As promised in my previous post, I will offer my reflections on selected works now on exhibit in galleries at the College of Saint Benedict from the juried art show “Eco Byway.”
Since my purpose is to generate interest in and conversation about the exhibit, I first want to share a response to my previous post about the exhibit at Saint John’s University. Sarah Gainey, assistant director and environmental education coordinator, Saint John’s Arboretum, visited the exhibit July 20 and had this to say:
“I visited the gallery today with a few coworkers, not only as an excuse to do something inside an air conditioned building but to celebrate local artists. I also was most struck by Kenneth Steinbach's pieces, specifically his buckthorn words and the moose antler. However, I was intrigued by the words, as they immediately put a smile on my face as I walked in. Probably because both I've spent hours fighting buckthorn myself and because the statement is so simple but true.
“The moose antler was the piece I pondered the most. The intersection of social and natural systems is what I teach about and the piece demonstrated that beautifully. I wish for a smaller replica I could wear around my neck while teaching.
“Thanks Glenda for the encouragement to get out and see the exhibit!”
I love the way Sarah connects personally with the exhibit. Now I hope to encourage readers to see the exhibit at CSB. Beginning in the Gorecki Gallery Lounge in the Benedicta Arts Center, let’s take a walk alongside a series of untitled black and white digital prints and see what Berel Lutsky sees during a daily commute.
The images capture fleeting glimpses of passing landscape. A blurriness caused by the commuter’s motion lends a dreamlike quality but it also signals how we viewers, in our contemporary rush to get somewhere, seldom slow down to notice what is right before our eyes. In contrast, two prints bring into clear-eyed focus a variety of industrial structures imposed on the landscape – smokestack, elevated storage tanks, power lines – the sort of humdrum detail we often “photoshop” out of our roadside view. One of these, a silhouette of three elevated storage tanks, looks like Martian spaceships have arrived to take inventory of the passing traffic. Are we the aliens in our own landscape?
I am an optimist, both by nature and by choice, and so I responded to the playfulness and restrained sense of hope among some of the works in the Gorecki Gallery.
Julie Ganser received the Audience Choice Award among the CSB works. In her “Bubble Garden,” sheets of bubble wrap encase synthetic leaves and blossoms inside individual bubbles. It’s an eye-grabber that demands attention both to the tiny details and to the dramatic, overall effect.
“Bitter Pill,” a vivid green and white plastic capsule dominates the gallery floor and evokes both whimsy and a warning. Bart Vargas has attached plastic bottles upside down to cover the surface of a cardboard globe. The result is deceptively playful. Vargas hopes to draw attention to the poisons produced by “the manufacturing processes of plastics used in food production.”
Finally, there is hope in the expressions of pioneer urban farmers who have reclaimed abandoned lots among the ruins of Detroit neighborhoods. Daniel Farnum’s photos document their entrepreneurial spirit. His work received the award for Most Innovative Social Impact Imagery.
Venture upstairs at the Gorecki Conference Center to consider an exhibit of several small pieces. “Road Trip,” Barbara Riegel Bend’s paper mache figure on wheels, recycles newspaper, paper bags, old checks and pay stubs to fashion a story about major events in the artist’s life. While the story focuses on the artist’s past, the figure is clearly headed for new adventure. Another paper mache, Suki Zellgart’s “The Heart of the Matter,” conveys the fragility of the earth in a heart-shaped globe. The novel idea of the earth as a vital organ leads me to new and different ways of seeing our world.
Eco Byway runs through Sept. 10. Check it out and send me your thoughts.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
A Stroll through the Galleries
Whenever I need a creative burst to shake up my work routine, I take a stroll through one of the art galleries on our campuses.
“Eco Byway,” a regional juried exhibit, features works with an ecological perspective by artists who live or work within 10 miles of the seven-state Interstate-94 corridor. Showing through Sept. 10 in galleries at the Benedicta Arts Center of the College of Saint Benedict and the Saint John’s Art Center, the exhibit includes a range of expression that will delight, challenge, inspire and/or alarm the viewer.
Because my office is located on the SJU campus, I have had the convenience to visit the SJU exhibit several times. I have seen the exhibit at CSB once and plan to continue visiting both exhibits throughout the summer.
Here are my reflections on some of the works at SJU that caught my fancy. I will offer views about the CSB exhibit in my next blog.
In “Beach from Garbage School,” artist Melissa Stang has drawn images of aquatic life on an assortment of plastic debris. The ordinary plastic forks, bottle caps, bags and bottles found in most U.S. households are strewn into a clutter that conveys from the point of view of the fish the end result of our throw-away society.
With contrasting colors, textures and shapes, Heath Matysek-Snyder’s “Silva” offers an appealing bench from which to ponder the exhibits. Reclaimed walnut frames three boxed sets of bamboo stems, standing upright and sheared flush. It’s a splendid combination of form, function and beauty that also inspires contemplation about the materials we choose.
