also executive director of the Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Arts. “It makes total sense that Burger King should be our holiday mascot.”

Scudder, along with fellow curators Raymond Sumser, Maureen Halligan and Gazelle Rider were searching for a theme for a December show when Scudder came across a November article about franchisees suing Burger King over their $1 burger promotion. The $1 double cheeseburger, the franchisees claim, costs $1.10 to produce, resulting in a loss of 10 cents for every burger sold.

“When I read that, I thought what a terrific holiday story,” Scudder said. “All of these artists I know are trying to do holiday sales, selling everything for cheap, and I thought what if we do something more interesting, something that hits at the heart of America.”

It was an idea that found traction with the other three curator/artists.

“Kirby said the one dollar burger controversy as a theme and we all let it settle in for a moment. We all started to laugh once we realized it would sort of just be a show all about burgers,” Sumser, a painter, said.

Each curator contacted artists they knew and admired, inviting them to be in the show. Participating artists come from across the Bay Area and across the country. The list includes Daniella Ben-Bassat, Alice Col, Marisa Comstock, Andrea DelRio, Colleen Gildea, Marshall Kleiber, Nick Lally, Wayne Peck, Scott Rassman, Lisa Rock, Teale Taxis and Sarah Musgrave.

The artists were asked to make fast art about fast food. Each only had two to three weeks to complete two paintings.

“It’s definitely forcing . . . us to create quick and new works,” said Halligan, a painter who has also done curating for Motiv in downtown Santa Cruz. “It’ll be interesting to see how the different styles pan out.”

Different interpretations of the cheeseburger figure prominently in a number of the artworks. Sumser said his pieces include a large burger graphic and a piece with around 100 cheeseburgers “melding into a pattern of lines.” Burgers became a landscape element in Halligan’s works.

“As a painter, the cheeseburger is such a great image to paint,” said Scudder. “It’s got great colors, it’s readily identifiable.”

One of his artworks is a pop-art rendition of a burger with text about the lawsuit in the background.

Selling the artworks for less than the cost to produce them sheds light not only on the franchisee’s problems, but the problems that many artists face. All three curators said they have sold works at less than cost in the past.

“I feel like this is communicating that at a humorous level, in that we do put so much money forth in the initial investment. In order to be supported we have to overstrain ourselves by exhibiting constantly, providing the materials, providing the time and involvement in the process,” Halligan said. “Sometimes it feels like that’s a little bit overlooked in the way that a show is brought to the community.”

The $1 Burger Wars opens December 4 at the Mill Gallery and Firefly Cafe, 131 Front Street, Santa Cruz. The reception, which runs from 5 to 9 p.m., will feature — what else — grilled burgers. The show closes at the end of December.

Corralitos harvests an artists collective

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:47:52 +0000

Twelve Towers at Dawn by Randy Beaver is among the works to be seen at the Harvest Festival in Corralitos. (Photo courtesy Randy Beaver)

Organic. That’s how Ann Cavanaugh, director for arts education and culture at the Corralitos Cultural Center, describes the way the Corralitos Artists Collective came into being. Artists who met during the Cultural Center’s first spaghetti dinner and art show in August clicked and decided to meet again and the Collective was born.

“There are a lot of artists in Corralitos,” Cavanaugh said of the small town located between Aptos and Watsonville, “a whole lot of people in these trees. You’d never know.”

At least 30 of those artists will be gathering November 14 and 15 for the Collective’s first-ever Harvest Festival, to be held at the Cultural Center. Though there will be a few child-friendly booths, most of the festival is geared towards adults with wine tastings, music, a silent auction, raffles, hors d’oeuvres and art. Lots of art. There will be glass sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, stained glass, paintings and more, including a giant salmon.

“There’s some really amazing art, some surprising art,” said Cavanaugh, who is helping to organize the festival. “It’s not run of the mill.”

Stained glass master Randy Beaver’s “Twelve Towers at Dawn,” a fantastical piece reworking Rodney Matthews’ 1970s poster referencing J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, is among the pieces that will hang in the show. The piece, which took Beaver three months to create, has 112 pieces of glass in one of the dwarves alone.

This is not the first time Beaver has been involved with an artists collective. Thirty-five years ago, he helped start the arts and crafts co-op in Boulder, Colo. He became involved with the Corralitos group through his neighbor, Joe Lenchner, a well-respected woodworker.

“It just connected me with all of these people and all of a sudden we turned into this little powerhouse,” said Beaver, who’s lived in Corralitos for the past decade.

