Category: Current Exhibit

Environments-BlueSkies-SecretSpaces

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“Environments, Under Blue Skies, Secret Spaces”
An Exhibit Featuring the Photography of
Larry Cusick, Sally Stallings and Kathy Wosika

 

October 7 – October 31, 2021

ArtHop Reception: Thursday, October 7, from 4PM to 8PM

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Larry Cusick -- Untitled

ENVIRONMENTS
by
Larry Cusick

My journey into the world of photography began in college when I took a photojournalism class. I was hooked by the idea that you could tell a story with pictures. Each assignment challenged me to find an image that spoke words. And the opportunities seemed limitless. Everywhere you look there is a story playing out. Even now, I find the work of photojournalists to be most compelling.

Since then, I have been a shutterbug, taking pictures of family and vacations. I became more seriously involved in photography after retirement when I discovered birding and bird photography. The challenge of capturing wild birds in the field rekindled something in me that I found mysterious and rewarding. I thought of this quest as environmental photojournalism. I see stories everywhere–in wildlife and in human interaction. My goal is always to capture a story.

I entitled my small part of the show Environments. This awkward title is a perhaps best ignored, and to just let my photographs say it all. You’ll see some birds and some nature, as well as people, in their own environments. I hope that each picture says something to you. It might not be exactly what I intended, but that is okay.

Golden Fields -- Sally Stallings

Under Blue Skies
by
Sally Stallings

Starved for color, beauty, and a piece of blue from above. I craved splendor of the California I have always loved. This was my focus.

Recently we lost our California. Acres of fiery infernos have incinerated homes and forests once teaming with wildlife and cherished irreplaceable memories. Homes that hosted family dinners, wedding celebrations, children off to school, graduation parties all gone… charred beyond recognition into smoldering black crusts, stumps, slabs of blackened concrete, and grey powdery earth. Grey ash, like fish scales, wandering from putrid skies poisoning every breath you take.

We lost security and safety from a horrifying pandemic that smacked everyone in the face with fear of sickness, death, and necessary isolation from family and friends. This unrelenting oppression from Covid and smoke saturated skies has been suffocating. I have felt psychologically imprisoned in a smothering nightmare…

There were times, however, on 8:00 o’clock morning walks I found relief in my 1920 neighborhoods. Stretches of sidewalks threaded together cared for homes, neighbors, and grassy colorful front yards. There were “good mornings” and “hellos, and “how are you”? from residents watering flower beds, pruning bushes, and mowing lawns while pajamaed kids roller skated in driveways…all home because of the shutdown.  

Wearing my N95 I heeded friendly neighbors conversing from one side of the street to the other.  Social distance maintained. I nodded to straw hatted mothers planting flowers with babies close by in netted play pens. All were friendly. All courageous. Everyone a warrior struggling to maintain some sort of normalcy exerting sheer will and smiles to keep going forward.

Some of these photos were taken on these morning walks.

I dedicate my portion of this show to all our 2020-2021 medical personnel who fought and are still fighting the spreading Covid and to our fire fighters who suffer beyond measure, but continue on, braving the all -consuming firewalls of hell. 

I am so profoundly grateful.

Phalaenopsis old age-Close-up -- Kathy Wosika

Secret Spaces
by
Kathy Wosika

In February of 2020, right before the Covid virus sent us all running for cover,  I had my first ever photo exhibit at Fig Tree Gallery here in Fresno.  The photos in that exhibit were taken over a 20+ year period of time from airplanes, flying between the East and West Coasts of the U.S. at 30,000 feet!  Originally, these photos were never taken as Art Photography per se – they were primarily collected as resource materials – ideas for use in teaching design, or to be incorporated into my creative work in ceramics or fibers. From such a distance, the earth below offers us a rich canvas filled with beautiful yet ephemeral compositions.  This amazing “aerial art gallery” is created by rock, water, soil and plants, as well as man’s interactions with these elements.  Change is ever the constant.

All of the images in this exhibit, Secret Spaces, were taken under the sequester imposed on all levels of our lives and society by the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus.  Just 2 weeks after my exhibit closed, life as we knew it also shut down as we faced, too often alone and apart from loved ones, a devastating world pandemic that has yet to release its’ grip on us.