Richard Bresnahan has three pieces from the Johanna kiln. My favorite, a footed platter, resembles a split log. What captures my imagination is the swirl of colors: rich rust, gold, indigo and shimmery silver wisps.
Jason Lanka asks the viewer to consider the line that divides our culture and the land we inhabit, in his mixed-media installation “Reach.” If he intended to scare the viewer, he succeeded. An audio buzzes without ceasing. The sounds grate on the ear, with a harsh mechanical, metallic effect, and they accompany a video that casts an image of vast expanse. Along the horizon, a ribbon of bare trees slashes across a barren landscape of snow-covered flat land and an overcast white sky. Very slowly, a monstrous creature emerges from the horizon and approaches the viewer. He appears both ghostly and ghastly, with Freddy Krueger-like claws dragging the ground. The artist asks the viewer to consider “how we view our relationship with the natural world,” but he sets an ominous tone for that consideration.
Works by Kenneth Steinbach drew my most extreme reactions, from favorite to least favorite. Two wall texts created from buckthorn branches did not intrigue me, although one of them received the audience choice award. Two other works keep me coming back.
In “Memoria Animus: Rainy Lake Series,” the artist uses scrimshaw to create drawings on used elephant ivory piano keys. The drawings depict topographical maps, based on the artist’s memory of wilderness areas he has visited. This piece has layer upon layer of meaning: the prior life of the elephant; the music the instrument once made; the artist’s memory; the loss of wilderness over time. Some of the ivory keys are damaged, like our wilderness and also like our own fragmented memories.
In “Taj,” the artist has applied a geometric pattern from the Taj Mahal onto a shed moose antler from the north woods. Seeking to “impose a rigid mathematical order over the horn’s contours,” Steinbach asks us to “question how our systems of belief … intersect with the natural world.” The effect is striking. Here we have an antler, formerly so useful during the rutting season, transformed by repetitious design into an object of adoration and meditation. It reminds me of animated imagery I have seen used to explain Einstein’s space/time continuum.
I would love to hear from readers about their reactions to the exhibits. Since the artists hope to provoke a conversation about their ideas, I invite readers to visit the exhibit and join me in the conversation.
“Eco Byway,” a regional juried exhibit, features works with an ecological perspective by artists who live or work within 10 miles of the seven-state Interstate-94 corridor. Showing through Sept. 10 in galleries at the Benedicta Arts Center of the College of Saint Benedict and the Saint John’s Art Center, the exhibit includes a range of expression that will delight, challenge, inspire and/or alarm the viewer.
Because my office is located on the SJU campus, I have had the convenience to visit the SJU exhibit several times. I have seen the exhibit at CSB once and plan to continue visiting both exhibits throughout the summer.
Here are my reflections on some of the works at SJU that caught my fancy. I will offer views about the CSB exhibit in my next blog.
In “Beach from Garbage School,” artist Melissa Stang has drawn images of aquatic life on an assortment of plastic debris. The ordinary plastic forks, bottle caps, bags and bottles found in most U.S. households are strewn into a clutter that conveys from the point of view of the fish the end result of our throw-away society.
With contrasting colors, textures and shapes, Heath Matysek-Snyder’s “Silva” offers an appealing bench from which to ponder the exhibits. Reclaimed walnut frames three boxed sets of bamboo stems, standing upright and sheared flush. It’s a splendid combination of form, function and beauty that also inspires contemplation about the materials we choose.
Richard Bresnahan has three pieces from the Johanna kiln. My favorite, a footed platter, resembles a split log. What captures my imagination is the swirl of colors: rich rust, gold, indigo and shimmery silver wisps.
Jason Lanka asks the viewer to consider the line that divides our culture and the land we inhabit, in his mixed-media installation “Reach.” If he intended to scare the viewer, he succeeded. An audio buzzes without ceasing. The sounds grate on the ear, with a harsh mechanical, metallic effect, and they accompany a video that casts an image of vast expanse. Along the horizon, a ribbon of bare trees slashes across a barren landscape of snow-covered flat land and an overcast white sky. Very slowly, a monstrous creature emerges from the horizon and approaches the viewer. He appears both ghostly and ghastly, with Freddy Krueger-like claws dragging the ground. The artist asks the viewer to consider “how we view our relationship with the natural world,” but he sets an ominous tone for that consideration.
Works by Kenneth Steinbach drew my most extreme reactions, from favorite to least favorite. Two wall texts created from buckthorn branches did not intrigue me, although one of them received the audience choice award. Two other works keep me coming back.
In “Memoria Animus: Rainy Lake Series,” the artist uses scrimshaw to create drawings on used elephant ivory piano keys. The drawings depict topographical maps, based on the artist’s memory of wilderness areas he has visited. This piece has layer upon layer of meaning: the prior life of the elephant; the music the instrument once made; the artist’s memory; the loss of wilderness over time. Some of the ivory keys are damaged, like our wilderness and also like our own fragmented memories.