Weekly meetings help the artists of the Collective connect. There are around 10 regular attendees. Artists often have a sense of isolation, Cavanaugh said, and the Collective creates a group they can come to and feel like they are not alone.

“If we give artists encouragement and support, then ultimately [the Collective] may take us to a place where the Cultural Center could be a much stronger place for artists to come.”

Members of the group have already contributed to the Center by painting, cleaning up and building freestanding panels to display works. Beaver has been amazed at how the Harvest Festival has come together.

“It’s shaping up to be something a lot more than we thought,” he said, praising the work of various volunteers who have made contributions .

The cancellation of this year’s Corralitos Festival of Lights due to the economy leaves a gap that the Harvest Festival could help fill. Cavanaugh — by training a marriage and family therapist — would love to see the Harvest Festival become a yearly event, bringing people in from all over the area. The group is also planning a Spring show.

“You get out of your element, off the freeway,” she said of the charm of coming to Corralitos. “It’s the way the air smells out here and the visual of driving down the smaller road.”

Beaver agrees that the area is “idyllically beautiful.” He said hopes the event gives artists such as himself a way to connect with new audiences.

“We’re all at the bottom of our game and looking at a new renaissance of crafts in America,” Beaver said, adding later, “There’s no place but up from here.”

Corralitos Harvest Festival, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. November 14 & Noon – 4 p.m. November 15. Corralitos Cultural Center, 127 Hames Road, Corralitos. Free. (831) 254-2669.

Seeing art’s origins with Open Studios

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:18:39 +0000

Abstract expressionist Larry Harden's Davenport studio is one of many that will be open to the public October 3-4 as part of the 24th annual Open Studios Art Tour.

For three weekends in October, artists in Santa Cruz County fling open their doors and welcome strangers into their most private spaces — their studios. Green signs dot the roadsides, proclaiming “artist” with a number and type of art.

The signs correspond with information available in the $20 artist guide and calendar offered by the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County, which has run the Open Studios Art Tour for the past 24 years.

“Some people will drive around just looking for a green sign and it says ‘artist No. 55 painting,’ so they go into that house,” said Ann Ostermann, Events Manager for the Cultural Council. “If you buy the calendar and map, you get to look and say ‘Do I want to see acrylic painters? Do I want to see oil painters? Am I interested in landscapes or figurative work or abstracts?’”

There are plenty of artists to choose from — 300 to be exact — all carefully vetted by the Council. The 162 artists in the city of Santa Cruz and north open their doors October 3-4. The remaining 138 artists in South County hold their open houses on October 11 and 12. The following weekend, October 17 and 18, is an encore — with 240 of the artists participating.

The sheer number of artists can be overwhelming, but there’s an easy way for people to decide which artist’s workplace (and often home) to visit. The Santa Cruz Art League has an Open Studios preview exhibit, featuring work from 288 of the artists, up in its Broadway gallery.

“You’re never going to see 300 studios, so you go there, you see everybody’s works of arts and then you say ‘who am I going to go visit,’” said Ostermann, who got involved with the Cultural Council after her kids were SPECTRA artists at Green Acres Elementary School. “That gallery is filled with 288 pieces of art. You walk around the room and start circling things….”

Everything from sculpture and fiber arts to glass, paintings and jewelry are represented. The back of the calendar has a listing of artists by media, as well as contact information for the artists. However, a calendar is not necessary to see the show, which is free.

The best part of Open Studios, said Ostermann, is getting an inside look at where artists create their works.

“You’ll see an artist who does abstract work and it’s very fast and active on the canvas and you’ll go into their studio and their palette is like, their paints are all laid out perfectly. And you’ll think ‘Wow! Don’t you think it’d be more of a crazy mix of paints everywhere to make that painting,’” Ostermann said. “Or you’ll go see someone with an absolutely pure, realistic landscape and their palette is just all over the place. You never know what you’re going to find.”

Open Studios maps are available at a number of locations around town, including the Art League, Bookshop Santa Cruz and Palace Arts.

“It’s an affordable local thing to do. For $20 you get three weekends, you get six days you can go out and really connect with the artistic pulse of Santa Cruz County.”

Open Studios preview exhibit, Santa Cruz Art League, 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. Free. Regular gallery hours Wed. – Sat. noon – 5 p.m., Sun. noon – 4 p.m. (831) 426-5787.

Artist Ruth Korch soars at Begonia Fest

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:01:11 +0000

Begonias subtly bloom in the clouds as The Begonia Queen, a yellow, orange and red aircraft, tows a Capitola banner over the beach town. Ruth Korch’s poster for the 57th annual Capitola Begonia Festival, held Labor Day weekend, fully captures the theme “Capitola Takes Flight.” (Click here for a complete listing of Begonia Festival events.)