The images that had previously captivated me from my airplane flights were vast and expansive, but I now found myself turning inward and looking deeply into the plants, and especially flowers growing in our garden.  I found myself wanting to crawl around the interior of a flower – much like its’ pollinators do by nature – and experience its’ internal secret architecture.  And so, I spent many hours a day working with flowers, tripod and an iPhone fitted with a macro lens, while the news of the year played out in the background.  Here too, I found that Change is ever the constant. A flower’s passage from youth through old age exposed some amazing visual surprises.  I very often found a suggestion of bird-like forms in these internal spaces.  There were also figures which seemed to have large bulging “eyes”, but actually were the flower parts that contained the seeds of the next generation.  I used to tell my Papermaking students that once you’ve made paper out of your own garden plants, you’ll never see the plant world the same again.  I can now truly say the same about the experience of exploring the mysterious interiors of a flower!  I hope you enjoy this journey.

“Ease”

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August 5 to 29, 2021

ArtHop Reception: Thursday, August 5 from 4PM to 8PM

 

In my dual role as President of the Board of Directors and currently exhibiting artist, I would like to bring attention first to the effort of the base team that is responsible for helping to make the recent fund-raising auction a success.  Despite the setback of the Covid-related pandemic, we have also secured several grants to help fund our operation, and have re-opened our doors to the public.  My message is one of hope that as citizens of Earth, we recognize our part in the overcoming of contagious diseases and unjust treatment of our planet and our fellow human beings. A new word has come to mind; something everyone should consider – ‘pandempathy’.

During the winter of 2020, more than 40% of Americans reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, double the rate of the previous year.  That number dropped to 30% in June 2021 as vaccinations rose and Covid-19 cases fell, but that still leaves nearly one in three Americans struggling with their mental health.  In addition to diagnosable symptoms, plenty of people reported experiencing pandemic brain fog, including forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, and general fuzziness.  Americans are slowly coming out of the pandemic, but as they reemerge, there’s still much trauma to process.  Continued caution must be exercised as the Delta and other variants continue to spread. It’s not just our families, communities, and jobs that have changed; our brains have changed too.  We are not the same people we were 18 months ago.

“EASE ~ finding one’s place” is the title of a solo exhibition of my art to be held during the month of August 2021 at the SPECTRUM Art Gallery in Fresno, CA.

The overall political tension of the populace during the last four to five years, and most especially during the last year, in which just about everything changed due to the COVID 19 corona virus, has given us a great need/cause for EASE.  With new patterns of behavior having been mandated to ensure our safety, we started wearing masks to protect ourselves and others, we employed social distancing and seclusion.  As an artist, I have always valued my undisturbed time alone in the studio.  As a social human being, I crave interaction with others.  In my time spent alone, I found myself inspired to affirm my personal space and place based on location, to create a significance of place interspersed with these current conditions and various aspects of personal causality and identity.

For this upcoming exhibition opportunity, I chose a self- imposed system and direction that would involve working with the fifth letter of our alphabet. My first inclination to do so was because it is the initial of my given name, secondly, the lower-case version of the letter ‘e’ has become ubiquitous as the prefix for anything and everything electronic, such as e-mail, e-trade, e-commerce, and Audi’s new electric car, the e-tron, etc.  The letter E is also the most utilized of all the letters of the alphabet, which has proven to be quite valuable to code breakers. Then there is the plethora of wonderful words that start with E: Earth, ecstasy, elephant, elated, exuberant, elemental, exceptional, energetic, elusive, eucalyptus, excruciating and EASE.

By super-imposing a sans serif form of the letter E on a map of Fresno, CA, specific locations at the twelve corners or nodes of the letter were identified.  The next step in the process involved exploring these twelve appointed locations, seeking the most interesting and inspiring visuals that would become photographs for the exhibit. 

The chosen images from the exploration of the specified sites resulted in numerous images or “snapshots” that have been printed and will be presented as part of the installation. A large version of the letter E has been cut from a sheet of plywood, (approximately four feet by eight feet), upon which there is an enlarged map of Fresno. This table like structure will be situated in the gallery horizontally at approximately mid-thigh height.  Each of the twelve locations are identified by street signs from the intersection they represent, and their GPS co-ordinates.

Friends and students of mine have been offered the opportunity to have their work in the gallery as an exercise in inclusivity and ‘relational aesthetics’.  I invited them to create their piece of art based on their own personal expressions of and about the letter ‘E’.

I thoroughly enjoy utilizing the technical skills I have acquired over the years to communicate my observations and feelings about the world we share with all living things.  The second and perhaps most important aspect of this endeavor is that by creating this installation, I am able to provide the viewers, in this time of great chaos, a sense of comforting EASE.