In “Taj,” the artist has applied a geometric pattern from the Taj Mahal onto a shed moose antler from the north woods. Seeking to “impose a rigid mathematical order over the horn’s contours,” Steinbach asks us to “question how our systems of belief … intersect with the natural world.” The effect is striking. Here we have an antler, formerly so useful during the rutting season, transformed by repetitious design into an object of adoration and meditation. It reminds me of animated imagery I have seen used to explain Einstein’s space/time continuum.
I would love to hear from readers about their reactions to the exhibits. Since the artists hope to provoke a conversation about their ideas, I invite readers to visit the exhibit and join me in the conversation.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A tale of two campus bookstores
The high demand item on recent Christmas shopping lists shocked the prognosticators. No one expected the new and complete Mark Twain autobiography to capture the reading public’s imagination, least of all book sellers.
I always buy my husband a book for Christmas. When I heard the critical acclaim for the book, I headed to the CSB/SJU Bookstore to pick up a copy. Turns out the volume’s sales caught everyone by surprise. Ann Jonas and I chatted about the situation. Ann is the general book buyer for the bookstore and my unofficial personal shopper for books.
If you ever want to start a conversation with Ann, ask her what she’s reading, or just finished reading, or planning to read. Ask her anything about books and prepare yourself for a lively conversation.
By the time I got back to my office, Ann had tracked down an available volume. I picked it up the next day. No problem. I should add that this example typifies the friendly and efficient service I experience at the bookstores both at CSB and SJU.
Contrast that with my experience a few weeks later on the East Coast, where my family and I travel each year to spend Christmas with my in-laws. This year, I visited the campus bookstore of a major university, in search of a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish. It was a different experience altogether from what I have come to take for granted on our campuses.
The bookstore is operated by a chain. After browsing a bit, I found a section of novels in Spanish, but no Don Quixote. I checked at the information desk, but no one was staffing it. In fact, I saw no staff at all, except the cashier at the front of the store.
Downstairs, I found another cashier handling textbook buy-backs and asked her if the store had Don Quixote in Spanish. She checked the computer, furrowed her brow, and asked if it was a textbook for a class.
What I wanted to say was this: Don Quixote is not a textbook. Written in the 1600s by Miguel de Cervantes, it is considered the first modern novel and is beloved around the world, if its translations into countless languages are any measure of its popularity.
Instead, what I managed to say in restrained disbelief was this: umm, no, it’s not a textbook.
I chose this option because I had concluded in the time it takes to gasp that the young woman would not appreciate if I launched into a literary rant in the middle of a bookstore. Besides, it would be rude.
The other day, back on campus, I popped into the bookstore to buy a book. Don Forbes, bookstores director, came over to chat. On my way out, I noticed copies of Autobiography of Mark Twain displayed on the best sellers wall. It’s good to be home.
I always buy my husband a book for Christmas. When I heard the critical acclaim for the book, I headed to the CSB/SJU Bookstore to pick up a copy. Turns out the volume’s sales caught everyone by surprise. Ann Jonas and I chatted about the situation. Ann is the general book buyer for the bookstore and my unofficial personal shopper for books.
If you ever want to start a conversation with Ann, ask her what she’s reading, or just finished reading, or planning to read. Ask her anything about books and prepare yourself for a lively conversation.
By the time I got back to my office, Ann had tracked down an available volume. I picked it up the next day. No problem. I should add that this example typifies the friendly and efficient service I experience at the bookstores both at CSB and SJU.
Contrast that with my experience a few weeks later on the East Coast, where my family and I travel each year to spend Christmas with my in-laws. This year, I visited the campus bookstore of a major university, in search of a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish. It was a different experience altogether from what I have come to take for granted on our campuses.
The bookstore is operated by a chain. After browsing a bit, I found a section of novels in Spanish, but no Don Quixote. I checked at the information desk, but no one was staffing it. In fact, I saw no staff at all, except the cashier at the front of the store.
Downstairs, I found another cashier handling textbook buy-backs and asked her if the store had Don Quixote in Spanish. She checked the computer, furrowed her brow, and asked if it was a textbook for a class.
What I wanted to say was this: Don Quixote is not a textbook. Written in the 1600s by Miguel de Cervantes, it is considered the first modern novel and is beloved around the world, if its translations into countless languages are any measure of its popularity.
Instead, what I managed to say in restrained disbelief was this: umm, no, it’s not a textbook.
I chose this option because I had concluded in the time it takes to gasp that the young woman would not appreciate if I launched into a literary rant in the middle of a bookstore. Besides, it would be rude.
The other day, back on campus, I popped into the bookstore to buy a book. Don Forbes, bookstores director, came over to chat. On my way out, I noticed copies of Autobiography of Mark Twain displayed on the best sellers wall. It’s good to be home.
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