This is the second consecutive year the artist has won the poster competition for the festival, which celebrates the flower that put this city on the map. From the 1930s through the ’70s, approximately 90 percent of the world’s begonia crop came from Capitola’s Brown Bulb Ranch, now named Golden State Bulb Growers and located outside Watsonville.

Korch said the poster is “very different from what I usually do.” The idea of a plane swooping down on the shoreline came to the Santa Cruz native on a whim after ruminating on the festival’s theme. Google Images provided her with a combination of aeronautics to create the airplane of imagination in the poster. “I kept adding to it as it suited me for the design,” she said.

The poster won via blind judging, surprising Korch. “I didn’t know it would end up with me again.” Last year’s entry was a painting of a large, loose begonia.

“They are just gorgeous flowers, the intensity of them,” said the artist, who admits to not having a green thumb when it comes to growing them.

The mother of three grown children, Korch moved back to Santa Cruz eight years ago after having spent time in other California towns and Oregon. Among the Biola University graduate’s recent goals as an artist has been to get her work out into the world by answering more “calls to artists” like the one for the festival’s poster.

The majority of Korch’s pieces incorporate text. “I love the look of letters,” said the expert calligrapher. Korch teaches classes in children’s art and calligraphy. “I like how they all interplay and interact together…. Text is very much a love.”

The letters of the alphabet are framed in all shapes and sizes across her dining room wall. Some made of twigs, others are painted. “I gave myself permission to work through all the letters on that wall, and I’m down to Z,” she said.

Recent works, on display at Capitola’s Pacific Gallery and Framing, include a series illustrating children’s songs such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Old MacDonald.”

“There’s something about childhood songs that put us in a good spot,” Korch said.

A reception will be held 4:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday (September 5) at Pacific Gallery and Framing, 321 Capitola Avenue in Capitola Village. For more Begonia Festival events, click here.

MAH finds Carrillo’s cultural context

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:38:42 +0000

Las Tropicanas by Eduardo Carrillo is on display through November 22 at the Museum of Art and History.

Both Museum of Art and History curator Susan Hillhouse and Museo Eduardo Carrillo director Betsy Andersen have the same favorite story about Eduardo Carrillo, the late artist and UC Santa Cruz professor. Carrillo, each recounted separately, would wake up each morning, roll out of bed and sit at a table, painting watercolors and sketching while he had his first cup of coffee.

“He would never stop,” Hillhouse said. “He was completely immersed in what he was doing.”

That passion shows in Eduardo Carrillo: Within a Cultural Context, which opened August 22 at the downtown Santa Cruz museum’s Solari Gallery. The show will be up through November 22.

“He was a keen observer of his world,” said Andersen, who heads the online museum dedicated to the artist’s legacy. “I think he accepted all aspects of it, its harmony and disharmony, beauty and awkwardness.”

The show emphasizes Carrillo’s figurative paintings, from deeply personal portraits to larger, more mythic, pieces. Touches of the Baroque mix with influences from El Greco and Paul Gauguin to Aztec imagery.

“You can tell by looking at the work in the gallery that the same artist did the work,” Hillhouse said, “but it’s also very diverse in theme and composition and the way he paints.”

This will be the second regional solo show in two years for the Chicano artist. Last year’s posthumous solo exhibit at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas focused on works from area collectors that dealt with Mexico. The Museum of Art and History show, one of seven exhibits booked through 2015, brings together works culled from collectors across California.

“A number of these paintings I’ve never seen, and I’ve been familiar with Eduardo’s work since the 1970s,” said Andersen, who remembers Carrillo as a generous soul, a mentor who taught her mural painting at UCSC.

Hillhouse chose works with a focus on the figurative and magical realism. One of her favorite pairings is a self portrait of the artist wearing a yellow cap that has been hung above a portrait of his wife, sleeping on a yellow pillow — a subtle nod to the couple’s deep love and commitment.

“Eduardo was so here when he was here,” said Hillhouse. “I wish I had known him….He lived life very fully and he was able to love completely, which was really a beautiful thing.”

In one corner of the gallery, a section of Carillo’s studio has been set up including an easel with the last painting he worked on, an unfinished figure reaching forward.

“It’s interesting to me how many of his paintings have reaching,” Hillhouse said. “To me that’s a metaphor for how he was always reaching out for the next painting, the next level of expertise.”

The artist, who passed away during cancer treatments in 1997, taught at UCSC from 1972 until his death. Carrillo also taught at CSU Sacramento and UC San Diego. Among Carrillo’s best-known pieces is the Los Angeles mural “El Grito,” a 1979 work in tile that stands near Olvera Street at the Placita de Dolores, on a curved wall in front of the Church of Dolores. It commemorates the Mexican revolt against Spain in 1810.

Born in Santa Monica, Carrillo got his masters and bachelors in the 1960s from UCLA. He moved to La Paz during the late ’60s and founded the El Centro Regional de Arte with potter Daniel Zenteno. During this time, the artist learned more about the indigenous cultures of Mexico, knowledge that informed his work. His Catholic upbringing, a trip to Spain and cultural heritage of his family also influenced him.

The paintings are “dramatic and deeply embedded in story,” Andersen said. “I think they’re deeply empathetic to character.”

That empathy comes across in Alison Carrillo’s recollection of her husband’s work on “La Ultima Cena,” which hangs in the exhibit. The painting — a commission in the early 1990s by Chaco Meza, a merchant in San Ignacio where much of Carrillo’s family was from — depicts the Last Supper using members of the town as models.

“Every afternoon around 4 o’clock, the models would trudge up the hill,” Alison Carrillo said via email. “Each brought his own friends so there were always new faces. They came in groups of three or four, carrying their tequila…. A bunch of salt of the earth types, really enjoying being there, lots of camaraderie and jokes. Now I missed a lot, but I do remember that each man was highly concerned who he was going to be…. They were all pretty flexible, except each was clear that he would NOT be Judas.”

Finally one of the men brought an El Salvadorean passing through town in to be the model for the disgraced apostle. The merchant’s son, Rogelio, sat for Jesus.

“The work is as near to perfect as I can imagine with those craggy, sculpted faces,” Alison said.

Hillhouse’s first true exposure to Carrillo was looking at his 1976 mural — destroyed in 1979 — outside the Palomar Arcade in Santa Cruz. Entitled “Birth, Death and Resurrection,” the 2500 square foot work combined Spanish and indigenous Mexican imagery.

“I remember being both attracted and repulsed by it because it was so powerful. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings when I looked at his work,” she said. “It always stayed with me.”

Exploring what it is that makes Carrillo’s work so compelling is part of what Hillhouse hopes the exhibit accomplishes. The show was already on the schedule when she joined the Museum as curator in 2006.

“I knew that he was an excellent artist and now I’ll never know if I would have chosen this exhibit if it had not been brought to us,” Hillhouse said. “I hope I would have. I hope I would have been smart enough.”

Even posthumously, Carrillo’s legacy continues at the Museo. The annual Eduardo Carrillo Prize in Painting, which artists must be nominated for, is currently on hiatus. However, works by 2006 winner Phe Ruiz line the wall at the top of the stairs before one gets to the exhibit.

“He wanted the best for people,” Andersen said. “I think that cycles back.”

Eduardo Carrillo: Within a Cultural Context closes November 22. Hours: Tue. – Sun. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Solari Gallery, Museum of Art and History at The McPherson Center, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz. $5/adult; $3/students (18+) and seniors (62+); $2/children (12-17); free/children under 12 and museum members . (831) 429-1964.

Wende Stitt quilts Best in Show

admin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:54:51 +0000

'Iolani won Best in Show at the 5th annual California Fiber Arts Exhibit." title="Iolani" width="300" height="264" class="size-full wp-image-894" />

Wende Stitt's 'Iolani won Best in Show.

At first glance, Wende Stitt’s quilt ‘Iolani looks simple enough. A central red Hawaiian floral pattern is quilted out in white and surrounded by a white floral border. But closer scrutiny shows the border is actually appliqued handmade Hawaiian kapa (bark cloth) that mimics the center design, a commentary on Hawaiian sovereignty. The quilt won Best in Show at the Fifth Annual California Fiber Arts Exhibit, which closes Sunday (August 2) at the Santa Cruz Arts League Gallery.

“It’s very stark and dramatic,” said weaver Deborah Corsini, who juried the show, “then you see the beautiful patterning. It’s elegant.”

Corsini, curator of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, found herself impressed by a number of pieces in the Fiber Arts show, including a dress knitted from videotape. However, Stitt’s quilt commanded attention.

“Seeing it hanging in the show, it really stands out,” Corsini said.

‘Iolani took Stitt five months to complete. “I had to take several breaks from all that intense stitching on the center medallion.”

The 56-year-old Santa Cruz resident agreed to delve into even more quilting details by answering a few questions for Weekend Santa Cruz.

What does fiber arts mean to you? Quilt making. Kapa making. And wherever the two meet.

Where and how did you learn to quilt? I am a self-taught quilt maker. My sewing skills were honed when I was an in-house accessory designer for Sandra Sakata at OBIKO in San Francisco in the late ’70s. I designed and made one-of-a-kind quilted purses in exotic fabrics. My trademark was a fan-shaped quilted purse. I also designed and made quilted purses for San Francisco designers Jeanne-Marc, whose collections were known for their signature fabrics and quilted jackets.

Do you do other fiber-based arts? I am a Hawaiian kapa maker. Six years ago I completed a two-year apprenticeship with Kumu Kapa Dalani Tanahy of Makaha, Hawaii. Kapa is the ancestral fabric of Hawaii. It is made from the inner bark of the wauke tree, also known as paper mulberry. The process involves stripping the bark from the tree, softening the bark in water for several days, pounding the bark on a flat stone, letting it rest for several more days, pounding the softened fiber on a kua la`au (wooden “anvil”) with a wooden beater, watermarking the finished fabric with a traditional design, drying and finally applying natural dyes and stamping a design onto the kapa. This process can take weeks or months to complete.

Traditionally making kapa was a group activity by women. Men [just] made all of the needed tools. Today, there are only a handful of dedicated Hawaiian kapa makers, mostly in Hawaii, and it has become a labor- and time-intensive solitary endeavour. I make all of my own tools and gather plants, flowers, root vegetables, berries and nuts from local organic farmers to make dyes. I also use `alaea (red dirt) and `olena (tumeric root) which are traditional Hawaiian dyes.

What was the first quilt you made?The first quilted piece I made, in 1974, was an appliqued and embroidered denim jacket as an entry for the national Levi Denim Art Contest while I was attending the Museum Art School in Portland, Ore. Out of more than 2,000 entries, I won fourth place. A traveling show of the winners was seen around the country, including at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City.

I read in Craft Magazine that you blend the traditions of Amish quilting with your own spin. What spin would that be? I fell in love with Amish quilts 35 years ago and their perfection in design and craftmanship have been an inspiration ever since. `Iolani is structurally a very Amish-inspired quilt. The heavily stitched center medallion creates a repetitive vertical pattern of red and white that is reminiscent of an Amish quilt design called “Bars”. If you look very closely at the four corners of the quilt, you will see that they have been quilted in a grid pattern. This is extremely subtle, but it is my nod the Amish pattern called “Diamond” wherein the four corners of the quilt are demarcated in the border by a different color.

The bars in `Iolani represent the overthrow of the sovereign nation of Hawaii by the government of the United States in 1893, and the subsequent house arrest of Queen Lili`u`okalani in `Iolani Palace.

How do you choose the cloth that ends up in your pieces? And do you make the cloth fit the inspiration or the inspiration meld with the cloth? I buy most of my fabrics at garage sales and flea markets and go to the store only if I can’t make what I have on hand work or need a specific color. It’s kind of Depression-era thinking, and I really like the challenge. I like the old-school way of “making do” with what you have.

My ideas for my quilts are not inspired by fabric per se, unless I am making a quilt for a family member. I am more inspired by music or history. But sometimes a piece of fabric will stay with me for quite a while before it reveals its purpose.

For instance, the center medallion of `Iolani was purchased at the Pajaro Valley Quilt Association quilt show three years ago. I absolutely fell in love with the deep red and white contrast. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. But last year I pulled it out of a basket of fabric so that I wouldn’t forget about it. I hung it on my bedroom wall so I could stare at it as I fell asleep and see it first thing in the morning. With my glasses off, the rows of tropical flowers became blurred into fuzzy red and white lines. I decided to see if I could replicate what I was seeing without my glasses with my sewing machine.

Then things became emotional because I was consciously wiping out the “aloha” fabric design that represents modern Hawaii. I got the idea to border the fabric in kapa and mimic the floral pattern in kapa. It became a fight between Hawaii now and Hawaii of old. Or rather, the perceptions of Hawai`i nei, this place. Then I turned the medallion on its sides and the rows became bars and the bars reminded me of how the Queen was locked away in her own palace after refusing to fight the well-armed US soldiers, not wanting any more of her people’s blood to be spilled. I had no idea when I bought that little remant of vintage fabric that four years later it would become `Iolani.

5th Annual California Fiber Arts Exhibit closes August 2. Gallery hours Wed. – Sat. noon – 5 p.m., Sun. noon – 4 p.m. Santa Cruz Art League Gallery, 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. Free. (831) 426-5787.